anything. Last night I saw nothing but intense, impenetrable blackness, and felt nothing but deep peace.

To have had these two experiences, so totally different, so exactly opposite, in one day, was extremely interesting. The light and the bliss, the darkness and the peace, are typical of the positive and the negative aspects of union with God. To have both, permanently, is to experience freedom in manifestation and freedom from manifestation. Now, even a few minutes of each is a blessing.

Baba came the evening of the 17th and stayed until yesterday afternoon. The first day, the 18th , was devoted to a discussion of concentrating his work in one place, where his Eastern and Western disciples could always be together under his constant supervision. Panchgani, in India, and Portofino, in Italy were discussed as possibilities, and are being investigated.

On the second day he gave us some discourses -- one on love, another on the symbolism of the washing of a Perfect Master's feet, a third on consciousness. In the evening, after dinner, we sat with Baba out on the earth underneath the stars, silently, for fifteen minutes.

On the third day, after breakfast, we had another fifteen minutes with Baba, silently, as usual, but this time, under his instructions, visualizing the space between the eyes. We were to be relaxed, without strain, to think of nothing in particular, and to let any fights which arose in the consciousness come and go. This group silence Baba said was for a particular piece of work -- one which did not concern us. It was also a "rehearsal" for individual five-minute periods which we were each to have with him the next time that he came.

In the afternoon, he summoned us to join him in the living room at half past two. At quarter of three, he asked us to be silent with him for another fifteen minutes, this time visualizing him crucified, as Jesus was, but in his present body.

I prepared to enter into his agony as St. Francis had entered into the agony of Jesus, but, when I tried to visualize Baba crucified I could see nothing but blackness. Then a living cross of light and power rose like a fountain along my spine and spread across my fists. Another sprang into being inside my head, reaching from the juncture at the top of the spine to the space between eyes and across just in front of the ears. This seemed encircled as with a garland of light -- was this the crown of thorns? And, instead of agony, I felt the most exquisite bliss!

It was quarter past nine at night, May 25, 1937. Jean and I had been sitting out under the stars, quietly thinking of Baba. Jean arose to go to her room to bed. I also started to get up, but, as I did, in a fraction of a second, I was shown, inwardly, two things. The first a book, filled from cover to cover with writing in my hand. This was taken away. In its place, before me, was laid another book -- empty, fresh, completely uninscribed.

In a flash, I was made to understand that the first book represented the emulation of past sanskaras, which were completely taken away; that the second represented a completely blank mind, untouched by any samskaras, uncolored by any impressions, but subject to future impressions, and, therefore, capable of binding; that it, therefore, must also go, before liberation could come.

In another words, not only must the accumulation of past samskaras be wiped out, the instrument which registers samskaras must be rendered unimpressionable, so no further samskaras can be registered. The instrument which records experience must be transformed completely. Instead of being like a sensitive place, which records