MEHER SPIRITUAL CENTER
Meher Baba's Home in the West
February Newsletter 2022
Meher Baba's 128th Birthday
Meher Nazar Publications collection
"Believe me, I am the Ancient One. There is no doubt about it. I am not this body that you see. It is only a cloak. I am infinite consciousness. I sit with you, play with you and laugh with you; but [remember], I am simultaneously working on all the planes of consciousness! I have before me walis and pirs, yogis and saints, who are me in different forms, for I am the Core [center] rooted in everyone and in everything. An infinite number of branches spread out from me. It is I who work through you all and suffer for you all.

Understanding has no meaning. Love has meaning. Obedience has more meaning. Holding of my daaman has most meaning.

I know three things: I am the Avatar in every sense of the word. Whatever I do is the expression of my unbounded love. I suffer infinite agony eternally through your ignorance. What sustains me in my Universal suffering is bliss, plus my infinite sense of humor. The amusing incidents that arise at the expense of none, lighten my burden.

So always think of me; remain cheerful in all situations, and I am there to help you."
Meher Baba
Lord Meher Online, p. 4441
Dear Meher Center Family and Friends,

We wish everyone a very happy and love-filled Meher Baba's Birthday! This is the 128th year of the birth of the Ancient One, who forever remains birthless and deathless, and who is always present within us and around us.

It's not too late to celebrate together the birth of His presence within our hearts. Please join us for our virtual Birthday gathering. Click here to register.

We also want to mention that as of now, Meher Center is planning an ‘in person’ Youth Sahavas this coming June. Dates for participants (those going into 9th grade up to and including those who have just graduated from high school) are June 21 to June 26. Dates for staff are June 18 to June 27.  Information about how to apply as a participant and as a staff member will be sent out next week. Please mark your calendars and join us for this wonderful event.

Lastly, it has been five weeks since the Center took a ‘pause’ in day visiting due to the highly infectious nature of the Omicron variant. The board has decided to keep this pause in place for a bit longer, until the numbers in Horry County fall still further. 

Mirroring the nation, infections in South Carolina are headed in a good direction, but the numbers still remain significantly high in this region. We know that patience has grown very thin or completely evaporated around the country regarding Covid restrictions. However, we feel it best to wait a little longer until numbers come down to safer levels. No doubt, this will be an unwelcome update for many to receive. It feels unhappy news for us to convey, as we know how people long be at His Center, their spiritual home.

By His grace, we look forward to the time, hopefully soon, when the Center will be fully open to all who wish to visit this sacred place.   

In Baba’s love and service,
 

Buz Connor
For Meher Center board and staff
Meher Baba at Nasik and Rahuri
In this exquisite silent footage taken in Nasik and Rahuri in 1937, Baba is resplendent and surrounded by lovers from around the world. We see a whirlwind of celebration: garlanding, dances, music, and a feast for all. Much of the footage is from Baba’s grand birthday program that year, described in one of the articles below.

Video, 9:08
With permission from Avatar Meher Baba Perpetual Public Charitable Trust
Mark Trichka & Lisa Brande Offering
Mark Trichka and Lisa Brande share their whimsical creation— a cheerful song about Meher Baba’s work that incorporates the titles of numerous books by and about Him.

Video 4:53
Pratap Ahir Family Offering
Pratap Ahir was part of Baba's Poona Bhajan Mandali and sang for the Master many, many times. Here, he sings again, along with son Prashant and grandson Aseem who translate the song into English.

Video 36:45
A Grand Celebration
By Preeti Hay
Meher Nazar Publications collection
In an invitation letter dated February 4th, 1937, Meher Baba’s secretary Chanji wrote to Mahatma Gandhi about the celebration of Shri Meher Baba’s forty-third birthday at His Nasik Retreat. “Among the principal functions on this occasion is the distribution of grain and cloth, as special prasad personally given by Shri Meher Baba to over ten thousand poor and destitute and others to be invited and collected from the villages in the surrounding districts, irrespective of caste, color or creed.”[1] While Gandhiji declined the invitation, the grand scale of celebration are demonstrated in the extension of the invitation on such a public level.
 
For years prior to 1937, Baba’s birthday had been a quiet affair. After a lapse of many years, Baba allowed His birthday celebrations to be held publicly in Nasik on February 17 and February 18. What made this two-day birthday celebration even more special was that Baba had been in seclusion for a long time and had stopped giving darshan to outsiders. The only ones who were able to see Him were those staying at His ashrams in Meherabad, Nasik and Rahuri. Thus, lovers from Bombay, Poona, Ahmednagar, Nagpur, Karachi and other distant places throughout India were expected to come. To add to that, Baba had been fasting for forty days beforehand. 
 
Westerners had recently arrived to live under Baba’s direction at the Nasik Ashram. Leading up to the celebration, they had partaken in His fast of forty days. “I’d never fasted before and my first effort brought on a terrible headache,”[2] wrote Rano Gayley. Along with fasting, the preparations for a grand event such as this required the disciples to work under Baba who supervised every minute detail of the planning. “Six weeks before the birthday, every available moment was spent tying up thousands of bundles of homespun cloth filled with grain,”[3] said Kitty Davy.
 
On February 17, the gifts were finally distributed. From eight in the morning to six in the evening, Baba, in His radiant human form, gave prasad to ten thousand people, handing them prasad with one hand and touching their feet with the other. Baba said, “This is the first time I am touching the feet of those who come to pay me reverence. I salute the divinity in them, as they salute the divinity in me.”[4] The Westerners had never watched anything like this before. “There was only one break when we all sat on the ground and had a meal with Him, but His kindness, thoughtfulness, and humor were always in evidence, hour after hour,”[5] wrote Delia DeLeon. When someone asked Baba if His back ached from all the bending to hand prasad to so many, He replied, “My back aches so much it does not ache at all.” Smilingly He added, “The whole evolutionary scheme is passing through my spine today.”[6] The day ended with Baba talking to the westerners about the significance of the birthday activity for His universal work. 
 
The next day, February 18, was the actual day of Baba’s birthday celebration according to the Zoroastrian Calendar. His mother, Shireen, washed Baba’s feet with milk and honey. The holy milk was then distributed as prasad to the fortunate lovers present there. Baba explained that the Perfect Master’s feet collect the sanskaras of the world and those who wish to lighten his burden wash his feet with honey (representing mental sanskaras), milk (representing subtle sanskaras) and water (representing gross sanskaras).
 
In a spirit of love and reverence, Baba’s Mohomaden followers draped Him in a sehera, a long veil of jasmines and roses. Later, Baba and the guests enjoyed a dance performed by Ahmednagar villagers and a music concert by an acclaimed musician from Poona. Speeches in Baba’s praise were made by His lovers, and finally, a message about Spiritual Birth, dictated by Baba, was read by Rustom, “… the physical birth of human beings connotes an important and, if they are circumspect about it, perhaps a final stage of their evolutionary progress … And this means that human beings having passed through all the travails of lower evolutionary processes, should insist upon the reward thereof, which is Spiritual Birth in this very life, and not rest content with a promise in the hereafter.”[7]
 
[1] Lord Meher, Volume Six, p. 2095
[2] Because of Love, by Rano Gayley, p.14
[3] Love Alone Prevails, by Kitty Davy, p.174
[4] Lord Meher, Volume Six, p. 2103
[5] The Ocean of Love, by Delia Deleon, p. 93
[6] Lord Meher, Volume Six, p. 2102
[7] Lord Meher, Volume Six, p. 2110
Caring for Meher Center: Baba's Swing
Remember the beautiful picture and film footage of Baba on a white swing throwing prasad to His lovers? The sublime image was from Baba’s 1956 visit when ‘the new white swing’ was placed in the area north of the Original Kitchen. Believe it or not, the swing still exists and has lived on the sprawling porch of the Lake Cabin which faces Long Lake.

Recently, the swing was out of commission to be fixed up by the maintenance crew. They sanded and feathered the edges and replaced the chains hanging on the eye bolts. Over the decades, it is interesting to note that only the hardware has been changed. Attention is given to every piece of historic furniture on Center to keep it as original as possible.The wood on the swing still remains the same. It has been painted, but never replaced. So, if you find yourself walking through the center of the Center, let the gliding of the swing to the offshore winds remind you of the eternal presence of our Beloved, still swinging our hearts to His beat. 
Doing His Best
by Jamie Leonard
If you’ve been to Meher Center in the last 16 years, you may well have met Peter Goodman. He’s quickly recognizable by his big heart, his endless enthusiasm, and his willingness to stop and chat (and often ask after your friends and relatives by name), no matter how much he has going on. 
 
Peter first came to the Center with his family as a toddler. “It always felt so much like a home to me, like a second home,” he says of the visits throughout his childhood. He loved going to the programs and hearing music that “just struck my heart.” He got rides from staff members on their golf carts. He requested tour after tour of Baba’s House, relishing the different details that the tour guides provided. And he got to spend time with Kitty and Jane—Jane, who he called “Grammy Jane,” and Kitty, with her playful manner, her British accent, and her frequent zipping from cabin to cabin on her golf cart.
 
As Peter got older, leaving the Center to go back to Pennsylvania started to get harder, like leaving home. So finally, after years of longing, on March 1st of 2006, right before his 25th birthday, Peter moved just a few minutes away from the Center.
 
From then on, if Peter wasn’t working at his local hotel job, you knew where to find him. “I was always busy, and went to every program I could.” Peter also served chai, lifeguarded at the Youth Sahavas, raked at Baba’s House and Dilruba. Ten years after his move, he took a volunteer position at the Gateway. Finally, he became a regular volunteer on Cabin Crew as well, cleaning cabins and Baba’s special buildings, and greeting guests who he always treated like long-lost family. He was offered a full-time job on Cabin Crew in early 2020. 
 
Peter said yes immediately. But then, the week that he started, the Center shut down for guests. “It’s almost like Baba was playing a prank on me,” he says, “the Center felt so different.” Still, he threw himself into work for Baba. He cleaned, and re-cleaned, and re-cleaned the empty cabins, ensuring that mold didn’t take hold and that they were tended to in a way that pleased Baba. He came up with new ideas (including the concept of a Meher Center Virtual Sahavas, to connect people even when they couldn’t be together physically). And as he meticulously tended to the Barn and the Lagoon Cabin, he sometimes imagined that he was preparing them for Baba’s arrival—or even that Baba was in there with him, smilingly watching him clean.
 
After what seemed like forever, it was time for guests to return. First came Youth Sahavas. Peter helped make sure that the cabins were “nice and cozy” for Baba’s young lovers after sitting empty for so long. Then, after almost two years’ absence, those lovers started to arrive. “Once all the staff and teenagers arrived, I felt so much energy and love, and it felt like normal,” says Peter. Soon after, in October, the Center opened for all guests. “It felt like a light switch flipped—like Baba worked His magic, having people come on Center. it was a give and take of love.”
 
Now, when a new person arrives or when an old-timer finally comes home again after this long period away, Peter is there to greet them joyfully—as he buzzes from cabin to cabin in his golf cart like he saw Kitty do all those years ago. As Peter puts it, he loves “getting to be a part of guests’ experience, especially if it’s their first time on Center, welcoming them and helping them feel as if they were coming home to their home on the Center.”
 
Peter’s constantly sunny disposition, his boundless energy and enthusiasm, and his commitment to friendship and connection with his whole Baba family—they are gifts, but they are also a practice of his. When I tell him that he’s one of the people I know who works the hardest to remember Baba and stay cheerful even when things are hard, he says, “I try. I definitely try. It’s not easy, but I definitely try all the time.” Often, he turns to his favorite quote, which gives him direction and helps him to remember that Baba is always with him, no matter what life may bring. “Do your best, then don’t worry, be happy in my love. I will help you.”