One evening, some weeks after Subarata’s passing, Guru was asked how long he felt it might be before Subarata returned to earth, another chapter in her Godward journey. Guru’s response surprised us all. He indicated that it was at least possible that she might not come back, a departure from the understanding we all had that God-realisation is only won on the earth plane, this special planet where fast progress and evolution are such unique opportunities. Guru’s reply had a “We shall see” open-endedness, a suggestion that the Grace of the Supreme or some special dispensation might come into play and bring about another result.

In my personal and certainly limited experience of Guru’s spoken comments and published writings, I had not encountered this possibility mentioned before, an unrealised human freed from rebirth. But it reminded me that if a disciple can really please a God-realised Master during the disciple’s earth-life, the Master can intervene in all that follows, leapfrog his student up the evolutionary ladder and remove him from the cycle of birth-death-birth, the recurring incarnations otherwise required.

If Subarata does come back to the earth-arena, Guru will not be outwardly here to find her and point her out to us. Finding the needle in the proverbial haystack has a much greater chance of success than encountering a particular soul on a planet of seven billion people – unless that, too, comes to pass through the irresistible Will of God.