had gained in thirty years of earnest seeking or through others, because I experienced the tangible definite gift of grace and Divine Love that He bestowed, whereas others only talk about it. I know who Baba is."

C.B. Purdom describes his experience thus . . . "I have been brought by what seems chance, but no doubt deserves some other name, into a personal contact with a Perfect Master from the East . . . His eyes are large and beaming, lighting up His face, which irradiates happiness. He has a great sense of fun and is said to be a first-rate cricketer. He combines the simplicity of a child with the wisdom of the ages . . . I have had several conversations with Him. But, as I have said, to talk with Him is not the important matter. It is sufficient to be in the same place . . .

Margaret Craske says of her first meeting with Baba at Kitty Davy's home… "I opened the door to receive my first sight of Baba who was to become the centre of my life. He was standing at the foot of the steps leading to the front door, dressed in a thin white gown, a short furry coat and a pink turban and He was looking at the house very quietly. He passed in through the door and gave me a smile and then went up to Herbert's room which had been put aside for Him. A few minutes afterwards Meredith fetched me to meet him. I was very nervous and did not know how I was to address Him, but I went into the room and was completely won by the love which seemed to permeate his whole personality. He spelt out on the alphabet board the words, "It was your love that brought me" meaning, I suppose, that He came to satisfy the longing which those who had heard of Him, had to see Him in the flesh. During that evening He asked me to go to Devonshire to with Him for a few days . . . Those days were for me the most beautiful and radiant of all my times with Baba. It was as if the curtain had been drawn aside and then we were privileged to know and feel from our hearts who Baba is."

Kitty Davy wrote of that momentous first meeting . . . "From Marseilles my brother (Herbert) wired me "Happy arriving Saturday 4 p.m. Victoria Station . . . "

"I was perhaps a little disappointed in the slight figure in a pink turban and white robe with a chinchilla jacket. What had I expected? I don't know. Certainty some veil hung over my eyes. But this was to change in a very few hours . . . Two significant incidents I recall. Baba first handed a grape to Margaret . . . He then did the same to me . . . After a while the private interviews in Baba's room began . . . I too saw Baba alone that evening. I was impressed with Baba's long hair and kindly face and manner. My eyes filled with tears . . . Margaret tells me that in the middle of the night I jumped up from the floor and going to her bed shook her. She woke with a start. "What is the matter? Anything wrong? Why are you weeping?" I replied, “He is so wonderful . . . so lovely . . . "

Kim Tolhurst (now Grajera), also one of the early ones who met Baba in 1931 at East Challacombe, wrote: — "To Baba I owe the most wonderful, profound and far-reaching experience of my life. I could not have had any notion of what I expected when that quiet Devon evening in 1931, I was guided into a bare cell-like room in the old stone farmhouse and saw a still, white robed figure seated on the bed. I saw no more . . . How I came to be on my knees, how I came to be weeping as if my heart would break, I don’t know. Neither do I know how long I wept. But with the tears seemed to flow away all the past, till I was in a sense empty, yet filled with lightness and new dawn — fresh life. Somebody must have led me away, for I was put to bed and then passed into a deep and blissful sleep. Days of wonder followed. We lived only in the light and love of his wondrous being. Later, at Kitty Davy's house in Russell Road, in an upper room, the Agape continued. The Master seated silent, in this silence that was fuller than any music, any poem, any scripture, silence filled with love and light and the true meaning of life. Love made flesh and dwelling among us."

It seems fitting to finish this 'Early English Scene' with a poem by Meredith Starr; whose courage, intuition and tenacity of purpose made him a fitting vehicle for the Avatar to use as His first link with the West.