Don Stevens with Baba’s sadra placed on a chair (2006, AMB Hyderabad Jubilee Hills center)
When Don Stevens was sitting in Eruch’s room, Mani came and said, “Don, I am glad you are here because Baba had us put away a present for you.” She walked off and came back a few minutes later bearing a manila envelope. “Open it,” she said. Inside was a well-used, patched sadra.
Mani told Don, “The evening of January 14 [1965] when Baba was going to bed, he removed this sadra and gave it to Mehera, indicating, ‘Save this for Don, and give it to him next time he comes.’ ”
In the hall, after greeting Baba, Don said, “Baba, I received your sadra and I can’t tell you how touched I am. I want to thank you for it.”
Don recalled: “Baba looked very pleased as I started talking, but by the time I had finished, he looked very much less pleased.”
Toward the end of his stay, Don Stevens again was so overwhelmed by Baba’s usual love and kindness, that he brought up the sadra as one of the final subjects with Baba, by thanking him a second time. “Baba, I want to thank you again for the lovely sadra,” he said, “and the wonderful love that you sent with it.”
Baba looked very angry but said nothing. After he had bid Don Stevens farewell and left the hall, Don said to Eruch, “Was it my imagination or was Baba angry with me when I thanked him for the sadra?”
Eruch said, “Don’t you understand?”
“No,” said Don. “I was so touched I wanted to thank him for it.”
Eruch explained, “How can you thank yourself, Don?”
This indication of the depth of the identity of the Avatar with oneself was a profound lesson for Don Stevens. What he had not told Baba or any of the mandali was that 14 January was, in fact, his birthday.
-www.lordmeher.org, p5124
Mar, 1965; Meherazad