IS THAT MEHER BABA WITH YOU?

 
Baba went to great lengths to see that no one recognized him. He would tuck his hair up under a hat and wear glasses and disguise himself. For years and years, decades actually, Meher Baba traveled throughout India, covering thousands of miles by train and car and bus and bullock cart, and yet never disclosing his identity. So those of us who traveled with him knew that he preferred to remain incognito. But even so, sometimes people would recognize Baba in spite of the precautions he took.

We might be sitting in a train compartment and someone else on the train would nudge me and say, "Is that Meher Baba?" Now what could we do? On the one hand we couldn't simply lie and say, "No," because Baba would not like that. But on the other hand, if we said, "Yes," that too would displease Baba because it interfered with his work when people recognized him.

So what we would do in that situation was to look at the person quizzically and say, "What?" as if we were hard of hearing.

"Is that Meher Baba with you?"

"Who?"

"Meher Baba."

"What's that you're saying?" and so on and the person would conclude that if we didn't recognize the name Meher Baba then we certainly couldn't be traveling with him and so they would stop asking questions and wouldn't try and approach Baba.