WITH A TWINKLE IN HIS EYE

 
On this Monday morning, Oswald Hall had been required to attend jury service. He asked Meher Baba's permission to be absent at this time, and Baba approved. At the court, while he was waiting for the names of the jurors to be literally drawn from a hat, he was concentrating on an image of Baba that he visualized on a particular panel on the front of the Bench. As the person pulled the names out of the hat, he always visualized Baba on this dark panel, and while ever he did this, his name was not selected.

Once when his attention was temporarily distracted, he was alarmed to see that this person had selected a name from the hat, while he had not been looking at the dark panel, visualizing Baba. Quickly he visualized Baba's image on the dark panel and immediately the person apparently accidentally dropped the name that he had in his hand, back into the hat. Then, he put his hand back into the hat and again selected a name — it was not Oswald's. When Oswald looked back at the dark panel where he was visualizing the image of Baba, Baba winked at him.

He was not selected for jury duty that day, and he was able to be with Meher Baba for the rest of the time that Baba was in Melbourne. He had only been absent from Baba's presence for about an hour. Later at the airport, while Baba was sitting in the lounge, he called Oswald over to him, and with a twinkle in his eye he asked what had happened at the jury selection this morning.