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162 SPIRIT AND THE MIND
Is it me or you, Baba—is it me or you? Because if it’s me I’ll never do it again, I promise. I know that I have a big ego—thank you for pointing it out. Okay, I promise to work on it harder than ever. But if it’s you—boy, am I stymied. I don’t know what to say. I’ll sure gain a new respect for your mystery—and your sense of humor. If it is you, and even though I can’t fathom the purpose, I’ll try to do the best I can. There’s only a short while left of this ordeal. I’ll continue to try although to tell you the truth, I’ve given up hope. If you can turn things around, you are really omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient and everything else.
All of sudden, while I was sitting dejected and defeated, someone turned to me for a comment of some sort. I half-heartedly said, “Yes, and that’s what’s nice about Baba.” They were talking about something, I don’t know just what, and I decided to try and relate it to Baba. “You know, the exciting thing about Sai Baba is that he can prove to psychiatrists that our identity is really beyond mind and emotions, that we’re something eternal.” And then I turned to the Indian psychiatrist, as if we were brothers, and he would understand: “You know, like atma.” And he said something that could be roughly translated into the likes of, “Bunk—fooey.” I knew I had struck out.
Then something strange happened. The tour guide spoke up: “You know, I once met a holy man and they can do things that we can’t begin to understand.” Everyone became interested. Can you imagine? Not a flicker of interest in me, but when he began speaking, they turned with real excitement and said, “Like what?”
So the tour guide described his experience with a guru—how he could predict the future and had an uncanny awareness of past events in his life. Their interest deepened. Dr. Masserman turned to me. “You mean Sai Baba can do these things?” I said, “Yes, even more.” He pulled out his pen and within minutes we had composed a notice for the blackboard, announcing my talk. I would speak for about half an hour. I smiled and whispered to myself, “Baba, I don’t know how you pulled that off, but it was impressive—simply fantastic. I’ll remember that one for a long time.”
Then Dr. Masserman said, “My wife and I want to go on a sightseeing tour tomorrow. Do you know any interesting places to see?” I began feeling my oats. After such a quick turn of events in my favor, I felt like a big deal—that everything was in hand. And