Picture: Master eating lunch with India’s Ambassador Sen
I hope you have enjoyed reading these descriptions of Master’s Last Days as much as I have. As I type these notes in it feels as though I am there with Master and the disciples. Truly, Master has swept me into his Spirit, and it is pure bliss, even as it portrays so many human aspects as well.
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“Master got out of the car at the side entrance to the headquarters building, and began walking through the ground-floor hallway to the elevator. On the way he spied a crate in a corner. ‘What’s in that box?’ he cried at once. A disciple opened it, informing Master that it had been sent from Florida by air express by an SRF student, Mr. George, and that it had arrived at the Mt. Washington Center that very afternoon. The box was filled with green coconuts.
“’Divine Mother told me in the car that I would find something for me in the house here,’ Master said. ‘That is what she meant. I wrote to George a long time ago, asking him if there are any green coconuts in Florida. He didn’t reply and I forgot all about it. But Divine Mother didn’t forget! George will be much blessed for having sent these.’
“The top of the largest coconut was chopped off. Master gave a little shout. ‘Now for the juice!’ He drank it with relish, and shared the meat with all the disciples around him. He went on. ‘One coconut is a big meal, very healthful. This is the first time I am having green coconut juice since I returned to America from my trip to India sixteen years ago.’
“Though Master was chuckling merrily, the monks very strangely, were not smiling with him. We sensed a certain unreality in the atmosphere; was Master playing a part for our benefit? Though he spoke of material things, around him was an air of complete detachment.
“He continued, ‘I am just fulfilling the last little desires—desireless desires. If you have something, you enjoy it as a gift from God; if you don’t have it, you don’t mind.’ He stared toward the elevator, saying as he went, ‘I have a big day tomorrow.’ He added—using a popular American phrase that sounded casual but was indeed not so—‘Wish me luck.’
“On the third floor Master met a few devotees near the elevator. They told him a crate from Florida had come that afternoon for him by air express. ‘Yes, I know,’ he replied. ‘My last little desire has been fulfilled. I wanted to drink green coconut milk, just as I used to do in India, once more before I went.’
“This hint was broad enough, yet the disciples did not grasp its meaning. Yoganandaji wrote in the Autobiography that Babaji possesses a power by which he can prevent any specific thought from arising in a person’s mind. The devotees now believe that Paramhansaji exercised that same power in connection with their own minds, lest they be thrown into unbearable grief at a forewarning of his imminent departure.”