On Sunday, 22 May 1932, the Stokes gave a dinner party in Baba's honor at their house in Greenwich Village, and over 300 people attended.  Several black people came, and one woman asked Baba to help the people of her race, to which he replied, "I will."

At the reception, Baba gave the following message which was read out by Meredith:

I am so very pleased to see you again. Among you are many of the first Americans I met last time I was here, so I regard many of you as old friends. Some of you, no doubt, have seen various newspaper reports about me and my work. Many of these are misleading. But it is not to be wondered at if journalists do not understand my work or if they pander to the desire for sensationalism.

I do not intend to found any religion, cult, creed or society. There are already far too many of these organizations. I have come to help people realize their ideals in daily life. The widespread dissatisfaction in modern life is due to the gulf between theory and practice, between the ideal and its realization on Earth. The spiritual and material aspects of life are widely separated instead of being closely united. There is no fundamental opposition between spirit and matter, or if you like, between life and form. The apparent opposition is due to wrong thinking, to ignorance. Hence, the remedy lies in the continuous practice of right thinking, in permanent illumination resulting from the balance between head and heart. This is the illumination which I intend to give.

The greatest mystics have realized through personal experience that God alone is real and that everything is God. This means that, though you may not be aware of it, the Highest is latent in each of you. But in order for it to be lived and consciously experienced, it must be manifested. Mere intellectual conviction of this truth is not enough. True knowledge consists of illumination, which finally culminates in union with the ultimate Reality. This last stage is the divine state of Christ Consciousness which is my permanent condition.

The obstacles to illumination are certain mental tendencies and desires connected with egoism, which in the East are called sanskaras. The sum total of these desires and tendencies creates the illusion of a separate life at war with, or isolated from, other selves.