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This is always a dangerous generalization, but is more so around Baba. Incident after incident occurs with its peculiarly lingering forcefulness. Any one of them could be dismissed as coincidence, but not all. The best illustration of this is the story which Ramjoo told a group of four or five of us one morning.

 

Ramjoo Abdullah has been with Baba since 1921. This is the story of how he came to be associated with Him. In the Ahmednagar district in the early twenties there were many discussion circles—some Parsee, some Mohammedan, some Hindu. Ramjoo was a member of a Mohammedan circle led by Dr. Ghani. Baba, who was still widely addressed as Merwan in those days, used to visit many of these circles, among them the circle of which Ramjoo was a member. He would sort of “look over" the members of these circles for potential disciples. Many members of these circles had already become adherents of Baba's. Members of Ramjoo's circle had become Baba devotees and urged Ramjoo to follow Baba also, but Ramjoo did not feel so motivated and remained aloof.

 

Ramjoo lived in Bombay. In November, 1921, Baba's group came down from Poona for a boat outing to one of the islands near Bombay. Some of Ramjoo's friends in the group invited him along. Ramjoo accepted indiffer­ently, and went because he had nothing else to do.

 

Once aboard ship, Ramjoo noticed that this was no ordinary discussion group. The members acted toward Baba not as equals, but as disciples. Baba was then not yet observing silence, and discoursed freely to the group. Suddenly He said, "Look at Bombay. Doesn't Bombay look beautiful?" All granted that Bombay looked beautiful receding in the distance. "No," said Baba, "that's not what I mean. A few moments ago we were in Bombay. Then we had to look up at the buildings, and had to turn our heads around to see them all. They seemed so much bigger than we. Now all of Bombay can be framed in our fingers." All agreed that this was an interesting and remarkable point. "No," said Baba, "you still don't understand. Is it Bombay which is small, or is it we who are small?"

 

That ended the discussion and Baba went on to other subjects. This, however, stuck in Ramjoo's mind and bothered him. Try as he would, he could not get it out. So he started to steal glances at Baba to see whether He was watching him, but Baba never took notice of him and went unconcernedly on as ever discoursing to the group. Ramjoo wondered about

 

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