MEHER SPIRITUAL CENTER
Meher Baba's Home in the West
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Meher Nazar Publications collection |
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"O my lovers, I love you all! It is only because of my love for my creation that I have descended on earth. Let not your hearts be torn asunder by my declarations concerning the dropping of my body. On the contrary, accept my Divine Will cheerfully. You can never escape from me. Even if you try to escape from me, it is not possible to get rid of me. Therefore, have courage and be brave."
Meher Baba
Lord Meher Online, p. 3651
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Dear Meher Center Family and Friends,
We wish a joyous Amartithi to all who hold Meher Baba and His Center dear to their hearts. While in Satara, India in 1954 He said:
I am always with you and I am not away from you. I was, am and will remain eternally with you, and it is for promoting this realization that I have severed external contact. This will enable all persons to realize Truth by being bound to each other with internal links.*
To celebrate together His presence within, please join us for our Amartithi program this Sunday and Monday. Click here to register.
In Baba’s love and service,
Buz Connor
For Meher Center board and staff
*Lord Meher Online, p. 3651
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In this time lapse that captures the pulse of Baba's 50th Amartithi in India, Bob Fredericks demonstrates the dramatic physical build up that supports the outpouring of collective love that spools at Meherabad each January. The atmosphere is charged even when the physical structures come down, and the power of His presence still reverberates and strikes hearts.
Video, 16:54
Courtesy of Bob Fredericks
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What a Mighty Beloved
By Preeti Hay
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Meher Nazar Publications collection |
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On the morning of February 1, 1969, seventeen-year-old Wendy Haynes was busy making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for Happy Club, the Saturday gathering for some local children at the Center, when she received a call from Kitty Davy to rush to Dilruba to see Elizabeth Patterson. Wendy did not rush. The phone rang again. This time, firmly, Kitty asked why she had not left yet. Well, of course Wendy had thought she would go after Happy Club. “There won’t be Happy Club today,” came Kitty’s stark reply. Wendy’s heart went to the bottom of her stomach. Right away, she ran to Dilruba.
She found Elizabeth on her bed with two big teardrops streaming down her face. One under each eye. Elizabeth was woken up at four in the morning with a clear knowing of the words, “I know that my Redeemer liveth.” It was a verse from the Bible and also one of Elizabeth’s favorite hymns. A memorable event followed when the Western Union cable guy who had always delivered cables from India said to Elizabeth, “Miss Patterson, of all the cables I have given you, this one I don’t want to deliver.” But Elizabeth had already heard the news within. The Cable was from Adi K. Irani, Baba’s Secretary. It read: “AVATAR MEHER BABA DROPPED HIS PHYSICAL BODY AT TWELVE NOON 31 JANUARY AT MEHERABAD TO LIVE ETERNALLY IN THE HEARTS OF ALL HIS LOVERS. BELOVED BABA’S BODY WILL BE INTERRED AT MEHERABAD ON 1 FEBRUARY AT 10 A.M. IN THE TOMB HE HAD ORDERED TO BE BUILT LONG AGO.”[i]
Kitty Davy, another Western Mandali who was left behind in Myrtle Beach by Baba, also received the news alongside Elizabeth. “I was stunned but did not experience loss. I felt strongly that Baba was present where we were. I remembered the words from the Bible that came to remain with me more strongly than ever, words which daily seem a part of my being. 'I live, yet not I, the Christ liveth in me,'” she wrote in her book.[ii]
Jane Haynes, who happened to be in Atlanta, was called by Elizabeth. “Oh Joy,” was her first response because she instantly thought of Baba’s suffering and His final release from it.
After making these essential calls, Elizabeth and Kitty got right to work in this supercharged atmosphere. While solemness enveloped the day, they did not let it paralyze them. They were trained in Baba’s way: to stay busy, to do what would please Him. Elizabeth felt that her work was to call and inform all the Meher Baba group heads across the country so that they could spread the news.
At the Center, she called a meeting of the nearby community to share the ungraspable news of the physical death of God. Tears, sadness, and shock gripped His young lovers, especially the ones who were to meet Him in the spring of that year, for the very first time, at a darshan called for by Him. Obviously, the question arose if they should rush to India, to see His body for the last time. While this was later discouraged by the Mandali in India, at the time Elizabeth had the same instinct: to not go in order to honor the invitation Baba had given earlier for the darshan program later that year.
Despite Baba’s dropping the body, the darshan still happened. The story of the Last Darshan, or the Great Darshan as it came to be called, and that of Amartithi go hand in hand. They cannot be separated as two events, and if we must separate them, then we cannot miss the obvious thread of His epic presence in the spirit running through these events. Wendy shares, “At the Last Darshan, we were to go to Baba’s tomb. I was dreading it, because you see at the end of the East-West Gathering Baba had us go to the tomb. There we were, leaving His radiant form to go to a cold, dank crypt. But, when we went in 1969, as soon as I crossed the threshold, I felt a wave of joy. I heard Baba say, ‘I haven’t gone anywhere. I am always with you.’ For me, it was the beginning of my inner journey.”
Amartithi raises the glaring question in many: How could God die? But the answer could be found in another question: Where does God live? At the Great Darshan, where His lovers went thousands of miles to bow to the Beloved in their hearts, Francis Brabazon called this act of their coming “an entirely different order of devotion.” He went on to say, “He required a few to do what the many, what everyone, must eventually do: journey across the world of illusion to take darshan of Him in their hearts. What a Beloved is our Beloved; what a mighty Beloved.”
On the first anniversary of this eternal date, Brabazon, now himself thousands of miles away in Australia, said, “By His act of dropping His body He showed that He expected us to seek His Reality, and He challenged us to measure up to His expectation ... He came in order to go; and He went so that we could come.”[iii]
[i] Love Alone Prevails, by Kitty Davy, p. 674
[ii] Ibid.
[iii] Talks by Francis Brabazon, Courtesy of Avatar’s Abode Trust
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Caring for Meher Center: Vista Work |
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How many times have you stood in a building on the Center and looked out over the glimmering, sunlit lake? The natural beauty is astounding, but did you know that each of those views is carefully tended by Center workers?
Every two or three years, grounds worker Bryan West and a few dedicated volunteers embark on what they call “Vista Work.” This means going to each and every building that borders the lake and creating a “window” in the lush South Carolina vegetation surrounding it. Many of the buildings have more than one such “window”: even the tiny Hermitage has two or three!
Each view takes a lot of work. If you come to the Center now, you may get to see the process. The team typically spends an afternoon to a whole day per “window.” One person stands at the building looking at the view, while the other hauls their tools (chainsaws, handsaws, loppers) down into the forest. They traverse the areas impacting the foreground, mid-ground and distant views (including sometimes scrambling into the Wax Myrtle trees hanging out over the lake). At each point, the person at the cabin tells them where to cut—down to the specific branch—to create a breathtaking vista for the guests who will visit that building over the coming years. “It’s teamwork,” says Bryan, who has led the Vista Work for over a decade. “You can’t see anything when you’re down there, so you have to rely on each other.”
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Padri's Immortal Master
by Jamie Leonard
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Meher Nazar Publications collection |
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On January 30, 1969, Meher Baba called Padri from Meherabad to Meherazad for seven days. As he was leaving Meherabad, Mohammed, the God-intoxicated Mast, said, “Padri will come back tomorrow.” When he was told that Padri was to stay with Baba for a week, Mohammed clarified, “Tomorrow, Dada [Baba] is coming here and is going to join Gustadji [who had died].”[i]
After Padri arrived at Meherazad on his motorcycle, Baba told him that he would have duty the next day and should come when called. That night, Baba began having violent, painful spasms. At 3:30 a.m He called Padri to Him, along with Eruch, Pendu, Bhau, and Goher. The spasms were so bad that they lifted Baba off the bed, and the Mandali had to hold Him down by the arms and legs. Later, at 8:00 a.m., He called Padri back along with more of the men and women Mandali. He told them, “Goher is not responsible for my health. Remember this, that I am God!”[ii] Then the spasms began again.
At noon, seeing that the Western treatments weren’t working, Padri began to use his extensive knowledge of homeopathy to try and help Baba. But at 12:15 p.m., Baba had an excruciating spasm that made Him choke. And then suddenly, unexpectedly, He left His body—left it bereft of His warmth, His humor, His constant, meticulous human presence. According to some accounts, the last gesture He made in this life was to tease Padri about his skills in homeopathy.[iii]
When at last the group had come to grips with the fact that Baba was no longer in the body, Padri got on his motorcycle and headed back to Meherabad as Mohammed had predicted. He opened Baba’s Samadhi, which had been waiting for His physical form since 1927, and prepared it for his Beloved, removing the stone flooring so that Baba’s body could be placed within it.
Padri had been with his King since 1922 when (as he once explained to visiting pilgrims asking for a “Baba story”) he promised his mother to visit Baba; was charmed by the atmosphere; and stayed.[iv] He was a talented machinist, a quiet authority, a great problem solver, and always an obedient slave to his Master, whom he often referred to in exalted terms such as “the King” or “the Emperor.” Baba had stationed him for decades as one of the four “pillars of Meherabad,” responsible for the constant upkeep and care of that holy place.
And now, Baba’s order meant dealing with the logistics of the sudden river of Baba’s lovers arriving from all over the world to see their Beloved in the flesh one last time. That first year, when it was all so unexpected, this meant tasks like putting up signs and managing the constant overflow of vehicles and people. But Padri would remain the key executor of Amartithi logistics (which would soon involve lodging and food and tents and generators and water pumps and bathrooms) until his death in 1983.
A Mandali member told a pilgrim once that Padri was the only of Baba’s companions whose life didn’t change after that first Amartithi when He dropped His body. The pilgrim asked Padri if that could possibly be true. He replied, “I’ve got everything and the Giver of everything. Why should I change? You understand? ... I got the blessing, I got the giver of the blessing, and He’s still there. And I’ll keep on getting it. So why should I change? Look, isn’t that enough? I don’t want anything more, that’s enough for me.”[v]
In the 1970’s, Westerners started coming to Meherabad as residents, and as Meherabad’s chargeman, Padri ended up managing much of their work and accommodation. Alan Wagner, one of those early residents, talks about working with Padri. “It was just so uniformly there—that support of him being there, of him taking the responsibility, upholding all of us resident volunteers … he supported us always to do the right thing. People talk about how authoritarian he was, very strict—I never experienced that from him, honestly. All I experienced was insight, compassion, support, understanding. But the authority was there and if he needed to use it he could use it.” Alan describes that Padri’s deep respect for others and his willingness to take full responsibility made that authority impeccable. “He was so worthy of admiration, and he so didn’t care.”
Padri rarely talked about his continued inner relationship with Baba after He dropped the body. “I’ve got no sentiments,” he once said to an interviewer who pressed him on it. “I know only obeying the Master.”[vi] But whether he was cycling around in his old Indian Army-issue tennis shoes keeping an eye on every detail of Amartithi; making one of a million practical daily decisions about Meherabad’s upkeep; or teaching a resident about gooseberry jam; Alan describes that those near Padri could sense a “rarified atmosphere,” could feel the Master’s living presence by the remarkable being and relentless work of His slave.
And there were moments, too, when one caught a quiet glimpse of a constant, intimate connection. Heather Nadel, another Meherabad resident, describes one at the end of the wonderful book on Padri, All These Things Take Time, Mister. Sometimes, when no one was around, Padri would sit on the verandah in Lower Meherabad and quietly recite poetry to himself. She remembers one day especially vividly because it was one of the last times she saw Padri before he passed away. “It struck me, the way he was relaxed, it wasn’t as if he was reciting for his own amusement. He was talking to Baba; he talked to Baba all the time. It seemed so private and intimate. And even from way down at the other end of that long verandah, I still got the impression of his being with Baba, of talking to his Master.”[vii]
[i] Lord Meher Online, p. 5399
[ii] Lord Meher Online, p. 5401
[iii] All These Things Take Time, Mister, by Eric Nadel, p. xv
[iv] All These Things Take Time, Mister, by Eric Nadel, p. 21
[v] Padri, Interviewed at Meherabad, India, 1981 & 1982, Video, AMBPPCT 1983
[vi] ibid.
[vii] All These Things Take Time, Mister, by Eric Nadel, p. 156
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