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An Offering
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
EVERYONE WAS in the large Poornachanára Auditorium and I was alone on the temple veranda. A few dedicated ladies were preparing the grounds in front of the temple. Sprinkling multi-colored designs of powder, punctuated with flickering lights from scores of small oil lamps, they made the earth’s crust around the temple an exciting birthday cake frosting—with the pastel-colored temple its crowning topping. The sun was quickly setting.
The world conference now finished, it was the eve of Sai Baba’s fifty-fifth birthday. For days I had patiently waited, hoping to present him with books, which our Birth Day Publishing Company had produced over the past year in his honor. Time and again he seemed to avert his gaze from mine. Making one last valiant attempt to catch him, and sacrificing my chance to get a seat in the auditorium, I stationed myself on the temple veranda close to the door he would exit on his way to the auditorium.
But I failed. Dressed in a white birthday robe and surrounded by 259


































































































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