SHARE:  
M EHER S PIRITUAL C ENTER
Youth Sahavas Celebration and Video
June Newsletter 2020
Shaw Family collection
It is the privilege of youth to be full of energy and hope. Not being caught up in any grooves, their dreams about the future have the advantage of being inspired by an unfettered imagination. In the glow of a newborn love, or in the warmth of newly caught enthusiasm, they are quick to respond to the call for action and self-sacrifice ... Let your watchwords always be Love and Service. 

Meher Baba
Listen Humanity, pg. 179
Dear Meher Center Family and Friends,

A loving Jai Baba to all. In this special edition of Meher Center’s monthly newsletter, we are taking the time to celebrate the Youth Sahavas, as this year marks its 30th summer. Part of the celebration is a video, including content lovingly contributed by Youth Sahavas participants throughout the decades. Click the picture directly below this letter to watch it!

Hard to believe that this wonderful event began all the way back in 1991, when Kitty Davy attended the first one, at age 99. Since then, nearly a thousand teenagers have attended and many have become part of the staff that has kept the event alive and thriving all these years.

And just to give you a heads up: early next week we will be sending out detailed information via email about a virtual Youth Sahavas to be held from July 31st to August 2nd on Zoom. So, please keep an eye out for this exciting opportunity to come together in Baba's love.

In Baba’s love and service,


Buz Connor
For Meher Center board and staff
A Celebration of Youth Sahavas Video
Open Up the Door:
Youth Sahavas and the Mandali
By Jamie Keehan
Jane Haynes, Kitty Davey, & Wendy Connor
 
In 1991, shortly after the first Youth Sahavas, Kitty Davy called Buz Connor. “You have no idea how wonderful it is,” she told him. “You have to come for it next year.”
 
Kitty was 99 at the time, but she had been invited to the very beginning of Youth Sahavas, the orientation where the first participants and the first counselors started to get to know one another for the first time. One of the games they played was to find other people who had experiences in common. Unfortunately, Kitty was the only person who had ever milked a cow. Nevertheless, she felt it: that deep connectedness and love in the room that have continued to be a central part of the event for the past 30 summers. It was Kitty’s first and last Youth Sahavas, as she died later that year. But there will always be pictures of her there—seated next to Jane Haynes and Wendy Connor, in a room full of teenagers, glowing.  
 
Kitty wasn’t the only one of Meher Baba’s close disciples who loved the Youth Sahavas from the very beginning. Margaret Bernstein, the young adult who first gave voice to the deep desire of Baba youth for an event like the Youth Sahavas— a direct result of work Lois Jones had done with teens at the LA Sahavas— talked with the Mandali about the idea while she was in India in 1990. They were instantly behind it. Margaret also wrote to Jane Haynes, the head of the Center at the time. Jane said, “Let’s try it.”
 
And so, with that foundation, it happened: in the summer of 1991, talented and thoughtful adults came from all over to make the idea a reality. Linda Hansen was asked by Jane to help because of her extensive youth development experience. Wendy Connor joined with her youth-led improvisational theatre background. And so many others brought their love, creativity and talents: Lois Jones, Mary Leiter, Marshall Hay, Roz Taubman, Charles Haynes, Christopher Wilson, Barbara Plews. They did their best to build an event where young people could come and be fully themselves as they formed their own unique relationship with Meher Baba. And young people did come—70 of them that first year.
 
Mani wrote to the Youth Sahavas that summer on behalf of the Meherazad Mandali. That first letter begins: “We greet you Meher Minors, majoring in Beloved Meher Baba’s Love, representations of young humanity gathered together as one heart in His beautiful home … We love you, Meher Minors, and from across the oceans we join you in a thunderous: Avatar Meher Baba ki Jai!!”
 
The Youth Sahavas grew and grew. The second year there were 80 participants, by the fourth there were 120. It was filling a need and young people were responding. And as the Youth Sahavas grew, so did its deep relationship with the Mandali. Often, groups of young people would finish Youth Sahavas and go straight to India. And so it happened that, still shining from the event, they would be sitting in Mandali Hall, recounting their experiences to the Meherazad Mandali. And each of the Mandali responded to the energy and the love that filled the room. As Eruch wrote in a letter to the Youth Sahavas in 1998: “How blessed you all are that He has broken His silence in your hearts which has made it possible for you to receive the greatest gift of all— the recognition of His Being amongst you … Share this bounty with each other during this unique Sahavas occasion.”
 
But perhaps the most consistent and enthusiastic correspondent continued to be Mani. Every year, she sent a letter full to the brim of her love and support for Baba’s young lovers, and she began to send gifts, as well, for each one: photos that Baba had touched. Pieces of bark from Baba’s tree. As she wrote in a 1992 letter:
 
"In the Youth Sahavas we witness the birth of His New Humanity aspiring to see Him more clearly, to love Him more dearly, and to follow Him more nearly. Above all our hearts are moved by the affirmation of HIS Love for each one … Jai Baba from all Meherazad mandali wishing you BABA-JOY in your Sahavas with the Beloved. His sweet grace has made it happen, and the support of His wonderful team at the Center will sustain you at every need-time and feed-time in His bountiful Love."
 
In 1993, Mani sent a song to the Youth Sahavas, hand-written with hearts drawn at the top. The first verse:
 
"Drink in deep, drink in deep, liquid light of His Love/ Bask in the Sunshine of His Grace/ Melt your hearts, melt your hearts in the joy of His presence/ Drown in the beauty of His face."
 
In 1995, the year before Mani died, she sent one of the most precious gifts. It was shells that she and the other women Mandali, in a joyful, intimate moment with their Beloved, had collected on a beach in Bombay in 1952— right before they joined Baba for their first trip to the Center. Each shell had been touched by Baba. In 1995, Mani lovingly and painstakingly placed each one in its own tiny box to send to Baba’s beloved sahavasees. “Now it so happens,” she wrote, “that the seashells thus blessed with His touch in 1952 are destined for His young ones coming together at Myrtle Beach Center for the 1995 Youth Sahavas! … These precious shells are as pearls from His Ocean of Love.”
 
Two months before Mani died, the Youth Sahavas of 1996 sent a precious gift back: a video of all the participants, shining from a week of Baba’s love and presence, gathered together in front of His house. They, along with Jane Haynes and so many other long-time supporters of the event, sang for Mani another song with lyrics that she herself had written: “Open Up the Door.” Like the rest of the Mandali, Mani seemed to know that, for so many young people over so many years, the Youth Sahavas has done just that.
An Unimaginable Journey of Love
By Preeti Hay
Parinaz Mubaraki is Baba’s. There is no doubt about it when you first see her. And then when you speak to her, she emanates purity, firm faith and determination to be His. It is only afterwards that you notice that she is visually impaired.

I met Pari, as she is fondly called (also meaning angel or fairy in Hindi), when she first came to the Meher Center as a Youth Sahavas worker in 2017 from India. I gave her a tour where she walked about the Center feeling His presence not through its physical beauty, but purely through the direct connection with Him in her heart. She later told me that she has never seen an image of Beloved Baba. Therefore, I had observed during our time that there were no layers or faculties between her and her Beloved, His presence was more lucid, more alive in her entire being. And I have remembered her ever since.

Parinaz was 10 years old when she started to go blind. By age 15 she was completely blind and was juggling other health challenges. Soon after, amidst her rock bottom, she visited Meherabad with an aunt. “When I walked into the Samadhi, I felt complete peace, a sense that Baba knew all my struggles and a consolation from Him that my suffering was unavoidable,” she says. Since then she has been with Baba, had the courage to love Him and has also brought her family to Him.

It was Baba’s compassion that miraculously brought Pari to the Youth Sahavas. In 2015 she was attending the Young Adult Sahavas in Meherabad when she heard about the Youth Sahavas at Baba’s home in the West. She had never traveled solo before but had a deep longing to go. She put one step forward and the Master rewarded her with the courage for the rest of the journey. “I wanted to try traveling on my own. It was a huge, improbable thing for my parents and I to imagine, but Baba helped at every step. I found a companion to go with me. On my way back though, I had no one to travel with and was using assisted travel offered by the airlines. During the seven-hour layover, I had to sit in a waiting lounge by myself. I wondered how I would use the bathroom or get a bite to eat. I didn’t have the answers, so I took Baba’s name and fell asleep while doing that. When I woke up, across from me sat a man, who came to me and offered help. He happened to be on the same flight as me and took care of me through the entire journey.”

When the next year came along, Pari heard a deep voice within to go back to the Sahavas for a consecutive time. This time she travelled with no companion. Her time at the Sahavas was magical. “Everyone was so loving and so patient with me. I applied to be at the art tent, even though I am terrible at art,” she laughs. But her biggest take-away from being at the Center was that she was never made to feel challenged because of her blindness. In that atmosphere, the healing of her own traumatic teenage years began.

For the third time, Pari tried to come back but this time flight delays and cancellations kept her from making it to the Center. Baba obviously had other plans, and she was accepting of His will. Parinaz trusts that she will be back, when Baba orchestrates another trip for her. Meanwhile, she treasures relics from the Center: a wood chip from the original foot bridge that Baba walked on, the wood chips from the Lagoon cabin chair, and wonderful memories of being enveloped in the bubble of His love.