The Heart Chronicle
De Simple Silence.
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English |
From Terri :
The amazing Internet, or in this case, the « inner net » has brought several people together who otherwise would not have met. A Listserv was created for individuals who are interested in or devoted to Avatar Meher Baba. In a chat forum we meet and share everything from our daily life dramas to our metaphysical questions. Most of us have read many of Meher Baba’s books or those written about Him. We come from all walks of life and religions. Some of us came from agnostic or even atheistic families.
Based on our belief systems that are now rooted in the teachings of Meher Baba, we come together and help each other live up to them. We ponder current events and future prophecies. We help each other through the tough times. We referee when discussions occasionally get out of control. It is foremost a sharing group.
During 1997, as a member of the Listserv, I was often deeply touched when someone would share their experience of how they first heard of Meher Baba and how they came to have a relationship with Him. I felt in my heart that it might be good to compile these stories in a book, but shyness prevented me from suggesting it to the group.
Oddly enough the stories seemed to start flowing into the group more often. After a period of perhaps three months of questioning my own abilities to take on such a project, I spoke up with the idea of the book that had been tugging at my heart. Those of us who know Baba know whose idea this book really is.
I was not surprised, well a little, when the response from the Listserv was overwhelming and I found myself in the position of coordinating the project. The stories came. We received one, then two, then five, then ten, and after much loving work by many talented people, at last, here it is. The book is mainly a collection of stories gathered from the Listserv, but some stories came through word-of-mouth or from postings in Meherabad, India.
It is entirely Baba at work here. This is His book. As you will come to see as you read these stories, He is persistent in His wishes.
[Adele Wolkin met Meher Baba, for the first time, May 10, 1952, in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. She had known of Him and had been waiting for Him to come to the United States. On meeting her He told her that He had heard much about her. He had heard her from within. To this day she remains a devotee. Her story covers many years of service, both in the United States and in India. We are privileged to have her insight in the foreword below. — Ed.]
From Adele :
Avatar Meher Baba said, « I will see my old and new lovers somewhere, sometime, somehow ! » Yes indeed, as these stories confirm, this contact does occur and remains ongoing. To these souls, who have shared these stories, the Divine Beloved appears in dreams, in crisis, in seemingly miraculous actions in joyous and jocular incidents, reaching each one in the uniquely personal language of his or her own heart.
It is through the captivating personal narrations of each of these chroniclers that we can vicariously experience or grasp how Baba’s compassionate love manifested in each one. The chronicles paint an astonishing, yet natural and creative diversity of Sahavases (contacts) with the One behind the many.
And now that the many chroniclers may have had a glimpse of what Divine Love is, we await His ever-abiding presence to make it real for each of them in His time. « I draw my dear ones to me in my own ways. » The stories illustrate that the ways Meher Baba uses vary from joy to pain, but it is always His gift to draw the lover closer. He told us at one of the Sahavases, « Your business is to love me, the rest is my business. »
Meher Baba said, « It is through Divine Love that the ‘New Humanity’ will come in tune with the Divine Plan. » There is in The Heart Chronicles an unmistakable longing for real understanding, which is beyond an intellectual understanding. The story-tellers therein are the emerging New Humanity. Their stories are evidence to me that they have a vital role in the great spiritual renaissance of mankind that Meher Baba foretold. In this Avataric Advent, Meher Baba ushers in a great spiritual transformation from the age of reason to the age of intuition. A number of these chronicles provide evidence that humanity is now making that progress from reason to intuition !
The Internet has become a means for bringing about communication and a linkage among different Baba Lovers throughout the world. In this meeting place, Terri Zee asked the question and Baba was behind the reply. As the whole world is in His hands, this surely includes the Internet. It has helped bring forth this book in which His love is shown through the authors. Meher Baba has said :
« Love is essentially self-communicative : those who do not have it catch it from those who have it. Those who receive love from others cannot be its recipients without giving a response, which, in itself, is the nature of Love. True Love is unconquerable and irresistible. It goes on gathering power and spreading itself until eventually it transforms everyone it touches. »
Contents |
[modifier] A Glimpse Given
Sharing the story of how Meher Baba brought me to Him might begin many places, for over time it has become clear that He was watching me long before I was aware of His existence. One example is that when I was 18 in 1964, I visited the New York World’s Fair.
One of the only two or three memories of that visit that has stayed with me over the years was my not visiting a certain building. Why would I remember a passing thought to not visit an exhibit that I thought was uninteresting when there were so many marvelous things that I did see ?
Well, years later I found out that the exhibit I didn’t want to go to held the one thing of interest — the Meher Baba booth ! And although it wasn’t yet my time to hear of Him, on some level His presence made itself known, and by that memory He was letting me know that He knew where I was long before I ever knew of Him.
Just a year and a half later, I had dropped out of college, been in and out of the military, and gone off to Berkeley, California, from my home in New York state to live in a communal house. I was searching for meaning and value in life, first through studying Eastern thought, and then through experimenting with psychedelic substances. It was then that I first recall having seen Baba’s name in the San Francisco Oracle, as well as seeing a mention of Him in an anti-drug context. Well I still wasn’t ready. Drugs had become my path of choice, and I continued the search.
In the spring of 1968, I was initiated into Transcendental Meditation at Yale. I was inspired by the beauty I saw in a young woman’s face on the cover of an issue of Look magazine on Transcendental Meditation. I met that woman and fell in love with her.
I also promptly had a powerful, drug-enhanced meditation experience that blew me open to the possibility of higher consciousness. However delusional, it was an important preparation for Baba, as I had come to see Reality as a kind of Taoist, unconsciously intelligent ground of Being, but I was then struggling with the « experience » of self-aware, super intelligence.
What if there were a true higher intelligence guiding our lives ? For months I struggled with this concept. Then in late November 1968, I found myself sitting on some church steps in New York City with nowhere to spend the night, when two young men passing by stopped and asked me if I knew the time. I laughed inwardly, (hippies weren’t into the time thing) and said no. Then after a pause they said, « Would you like to go to a meeting on Meher Baba ? » Well, I thought, why not, I had nothing else to do, so I started off with them down the street.
They began telling me of this Meher Baba person, and I began thinking, « Oh-oh, another simple-minded cult. » I had crossed paths with a few of those in my Berkeley days, and I didn’t really like what I had seen.
When one of these guys said « He is God, » I thought, rather condescendingly, « Yeah, we are all God. » At that moment, the other fellow looked over at me in mid-stride and said, « I know, we are all God, but He really IS GOD. »
Hmm, I thought, perhaps they are not so naive as I thought ! I remember a large hall with quite a number of people, and this blind man, Harry Kenmore, going on about obedience and the coming opportunity for seeing Meher Baba. It was an a bit heavy for this flower child, but as Dr. Kenmore boomed out « Oh Parvardigar, the Preserver and Protector of all[... ] » I felt a power and a presence that I couldn’t name.
After the meeting ended, I went with three others to a cafe, and as they spoke of Baba to me, I found myself gazing at a small Baba button one of them was wearing, and seeing there revealed to this then-Taoist agnostic, the Christ-radiant, pure Being and Love.
They sensed my quiet and became silent as I continued to gaze, not able to stop looking, not really comprehending this inner opening of His grace. They put me up that night, and the next day I went on my way. The seed had been planted, but it would take time to sprout.
My soul had been touched ; but my mind and heart would need a lot of words, thoughts, and insights as well as cleaning out of accumulated ignorance, before I would begin to want only to lay my life at the Beloved’s feet ; before I would come to experience day after day His deepening presence, grace, and guidance.
When some months later a copy of the Discourses fell into my hands, and then some « Don’t Worry, Be Happy » cards from Woodstock, I continually struggled to figure out who this Meher Baba was — reading His teachings over and over, gazing at His photo.
But here was a teaching and a man that I couldn’t put in a box ! As deeply as I probed, He was simply and purely THERE — an open, loving presence with no boundary, limitation, or agenda. And slowly He lifted me out of the well of drug-induced madness that I was rapidly hurtling down in my misguided, but sincere seeking. (It would take me nearly twenty years to truly be free of the negative imprints of those very, very few years of chemical seeking. I heartily recommend it as a path to avoid, because it is dangerous and psychically costly at best.)
By the winter of 1973, I felt the call to go to the Meher Spiritual Center in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, although I was still a little hesitant about « spiritual groups. » However, the loving welcome of Fred-Ella Winterfeldt and the sweetness of Baba’s presence quickly captivated me, and after a couple of years of attending the loving Baba gatherings of Jeanne and Darwin Shaw at their home in upstate New York, I knew I must go to India.
Thus I found myself in July of 1975 finally welcomed HOME, and literally laying my head at His feet at last, at the Tomb in Meherabad, India. But of course the journey had only just begun ! Jai Baba !
[modifier] Hide And Seek
In 1961 or ‘62 an adolescent male in Dayton, Ohio, was home alone in the middle of the day watching TV, something he never did. A man in a classroom setting was talking about the life and work of the Silent Messiah, Meher Baba. The young man (me) was rocked to his foundations — inexplicably very angry, confused, and torn up inside. I didn’t remember the incident again until many years later.
I hit the hippie trail with a vengeance : Woodstock, the Chicago riots, Haight-Ashbury, Greenwich Village, and so on. I swallowed the psychedelic utopian chimera hook, line, and sinker. I really believed in lasting enlightenment through drugs !
In 1967, while hitchhiking in California, I saw His face for the second time on the « Don’t Worry, Be Happy » card. I just had to have it. The driver of the car was reluctant to part with it, and I almost had to beg for it.
From that moment on, Meher Baba was with me. During many lost drug moments I would pull the card out with a flourish and show it around. It was one of my prized possessions throughout the hippie years. In 1968, my longing to go to India reached a point of obsession. The desire was so strong that I was determined even to cut my hair and get a job ! However, I only stuck it out long enough to raise the money to travel to Mexico.
Thus began the greatest adventure of my hippie career. Living on a vast, wild, and unspoiled beach of great beauty, we surfed and smoked. My best friend shared my obsession to get to India, and we would lie awake under the stars making pacts to get there no matter what it took.
This soul-deep, desperate longing took place precisely during Meher Baba’s Last Darshan ! We did return to America and get jobs, but then we spent the money on drugs. It’s easy to say, « Well, the time wasn’t right, » but I feel that if I could have mustered up the strength and courage necessary to get to India by hook or crook, He would have drawn me straight to Guruprasad.
In early 1970, it was time to flee the polluted city, set up a commune, and grow organic food. In the desert outside Phoenix, Arizona, were some abandoned gold mines called the Robot Mines. (The eccentric owner designed robots to fight wars so men wouldn’t have to.) As with so many communes, the drug lethargy meant that only one person really worked. The total darkness within those caves was a metaphor for our collective consciousness — dull, confused, and stoned.
One day light appeared ! A large man in a Volkswagen van came to spend a night or two. He kept repeating that he was « going to Alaska to find God, » and he would proudly show how he’d outfitted his van for the journey.
Initially I was completely repulsed by this guy. He was big and loud and laughed very hard — stomping around the place laughing. It was quite disruptive to our « cool, » our spiritual torpor, and drug haze ; however, slowly my repulsion changed to awe. Here was a child in the Biblical sense : spontaneous, happy, and radiant.
One day I saw him reading and decided that whatever it was that he was reading, I’d find it and read it, too. At my first chance, I sneaked up to his backpack and rummaged for the aqua-colored book, Discourses, by Meher Baba.
Subsequently I found someone who had the Discourses, and I borrowed it. Just as with the « Don’t Worry, Be Happy » card, where I would attempt to read the quotation on the back, « To penetrate into the essence... , » the material simply wouldn’t penetrate me ! It’s impossible to explain, but I just couldn’t comprehend what I was reading. It was as if Baba had erected an invisible barrier to my intellectual understanding.
When Yogi Bhajan came to America from India with a mission to get young people off drugs, he sent one of his first students (Baba Don) to Phoenix in 1970 to teach Kundalini yoga. It was the beginning of the end of my search for God through drugs. I was detoxed by hours and hours of intense yoga and breathing exercises, a vegetarian diet, fasting, etc.
We held yoga classes at the University of Arizona, and every time I’d go there I would first stop at the library to get God Speaks, and open it to the photo of Baba on the tiger skin. I would stare and stare with an almost blank mind. I experienced a deep, deep, wordless questioning, rather like, « Who are you, and why am I drawn to sit here and stare at your photo ? » Then I’d turn a few pages, attempting to read some of it, shake my head in confusion, and go back to staring at the photo.
After about six months, my yoga teacher ordered me to go teach on my own. I picked Memphis, where I had lived when I was in high school, college, and my early hippie years. Thus I began a short career as a mini yoga guru. In retrospect, I can see Baba’s hand in those free yoga classes in the park.
Hippies, overweight housewives, lawyers, children, and athletes — we were all one ! Chanting to God, Sufi dancing, hugging, and doing yoga. They were the most beautiful group experiences I’ve ever had. Almost all the students immediately took to heart my message to give up drugs, and they did.
One of the students was a very eccentric, leprechaun-like fellow named Bradley. He approached me one day before class in a virtual frenzy. He was so excited as he ran up to me and started tugging on my yoga whites, repeating over and over, « Jim, Meher Baba is God, Meher Baba is God. Look, I’ve got all the information here. I wrote off to California. Look, Jim, Meher Baba is God. » This cool, unaffected « guru » finally calmed Bradley down with the promise that I’d read the literature (the packet from Meher Baba Information in Berkeley).
Again, it simply wouldn’t penetrate ! I tried to read it, but would just drift off. Baba gave me hints, clues, and signs in abundance, and I still stumbled on, oblivious. Now I wonder, how could anybody be so damn thick, so blind ? Is Meher Baba’s timing so precise and perfect that He can temporarily suspend the workings of a reasonably healthy mind and intellect until He deems it the right time ?
At some point, I decided that Memphis had to have a vegetarian restaurant, and we — the yoga class — would open it. The husband of one of my students (who came religiously with her two young daughters) happened to be a multimillionaire, so he bought us a restaurant ! We transformed a Southern style rib shack into a vegetarian restaurant, purifying the oven that used to roast the pork by sitting inside it and chanting. For the first month or two of business, Patanjali’s Pure Food Restaurant had the purest energy and most exalted « vibes » of any place of business I’ve ever been in. It really was a temple. I’m sure it was due to our « unknown Guest. »
Before the opening, I wrote to Meher Baba Information in Berkeley, and bought 500 « Don’t Worry, Be Happy » cards, and every poster they had. I think we also bought God Speaks and the Discourses. I decorated the restaurant with hundreds of photos of the yoga class and all the Baba posters. One wall became a saint/master/guru collage, featuring Yogananda, Jesus and Mary, Sri Ramakrishna, Yogi Bhajan, and all the pictures of spiritual figures I could get. I arranged it personally. Guess who ended up on top ? The « Don’t Worry, Be Happy » poster and the « Not We But One » poster.
I used to gaze up and silently ask, « Who are you and why are you on top ? » I directed the cashier to be sure that every person got a « Don’t Worry, Be Happy » card when they paid.
Mark, the cashier, gradually slipped into an exalted spiritual state that he wouldn’t discuss. He would just radiate love and light — quite extraordinary. I used to watch him secretly from a distance and feel uplifted. Now what do you think he was reading ? He was reading the Discourses. I asked him about them and about Meher Baba, but he was so tight-lipped about his inner life that I couldn’t get much out of him.
One day I answered the phone and the operator said, « I have a collect call from Meher Baba, will you accept the charges ? » It was a Baba lover from Oklahoma who had heard about this restaurant, filled with Baba’s photos. Imagine his chagrin when I insisted it was a yoga ashram and restaurant. It reached the absurd point where I asked Malcolm the cook to read God Speaks for me and tell me who or what « Avatar » was.
Eventually the tiny seeds of hypocrisy in me grew enormous. Having set myself up as a spiritual figure, I had to pay the price. I won’t go into the gory details, but I experienced firsthand the terrible dangers of trying to be a ‘guru’ or spiritual teacher. In desperation, I decided to go back and seek inspiration from my teacher, who was a very strong and disciplined man.
When I got to Phoenix, it turned out to be auspicious timing. A huge yoga gathering was being held in the Arizona desert at a place called Crown King. Students of this 3HO Yoga group came from all over the country. We chanted, did yoga, and « got high naturally. »
Three days later, coming down the mountain, we stopped at a country store for lunch — the only store for miles around. The proprietor was not an ordinary country store proprietor ! She was a large, radiant woman whose skin shone. She exuded a powerful spiritual presence.
She was probably the most beautiful and powerful person I’d ever met. We all immediately began to talk about God and spirituality, and she recounted the numerous ashrams she had lived in and the gurus she had met and studied with during the ‘40s and ‘50s. I don’t remember how it came up, but since I had been asking people for years what they knew about Meher Baba, I must have said something to her. At one point she looked at me and said, « And that’s when I met your friend in San Francisco. »
My heart was hammering. I was dizzy with anticipation. I felt my search was at an end. At last, here was someone who had met Baba. She would tell me all about Him. I struggled to regain my yogi cool, and tried desperately to ask in a casual fashion, « Uhhh[... ] could you tell us about the time you met Meher Baba ? »
She looked deep into my eyes, and a smile grew bigger and bigger across her face as she slowly shook her head from side to side. She wouldn’t say a word ! We went on to talking of other things.
My God — the lengths to which He goes, to ensure His perfect timing.
When I returned to Memphis, the restaurant had gone downhill. People were smoking pot again. My friends and students gradually turned against me. It all fell apart, and I left town in shame. This tiny payback for being a hypocritical « teacher » was so small compared to what it could have been. It was Baba’s grace for sure.
I went to San Francisco and put the « Don’t Worry, Be Happy » poster from the restaurant up on my wall. I would stare and stare at it, knowing intuitively that His eyes were tunnels to infinity. I kept procrastinating about going to Berkeley to get a book and finally get to the bottom of it !
Eventually I did go, and bought Listen, Humanity.
Every word sank deep into my soul. My heart opened. He came in. We started our honeymoon together.
My life began.
[modifier] I Just Love Him
For few years I had asked « the universe » for the truth about the broader issues of life, specifically about God and real universal truths, not the shifting-sands type of supposed truth from each religion. I was not looking for forgiveness or redemption or comfort, I just wanted the truth.
I examined one issue after another, evolving concept by concept, finding universal threads, but looking for the whole cloth, woven into a garment that I could wear, that would fit and feel right, and would be right.
Catholic by birth, I moved through readings from various groups and religions. Then one day I found, in one of my favorite authors at the time, a scant line about a mystic called Meher Baba. At the time, I was in a spiritual mail-order library rental-book club, and I was at a loss for where to go next in my explorations.
By coincidence, I noticed a few books on the list about Meher Baba, and so, at loose ends for direction, I ordered them, with the usual time to receive them about two weeks or so, if they had them available. I had ordered God Speaks and The God-Man.
At that same time, I had this very strong dream, and in it I saw this man with long fluffy hair, who was very majestic and commanding, and who I now know was Baba. He was on a big elephant coming toward me, and the dream told me that something very, very big and life changing would happen to me in two weeks, and I thought, what could possibly be that big in my life that I do not know about already ?
Then, interestingly, in two weeks I received both books from my book club. Reading them, I was trying to grasp the concept of an Avatar ; the only reference to this concept I had even come close to in my history was about twenty years before, in 1968. I had heard somewhere that God was walking on the earth again, and I remember being intrigued by the idea. I wished it were true, and wished I would find out where he was, and see him, and being Catholic at the time, this was unusual thinking.
The more I read in The God-Man the more amazed I was, and I thought it was very very bold for Meher Baba to call his book God Speaks. I mean, what a responsibility it is to claim to know it all. And claim you are God.
I started to tell my husband as I read on — do you know what these books are saying ? They are saying that this man called Meher Baba is God, and that God walks on the earth from time to time, and this is He. And I looked at Baba’s picture, this guy who looked like an Italian barber to me, and thought, THIS is what God looked like ? And yet soon I felt consumed with what I was reading, trying to grasp so many new concepts, not alone the main concept, that Meher Baba was God.
Then one memorable night my husband and I went out to dinner, and I excitedly started to tell him the basic story of Baba, and I wound up very emotionally sobbing and sobbing in the restaurant, making a rather public display of what turned out to be my love for Baba.
I was sobbing, « I just love Him, I just love Him, » over and over, this man I never met or knew, and who I hadn’t even read the the whole story about yet, who I didn’t even understand most of what I read about him, and yet I knew I just loved him madly !
And that love has carried through since, and that cloth I wanted, woven from threads into a garment that would fit, and feel right, and be right, was found, unexpectedly, here.
This was the fulfillment of the prophecy of my dream : the very, very big thing that would be life-changing for me. It was Meher Baba, and more and more, I just love Him.
[modifier] I Look Around, And There Are Discourses Following Me
I came to Baba in November 1972. How is it that I know the month ? It was a somewhat long and circuitous route. In June of that year, I went to Northern California to visit a friend who had moved there the year before. I so fell in love with the area that I took her up on her invitation to move in with her. We lived in a place called Fairfield, situated exactly halfway between San Francisco and Sacramento.
I had wanted to get the album « Tommy » for a number of years, but somehow never seemed to have enough money. That summer, I began to frequent a local record shop, and every time I was there I would take the album down and ask the clerk if he would play some selections from it. Over the course of the summer, we had become friends. Near the end of that summer he took pity on me and sold me the album for a reduced price. This thrilled me ! I brought the album home, and reading the back of it, I saw :
Opera by Pete Townshend (a) Composed by John Entwistle (b) Composed by Keith Moon (c) Composed by Sonny Boy Williamson Producer Kit Lambert Chief Engineer Damon Lyon-Shaw Studio I.B.C. Cover Design Mike McInnerney Photos Barrie Meller Avatar Meher Baba
Well, that last entry intrigued me. I wondered what kind of instrument an Avatar was. I had heard of the Sitar, the Sarod, etc., but never the Avatar. I decided to go back and ask the clerk if he knew anything about it.
Upon going in, I asked the fellow the loaded question. His face brightened, and he went into this long spiel about something happening every 700 to 1400 years, etc. He held up a book — I know now it was Listen, Humanity — and went on for another ten minutes or so. It was all complete gibberish to me ; I didn’t understand a thing. I decided to look it up in the dictionary.
I went home and did just that. Their definition was very concise : Christ, God-Man, Messiah. I was dumfounded — what was this ? This guy thinks he’s God ? I thought Pete Townshend had more sense than to follow some guy who thinks he’s God, I decided to put it out of my head completely.
From about the end of January 1969 I had a morbid fear of death. I remember when it happened. I was watching Pete Seeger on the television, and suddenly the thought flashed through my mind, « He’s going to die. By God, we’re all going to die ! » The thought terrified me.
I had tried to get some sort of truce with this horrid thought. By the time I had moved up to Northern California I had gotten myself, with much effort, to forget the whole thing. Then something happened that blew my uneasy truce.
One evening, I watched a talk show moderated by Dick Cavett, on which he interviewed Arthur C. Clarke (the fellow who wrote 2001 : A Space Odyssey). Dick asked Mr. Clarke about his philosophy of life. Mr. Cavett referred to the end of the movie made from the book, intimating that he thought that perhaps Mr. Clarke believed in reincarnation.
Now, I had expected that Mr. Clarke would answer affirmatively, and I was going to take some comfort in that. Imagine my surprise when he did not ! His answer was, « I believe that it’s like a candle going out. When you die, there’s nothing. That’s it. »
Yikes ! This shocked me to my roots. That answer, those few words, sent me into a tailspin. I began to wrestle in earnest with this conundrum : where did we go ?
It got so bad that I could hardly eat. We’d have fish, and I sit there looking at the fish on my plate, wondering where that fish was. Was that fish only what was on my plate, or was that fish somewhere else, only the body remaining ? I felt like an automaton. It was at the time of the Summer Olympics, and I would watch it, as a way of hanging onto myself. I wondered if I was going mad.
It was then that things began to get odd, indeed. I began to have dreams. All of these dreams were the same. In these dreams, I would be next to a grassy hillside. On the hill were all of these dead rock stars : Big Bopper, Buddy Holly, Jimi Hendrix, Richie Valens, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, etc. Next to them, there was this little guy in white. He was showing me these folks, and saying, « All these people are dead, and yet they’re still around. Tell her, Jimi. » Then Jimi Hendrix proceeded to inform me that it’s not as bad as I think. It was a bizarre dream, and it happened night after night.
During this time my friend and I went to the local library to check out a few books. She always gravitated to the metaphysical section, so we ended up there. There was a specific book she was hoping to find, so to help her I began browsing through the titles.
As I searched, I came across a title that gave me a shock, like electricity, from head to foot. The cover read « Discourses by Meher Baba. » I picked up the book and looked inside. There was the little fellow who had been in my dreams ! I replaced the book on the shelf and quickly left the area. This was too weird.
Well, that book seemed to be wherever I was. It ended up at the college cafeteria, abandoned on a table ; it was at the local park, sitting on a bench. The final straw came when I went to a gas station out in the middle of nowhere and found that very book — sitting on the counter in the rest room ! I knew I had been defeated. I picked the book up off the counter, took it to the library and checked it out. I was amazed when I read it. Here was information, spiritual, yet logical. Finally things made sense. I could believe what was being said.
What finally cinched the deal is when Pete Townshend released his solo album, « Who Came First. » Inside were photos of Meher Baba, and the album itself had so much on it that amazed me. I really liked this stuff, much more than the Who — and I thought I liked them.
I took it home with me and played it. We lived on a farm on the outskirts of Fairfield, in the Suisun Valley. It was a beautiful place. The room where my friend and I were living looked out on this huge yard, with all manner of trees and wild things. I used to sit for hours there, trying to gather my thoughts. At any rate, as I was listening to this album for the first time, the song « Parvardigar » began to play. At precisely that moment, it began to snow (this, in most parts of California, is a rare occurrence). It was so magical. I was filled with this incredible love — for Baba ! It was at that moment I decided to give my life to Him.
Along with this, however, I still had doubts. I felt that, since I had come to Baba almost four years after he dropped the body, perhaps I really could not call myself a Baba Lover. How could He know I existed ? I had read many sources in which they said that one really had to have a living master help one progress through the planes. What to do ?
I had worried this problem for almost four more years, when I had an experience that showed me how things really were. I had an accident, where I totaled a police car (don’t ask). As a result of this, my car was rather banged up. As I had no money, and no insurance, I needed to find an alternate way of getting it serviceable again. The fellow who drove the tow truck said that he could do it.
Well, to make an already too long story a bit shorter, this fellow took me far out in the middle of nowhere and proceeded to attempt to rape me. I put up a fight, and he then started to choke me. I was in a pickle. All of a sudden the thought came to me : I said to Baba, « If I am one of yours, you know what’s happening. If you are indeed God, when I say your name you will stop this. » I was just able to squeak out audibly, « Meher Baba. » At that point, everything stopped ! The fellow released me, and nervously asked me if I was his friend. I began to be truthful, but then decided it was okay to lie in this situation, so I said yes. Amazingly, he escorted me to the front seat of his car, and took me home ! That told me that although I came to Baba after He dropped the body, I could still consider myself a Baba Lover.
So, that’s how I came to Him.
[modifier] My Earliest Memory Of Baba
My earliest memory of Meher Baba, at least someone who I believe was Meher Baba, occurred in my childhood. Though I’ve tried to verify this by researching newspaper archives, so far it’s still only a memory.
I was on my hands and knees, reading the afternoon newspaper spread out before me on the floor. On the right-hand side of the left-hand page was a short article about a man who was the leader of a group. The group liked him and stayed with him, and his message to them was « Don’t Worry, Be Happy. »
I’m convinced now that the event really happened, because I remember the impact that statement had on me. I’m guessing that I was about 8 or 10 at the time (1960 or 1962), and I was totally surprised. What an odd thing that an adult would say to other adults, I thought, and just as odd that adults would consider as their leader someone who made such a simple statement. Even at my young age, my cynical mind couldn’t understand how someone in the world of adults could get away with being so obvious.
This living memory returned to my mind many years later after my « real » coming to Meher Baba, which happened when I was 20 years old. As a sophomore in college in the spring of 1972, I sometimes traveled to visit some friends at a college 45 miles away.
As a group, we were spiritually minded, but as was normal at the time, pursued spirituality through escapist pleasures of music, comfort, and occasional drugs. An album that we listened to a lot was « Happy Birthday, » which Pete Townshend had worked on.
Through its lyrics and Townshend’s plaintive melodies, and through other sources, I started to read about Meher Baba. I began to develop a sense of a new concept — that of following the spiritual path through love for a living spiritual master.
I’m sure that, on the night of the dream I’m about to describe, I listened to « Happy Birthday » just before the lights went out. I was sleeping alone on the living room couch. I am also certain that there was no drug use that night — it was an important point for my own verification of the dream the next day and in telling about it to others after that.
My dream takes place in three distinct parts, plus the after-effects upon awakening. The first part of the dream begins with me standing on a hilly area outside my college campus — a landscape that doesn’t actually exist. Two friends approach me, saying that Meher Baba is coming to campus. They have flyers that advertise this. Talking with them, I find that one is lukewarm about going and the other is uninterested, but their reactions convince me that I want to say « Yes » to this opportunity, and that I will go by myself if necessary.
In the second part of the dream, Meher Baba is on campus. I am in a modern building with skylights, open space, and a second-floor/mezzanine area. There are many people, clearly of different nationalities and faiths, milling about looking at artwork and exhibits.
I find myself up on the mezzanine, and one sculpture that I walk up to is a large globe made of metal strips and bands, with writing and astrological symbols on the bands. It occurs to me that the writing is connected with Baba, and it means that His message is universal, for all races and faiths of Earth.
Then I am back on the main floor, in the center of the room. I can see Baba and some men around Him, all of them sitting or lounging about 35 to 40 feet away, on the stairs leading up to the mezzanine. A man approaches me and says, « Meher Baba wants to talk to you, » and he hands me a paper cup with a string that leads over to Baba, who holds the other cup !
In appearance this is a youthful Baba with long hair, like in His pictures from the 1930’s. Baba motions for me to lift the cup to my ear. I do, and, distinctly, apart from the noise of the room, I hear a Voice softly ask, « Do you want to come with us and make movies in India ? »
I am taken aback, but actually consider an answer and say, « No, I can’t, because I have school loans to pay. I can’t do something else while I have that responsibility. » To my surprise, the Voice asks the same question a second time.
Now I am a little more flustered (wasn’t my first answer good enough ?), so I have to come up with a truer, more convincing explanation. But, as the question was asked light-heartedly, I laugh a bit as I answer again, « No, I’ve got a very set school plan. The semesters and classes are planned out ; it’s really not possible. »
And then Baba, or the Voice, asks the same question, insistent but gently, a third time. I go deeper still for the truth of my reply, « I am too tied to my family ; they’d never understand my going. I just couldn’t walk away from them and their image of me. »
Now both I and the quiet Voice in my head are both a little giddy, and a realization comes over me, it comes from the Voice, but it grows in me, too, that it doesn’t matter whether my answer was yes or no. A question had been asked, a reply given, a connection had been made and shared, and there was no judgment of my negative answers. I felt comfort from the Voice, I felt that the Asker was happy, and my happiness carries me into the third part of the dream.
Suddenly, I am back outside, in the hilly area where the dream had started. But I am completely alone, without buildings or trees in sight. There seems to be a bright sun overhead and a whiteness everywhere. It is as if the hills are covered with snow.
And so I start « sledding » down the slopes, although I have no sled. I just imagine myself sliding down, thrilling to the sight of the whiteness rushing toward me, right into my eyes and face, and it feels great. I don’t have to struggle back to the top, as in real sledding ; I just find myself back up there, and take a couple of more runs, enjoying the freedom and the feeling of this brightness coming at me.
Happy with myself, I look up and see Baba. He is standing in mid-air, a few feet out from the slope of the « hillside. » He is smiling at me. Dressed in white, He is now an older Baba than the one I saw earlier in the dream. He appears as He did in the late 1950’s (and on the « Happy Birthday » album cover).
As He smiles at me, He postures Himself with His head tilted back and His arms straight out to the sides from His shoulders — with palms up. I know that He’s showing me how to position myself. So I extend my arms and hold my chin back, and whiteness rushes into me with much greater intensity, directly into my upper chest. After a short time, I have to stop.
Exhausted, I come over to Baba and I embrace Him around the middle, my head on His chest. I realize that I am crying and laughing at the same time, and He comforts me.
The intensity of the last part of the dream brought me back to an awareness of where I was lying, although my eyes were still closed. However, as I raised my eyelids a tiny bit, my first sight was the whiteness of the room’s ceiling. Immediately, it seemed to rush at me, and I shut my eyes again. The surprise of that sensation made me completely lose the feeling of lying on the couch. With my eyes closed, I was awake but « weightless » for maybe a minute or so, until the feeling of being disconnected from my body faded slowly, like the reverberations of a gong. Once again I felt my body on the couch.
Later that morning, I shared the experience of the dream with my friends. They were sympathetic, but gave it no more consideration than any other odd dream. We did not consider ourselves followers of Meher Baba, so we didn’t see the dream as being relevant to anyone but me.
Later that afternoon, I was on the front porch by myself. It was raining gently, but the sun shone brightly in the west below the clouds. The effect of seeing the rain and the sunshine together brought to mind how the miraculous can occur in the midst of everyday events.
I marveled that though I was not a follower of Meher Baba, I had had this dream and experience. Did this experience make me, now, without asking for it, one of those people who followed Him ?
The only certainty that I was left with then, and which has always stayed with me since, is that Meher Baba contacted me that morning at my deepest, most heart-felt, personal level. I don’t know why it happened, but it has been the beginning and the end — the Goal — of my spiritual quest in this life ever since.
[modifier] Some Enchanted Evening
As a child, I had a mystical bent. The inner world made much more sense to me than my baffling outer life. However, I was given the perfect environment in which to grow and thrive spiritually. My mother, a free-thinker, went to church only for the music. My father, being from Iowa, went to church because it was the right thing to do with one’s family. We went to a mild-mannered Presbyterian Church, and I was left alone to think my own thoughts about God, which I did, often.
At age twelve, I participated in a series of classes given to prepare us to make the decision to join the church. In one lesson, world religions other than Christianity were explained so we could make an informed choice. The instructor said that although Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, et al. were fine options, « We believe ours is the best because we have the Christ and the rest do not. »
I thought, « I do not know about that[... ] »
A few weeks later, we gathered at a ski lodge for a weekend retreat. After more gentle discussions, we went individually into a small, candle-lit room to be with Jesus until we knew His will. Such Love and Presence in that room[... ] of course, Jesus’ answer to me was « Yes, you are Mine. »
With that heart-foundation, in high school I began an active intellectual search for a more complete spirituality. Reincarnation had to be a part of the story because it just made sense. I paid a visit to the Buddhist temple in downtown Denver. As I entered, I experienced the same love for Buddha as I had for Jesus.
In my last year of high school, I took a philosophy course. To complete the required research paper, I spent hours at the Denver Public Library during January 1969, poring over every available book about my chosen subject of religion, every book but one, that is.
In August of 1969, I began studies at the University of Puget Sound (UPS) in Tacoma, Washington. Outside my first class, there was a poster of a friendly looking mustached man and the words, « You and I are not we but One. »
I wrote down the saying and used it in an essay on oneness and river rafting, having just done rafting while working that summer at a resort town in the Colorado Rockies. Ironically, I’d also just concluded, a la the philosopher Ayn Rand, that we are all separate and independent of each other.
A few days later, I saw a notice tacked to a campus tree : « Happy Hour, 7 :00 to 10 :00, Sunday Evening. »
I’d moved into an off-campus dormitory, a former convent located on an old estate, complete with a manor house (also converted to a dorm), a rose garden, and overlooking the Puget Sound. It was filled with people with whom I felt comfortable, something new to me.
On another whim, I decided to include myself in this mysterious happy hour. For three hours, to my astonishment and delight, a fellow student, Charlie Morton, spoke of all the things I thought should be part of spirituality. It was music to my mind and an awakening to my heart : not only do we reincarnate, so does the Christ ! He has been known as Zoroaster, Rama, Krishna, Buddha, Jesus, Muhammad, and now He’s Meher Baba. It was so simple and right.
So, on September 7, 1969, I slipped my hand into the Beloved’s, as easily as slipping into a warm mitten on a snowy, cold day. We have been walking hand-in-hand ever since.
In my dorm cubicle, I displayed my new-found treasures, the Baba cards I’d gathered from Charlie, and I discovered that several of those in my dorm with whom I’d already felt closeness were Baba-lovers ! I attended the Baba meetings Charlie organized, and then, as I was mulling over my choices for the « winterim, » a month-long course taken in January, I saw a sign announcing : « Oh My God, What Am I Doing Here ? » a course on Meher Baba, co-taught by Charlie Morton and a religion professor, Dr. Albertson, in the San Francisco Bay Area.
I ran to Dr. Albertson’s office, and burst in, panting, « Am I too late ? » He smiled and said, « Have a seat. You’re the first one. »
Over Christmas break, I went back to Denver and the Denver Public Library. There, I checked out a book available only by request, God Speaks, and read it cover to cover. It had been there the whole time, but Baba wished to introduce Himself to me properly first, through the book of the heart.
In January 1970, about fifty or so of us journeyed by bus from UPS to Berkeley. It truly was a Sahavas. We saw and heard everyone available : Don Stevens, Rick Chapman, Allen Cohen, Robert Dreyfuss, Ivy Duce, Lud Dimpfl, Robbie Basho, and others. I was in love, and what a grand ball my Beloved had assembled for me !
Seven years later, I made my first pilgrimage to India. I spent seven blissful months, while Baba worked on easing my hurt heart. During that time, I had my first Baba-darshan dream : I had gone on a side trip to Nepal. After my first day of trekking in the Himalayas, having witnessed a colorful Nepali wedding, and heard the tinkling of donkey bells all day, I drifted contentedly off to sleep to the musical and childlike sounds of the Sherpa guides’ conversation.
I dreamed that I attended my high school prom, wearing a silk gown of pink and white (in real life I hadn’t gone). Not only did Baba heal this small wound, He was my date. As I approached Him, He smiled and gave me a knowing wink. I know who you are and what you are and it’s okay. He then took my prom program and signed it M.S. Irani.
When I awoke, I looked at my trekking permit. The signature reads, « M.S. Irani. » I slumbered the rest of the night in a bed of roses.
Ever since, the thorns of those roses have been piercing the protective armor around my heart, by Baba within and Baba without. With each prick, more of His heavenly fragrance is released. This scent more than compensates for what my mind interprets as suffering and what my Baba-soul joyfully sees as release from suffering. Slowly but surely, He is making my lovely inner world my outer world too.
[modifier] The Punk And The God-Man
This is a story about how one man’s music led a street kid from across the world to his own soul.
When I was about seven years old I fell in love with a song called « Pinball Wizard. » I used to listen to my sister’s « Tommy » album for hours and hours, never really paying attention to who (pardon the pun) the performers were or what it was about.
By the time I was twelve, I was heavily into Elton John. That’s when the « Tommy » film was released (with Elton John in the cast), and my brother took me to see it. After the scene where The Who smashed their equipment, I was in love with The Who. (Destruction is fine entertainment to a street kid from Philadelphia !) After becoming a bona-fide Who freak, I later began to experiment with various controlled substances. (Some more fine Philly entertainment.) To be like Pete, I began to play the guitar (and smash some, too).
Then, in 1977, Pete wrote an article for Rolling Stone magazine about his faith in some « Indian guru, » as I looked at it at the time. At the end of the article there was an address for Meher Baba Information, so I sent away to see what my guru, Pete Townshend, was into. I received photos and pamphlets which led me to believe that this Indian guy thought he was God or something ! I immediately threw the literature under the bed, grumbling, « Who the ‘f... ’ does this guy think he is ? ! ? ! ? ! ? ! »
I promptly continued my transcendental mediCAtion and didn’t think about that impostor for a long time. About six to eight months later, I was lying in my room reading (and listening to The Who, I might add) when I came across the pamphlets. I opened one and it said something like, « If God can be found through any medium of drug, God is not worthy of being God. » It went on to say how not only did drugs not HELP one spiritually, they actually do spiritual as well as mental HARM. I was floored, stripped naked before the truth !
Even though I was skeptical, as a joke (or so I thought), I began to tell my friends that I was a follower of Meher Baba ! Over the next year or so I kept feeling drawn to read those pamphlets. By this time I had abandoned drugs and actually WAS in love with Baba (the joke was on ME, right !).
One day, a friend and I were in a mall — the same bookstore in the mall that we had gone to for years, but this time when we walked in, something was different. As soon as we walked in and looked across the crowded store, one of the books wasn’t on the shelf properly, and the cover was facing out instead of the spine, and whose face was on that book ? You guessed it, Baba himself. It was called The Mastery Of Consciousness by Allan Cohen.
I brought the book home (don’t worry, I paid for it !) and as I walked into the bedroom where my brother was with the book still in the bag, I heard the words, « Meher Baba lives again[... ] » An inner calling ? God’s voice ? Nope. It was the record on the stereo that my brother was listening to ! The song was « Candles In The Rain » by Melanie, and I felt that Baba was speaking directly to me through those old blown out speakers !
Over the years I’ve had many similar experiences with Baba. I’m married now, and my wife Kim is also a Baba-person. As it turns out, the first concert I ever went to was The Who in 1975, and my future wife was somewhere in that same arena listening to those Baba-inspired songs.
I also wonder in what ways Baba used the famous « deaf, dumb, and blind boy » to prepare Kim and me for the amazing journey of our lives together, raising two autistic children. I am still a fan of Pete Townshend and his music, but now I know it was Baba’s means of bringing me home. Little did I know that no one just casually comes into Baba’s orbit, and He uses any means necessary.
So, thankyou, beloved Baba, for your love and patience with a lost street kid, and thank you, Pete, for being the means.
[modifier] Meeting Meher Baba
My first experience with Meher Baba was in autumn 1993. A photo of Baba hung by my friend’s door. When I asked who He was, the response was simple — something about His being a spiritual man who lived in India and worked to awaken love in people’s hearts. Within a few weeks, I met this « man » in a dream :
My husband and I were standing in a living room looking out the window, waiting for our friend, Teresa, to bring Baba to us. With a childlike air of anticipation, playfulness, and excitement we bounced about, waiting and watching for their arrival.
« Baba is coming to OUR house to see US ! » I said breathlessly. We spotted two figures strolling up the street — Baba in front — with Teresa a few steps behind. First I noticed how Teresa walked. Her hands were deep in her pockets and she was casually moving along with a look of great pleasure about sharing this very special friend.
Baba’s stride was a quick, flowing, gliding motion without much bounce. He was wearing loose-fitting white cotton clothes with a long, lightweight robe. He had a full beard. His dark, curly hair settled just below His shoulders.
As our guests entered the house, I moved quickly toward Baba and extended my hand with the intention of giving a firm handshake. Quickly, though gently, He drew back. Embarrassed and puzzled, I asked Teresa, « How do I greet Baba ? »
She turned to Meher Baba and said, « Show her your LOVE. » Carefully He placed His palms together as if in prayer, looking into my eyes. Instantly, I knew how to greet Baba !
I moved closer, noticing He was a bit taller than me. He seemed not to be touching the floor. Gently curling my hands around His, I felt an indescribable sensation the moment our hands connected. My surroundings disappeared and I felt God. I longed to hold on forever.
I was so absorbed in this union, I forgot my husband. He was there to meet Baba, too. Now the dream became quite playful. I turned, motioned quickly for him and giggled, « Get a load of this, Rich ! Come here ! Check this out ! » He too, placed his hands around Baba’s, making the same connection. Rich grinned as he glanced my way.
Wishing to offer Baba something to eat, I went to the refrigerator and found a small cup of strawberry soy yogurt. He sat in an overstuffed chair covered with a brown and white woven throw. As I offered Him the treat, His face lit up. With bright twinkling eyes and a huge grin, He settled back, spooning the yogurt into His mouth, making hand gestures expressing His delight.
When I woke up, I immediately called Teresa. She knew how special these visits from Baba are, so she suggested I come over and share the dream with her.
As I described every detail, she listened and smiled while soft tears of joy filled her eyes. She brought out many books about Baba and showed me what He looked like in His early years.
I recognized the same chair on the cover of The Ancient One. I also learned that Baba was silent for His last 44 years, communicating with unique hand gestures. She described how people would often bring food to Baba as they received His love offering. Many darshan photos captured the way He’d place His palms together and nod gently.
When I eventually saw a film of Baba, I enjoyed watching the familiar, graceful, fluid movement of His walk. In time I learned the Prayer for Baba’s Lovers, deeply understanding the longing to hold fast to Baba’s daaman.
Now I keep photos of Meher Baba close at hand, to share His radiant face and comforting name with others. Just a few weeks ago I received an early morning call from a friend. « Guess what, Cynthia ? I dreamed about Meher Baba last night[... ]. «
Oh, Baba. I LOVE You !
[modifier] Memories Of Moonlight
One of Meher Baba’s early followers, Kitty Davy, referred to herself as a hard nut to crack. I understand that metaphor very well, for I too have felt Baba’s tap at the shell of my heart. Over the years He has tugged, whittled, wooed, and pried it until, in a very humbling moment, I finally opened my heart to Him. But that took me about twenty years.
My first, conscious introduction to Baba came in 1972, when I was in my twenties. I was in a bookstore that offered primarily Eastern philosophy. As I stood looking at the books on the shelves, the owner, a gentleman from India, stood waiting to assist.
After I had spent a good forty minutes studying the tides, the owner approached and asked if he could help. « What exactly are you looking for ?, » he asked. « I really don’t know, » was my reply. He reached up and pulled a book entitled Listen, Humanity, written by Meher Baba, from the shelf « Why don’t you start with this ?, » he asked.
He walked away, and I opened the book to have a look. On the inside cover was a photograph of Baba. As His eyes found mine, I felt my heart fall into the photograph. I was snagged, caught by the big fisherman who had had His eye on me for such a very long time.
Then He began to reel me in. Over the next twenty years my relationship with Baba was strictly one-on-one, because I didn’t know anyone else who followed His teachings. I read Listen, Humanity, and for the first time in my life, spirituality began to make sense.
I found another of Baba’s books, God Speaks, and attempted to read and understand it. That book was a bit more difficult for me but extremely powerful.
Somewhere along the way I acquired a 5 » x 7 » photograph of Meher Baba that says « Don’t Worry, Be Happy » on it. That photo traveled with me through the tumultuous seventies and eighties, through my years of hide and seek with Baba, my years of a divorce, and to the many many places I called home. All the while, this beguiling man from India was unwavering in His gaze and in His message, « Don’t Worry, Be Happy. »
By the early nineties, the big fisherman had me where He wanted me. That old shell of my heart was primed for grace. I had found a source for books about Baba and suddenly had a voracious appetite to know more of Him.
One afternoon, as I was reading a book about Baba’s early years in the United States, I turned the page and there before me was a picture of Him standing with His arms open and slightly away from His body. There was an instantaneous recognition and a flashback to the memory of a being that I had seen in the middle of the night, at the foot of my bed, when I was seven years old. That would have been 1952.
It was a warm, early summer night. There were few air conditioners during that time, and in our house all the windows in the bedroom were open to allow the breezes to slip in from time to time to ease my sister and me, two young girls at the time. There was hardly more than a year between us, she being the oldest. We were, and still are, very close.
On this night, I can only tell you that my eyes just popped open, and standing at the foot of my bed was a being made of moonlight. Light from the moon came through the windows and softly illuminated the room, but standing at the foot of our bed was a column of condensed moonlight in the shape of a human form.
It was just being there with arms open and slightly away from its body. The hair was long to the shoulders, the stature medium. The facial features could not clearly be seen.
I was frightened, and I wanted to turn on the light which was on the opposite side of my sister. But in order to turn it on I had to move my body over my sister’s. I reached for the lamp, never taking my eyes from the figure.
As my body touched my sister’s, she, at the sight of the very same being, spoke in a gasp, « Who is that ? » I didn’t answer her but continued reaching until I finally snapped on the light. As instantly as light filled the room, the being was gone.
Now, years later, I realized that Baba was allowing me to know that He was the being of moonlight. And I had always thought it was an angel ! In that instant of knowing, Baba’s divinity was sealed in my heart forever.
In that moment of recognition, I felt the lightning of God’s love surge through my body. I cried and I cried and kept asking, « Me ? » « Me, Baba ? » As if Baba might have made a mistake. But there was no mistake. The love I felt at that moment was truly meant for me.
The resistance was gone. What had occurred could no longer be denied. The student was finally ready, and in a split second, the teacher had appeared. The nut was split and the harvest had begun.
