His hands gesture, heard Mani's voice: "Filis, Baba says stop worrying. "I couldn't stop! Again, "Filis, Baba wants you to stop worrying" And a third time. Finally Baba called me to Him, took my left wrist in His right hand, and a soft shock of current went up my left arm, blotting out all tension. Not until hours later did I recall what I had been upset about. Or recall that I had heard Baba's voice inwardly, when He was on the beach, without His board. I know several people have had the same experience. (What is Baba's voice like? Soft, rich, gentle.)

Mehera told us one afternoon when all the women were invited over to Toni Roothbert's new house for tea, that Baba had had a beautiful rich voice. He used to sing so beautifully. "And now He doesn't speak." She herself had such a beautiful low voice, like the tearing of soft silk.

To watch Mehera with Baba was perhaps the greatest privilege, next to watching Baba Himself. She was the perfect reflection of Him in feminine form. Imagine a mirror, that being almost empty itself, devotes itself only to reflecting the most beautiful object. Her love for Baba was so total, it was truly un-self-conscious. Baba has said, she is the purest soul in the Universe. Yet she was so natural, so simple, so motherly. She welcomed us like her own family.

We also got to know Mani, Baba's sister, close to our own age, who enjoyed meeting all her "correspondents." Lively, full of humor, translating Baba s hands flying over the alphabet board (too fast for me to read, except when He spelled F-I-L-I-S. Yes, that's why I spell it that way.)

Dr. Goher — quiet, soft spoken — talked to us too; she told us she didn't love Baba in the beginning. He asked her to join the ashram. She said she didn't love Him. He then asked if she would obey Him; and she said yes. And then, much later, came the love.

Baba has always said, "Obedience is greater than love." One could see it happen — as the mandali obeyed Baba's every gesture, every request so fast sometimes we couldn't follow it. The men had the arduous job of night duty — keeping awake near Baba, and awake most of the day too. No wonder they were quiet! Dr. Donkin especially. He used to fall asleep in the men's room. And there was Gustadji, Baba's shadow — who had kept silent all the years with Baba.

We used to ask Adi each morning: How did Baba sleep? He would hold up 2 fingers, or 3; two or three minutes. I think that is the singular thing about Baba — watching Him, His eyes — they never close, never lose their intense gaze, their full consciousness. Only at certain moments when He does His "universal" work. Then His fingers seem to quiver or signal; but Adi explained, it is the energy flowing from Him.

Behind the slightest physical gesture or action of the Avatar lies cosmic significance. For example, that walk on the beach seemed to me to have more than personal significance: Baba's laying His cane on the beach in a southwesterly direction — pointing in the direction of the "accident" not many days later. Giving me, an American girl, the "shell" for Mehera: I always felt, though I'll never know, this too tied in with the "accident" in which Mehera was seriously hurt. Many things changed in her life and all around her after this accident. She was never so "secluded" from men again. Her physical suffering, and also her new freedom, all seemed to start with this accident. To Baba, Mehera symbolizes Maya, also womankind. The changes in the position of women, their struggle to be treated as persons, to have their own individual identities, their own spiritual