EVERYONE STANDING BY WAS VERY SURPRISED

 
In November 1928 Baba decided to return to Meherabad. It had been a very wet November, and we were all tired of the dampness. Toka is on the confluence of three rivers, and when leaving Baba crossed one of them by boat to get to His car on the opposite bank. Baba's driver, trying to make it easy for Baba to get into the car, brought it too close to the river bank, and the car got bogged there in a wet, sandy dip.

The driver tried to drive it out, but it was too firmly bogged. Baba then called for some bullocks, and the villagers quickly brought six pairs of them. They harnessed the bullocks up to the car, and the villages shouted at the bullocks to move. The six pairs of bullocks pulled and strained, but the car did not budge. Again and again they tried, but still the car would not move. It was stuck in the wet sand.

Baba said, "Wait, let the bullocks loose," and He called to Patel, the headman of Arangaon, who loved Baba (he had given Baba a bucket and pail to draw water from the well at Meherabad in 1923) and who had come to Toka with his two bullocks. "Bring your two bullocks and harness them up."

Everyone looked at each other wondering how one pair of bullocks could pull the car out when six pairs had failed, but Patel brought his bulls and harnessed them to the car. Baba went up to them, and He gave them a good, hard pat on their rumps with His palm, as if urging them, "Come on, come on, do your best." As they started to pull, very gradually and very slowly the car came out of the wet sand.

Everyone standing by was very surprised. Here were two bullocks doing what twelve had not been able to do, and then they realised that it was Baba who given the bullocks the strength to pull the car out.

Baba kept these two bullocks when they were brought back to Meherabad, and from that time He did not let them work very hard. When they died Baba did not allow them to be treated like other bullocks. They were buried with great honour in a place selected by Baba.