Margaret," and of aspiring Baba lovers to touch base with her and draw from her some of Baba's love, wit and wisdom. Asking her once for spiritual "advice," she told me, "Be like a rag doll, then Baba can work through you." It's perhaps the technique of a good dancer, to be so relaxed, so balanced, Maya can't tip you over . . . You may even get to love her, like Margaret.

III Jean Adriel

When I first heard Jean's name I thought at once of Ariel, the spirit of Shakespeare's Tempest. There was an otherworldly, light and sparkling atmosphere around her probably because she spent so much time in meditation and seclusion, especially in later years.

Jean Robinson was born on September 21, 1883:* She later took the name Adriel through numerology. She grew up to be a tall, regal blonde with a pleasing voice.

As a career, she took up social work in New York City. Later, she married the poet Malcolm Schloss whom she met in his bookstore, "The North Node" in New York. Both were widely read in metaphysical subjects and earnestly seeking enlightenment. Through the bookstore they made many contacts with spiritual seekers in the late Twenties and early Thirties. These proved invaluable to Baba's first visit to America. In 1931, very suddenly, through a young poet, Milo, a contact was established between the Schloss’s and Meredith Starr, who told them a Perfect Master, Shri Meher Baba was expected shortly in England. Jean and Malcolm were set to go, when a cable came in which Baba asked them, instead, to make arrangements for His arrival in America. Through a friend, they obtained a lovely home on the Hudson at Harmon. This was Baba's headquarters for a month in November, 1931.

Jean writes in her book Avatar of her first meeting with Him:

"My most outstanding impression of that first meeting is one of peering into bottomless pools of Infinite Love and tenderness, as my eyes met His. My heart pounded with tremendous excitement and for a while I could not speak. I felt that in an inexplicable way He was the reason for my very existence; that I have never really lived until this moment; that He was deeply familiar and precious to me, even as I was no stranger and very dear to Him."

Baba stayed a month at Harmon, meeting many individuals, contacts of the Schloss’s, including Princess Matchabelli and Elizabeth Patterson. It was a time of intense unfoldment for both Malcolm and Jean. It took Malcolm, skeptical of the need for any outer Masters, longer to surrender** — 11 days, he reports. Baba named the American group "Jeanco"; it included the Schlosses, Elizabeth Patterson, Norina Matchabelli, Nadine Tolstoy and Anita de Caro; He intimated they were all in His Circle.

Of course, Baba put Jean and Malcolm to the test — His usual test in those days: the swiftly changed plans, the so-called "broken promise". On His second visit to the West in 1932, many contacts had been made with the Hollywood film world. It was Jean who stood beside Baba at the Hotel Knickerbocker and introduced the screen luminaries to Him, among many others.

Baba left for China, promising to return and break His silence in the Hollywood Bowl, introduced over the radio by Mary Pickford! It’s easy to smile now, but all took it seriously then. Expecting instant God-Realization, some even had elaborate dresses made! (At least Norina got some use out of hers — all white —she used to lecture in it) Suddenly, Baba's plans to return to California were cancelled, leaving the Schlosses to face the music. Almost all the new contacts left, disillusioned, including two astrologers, Dane Rudhyar and Marc Edmund Jones, in whose home Baba had stayed. Dane had cast Baba's horoscope and seen Him as the great World Teacher of the Age.

But the Schlosses were made of sterner stuff, as the cliché goes. They were called to Europe and took part in Baba's visits there, notably at Cannes. Jean, in poor health, was in seclusion and missed many of the outings with Baba. I recall one meditation Baba

*Jean was born September 21, 1892 in Pennsylvania to parents Gilbert Lawrie Robinson and mother Elizabeth Wilson, according to her Social Security card. She changed her name to Jeanne, Adriel (from Jean) when in France they thought the name Jean to be that of a man. -webmaster JK

** See The Awakener Magazine Volume 19 Number 1 p.53