MEHER SPIRITUAL CENTER
Meher Baba's Home in the West
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"God is everywhere and does everything.
God is within us and knows everything.
God is without us and sees everything.
God is beyond us and IS everything."
Meher Baba
The Path of Love, p. 56
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Dear Meher Center Family and Friends,
We send greetings in Meher Baba’s love and service to all who care for His home in the West. As you are aware by now, Meher Center staff and volunteers are busily preparing the Center for its reopening to overnight guests on October 1. The drawing for the lottery will take place at the end of the first week in September, after which notifications of reservations will be made by phone.
In this newsletter we celebrate close lovers of Meher Baba: Mani, His sister; Adele Wolkin and Filis Frederick (known by Baba as "Filadele"); and Darwin Shaw. These examples of discipleship and love serve as a reminder of how to approach Him in our everyday lives.
In Baba’s love and service,
Buz Connor
For Meher Center board and staff
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His Real and Constant Presence |
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This charming video captures an afternoon in Mandali Hall with Baba's sister Mani in 1989. Mani shares humorous incidents of life with Baba that give an intimate glimpse of His ways. The stories include anecdotes about Elizabeth Patterson and Kitty Davy, two of Baba’s lovers who were integral to the development and care of Meher Center.
Video, 47:55
Mandali Hall, Meherazad, India, September 19, 1989
Courtesy of Sheriar Foundation
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Waiting for the Christ
By Jamie Keehan
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In 1952, when Baba first traveled to His home in the West, He asked that only a few close disciples meet Him in New York and take the train with Him to South Carolina. However, when He arrived at Penn Station on the evening of April 20, high above Him on the uppermost balcony, two women were hiding. They peeped out at Him, and one of them described what she saw as a sort of “living freeze”: the Avatar surrounded by His entourage, the pristine beauty of His form, the way He almost floated rather than walked.[i]
Filis Frederick and Adele Wolkin had learned about Meher Baba nearly ten years before that night; Filis had seen Baba in a vision at a meeting at the Ramakrishna Center in New York before she ever heard of Him, along with a voice that said, “He is your Christ.”[ii] Soon after, she and Adele, who she had met through a classmate, attended a meeting about Meher Baba at the home of Elizabeth Patterson, Nadine Tolstoy, and Norina Matchabelli. Filis found the face from her vision, and Adele expressed that she was “overtaken by a sense of unusual comfort and upliftment.”[iii] They soon moved in with the three women to help them prepare for Meher Baba’s eventual coming to the West. But nearly ten years had gone by, and though Elizabeth and Norina went to spend time with Baba in India, Filis and Adele still hadn’t seen Him in person.
They weren’t the only ones who had been waiting. On May 17, after Baba had arrived at the Center at long last and began seeing visitors, Baba’s sister Mani expressed her amazement at the rush of lovers desperate for the presence of the God-man:
I have a list of about 110 people who had written to say they were coming to see [Baba] today; but more and more people kept coming, till by now they have added up to about 300. They came from places far and near… Really, the love of all these people here in America for Baba even before they see him is very touching. Their love and devotion is so great that it isn’t a wonder Baba came here in spite of all the difficulties.”[iv]
But as far as we know, Filis and Adele were the only ones hiding nearby that first evening in New York before He even reached the Center. They told themselves that they weren’t breaking His orders since they weren’t trying to meet Him, and they were completely unnoticeable anyway: Margaret Craske even walked nearby and didn’t see them. But then, suddenly, Meher Baba Himself looked up in their direction, His eyes brushing their faces for the first time. He pointed to them and gestured to one of His companions: “Filadele.”
Baba didn’t let Filis and Adele come greet Him at that time, just noted their presence—and soon after, asked that they be personally invited to the Center. So a few days later, along with the rush of other lovers, they journeyed to Myrtle Beach. It was May 10 when they finally found themselves in the Lagoon Cabin, standing directly in front of Meher Baba for the first time. And in the midst of the overwhelming beauty of that moment, He made it clear that He knew them already, loved them already. “I heard you from within,” He told Filis, “… I love you because you love me so much.”[v]
They spent a divine week with Baba and His lovers, and then, just as Baba had invited them, He told them to go home. About going back to New York, Filis said, “You feel like Adam and Eve leaving Paradise.”[vi] But some part of the visit didn’t leave her. In a talk over twenty years later, she described, “It’s like the eternal now when you’re with Baba, and then when you look back, it’s so present to you, those moments with Baba, that it doesn’t seem like a memory at all; it’s really just there forever … those moments with Baba, they seem to have another dimension besides time.”[vii]
Filis and Adele arrived at the bus station after departing the Center, and from the juke box next to them came the sound of “Begin the Beguine,” Baba’s favorite song. Like all the lovers upon whom Baba had lavished His love during His visit to the Center, He was with them: He had been with them throughout nine years of yearning in New York, he had been with them during those bright days in Myrtle Beach, and, as He conveyed to Filis one morning in the Lagoon Cabin, "I'll be with you to the very end.”[viii]
[i] Talk given by Adele Wolkin at Meher Center, 1995
[ii] "Remembering Filis,” by Linda Zavala, The Awakener Magazine
[iii] “Adele Wolkin: A Life of Love and Service,” edited by Irma Sheppard and Karl Moeller, OmPoint International Circular
[iv] The Joyous Path, by Heather Nadel, p. 557
[v] Lord Meher Online, p. 3055
[vi] Lord Meher Online, p. 3087
[vii] Talk given by Filis Frederick at Meher Center, 1974
[viii] Lord Meher Online, p. 3057
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Caring for Meher Center: Gateway Gets Ready! |
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The Gateway at Meher Center is gearing up for re-opening for overnight guests with much anticipation. People are the pulse of the Gateway and they have been away too long. All hands are on deck as Gateway prepares for the Reservation Lottery.
“In its fourteenth year now, the Lottery has become a tradition. Just as it was created for the New Year’s period when people lined up physically and over the phone to stay on Center, the need to return after this hiatus caused by the pandemic also needed a creative solution,” says Judi Schoeck.
The legendary wooden board for the reservations charts will therefore be dusted off. “The wooden board was custom designed by Fred Winterfield and has been used since the inception of reservations for overnight stays at the Center,” says Carole Kelly. As the Gateway transitions to using a reservation software, the question that had to be asked was: Where would the board go when no longer used? “It will definitely become a valued archival piece,” laughs Carole.
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The Inward Journey
By Preeti Hay
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“External journeys are from place to place … the real journey is the inward journey.”
-Meher Baba at the East-West Gathering, quoted by Darwin Shaw
Diving into the lives of Baba’s close ones is like diving into the deep seas to find treasure. It is not always easy but is always rewarding. Where does one begin? And is there ever an end? Sometimes the answer lies in chasing the essence of a particular disciple to uncover a unique story. In Darwin Shaw’s case, that essence appears to be his inner connectedness with the Avatar throughout his life – even before he heard of Him, met Him and dedicated his life to Him.
Having grown up in the simplicity of the early twentieth century in rural surroundings, Darwin was a contemplative child who felt a strong inward connection with Christ. As a young man, he wrote, “I had been intuitively feeling that the Second Coming of Christ would take place very soon, and I felt that wherever he appeared I would know about it and somehow get to him.”
In the spring of 1932, Darwin spotted a small article in the Schenectady Gazette about Meher Baba leaving Bombay with a group of disciples bound for England and America. That was all it took for the spark to light. Darwin checked the paper every day thereafter and followed Baba’s journey until He made it to America. “On the day I read the last item, he came to me in the spirit … his presence was unmistakably clear. It was that same familiar presence of Christ that had been a natural part of my life from the time I was a small child.”
While Darwin just missed seeing Baba in 1932, when he did meet Him in 1934 with his wife Jeanne, by then his life was already His. Even though he would not see Baba again for a long time, that first meeting could not be more powerful. “Baba looked ... into my eyes. He went to work right away: I felt that he was looking over my inner consciousness and at the same time planting seeds for future work that I would be doing for him.”
And work he did. Charged as one of the key players in the development of Meher Center, Darwin accompanied Elizabeth on her first trip to Myrtle Beach to ask her father about acquiring the property. In 1948, while Elizabeth and Norina were with Baba in India, under Baba’s direction, Darwin took a leave of absence from work for one year and relocated to Youpon Dunes (Elizabeth Patterson’s house) with his wife and three children. During this time, he worked painstakingly on the drainage project to deal with the mosquito issue and conducted a land use survey along with other road and building projects.
Most of his close friends in Baba were called to be with Him in India as Darwin waited to see the Beloved again. Damien Triouleyre, who spent a lot of time with Darwin, says, “Those eighteen years were full of sadness and a burden of sorts for him, but later in his life he reflected on what a blessing they were in creating a deep longing for the Beloved.”
1952 was a joyous reunion between the family and Baba. At the Lagoon Cabin, Baba said, “They worked hard at the Center. Every inch of the Center is full of their love—Elizabeth, Norina and the Shaws.” On the same visit, Darwin received a confirmation about the validity of his inner contact with Baba. During his one-year work at the Center, Darwin would stand at the spot upon which Baba’s house was to be built and look eastwards toward India as if in communion with Baba. When he was with Baba at His house, Baba stopped and motioned toward the East confirming to Darwin that He did indeed receive his loving remembrances. The Shaws returned to the Center for each of Baba’s subsequent visits.
At the ‘Three Incredible Weeks’ in 1954, in India, Darwin had more good fortune to be in Baba’s intimate company. On one of those precious afternoons on Meherabad Hill, Baba revealed a slight glimpse of His Godhood. “I gazed at Baba, transfixed with the beauty of his love, and my love for him deepened into adoration. Then as I watched with intoxicated astonishment, veil after veil fell away from his lovely face, and I was able to journey into his Kingly Being.”
It is obvious that Darwin’s inner journey with the Avatar was awakened and pruned in mystical scopes. Those who heard him in person, and now we who read or listen to him talk, can sense that he shared not only the memory of being with Baba but was living Baba’s timeless presence. “His entire journey had culminated into something very simple: a natural, effortless companionship with Baba,” says Jeff Wolverton.
Baba said that his early lovers were picked by Him even before His birth, based on their age-old contact with Him. So, while they may have appeared ordinary to the world, they were indeed hidden gems. “Darwin was a sweet older gentleman—very innocent, very childlike, but there was always a twinkle in his eye, as if he was a holder of a secret,” says Laura Smith who knew Darwin as a young adult. The nudging question remains: what was the secret?
Perhaps Jeff Wolverton has the answer, “I always teased him that he was like Clark Kent, no one knew what he was capable of, until he started talking about Baba.”
References: As Only God Can Love, by Darwin Shaw
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Baba's Contact With Humanity |
Audio, 8:05
Meher Spiritual Center Meeting Place, March 23, 1975
Courtesy of the Avatar Meher Baba Center of Southern California
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Correction: The first photograph in last week's offering is of Nonny Gayley and Elizabeth Patterson with Meher Baba. This correction has been made on the Meher Center website. |
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