MEHER SPIRITUAL CENTER

Meher Baba's Home in the West

December Newsletter 2023

Meher Nazar Photo Collection

"Learn the art of taking your stand on the Truth within. When you live in this Truth, the result is the fusion of the mind and the heart and the end of all fears and sorrow. It is not a dry attainment of mere power or intellectual knowledge. A love which is illumined by the intuitive wisdom of the spirit will bless your life with ever-renewing fulfillment and never-ending sweetness."


Meher Baba

Life at Its Best, Meher Baba, p. 24

Dear Meher Center Family and Friends,


A loving Jai Baba and happy new year from Meher Center. May the coming year find your heart filled with the comfort and joy of His Blessed name. All will be receiving a unique Baba quote from the Center at midnight on New Year's Eve! Please look out for it.


In 2024, Meher Center’s board will welcome two new members: Rich Blum, long time Baba lover and devoted Center volunteer; and Sevn McAuley, of Asheville, NC., also a follower of Baba’s for many years and dedicated volunteer for projects at Meherabad and Meher Center.


Stepping down after eight years of remarkable service to the Center is Daniel Stone. Daniel’s devotion to Baba has been lovingly expressed in the care he has given to the Center, as he has been a guiding force in governance, master planning, programming, financial stability and legal affairs. Most importantly, his has been a contribution of the heart, marked by unusual generosity with his time and talents in serving to not only maintain His Center, but to help it thrive in new and creative ways.


In Meher Baba’s love and service,

 

 

Buz Connor

For Meher Center board and staff.

Journey with God

Meher Baba first declared His Avatarhood during a tour through Andhra Pradesh in 1954. In this video, we see footage of that tour: the thousands of people who came to be in Baba’s presence, and the loving personal contact He managed to make with individuals amidst the crowd. We also hear from Baba’s Mandali who were on the trip about what it was like to travel with Baba through the region and watch Him pour out His love.


Video, 51:51

Courtesy of Sheriar Foundation


The still, small voice

By Preeti Hay

Meher Center Photo Archives

Do you remember setting foot on Center for the first time? 

 

You might have been a child when you first came, and you fit into the wondrous woodlands as a fish diving straight into water. However hard you might try now; the memory evades you. Or, you might not have been a child, but coming to the Center felt so familiar and home-like that you cannot trace it back to one exact moment or feeling. Or perhaps you are one with the sharpest memory of the time when you turned into the Center, off the highway, and felt something that made the most indelible mark upon your soul. You can still recapture that feeling as clearly as a crystal. Or, you might have been here, and taken to it slightly, “Nice place,” you said, or maybe perhaps, “strange place,” you wondered, and walked back out to your car and drove away into the vastness of the ever-moving world.

 

Every first-time visitor to the Center gets a full guided tour. The tour lasts anywhere from an hour to an hour and a half. At the start of a tour, every visitor watches a short introductory video that tries its best to do the impossible task of encapsulating an introduction to Meher Baba and the history and purposes of the Center, all in seven minutes. Interspersed with beautiful images of the Center, visitors can see moving images of Meher Baba and a short clip of Elizabeth Patterson describing the retreat. 

 

In the snippet from an interview with Alan Cohen in 1977, Elizabeth says, “It’s a retreat, that is for renewal of the spiritual life. Everyone, at some time in their life, has known the spiritual life. Maybe when they were a small child, maybe later, they’ve had some experience and then it’s faded. And the wonderful part is to renew that contact, you might say, with God. Let God, that still, small voice, speak, and to meet other people, that are also, have come along in other paths that, then heard of Meher Baba, want to come. We’re never for want of people coming. They seem to come from here and there, and, are drawn by His presence.”

 

Nothing captures the torch bearing role of a tour guide better than Elizabeth’s words. A tour guide is tasked with the huge responsibility of being the guiding hand for a person who comes to Baba’s home for the very first time, and many a time, this person does not even know who Baba is. This job comes with the balancing act of connecting, greeting warmly and lovingly, while giving information. Guides must be prepared and well versed enough to answer questions about Baba, His life, the Center and the general philosophy that lovers of Baba believe in. But most importantly, this skillful task requires a discernment about when to step back and allow for silence – guide but not blindly, so that the still, small voice of God might speak in the hearts of seekers who have found themselves here.

 

The enthusiastic group of tour guides met earlier this month to share in companionship while discussing their joint role. This dedicated group of twenty people work unerringly, day after day to give tours. Yes, the Center hosts tours every single day! Again and again, they show up to do this job that is anything but monotonous. Walking into the tour is like doing an improv. You could have a large, devoted family from India, or a tourist who just discovered the Center on the internet, or a mix of both! The possibilities are infinite, just as Baba’s ways are.

 

During this meeting, apart from discussing the logistics of giving tours and handling challenges that may arise, the group discussed the role of the guides in sharing Baba’s life and message. This is something that the volunteers do so naturally and in complete attunement with their participants that it led to a wonderful discussion. We talked about Baba’s divinity and the different ways that the guides handle the subject and the interesting questions that arise from it. 

 

Baba said many things about His divinity. Once He said, “I was Rama, I was Krishna. I was this One, I was that One, and now I am Meher Baba. In this form of flesh and blood I am the same Ancient One who alone is eternally worshiped and ignored, ever remembered, and forgotten. I am that Ancient One whose past is worshiped and remembered; whose present is ignored and forgotten, and whose future advent is anticipated with great fervor and longing.”*

 

To discuss His divinity with this group became an act of remembrance. To talk about Him and walk people through His home gives the volunteers the great joy and means to look at the Center with fresh eyes, each time. Just as one of the volunteers said, “While part of my job is to share with them the honor that it is to be on this sacred ground, I cannot miss my own honor in having this opportunity to share Baba and His home.”

 

*Lord Meher Online Edition, by Bhau Kalchuri, p.4581

Caring for the Center: Christmas at His home

By Baba's grace, Christmas at the Center this year was a very festive event! The Christmas dinner was attended by a hundred and fifty people who then moved on to chai and delicious homemade Christmas cookies.The night brought on a lovely choir put on by the local Baba community.

An Act of God

As told by Meherwan Jessawala to Bob Ahrens

Meher Center Photo Archives

The following is an excerpt from the detailed account of Baba's car accident in Satara, India in December of 1956, focused on Eruch's experience as the driver of the vehicle. For the full story of the accident and events leading up to it, please click here.


Baba had traveled after recuperating from the 1952 USA accident, spending about 9 months in Dehra Dun then shifting to Satara as His base for almost 3 years, until the accident in 1956. He did not stay at Meherazad during this time (except for June 1956). He traveled up and down India during those 3 years, doing mast work and contacting people. He also spent periods of strict seclusion during this same time. At one point, when they were in northern India, Baba told Eruch he had to get back to Satara within 24 hours, so Eruch, who had not had any sleep for several days, drove non-stop to Satara and made it within the 24 hours, which pleased Baba. Eruch said it was like driving in a tunnel. At one point he apparently drifted off and came to abruptly, finding Baba’s hand on the steering wheel, steering it back onto the road. The car had veered off and almost flipped, and everyone got a “mighty start.” After they arrived, the next day, Eruch told Baba he had a request, which was never to drive again. He didn’t trust himself after this incident and didn’t want to risk driving with Baba in the car. He described a sensation which came over him to steer off the road (which he obviously resisted). He requested Baba to please not have him drive again. Baba said, “Nonsense,” and assured him that everything would be ok, and Eruch said nothing...


For a quite a few years after the accident, Eruch used to feel depressed about being responsible for Baba’s accident and physical disability. Baba would tell him not to feel so, as it was all preordained. While Eruch was still in the hospital, the police came to interrogate him. As he was the driver in a single car accident, they charged him with negligent driving resulting in the death of a person. A criminal case was filed against him. After returning to Meherazad, he had to make several trips to Wai, where the court had jurisdiction over the entire Satara District. He would travel from Ahmednagar to Poona in the State Transport bus and then on to Wai.


His case dragged on for years. When the case came up for its final hearing, the prosecutor failed to prove any of the charges. The judge therefore pronounced him not guilty and acquitted him. In his written judgment, the judge gave “An act of God” as the reason for the strange accident!


Meherwan related an episode which occurred in Poona in Silver Oaks, where Baba called the women to come into His room; the men naturally left. When the women arrived, Baba had tears flowing from His eyes and this continued for something like 15 minutes, while they silently stood around him. At last, Baba called for a handkerchief, wiped His eyes, and related that these tears they witnessed were not for Himself but for His creation. He was seeing before Him the suffering His creation would have to undergo, despite His having suffered for it, and the tears were flowing for this suffering His creation would experience.


To read the detailed account of Baba's accident, please click here.