(In 1936, Justice Avaste accompanied B.V.Narasimhaswami in meeting the bhaktas of Baba, then living for interviewing them and collecting their experiences. Justice Avaste translated into English their statements in Marathi and thus rendered yeoman service in helping Narasimhaswami who published books based on these interviews and made publicity about Baba across the country. He was thus actively instrumental for Baba's publicity.)

Purushottam Rao Avaste or P.R.Avaste was born in February 1870 in an orthodox family and had very good grounding in religious and holy matters right from his childhood. When he was six years old, he met along with his father, one retired Mamlatdar by name B.V.Dev through some relative whom they knew. B.V.Dev after his retirement, was leading a life of an ascetic and was a very pious person. On one occasion, Avaste had the opportunity of meeting him who gave him a guava fruit as prasad. He met him several times subsequently and was very much impressed with him when he was aged 17 to 20 years.

In about 1889 at the age of 19 years, he purchased a copy of Bhagavat Gita and was always keeping it in his pocket. He was also in the habit of reading some portion in it every day..Though during his early childhood, he was brought up in a holy and religious manner, he gave up all such thinking and became materialistic and egoistic in his approach. He wanted to become a debater and a speaker and wanted to earn lot of money. Added to this, he became an atheist. He was an atheist for nearly eight years from 1890 to 1898. However, his atheistic journey did not move ahead smoothly and had many hurdles in moving further. Once he went to listen to the devotional songs of a lady singer about Mira Bai, Mukta Bai, Jnana Bai and others and this devotional song had left an indelible impression on him and was then caught up by the advantage of Bhakti. This could be considered as the turning point for the better in his life-journey. Though convinced about bhakti and about the powers of the saints, a doubt was lurking in his mind that the saints might not be as great as they were represented to be. He had met some living saints also. He also started reading about the lives of Jnaneswar, Eknath, Namdev, Tukaram and Ramadas. He was also perhaps in search of a Guru, but he was not interested in following rigidly all the stipulations of the Guru. Thus he was a very peculiar person.

After some time, he along with a friend went and met an elderly lady who

was sojourning in Poona. At that time, there were a mixed crowd, consisting of devotees, pundit, sceptics and also scoffers before the lady. She suddenly covered her face and pretended as if she was dying and asked all the people to go away, only to give audience to Avaste and his friend. She also displayed her powers and also said that as per her Guru's Orders only; she came to Poona only for the sake of Avaste. Her Guru was in Velankurichi in Coimbatore district. She was from U.P., a widow with a child and had become an ascetic. She was reading Tulasidas' Ramayana continuously from her childhood and Lord Hanuman was pleased to give darshan to her. She initiated Avaste into Panchakshari Mantra in 1898. He was reading Tukaram's books continuously and was fortunate to have the darshan of Lord Rama in 1912.

As regards his education, he had completed B.A. and then LL.B. and then became a Judicial Officer of Indore. He was a close friend of Justice Rege, an ardent devotee of Baba. After several phases in his life, he got converted from atheism to theism and became finally a staunch devotee of Baba.

Once Avaste was planning to visit Pandharpur for darshan of Lord Vittal. Rege suggested to Avaste that as Shirdi was on the way to Pandharpur, Avaste could accompany Rege who was visiting Shirdi and both could get down at Shirdi. In 1914 during Christmas festival, they both started by train and despite threatened interruption of the train journey, they both were allowed to proceed further and finally reached Shirdi safely by Baba's Grace. He came during summer vacation with his wife and son to Shirdi. He was on his way to perform his son’s marriage and kept Rs.400/- with his son and Rs.300/- with his wife. When he came to Baba, Baba said to P.R. Avaste: “Will you give me dakshina?” P.R. Avaste: “How much?” Baba said “Rs. 30/-“ Baba said to Avaste’s son: “Will you give me Rs.40/-“and he gave. Thus again and again Baba asked for dakshina and took away the entire fund available with her and her son, leaving a balance of Rs.30/- with her. Baba again said to Avaste: “Will you give me Rs.30/-“ Avaste said: “Shall I give it, Baba?” Baba said “Yes.” Then Avaste unhappily took the balance amount of Rs.30/- from his wife and gave it to Baba. Baba did not ask any further amount from Avaste. .

Avaste was in a disturbed mind at that time and was returning from Baba. Bapusaheb Jog, a staunch devotee of Baba, who observed all these

happenings, appreciated him and patted him on his back. Jog felt very much happy as Baba asked repeatedly dakshina from him and took away the entire money available with them. Jog then told Avaste that he was lucky as Baba would never take the entire money as dakshina except to give back to him tenfold. But Avaste told him that he did not know any thing about that but that he knew very well his position that he did not have a single pie with them and that he was in a quandary as to how to go to the place of marriage of his son. Then Jog enquired how much he required. Then Avaste replied that he wanted Rs.100/- Jog then said that a Bombay merchant who prayed to Baba and vowed that he would pay 25% of his profits, if the news of loss of his goods which he heard, proved false and it was later proved false. And the Bombay merchant gave accordingly a sum of Rs.6000/- as a gift to Baba. Out of that amount, Baba had already spent Rs.3000 in three days. Jog further said that if he could give Rs.100/- to Avaste from that balance amount, Baba would neither object nor call back the amount. Jog gave Rs.100/- and further told Avaste that as Baba had taken away from them the entire money available with them, he predicted and said with certainty that Avaste would be getting a promotion with increase in salary by Rs.50/- per month. To jog’s statement, Avaste immediately replied, saying that he did not have any godfather in the department for getting promotion. But as predicted by Jog, he got the promotion with increase in salary by Rs.50/- from that time onwards and Avaste came to know about this after the court vacation was over.

On their arrival in Shirdi, they both went and stayed, as per Baba's orders, in the cottage of Radhakrishnamai. While discussing, Radhakrishnamai narrated certain incidents that took place in the past, known to Avaste about his lady Guru and through the narration of these incidents, she appeared to be a remarkable person with extraordinary powers. Suddenly Radhakrishnamai behaved in the same way in which his lady Guru did when he met her in the first instance. Based on this narration/incident, Avaste started treating her as a sister of his lady Guru. She then asked him to take rest. During the following days also, Avaste had similar experiences with her. Radhakrishnamai had some supernatural powers and had the capacity of reading thoughts of the people.

In Shirdi, seeing all these things, Avaste felt that he had gone to Shirdi

against the advice of his lady Guru who told him not to visit saints. Then he developed a fear that his stay at Shirdi would be against his spiritual interest and that his mantras would lose their sanctity. So, Avaste began Rama Nama Japa, uttering Sri Ram, Sri Ram loudly throughout the night. Next day, Radhakrishnamai and Rege went to the chavadi and told Baba about Avaste’s peculiar behavior, bordering mental derangement and prayed to Baba to reform Avaste and put him on the right path to spiritual progress. Hearing all this, Baba said “Allah Malik Hai” in the chavadi, which was very near Radhakrishnamai’s cottage and the moment Baba uttered these words, Avaste became alright. Avaste then realized his fault in understanding Baba and in his mind he felt sorry for his abnormal views. As soon as the morning prayers and arati were over, Baba sent for Rege and told him to take Avaste away from Shirdi. A tonga was arranged and Avaste and Rege left Shirdi after taking Baba’s blessings. On the way for some time upto Lendibagh, all male birds or beasts appeared to Avaste as Baba and all female birds and beasts as Radhakrishnamai. And after passing Lendibagh, Avaste came out of this mental spell. He then reached his home safely.

During his stay in Shirdi, Baba had appeared himself as Vittal to Avaste and hence he dropped his desire to visit Pandharpur.. Thereafter Avaste repeated his visits to Shirdi along with his family and friends, several times till 1918. .

One day after Avasthe completed his puja in his house in Poona, the puja room was suddenly filled with a wonderful rose fragrance for at least an hour after which it subsided. Unable to solve as to how this fragrance suddenly came up in the puja room, he made enquiries around his house but could not find any reason. After few days after this incident, he received a letter from Abdul Baba and Wamanrao Patel from Shirdi that Radhakrishnamai had passed away, the date and time of which perfectly coincided with the rose fragrance that filled his room.

A few months after this episode, Avaste visited Shirdi again in 1918 accompanied by his wife. After Baba’s darshan, he put up as usual at the cottage of Radhakrishnamai, on Baba’s instructions. His wife started making preparations for Baba's Naivedya but she could not light up the charcoal stove. When she was unable to do this, she then saw suddenly Radhakrishnamai descend down the stairs from the attic and helped her in lighting the stove and also in assisting her in the preparation of Baba’s

Naivedya. .

Then Radhakrishnamai climbed back to the attic. At noon, his wife was expecting and also waited for Radhakrishnamai to come down and join them for meals, but she did not come. Perhaps she thought that Radhakrishnamai might be engaged in some work so she personally went up to call her but found to her surprise the attic was locked and she was totally surprised and then made inquiries with the neighbours and found that Radhakrishnamai had attained samadhi in 1916. She was shocked and felt that the veil of Maya was so strong that she failed to recollect that Radhakrishnamai was no more at the time when Radhakrishnamai came down to assist her. Afterwards she knew that a letter in this regard had also come to them from Shirdi. This indicated that Radhakrishnamai had some super natural powers.

In 1936, when B.V.Narasimhaswamiji was meeting the bhaktas of Baba, then living and was interviewing them for the purpose of collecting their experiences by hearing from their mouths and was also receiving several statements from them, some of them in Marathi, Narasimhaswamiji took the assistance of Avaste who accompanied Narasimhaswamiji and also rendered yeoman service in locating and contacting the living bhaktas and also arranged for the meetings with them. Avaste made Swamiji learn Marathi language also. Avaste also translated the statements in Marathi into English and was of greatest help to Swamiji in his efforts to propagate the messages, mission and miracles of Baba to every nook and corner in the country.It was due to the strenuous efforts of Avaste that B.V. Narasimha Swamiji could be able to propagate about Baba throughout the country and hence the basic credit should also go to Avaste. His efforts were noble and his was a blessed soul.