Volume 19 Number 2 Page 30

23. You are to make pilgrimage on foot to places of spiritual importance, or to any place instructed by Baba.

24. You must prostrate yourself before, or kiss the feet of any person or persons dedicated by Baba.

25. For the period of one year you must beg for food, and must not accept any money offered to you.

29. You shall neither hit, strike nor beat anyone save in self-defense, or in case of life and death.

At Meherabad, there were those latticework bathrooms. Someone would say, “Who's in there?" You couldn't say, "It 's me!" — you just had to clap and they knew it was one of us silent ones. In India they have such lovely toilet paper,-it was just like airmail paper, in squares, do you remember, Kitty? Yes, yes, lovely paper. Now Nadine Tolstoy was like me, a very excitable, talkative person, very nice. I liked her very much. She kept on writing long notes to everybody on this paper. Then Baba said to write only if it's necessary, no more writing – except for one's work. At that time I was showing the others to sew; I wasn't a dressmaker but I like to sew. So we could write only for specific work like that, otherwise not at all; we shouldn't even write home, that was after Nadine had written all those reams of toilet paper!

I remember Jaipur especially, where I was so naughty. We had learned the deaf and dumb alphabet for communicating the most important things. When Nadine wanted to tick me off for something, which I probably needed, as I was young - she'd come to me like this, making deaf and dumb signals, and I would just turn my head away! It was very naughty really. But if we're not to talk, we should keep quiet! It's a small thing but I think Baba stirs up things like this. We were like children-; you know how children teach each other, and so it was, we had to learn from each other.

When Baba first gave me this order I thought, how could I? How can Baba give me something so difficult - especially when I am so — zut — talkative! But at the end, when Baba said, "Now it's over, you may talk again," I felt I'd never like it. I wanted to keep my silence, it was wonderful to keep silence. I probably got attached to it. Baba said, "Now the other rules stay-, but this rule is finished." On the first days he said we were to speak just a few words, and we shouldn't talk much because our voice wasn't too used to it anymore. Perhaps the vocal chords had loosened. We had to suck sweets, to make it liquid; we were to talk a little more every day. It was more difficult to stop silence than to begin silence. But of course Baba doesn't let you cling to anything. Don't cling onto anything, because then it will be immediately taken away from you! But it is for your good; the more we cling onto something the more we're bound.

The four of us were silent for one year; we thought it had spiritual value. May I tell thing about you, Kitty? You won't be annoyed? Kitty had to see to a lot of different things - all the household responsibility was on her. So on Silence Day, Kitty thought she kept silent but she whispered! O it's so sweet - she felt that whispering was keeping silent. Don't you recall, Kitty? I say it with love . . .

One place where we were on tour there was hardly any water; the taps were open for only a certain time at night. We had to fill pails with water and we put them on the balcony. We had only very little water to wash ourselves and all our clothes. You know how hot and dusty you get travelling in India . . . we looked so brown; brown all over, we didn't have to paint our eyelashes, there was brown powder over the whole face! You couldn’t get warm water, only cold water. I used to try to sit under the tap and catch a bit in a basin and wash a few of my clothes. While we were eating on the other side of the