The fourth day that I was with Baba turned out to be my last. He didn’t tell me my soul training was over. We both knew that it had just begun. But he did have one last grand flourish up his sleeve.
We were sitting under the old, twisted tree. The sun was low and the light golden. Baba had fixed his eyes on a sunbeam that filtered down through the tree’s thick canopy.
“Why are you staring?” I asked.
“I want to see if I’ve done my job well.”
It was the last mysterious thing he would ever say to me, and like all the rest, it made me curious. I stared at the sunbeam too. There was nothing special about it. If I looked close, I could see dancing motes of dust in the light.
But as I kept looking something changed. The light began to shimmer. It was tossing the dust motes around as if they were dancing together. Suddenly I knew something I didn’t know before: Light is alive. I kept staring, and for the first time I didn’t see light—I saw into it, into its secret life.
“It looks happy,” I said, because I couldn’t find any other word.
“Not just happy,” said Baba. “Joyful. Every speck of creation feels like that. There are worlds in every mote of dust, and this world you live in is another mote of dust among millions that burst into creation.”
He was right. The closer I looked, the more it seemed as if the whole world could be a speck of dust set dancing by God. The sunbeam quivered faster and brighter, glowing with joy.
How did I ever miss this?
“Just so you don’t miss it again,” said Baba, reading my mind, “be sure to remember this moment.” He stood up as the sunbeam faded away. “I haven’t done too badly if you can see what you’ve seen today. And don’t worry, you’ll see a lot more.”
That was his good-bye, I suppose. He started walking toward the road. I followed, and as we reached the overlook where the valley was spread out, I kept telling myself that Baba would be back tomorrow.
“There’s no tomorrow,” he said, pausing to drink in the view “Time is a toy I threw away a long time ago.” He gave me one last look, with his head cocked to the side like a curious parrot. Then the old man walked away for good. I believe him when he said that he threw time away, because even though I’ve never set eyes on Baba since I was fifteen years old, not a day goes by but he is with me—he’s an extension of my own self.