there waiting to get people." I agreed and added, "Listen, will you do me a favor and say a prayer for me? Just keep me in mind tonight . . . I’m going, but I hope the devil keeps away from me." That 's the truth.

We got on the bus to Albany. I was a little nervous, expecting the worst, expecting the Hari Krishna’s to be there. Musical instruments, orange robes and shaved heads. But you know what I saw? Something worse. Everyone was wearing normal clothing; there was a hospitable spread of food; and there was a huge pink birthday cake that said, "Happy Birthday, Beloved Baba." It was worse than the Hari Krishna’s. Why? Because I couldn't find anything religious about it. That was a disappointment to me. . . Well, now that I think of it, it was a little crazy because there was a little combo that started playing Cole Porter tunes. Pretty soon they started playing "Begin the Beguine" and people with itchy feet started dancing a little bit. Somebody started doing the swing. Then, worst of all, Wayne leaned over and said, "This is Baba's favorite song." It seemed strange to me. Then someone said it was time for the movie. But no one told me it was a silent movie, "Baba at the Delmonico." He was putting grapes in people's mouths and throwing things to people. I looked around at the people watching and noticed their intense focus on Baba. At the end of the movie all of them said, "Avatar Meher Baba Ki Jai!" And that was the end. I got out of there and laughed to myself, I didn't need any prayer against any devil. Who could ever get involved in something like that? It's absolutely crazy. What kind of religion is that? Then I said to Wayne, "Who is that? I want an honest answer. Do they think that's God?" When he answered yes, I said, "Oh, this is incredible. Incredible. Well, did he say he was God?" Wayne paused. "Yes," he said, "Well, He really didn't speak?" (He used hand gestures. This is crazy, I thought.)

Pretty soon there was no more left in San Francisco to investigate. We had toured every neighborhood, and so we began to spend Friday night at Wayne's house after dinner. That gave us the opportunity to discuss more things that I might be interested in. Sometimes the topic on Friday nights would turn to Meher Baba. Wayne was very sneaky about this. There are wonderful techniques to use, I discovered. There's no reason to present the four spiritual laws and say, "Come forward and accept God." This is better. Dangling things on a string is really beautiful. He showed me a few pictures. Pretty soon I knew what mandali were, I had that word described. It was all kind of interesting. There was very little we discussed about Meher Baba actually. Wayne started showing me pictures of India. It was very fascinating to see pictures of the people, how they lived, etc., and so I was becoming — not interested in Meher Baba — but interested in India. He saw that and kept showing me more slides. Pretty soon, he started showing me some bedspreads he bought at Sarda's. Only $3.00 for that bedspread? And I love to shop.

Life continued and suddenly Pan Am decided that they needed to increase business, so they said, "Every flight that you sell on Pan Am will go towards a free ticket for yourself." Eventually I got a letter from Pan Am giving me a ticket good anywhere in their system. I had never really known too much about Pan Am, so I went to their little book to find the farthest I could go. You know where that was? India. I remember calling Wayne that day and saying, "Pan Am sent me a free ticket to anywhere in the world. I don't know where I'm going to go, but I'm going to have a great time!" Next day he called me and said he'd gotten the same ticket. He said he was going to India. (I hoped he'd ask me. I couldn't go alone. I was too frightened to do anything like that. It was too much for me to handle.) Then he said, "You know, if you want to go to India with me you're welcome to go." So we started planning this trip to India. I wanted to see the Taj Mahal and Jaipur. We planned to fly to Delhi, then to Agra to the Taj, then finally Wayne said, "You know where I would really like