MEHER SPIRITUAL CENTER
Meher Baba's Home in the West
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"The way of My Work is the way of effacement, which is the way of strength, not of weakness and through it you become mature in My love. At this stage you cannot know what real love is, but through working for Me as you should work for Me, you will arrive at that ripeness where, in a moment, I can give you That for which you have been millions of years seeking."
Meher Baba
The 1962 East-West Gathering, copyright 1962 by the Avatar Meher Baba Perpetual Public Charitable Trust
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Dear Meher Center Family and Friends,
It’s currently the last day of Youth Sahavas. After all the incredible work of our staff and volunteers and community members to have the event during this time, it’s happened, and it has been as beautiful as it always is: Baba has shown up in the midst of all His young lovers, and poured out His love.
Next week’s offering will be Youth Sahavas themed, focused on some of the experiences and activities of participants. This week, we have more stories of Baba’s love and presence on the Center throughout the years.
In Baba’s love and service,
Buz Connor
For Meher Center board and staff
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Meher Baba dictated the first couplet of the prayer “You Alone Exist” in 1959 to His close disciple and night watchman, Bhau Kalchuri. Bhau then added to the prayer by Baba’s instruction and Baba finished it three years later. In this delightful video put together by Peter Nordeen and edited by Bob Fredericks, Jim Meyer sings the prayer, and a bright and playful compilation of pictures and videos accompanies it—in the form of Meher Baba, and of the infinitely varied creatures and objects that are all part of Him.
Video, 23:14
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Companionship with the God-Man
By Preeti Hay
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Meher Baba’s time at the Center is reflective of the perfect union of His Godhood and Manhood. From its inception when He sent two women to hunt for a treasure that He had already planted to His turning the key of grace in being able to acquire the property dedicated to Him and given from the heart. Then, His help in carving out a Center exactly under His meticulous direction from thousands of miles away and inwardly helping those who physically performed the herculean task of building and creating His home from swampy wilderness. Finally, arriving all the way from India to give the awaited gift of His personal companionship.
A well-known story from His first visit is that of the four ballet dancers who were flying all the way from Chicago to see Baba for a five minute interview on May 18, 1952. At 9 a.m. that morning Baba arrived at the Lagoon Cabin. He waited and waited but the dancers had not arrived yet. Kitty Davy writes, “Baba paced up and down the Lagoon Cabin, asking us what we thought had happened. Did we think they had met with an accident? How had they proposed coming? He sent us to ring up the airport. No news of their plane. This continued throughout the day.”* As it turned out, the party arrived on a chartered plane, as they had had a difficult trip, but were determined not to lose their interview. Within the figurative embrace of such human and personal concern about each one’s well-being, Baba at times most suddenly displayed sharp glimpses of His Godhood. While He was a friend, a father, a companion, He was also God in human form. During the same trip, Ivy Duce met Baba at the Lagoon Cabin. “He motioned to the cabin, and Gustadji and one of the other men who heard the clap rushed to open the windows. The gas heater had been put on during Baba’s absence and the place was stifling. Baba knew this before I could sense it at all.”**
A naturalness of being enveloped the Center every time Baba came, as if the spark of longing of the lovers was lit in a flame of rapture at His sight. Baba walked all along the paths through the beautiful woodlands of the Center to the Barn and the beach, or through the winding paths from the Original Kitchen to His house. To the eyes of the lovers His beauty merged with that of the surroundings. On July 29, 1956 Baba walked to the beach with the group, and briefly put His feet into the ocean. Enjoying the beach, Baba sat down and began scooping the sand in a pile with His hands. Darwin Shaw writes, “Someone asked, ‘What is this?’ to which Baba replied, ‘The first man.’ We felt that Baba was having a little fun.”*** Such was His companionship—so intimate, so playful. On the same visit, Baba reminded His lovers, “I come down to your level to such an extent that I mix with you all. I appear to be gay, cheerful, playful. You have no idea of my divinity, of my all-pervading state. I have the greatest sense of humor, like Krishna. That sense of humor should not mislead you or make you forget who I really am.”****
Baba’s last trip to the Center was a toiling testimony to His love and effort to be in the presence of His lovers. Despite His physical condition after His second automobile accident, He came for His lovers to be able to be His fortunate companions in sharing His universal suffering. Darwin Shaw describes his experience of the ‘American Sahavas’ as “one of indefinable suffering and blissful love.” The Children’s party was a memorable event from that time. God incarnate playing the perfect host – serving cake, juice and ice cream to joyous little drops from His ocean. Light-hearted fun and jokes were accompanied by poignant messages that were the gems He left behind. On May 20, 1958 at the Barn, Baba said, “What is sahavas? It is companionship with God. It means that I come to your level, or you rise to my level. We are not on the same level. Either I come to yours or you come up to mine. Sahavas means God becoming human.”*****
Can we ever grasp the gravity of the simple act of companionship with a perfect being? The intricate interplay of His divinity in its divine and familiar aspects along with the infusion of His presence that He left behind have not diminished as years pass. We still walk paths He walked on, build castles in the sand He touched and sit beside trees He planted. The imprints of companionship and guidance now press ever deeper into the soft sands of our hearts. In this inner dimension, the nectar of companionship is ever present and most active for us to receive and avail ourselves of.
*Love Alone Prevails, by Kitty Davy, p.395
** How a Master Works, by Ivy Duce, p.86
*** As Only God Can Love, by Darwin Shaw, p.380
**** As Only God Can Love, by Darwin Shaw, p.373
***** As Only God Can Love, by Darwin Shaw, p.420
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Caring for Meher Center:
All Hands on Deck
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Before the Center opened back up for Baba’s young lovers this week, there was an unbelievable flurry of work to prepare for them. Every department was involved: from assigning participants to appropriate cabins, to assembling tents for dining and activities, to hauling truckloads of supplies, to creating a kitchen out of an old garage, to ensuring that every single cabin was cleaned and readied for its first guests in nearly a year and a half. John Collins describes his experience on Cabin Crew: “All this love was pouring in while I put the mattresses together with pads and pillows. That’s when I knew, ‘yeah, this is right’ … You know those times when you haven’t been to the Center for a long time and you get here and when you first put your head on the bed it’s like— you’re home? That’s what it felt like.” |
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Giving and Giving
By Jamie Keehan
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When I think about Ann Conlon now, I think about giving. It starts with her Baba story: she was a young journalist in New York who had grown up Catholic but who, when she heard about Baba and was told He was the Christ, found herself saying simply, “that’s right, He is.” Nevertheless, despite her increasing inner connection with Baba, she wasn’t able to meet Him during His 1958 visit, or afterward due to His seclusion.
Then, in 1961, Ann was at the Monday night Baba meeting in New York when Fred Winterfeldt walked in with a letter from Mani. Part of it read: “Baba had decided, because of the longing of His lovers, to open the door a crack in His seclusion. His lovers may come for one hour on any one day over a two week period then go right home."* Ann described being stunned at those words, with the immediate feeling that, "This is my chance, this is my only chance."
The feeling was quickly followed by Ann’s recognition that she had no money. But her dear friend Liz Sacalis, sitting right next to her, had a strong feeling of her own: that if she looked over and Ann wanted to go, she would give her the money. And seeing the expression on Ann’s face, she knew that that’s what would happen. There was only enough money in the bank account that Liz shared with her sister, Ginny Sadowsky, for one person to make the journey, and they sent Ann—who remembered them standing at the airport, waving her off with as much excitement, love and enthusiasm as if they were going themselves.
At the end of the journey, Ann found herself in Poona, India, on the steps of Guruprasad, where Baba was staying. And then from those steps, through two big doors, she finally saw the face of her Beloved. Her recollection of that moment is timeless:
I felt again that same wave of love that I had felt in Myrtle Beach in the Lagoon Cabin, only so much stronger that I stopped in my tracks. I couldn’t move; my legs froze. Baba looked at me and He smiled. He put out His arms like this: "Come on!" I went running into His arms and burst into tears. And in that moment of feeling those arms around me, I knew for the first time in my life that I was completely safe and completely loved and completely accepted. There would never be another Being in the world from Whom I would get such total acceptance, such total love … No matter what happened to me for the rest of my life, I was safe and He would be there.*
Instead of just an hour, Baba let Ann spend the entire week with Him. And when He heard about the gift that had allowed her to come, there were tears in His eyes. "Baba is touched by such love for Baba and for a friend,” He gestured. He sent a telegram to Liz and Ginny, signing it from Ann: “Baba says, because you have helped me come to Baba, you have made Baba come closer to you. Baba sends His love to you both.”
Ann returned to the U.S with what she had received during that week in Poona. In 1971 she moved to Myrtle Beach and would spend many weekends sitting in the Original Kitchen, making herself available to chat with newcomers. That role developed into a position at the Gateway where she was both kind and no-nonsense. As Ann’s dear friend, Sheila Krynski, put it when I talked with her about Ann, “nobody could get by her, but she was incredibly loving. She was a [true] gatekeeper.”
Ann also started helping at Sheriar Press, which grew into a full-time role that she filled for decades: running the bookstore; writing her charming, down-to-earth column for Sheriar’s “All Baba Things Considered;” and reviewing and editing Baba material for publication. And Ann continued to make herself available. Visitors to Myrtle Beach would come to the bookstore to buy Baba literature, of course, but also to talk to Ann. As Sheila puts it: “People liked talking to her because they liked the way she listened to them and shared her Baba perspective with them.” She would make people laugh, and, as always, they could feel what was underneath. Whether chatting at the bookstore, spending fun-filled hours with the Mandali at Meherazad, serving as the exacting secretary of the Board, or greeting a new person at the Center, “Baba was at the root of everything she had to say… and it was unequivocal.”
After we finished talking about Ann, Sheila told me she was glad this story would be written because “Ann isn’t somebody who should ever be forgotten.” Baba said, during that bright week at Guruprasad in 1961, that He loved Ann very much; and from that love He gave her, she kept giving and giving for the rest of her life.
*From a talk given by Ann Conlon at the 1986 L.A. Sahavas
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