When Meher Baba visited Meher Center, He often met with individuals and small groups in the little intimate cabin that would become known as the Lagoon Cabin. While each person's first meeting with Meher Baba in 1952 was unique, a common pattern emerges from the written and recorded experiences of those who were there: many instantly felt Baba’s divine love, at home in His warm embrace and being lost and found in His amazingly beautiful brown eyes. Here are just a few accounts of those who met Meher Baba that year.

When Filis Frederick and Adele Wolkin entered the Lagoon cabin, FIlis wondered how Baba would appear. “...At my first glimpse of Baba the thought flashed through my head, ‘He looks Egyptian!’ The long eyebrows, dark almond eyes, the golden skin. He embraced me and my heart beat fast, ‘He is mine. He is mine.’ He gestured to a chair beside Him. Baba 'asked' through Adi, ’How do I look?’ I said to Adi (because someone had misinformed me we could not speak directly to Him in the New Life), ‘He looks ill.’ As soon as I said it, I felt, 'No! He looks beautiful.’

"Eyes like black diamonds looked lovingly into mine. I felt my heart overflow with His Love. He seemed so familiar, so intimate, so close.”[I] 

Francis Brabazon had his first meeting with Baba on May 9. Francis, who was to become one of Meher Baba’s mandali members and to whom Baba would say in 1959, "Your Stay With God is also an unparalleled composition. You do not know how, in the future, it will influence the hearts of humanity."  [II]  

Francis recalled that first glimpse of his Master, “He looked as I had imagined a Sadguru would look—a man who is nothing and everything, a man who is dead and alive, a man who has gone through everything. He is quite small, short and slight. His eyes are the most remarkable thing about Him; very large eyes, and they are constantly moving. In an ordinary person we would call it restlessness, but not Him. He did not convey that at all, but conveyed activity.”[III] 

On May 10, 1952, Fred and Ella Winterfeldt were called for their much awaited meeting with Meher Baba. Fred noted, “Baba looked at me over Ella's shoulder, winked and grinned from ear to ear. And at that moment, reason—four years of reasoning—like a burst balloon went out the door. It was replaced by instantaneous knowledge, recognition and conviction of the absolute truth of that with whom I was faced. That feeling sustained me for the rest of my life.”[IV] 

Evelyn Blackshaw saw Baba as Krishna, a divine teenage boy, with beautiful curls, floating on a pink cloud. She wrote, “I knew I was seeing Baba as I really knew him, such love flooded my heart that I almost burst with it. I know Baba had me sit near him and patted me and drew me close but he still remained that beautiful young man on his pink cloud. I never really saw what Baba looked like physically until I saw him again in New York, then I saw him in his physical body.”[V] 

Darwin and Jeanne Shaw, who had not seen Baba since 1934, were delighted to introduce their children to Baba. Their daughter Leatrice wrote, “He didn’t really look like any of His pictures. He looked different every time we saw Him and also from moment to moment. His eyes were so large and luminous and they would flash. He was so dynamic and there was such a radiance and beauty about Him that he was completely absorbing. One couldn’t take the eyes off Him but my sister and I had to because we were taking shorthand notes of what was being said since we didn’t want to lose a record of all this.”[VI]  

Four-year-old Larry Karrasch captured the moment through the wondrous eyes of a child. Upon meeting Baba, he remarked: “Look mommy, there’s God!”[VII]  

Bal Natu chronicled the beauty and depth of those meetings, “When Baba gestured, ‘How are you?’ to any of them, it was not a surface inquiry, but something much, much deeper—a compassionate concern for the person's physical and spiritual wellbeing. As they looked at Him, their smiles often turned into sobs of rare delight, for the dream had become incredibly alive. When they came out of the Lagoon Cabin, it seemed that something sublime had flowed into them and its outer expression was the tears that coursed down their cheeks. A great change and an awakening!”[VIII] 

[I] “Memories of ‘52,” by Filis Frederick, Awakener Magazine Online, Vol. 14, No. 2, p. 6

[II] Lord Meher, Online Edition, by Bhau Kalchuri, p.4378 

[III] Francis Brabazon, Poet of the Silent Word, by Ross Keating, p. 85

[IV] Lord Meher, Online Edition, by Bhau Kalchuri, p. 3063

[V] “Meetings With Meher Baba,Inner and Outer," by Evelyn Blackshaw, The Glow, August 1973, p. 16

[VI] “Living Meher Baba’s Life," by Leatrice Johnston, Glow International, Nov 1984, p.6 

[VII] Talk by Larry Karrasch, Meher Center Meeting Place, April 21, 2022, Meher Spiritual Center, Inc. Archives

[VIII] Glimpses of the God Man, by Bal Natu, Vol 3, Part I, p. 42

For those of us fortunate enough to have visited Meher Center in the springtime, we're familiar with the beauty of the grounds coming back to life after a long winter. Grass begins to grow, trees fill in with leaves, flowers bloom, and the beauty of His divine presence wafts sweetly on the warming breeze. For the Center's Grounds Crew, spring offers a brief period of respite between big winter projects and the summer's never-ending race to stay ahead of pruning. As longtime Center worker Bryan West puts it, "The spring is really a moment to sit back and enjoy the fruits of the year's labors. A week or two of Azalea blossoms, the light green color of the new Oak and Hickory leaves." He goes on to say, "March is a quiet time between the projects of Winter—we like to get a lot done when there are no snakes and alligators—and the season of pruning."

While Bryan may have painted a picture of inactivity, after speaking with him it's clear the Grounds Crew is still hard at work. There are roofs and foundations to be cleared of fallen leaves and other plant debris to ensure moisture isn't collecting. There are potholes to be filled in on the roads after rainy days when cars are driven too fast. They're kept busy by the seemingly never-ending effort of collecting and hauling away firewood from last season's storms. Firebreaks need to be cleared to allow a tractor to come through and disc—part of Meher Center's ongoing fire prevention plan. And of course, beginning the soon-to-be full-time job of keeping up with the Center's abundant pruning regime. 

Whether or not spring is actually a period of rest for the Grounds Crew is up for debate, but the fact that their year-round service and dedication maintains the beauty of the Center property and helps preserve the unique atmosphere of His love on Center is indisputable.

If you were a young person in New York in the 1960s who heard about the God-Man, you likely would have made your way to a Monday Night Baba meeting. There, the door would have swung open to a striking sight: a tall, unusual-looking character, often wearing a black coat, a black hat, a black tie, and a white shirt. “What do you want?” he would have asked you in a gruff, Eastern European accent with a slight speech impediment. After a brief interrogation, he would have let you in to learn about Baba.

This was John Bass, Meher Baba’s devoted lover for over 35 years. 

John first met Baba in New York City on May 20, 1932, and spent time with Him at Harmon on Hudson along with Baba’s other early lovers during those heady, early spring days. John wrote to Baba after one visit [i] telling Him how He had helped quell John’s two “greatest enemies”: fear, and what a friend later called John’s “love of the ladies” (something he struggled with all his life). John also asked Baba to help him see his “mission in life.”

In June of 1944, John traveled down to Myrtle Beach along with Norina Matchabelli, Darwin Shaw, Filis Frederick, Adele Wolkin, and Frank Eaton to “take a look” at the property that would become the Meher Spiritual Center. Darwin describes the thrill of the whole group, setting foot for the first time in that pristine, primordial place that they knew was consecrated to God.[ii] John wrote to Baba that the Center was “undeveloped, not easily accessible, but may have great possibilities.”[iii] He also expressed that he had bought a prefabricated cottage for the Center that had not yet been delivered. It would later be known as the Lake Cabin. 

John played a central role in developing the Center, using any time he could get off from his work as a machinist at a tool and dye factory to contribute to the work. In 1947, Elizabeth wrote to John and Darwin: “Baba is definitely coming in the near future, so take care of Myrtle Beach properties as you would take care of Baba, and work hard to get rid of mosquitoes.”[iv]

Like the handful of others who had worked so hard preparing Baba’s Home in the West, John hadn’t seen Baba for years when He finally arrived in 1952. At this long-awaited reunion, John described:

“I felt such great divinity in Baba's presence. I don't know how to describe it. It is something I have never felt before or afterwards: the feeling of Baba's terrific power and energy. At the same time a certain peace permeated me, so that I remarked to Elizabeth, who was outside the room at the time, ‘But, Elizabeth, Baba is tremendous, magnificent!’ Elizabeth replied, 'Yes, Baba is what he is.'"[v]

John participated fully in each of Baba’s trips to the Center, his name mentioned over and over in various descriptions, though he was usually not quoted heavily (except, of course, for when he quarreled with Ivy Duce, which seemed to amuse Baba—at one point in 1956, as the two began discussing their different Baba groups in New York, Baba turned to Ivy and said, “Ivy, are you happy? How do you feel? ... Are you ready for a nice fight?”[vi]). Toward the end of Baba's first visit, He asked John and Darwin whether they would be prepared to spend two weeks with Him in New York in July when He returned to the East Coast. They shook on it, not knowing that by then Baba would have had His accident and would be suffering from a broken leg, arm, and nose.

Still, Baba kept their appointment in New York. So John helped drive Him to a New York doctor’s appointment, sat next to Him as He distributed grapes and cherries to the many lovers who came to see Him at Ivy Duce’s apartment, and, along with Darwin Shaw, spent unforgettable hours sitting with Him while the men Mandali were in the city, sometimes talking, sometimes not. 

The next time John would see Baba would be at the "Three Incredible Weeks," where he joined nineteen other Western men disciples in India for an intimate time with the Master. At one point, at Baba's request that each man say something, John said, "I really do not know what to say ... My mind is a blank." Baba replied, "To be blank is an excellent thing."[vii]

Back in New York, John continued to follow Baba’s order to lead the Monday Night meetings along with Fred and Ella Winterfeldt, creating plenty of opportunities for those sometimes startling first impressions he made at the door. John wasn’t oblivious to his effect on people: once he said to Baba, “You know, I don’t think they like me so much—you should get someone else to do this job.”[viii] But Baba said that he should continue with His assignment. So John kept his post as long as he could, essentially his whole life.

However unapproachable John might have initially appeared, he had a kindness that seeped through. As one Baba lover who met him in Myrtle Beach said, “He came across as being a little bit gruff but with a heart of gold underneath it … a humble, solid lover of Meher Baba. And just an interesting character.”[ix]

John had three different young Baba lovers as roommates after he retired to his little flat in a project in New York. One of them, Irwin Luck, describes how he and his brother would have breakfast with John every morning and talk about Baba, Baba, Baba—stories from the times that John spent with Him, and how He continued to guide and direct them.

Once, Irwin was working on his book, The Silent Master Meher Baba, and needed borders for the mock-up that would be sent directly to Baba. He started cutting up John’s Life magazines to paste the borders into his book. Irwin describes the scene of John walking in on him doing this one day—scraps of Life magazine all over the floor, him chopping away. “What are you doing!?” John asked. As Irwin relates: “I tell you, you don’t mess with [John], he would throw you out! But I told him, ‘I’m doing this book for Baba, which is Baba’s life!’ When I said ‘Baba,’ that was the magic word. And he said, ‘Well, I guess it’s all right.’”

Irwin says that one young man, with whom John was particularly gruff when he first arrived at the door of the Monday Night meeting, ended up becoming good friends with him. It was that friend who took care of John as he died. Once, years before, Baba had told John that he would “make a real Saint John” of him. And, after a long and human life well-lived, after being that unusual voice heard next to the Avatar, that shape in the door as people sought God, John’s friend said that John did experience “something great” at the time of his passing—that he was so, so happy. As John signed off one of his letters to Baba: “I know not how to express my grateful thanks for your kindness and love. Yours, with all love, J. John Bass.”[x]

[i] Letter: From John Bass to Baba, Date Unknown, Avatar Meher Baba Trust Digital Archives, Identifier 215_060 

[ii] As Only God Can Love, by Darwin Shaw, p. 52

[iii] Letter: From John Bass to Baba, July 17, 1944, Avatar Meher Baba Trust Digital Archives, Identifier 216_004

[iv] Lord Meher, Online Edition, by Bhau Kalchuri, p. 258

[v] Lord Meher, Online Edition, by Bhau Kalchuri, p. 3044

[vi] Lord Meher, Online Edition, by Bhau Kalchuri, p. 4046

[vii] Lord Meher, Online Edition, by Bhau Kalchuri, p. 3563

[viii] Irwin Luck, Personal Communication

[ix] Judith Shotwell, Personal Communication

[x] Letter: From John Bass to Baba, Date Unknown, Avatar Meher Baba Trust Digital Archives, Identifier 215_060