through a lot of material that I needed to get into my computer. (I was afraid to take it to Meherazad with me, bouncing around in a rickshaw; also the electricity was more predictable in town.) The work went slowly during those hot summer days, but I have to say that this time with her in Meherazad was for me a process of learning, deepening, growing. As ie worked, Arnavaz always stopped to explain whatever she wanted a reader to understand from her stories, and I began to realize that this process of writing a book was much bigger than it had initially seemed. I was receiving, through the experiences Arnavaz had gone through and her explanations ofthem, some much needed instruction, and what I was given during those days with her was priceless. I had offered my help to her, but she was helping me in a far more importantway. By the time I left, I felt myselfopening more and more to Baba, finally beginning to understand that everything I experienced in life was necessary for me to go through in order to learn what it really means to love Him. The process was not always easy. In our conversations she often quoted Baba, and at first I would think, “Yes, I know that,” but often she would emphasize something that I knew I needed to work on, and her stressing it repeatedly made me more aware ofwhat I had to do. I also remember all too clearly the day I had crossed out the word “wish” from a sentence including the words “Baba’s wish and will.” Arnavaz told me to put it back in. “But Arnavaz, it’s redundant,” I told her in my best English Teacher voice. Her eyes flashed. “It is not redundant.” She followed up with an ex planation ofthe difference, and I realized how little I still understood about Baba. I felt humiliated. When I later apologized for arguing with her, she laughed, saying that it was not an argument, but a discussion, and gave me a hug. And her expla nation went into the book: “Baba has said that nothing happens without His will, but His wish gives us the privilege of choice; we can choose to obey Him.” In a letter written a few months later, in response to my further apologies, Arnavaz made reference to this incident: “Dear Nancy, if you had not come in April, the book would never have come to its winding end. You were wonderftil and your feeling of being grumpy and
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impatient was your own feeling of what our Beloved was putting you through, as usual with everyone He loves, for one’s own benefit. We are very fortunate ones He has taken in His loving embrace. Anyway, two weeks back I started working on the final script and I am really happy on the whole except some ten pages from 151-160 need some minor changes. I could have corrected and sent it to you but then again, two days after I started reading, I developed flu and stomach infection and other stupid problems and [was feeling] down and out. I have corrected some of it, but with no help, I am physically and mentally exhausted and I wanted to throw everything to the winds. But Beloved as always will take care in His own way and in His time. I am just writing what’s goingon.... “Beloved Baba’s loving care has taken Zarin [Mavalwalla] from over again. Karachi is here and is helping me to correct the script. Without her I would not have been able to send as much as we have done. I am enclosing whatever we have done, and the rest we will finish and send with someone as early as possible.” . .
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Once she had been able to reread the entire (though far from final) draft of the book, we realized that she was still not quite satisfied with the manuscript. .Before we started the work we bowed down to our Beloved Baba and said to Him, “Beloved Baba, help us to do what You want.” So whatever has happened is exactly the way He wanted. But sometimes He makes us go in circles. I say this with experience. There is no beginning and no end and then in His time He cuts the circle and, holding the two ends, makes a straight line. And then we say, “Oh! This was so clear and how is it that we didn’t see this before?” But we needed to go into circles because in desperation we learn to leave everything entirely to Him. Unless we are cornered, the mind does not give in. So Baba dear makes use ofeach situa tion. He churns everything up for double purpose. One for each individual to come a step closer towards Him through com plete surrendrance and another for His own Universal Work. So my book is one of the instruments and with great poise and the above understanding we have to proceed with the book. This book I have dedicated to our Beloved Baba; therefore it is His book the way He wants it. I want to give much more prominence to Baba “. .
( His words, His ways—no matter how [ seemingly] insignificant, they are, were,
important.) I want our Beloved to shine in the book. Everygesture, everyword was like a pearl or precious jewel coming out ofHim. There was some meaning behind Sometimes, even in whatever He said. jokes, He conveyed some deeper meaning, some lesson, some wisdom we lacked. Beloved Baba worked with each individual in various and different ways. “This book is the story of Baba from my point of view, less than the story of my life. Beloved Baba in His own way has helped us andwill help us to write what He wants. Whether it is right or wrong is not important. What He wants is important. I appreciate all the time and energy you dears have put into the book, but we have to go along as Baba wants. “After reading my original script and your final one, I felt that from your point of view what you have done is ffilly justified. But I am not satisfied with myself. “This book of my life with Beloved Baba is hardly 20% ofwhat actually happened. The more important part of my life I cannot write. Therefore even a few omissions from this 20% makes me feel I have not portrayed my Beloved properly. I feel mybook is incomplete and that I have left out certain details which are necessary. It does not convey the importance and force ofBaba’s suffering and pain, and does not convey His ways and His work as it should. This is important because most of the readers do not have the idea of how Baba worked on the human level, on the gross plane. Many times Babajust gave the impact offeeling, some ofwhich one could understand at the time, and some later. “In my script I have not written properand explained Baba’s suffering and pain, ly for example, when the record “Precious Lord” was being played at the very end of 1968 when we could not bear to see Baba’s helplessness and hopelessness. Therefore I am sending you what I have rewritten to include in the story. What is already written does not give any importance to Baba’s silent agony and why Baba told Maul to type the words of”Precious Lord” and give them to each ofthe mandali present. “Our Beloved Baba’s every word, ges ture, story, even a slight passing remark, has a deep meaning, for if they are not important, why would the God-Man say them? Baba once said, “Heed My words most attentively. . .
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