MEHER SPIRITUAL CENTER
Meher Baba's Home in the West
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September Newsletter 2020 |
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"The purpose of life is to realize our oneness with the Infinite; this can be achieved through love for God. Divine love makes us true to ourselves and to others. It makes us live honestly, comprehending that God Himself is Infinite Honesty.
Divine love is the solution to all our difficulties. It frees us from every kind of binding. It makes us speak truly, think truly and act truly. It makes us feel one with the whole universe. Divine love purifies our heart and glorifies our being. I give you my love and blessings."
Meher Baba
Lord Meher, Online Edition, pg. 3218
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Dear Meher Center Friends & Family,
A loving Jai Baba from Meher Baba’s home in the West.
It feels as if the Center has suddenly turned the corner toward a more hospitable autumn with cooler weather and sunny skies. And as the number of COVID cases continues to decrease in Horry County and South Carolina, the Center’s board is contemplating when and how to reopen.
With this in mind, I want to remind you once again of the virtual community-wide gathering about reopening that will be hosted by Meher Center’s board of directors on Saturday, October 3 from 2 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. EDT. You can log on to the Zoom meeting at: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85623879182.
We hope to see you then.
In Baba’s love and service,
Buz Connor
For Meher Center board and staff
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The Lord of Love is a beautiful compilation of four short films of Meher Baba. It shows our Beloved in Dehradun, India in 1954; Baba's first journey to Australia in 1956; His 64th Birthday celebration in Meherabad in 1958; and delightful times in Poona—including spending time at Guruprasad and enjoying the nature walks and gardens—in 1961. A lovely soundtrack adds a flavor of devotion to His intimate presence.
Video, 35:07
Courtesy of Sheriar Foundation.
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Appointments with God
By Jamie Keehan
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Like so many of us through the years, Agnes Baron’s first meeting with God happened in the Lagoon Cabin. She had devoted six years to founding and caring for Meher Mount, a center for Baba in California. Finally, in early April of 1952, she was given an appointment to meet Him for the first time at Meher Center. The drive across the country to Myrtle Beach was difficult, and she arrived exhausted and multiple days late. But the next morning, when she finally stood in front of the Lagoon Cabin, she was informed that she wasn’t late at all: Baba had sent her a telegram she hadn’t received, asking her to arrive on April 26. It was April 26. She walked inside.
Like so many people, Agnes stood in front of Meher Baba’s chair and the world changed. “There are no words to describe it. It was so fantastic. All my doubts just flew out the window. The first thing Baba did was to open His arms and put my head on His shoulder. Something out of this world happens to you when Baba puts His arms around you. It's indescribable. What I saw sitting on the couch and what I felt was sitting on the couch were two different things. Without any more rationalizing, I accepted Him 100 percent. [Afterwards,] I was consciously watching Him to see if He was going to make any mistakes, but deep down I had already accepted Him.”
In September of 2020, there aren’t dozens of people waiting expectantly outside the Lagoon Cabin for their personal contact with Baba, as there were in 1952, and there aren’t guests and visitors walking by, peeping through the windows, feeling some undefined pull inside to the chair where He still sits. But Baba is still making His appointments, and we are still keeping them.
Gabe, a Meher Center worker, is part of the team tending to the Lagoon Cabin in ways that would be difficult during normal times. Right now, that means painting: using three different, carefully-selected kinds of coating to protect the window frames, the window sills, the thresholds that Baba walked over, the steps that have been worn by decades of lovers. When asked how he feels about working on the Lagoon Cabin, he says, “You know, I would say a lot of my time here is absolute confusion as to why He picked me and being tickled pink that He did, and wanting to live up to that. [I’ve] got to live up to that trust.”
That means doing slow, painstaking work. And as he works, Gabe thinks about all those other appointments that Baba made and kept. “I’m working on a window that Baba looked through while He was sitting in His chair in the Lagoon Cabin. These are the windows that beamed in sunlight behind Baba’s chair… the ones that lit Baba while He was having His individual [interviews] with folk.”
If, like so many of us right now, your own appointment at the Lagoon Cabin is through live streaming, you won’t notice any changes inside the building. When you come back, you likely won’t notice a difference on the outside, either, because the renovations are as seamless as possible, keeping every detail as close as possible to when Agnes Baron walked in there sixty-eight years ago at just the moment Baba had scheduled. The Lagoon Cabin will still be waiting as it always has, and it will hint at the same truth that it did when Meher Baba sat there physically, shining with infinite joy as His loved ones, new and old, finally arrived at His feet. The truth that He is always with us, waiting in our hearts, where the real appointment with God is kept.
*Lord Meher, Online Edition, 3048
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Frank Eaton: A Laborer of Love
By Preeti Hay
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Frank Eaton was one of the early caretakers at the Meher Center. In the caretaker role between 1943 and 1948, he lived at the Center and took care of the large property that was still being developed for Meher Baba’s visit.
What a time, what a position and what a story to find oneself in! I was inspired to know more about this man who had this desire and good fortune. But wouldn’t this association of will and disposition have to be orchestrated by a larger force in the universe? I braced myself at how little I knew about him. There are so many lives that went into the creation of the Meher Center, heroes that are not forgotten but who have merged into the collective history of making this a place of true pilgrimage. Unique as they were, their love still permeates through the atmosphere at the Center, for where else would such love go?
Frank first heard about Meher Baba from Darwin Shaw in Schenectady and started going to Baba meetings. There he first learned about the Center that was going to be developed in Myrtle Beach and volunteered right away to go down and help with putting the place together. While working at the Center, Frank lived in a tiny cabin called the Coop. The beach was his shower and food was preserved in an ice box that floated on the lake. Frank helped with any and everything that was needed: building the beach road, the famous drainage of the swamp project that was led by Darwin, the mosquito eradication project, cutting and hauling trees. You name it and he probably did it.
When Frank married in 1948, Baba told him that he could not live on the Center anymore because he was married. He continued to live in Myrtle Beach and took on a teaching job. In 1952, Frank met Baba in the Lagoon Cabin and Baba said, “At last Frank has come. Frank we were talking so much about you; you worked so lovingly at the Center and I wanted to see you so much. I am happy. Very happy.”* Following that was Baba’s invitation for him to attend The Three Incredible Weeks darshan in India. It was there that Baba told Frank that he could return to the Center as a caretaker while living off Center with his family. And he did just that, gave up his livelihood and remained His caretaker for eighteen years: from 1954 to 1972.
Everyone who knew Frank remembers his sincerity, devotion and an unassuming sense of duty. The Center was a part of him just as he was a part of it. All the elements in his life aligned so that he could remain there and serve. Through the financial difficulties of supporting a family with three children and a wife on meagre caretaking wages, he had his wife Irene as a rock behind him. Though it was not always easy for her, she was strong, willful, practical and driven: a piece in the puzzle that kept him going. His three children practically grew up on the Center and have wonderful memories of a very dedicated father who chased away trespassers, hunters, fishermen and wild animals; sometimes all at once to keep the Center safe.
One of Frank’s jobs was to get on the phone with Elizabeth Patterson every morning, from the Original Kitchen (where the phone is still), and take orders. Now it was not really the orders themselves that were the stuff of fun, but Elizabeth’s paranormal ability to know exactly where Frank was at all times. This turned into a cat and mouse chase throughout Frank’s career where Elizabeth would seem to materialize every time Frank took a break while he was supposed to be working. And there she was, another player in this divine placement to keep him on his toes at the Center.
His children would attest that Frank was very quiet about his inner relationship with Baba. His son George remembers him meditating a lot, just going inwards without sharing too much externally. “But my father had qualities that reflected his relationship with Baba: He was very dutiful and very loving. He was definitely the father of hugs and kisses."**
I am reminded of Rumi when he said, “The place where you are right now, God circled on a map for you.” So when you are at Meher Center next time, and walk by the Coop cabin in the heart of the Center, you may remember the man whose life was chosen to be churned into a labor of love for the Avatar.
*Glimpses of the Godman, by Bal Natu, Volume 3, pg. 39
**Waves and Waves of Love, by Carolyn Ball, pg. 174
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