I tell you all, with my divine authority,

that you and I are not "we" but "One."    Meher Baba

♦ Shortly after this, Baba left Meherabad touring India with his men. They were in Quetta, Pakistan when Nervous came down with typhoid fever. Baba went to him several times a day, but despite the best care under two medical specialists, he died on July 16, 1924, becoming the first Mandali to pass away in Baba's service. After his burial, Baba sent the Mandali to enjoy a movie in honor of Nervous' dreams of becoming a great movie actor.

[drawing from Ramjoo's Diaries, pp.349-350; Mehera-Meher, Vol. 1, pp.16-17] 

♦ Thirty years later, Baba indicated that Nervous had rejoined him yet once again to serve amongst the Mandali, having reincarnated as Bhau Kalchuri, whom Baba would claim as his most loved among all his men disciples -- his "St. John," and my good friend since 1981 for over 32 years now. ♦ In one of his weekly online Sunday chats, Bhau revealed that his time had come, and he will come back for just one more lifetime before Realization in Baba forever.

■ Obviously he had so much to share naturally, that the glimpse of his beauty would touch us, warm us here and there; but I realized we never could truly see, understand, or appreciate the value of the treasure we had next to us! It's a pity and shame; yet hopefully it's forgivable, as our consciousness is on the level of a normal or semi-normal human being, well in this case I am talking about myself, I don't want to insult anyone's consciousness, but mine was poor (and still is) in realization of the Truth, yet I'm hoping one day we all reach the goal of life and realization!

■ I can simply say one or two things about him which was very obvious, which is that he truly served God or his Beloved, but after Baba dropped his body, there was no God in human form, and yet Bhau served Him and everyone would say that Bhau was in love and service of Baba! But in fact he was a servant of God-in-the-form-of-the-people-around-him. He was serving the God in each and all of us. He was teaching us that loving God is loving our normal fellow beings. That was a day-to-day, moment-by-moment service and suffering! Of course all the blame was to almighty God, Meher Baba, for Bhau's suffering, not thinking that poor Meher Baba is not in human form to torture him. But we could not see that it was our ignorance and egos and day-to-day desires, moment by moment which made him suffer and suffer.  

■ Bhau continuously suffered or enjoyed in serving God in people around him, and the ones in touch with him, and maybe more, and he was loving God in the most realistic way. Instead of the idea of worshiping a God who is not in the physical form, he worshiped and served the God in each person. He surrendered himself to all of us, teaching us that the real lover of God loves everyone, because according to God's statements, we are all one and all God. He practically and sincerely loved God in the real meaning, and indeed it was our ignorance which made him to suffer tremendously!

■ My hope is that in his state of consciousness, the suffering and happiness was equal, and that's the only way I can forgive myself, otherwise it seems unforgivable to torture an amazing being or to see him to be tortured and remain quiet because of lack of awareness or fear. I hope our higher self or almighty God forgives us all for these repetitions of the ignorance which blinds us or blocks us from acting based on our higher self!

■ It amazes me that we did not realize and truly appreciate the love of a person whose very quantum of cells were screaming love continuously! The only thing which strongly makes my heart smile now is the remembrance of celebration of his loving cells, as if I was joining the love party as a cell myself anytime I had the blessing of having his hands in mine! 

Jai Meher Baba! 

♦ In later years, Tony Griss came onstage and revealed that he was Bhau's therapist. Tony claimed Bhau was in dire need of help because "All those years with Baba were wonderful for Bhau spiritually, but they wreaked havoc on his self-esteem." As proof, he read out several of the last lines of Bhau's ghazals -- Things like, "Oh Bhau, you fool!" and "Oh Bhau, you have not the faintest whiff of the spiritual path!", or "Oh Bhau, why do you pretend to know anything..." Heartbreaking stuff. But Tony assured everyone that, thanks to extensive therapy, Bhau's self-esteem was rapidly improving, as evidenced by several ghazal lines Bhau had penned recently, like "Oh Bhau, you're not such a bad guy after all," and "Oh Bhau, you know a helluva lot more than most people about the spiritual path," or the biggest breakthrough: "Oh Bhau, you handsome devil." ♦ Oftentimes, the shows had Bhau putting his best foot forward, sometimes into the mouth of an opponent. One year, he strapped on boxing gloves and won a first round knockout over Ed McMaya, despite McMaya's huge size advantage. Bhauji was also victorious in a match (and several highly-publicized rematches) against the massive, terrifying Swamiji in Myrtle Beach, even beating the vicious false master while confined to a wheelchair one year. ♦ Not long after dropping McMaya, Bhauji donned a karate uniform and fought ten strapping men on the Sahavas stage. It all happened behind a curtain so the children in the audience would be spared the violence, but, curtain or no curtain, the awful shouts, cries and moans of the combat sent those with weak stomachs rushing for the exits. When the curtain was finally removed, Bhauji stood tall and triumphant, with his defeated foes strewn on the floor around him. The Yucaipa Hosital emergency room was full that night. ♦ In 2003, Billy Goodrum explained to the crowd that Bhau dressed in sunglasses, fedora and bolo tie because he was Nagpur's greatest blues master. Bhau proceeded to demonstrate his chops on the harmonica, accompanying Billy on "The Nightwatchman Blues".

♦ The following year, Bhau debuted a hip-hop tune composed by Danny Maguire, backed onstage by Danny and Josh Lee, all three of them wearing bandanas on their heads and swaying with attitude while Bhau rapped, "I'm no saint and I'm no mast; just the Chairman of the Trust; I can walk and I can squawk; but I prefer to talk and talk, and talk and talk, and talk and talk..." ♦ Meherana raised money by roasting Bhau a couple of times in San Francisco. At the first roast, Vesta Clinton had fun with Bhau's early attempts at English pronunciation in the 1970's, mimicking him: "Operator, I am trying to dial one-pour-pour-pive-pive." ♦ Jacko Caraco took the "roast" literally when he and Bob Street had Bhau stand in front of the big crowd and garlanded him with onions, turnips and garlic, till he was ready to be placed in the preheated oven. ♦ At the next roast, Buck Busfield spoke at length, detailing Bhau's many praise-worthy qualities, but when he mentioned that Bhau had been a humble schoolteacher, we all realized something was terribly wrong. Finally, someone pointed out that Buck was extolling the virtues of Bal Natu, not Bhau. Embarrassed to have gotten the two confused, Buck apologized and said he really didn't know much about any of Bhau's good qualities and cut his tribute short.

♦ Needless to say, Bhau enjoyed all of these occasions immensely. There were times, when I was scheduled to introduce him at Meherana, he would tell me beforehand to make the introduction "extra-spicy", meaning especially irreverent. He didn't want people to treat him as an advanced soul or a master. Bhau said the only one worthy of such devotion was Meher Baba, and Bhau wanted to make it clear that we don't need any sort of middlemen or third parties to connect with Baba. He told us stories of how Baba Himself didn't much like when people would be somber or "religious" in His presence; He much preferred lighthearted, and wholehearted, displays of love. ♦ My favorite laughs with Bhauji however, came when he was making fun of himself, all by himself. I never tired of hearing him tell of when he and Baba and several Mandali members were on a long train journey across India and one of the men got himself locked into the train's toilet for twenty minutes. When the man came back, Bhau laughed at him and, feeling smugly superior, thought to himself, "What kind of fool is this man, that he was trapped in the toilet for so long?" ♦ Then, later in the journey, Bhau went to use the toilet and found it had some new locking mechanism that he couldn't figure out -- He was stuck in the toilet for eight hours. Eight hours! Eventually, Baba sent Pendu to find him and Pendu had to climb outside the train, clinging to the train's windows, in order to look in and instruct Bhau on how to work the latch. ♦ When Bhau finally returned to his seat, Baba smiled at him mischievously and inquired: "Good clearance?" God, I love that story. ♦ There were dozens of other tales that Bhau told with delighted self-deprecation, like the time Baba told him to kill a cobra in the middle of the night but Bhau had never killed one before and pinned the deadly snake down with a stick in the middle of its long body, so that both ends of the snake were wriggling. Baba kept telling Bhau to kill it, but Bhau had no idea how. At last, Meheru was summoned and confidently dispatched the reptile in seconds.

♦ Bhau also enjoyed telling about how, one night, Baba wanted to listen to the radio, but try as he might, Bhau couldn't figure out how to turn it on. This

Jeff & Lynn's late son Danny ("St. Danny") with Bhauji

time it was Goher who had to be called in to flip the simple switch. ♦ Then there's the now famous saga of Bhau's final exam to attain his degree in agriculture, when he drove a tractor into a shed.  When we asked him why he was driving a tractor for the very first time during his final exam, he laughed, "Good that my professor had already started the tractor, because I didn't know how to turn it on!"  But how did he manage to get his degree despite that debacle?, he was asked. "I did well in the theoretical part of the exam," he deadpanned. ♦ So many great stories. So much fun to hear Bhauji tell them.

♦ A friend of mine once asked me what Meher Baba gives His lovers -- "Psychic powers? out-of-body experiences? the ability to read minds?

Jeff & Lynn Maguire with Bhauji

miraculous health cures? sure-fire methods to attain wealth and fame?" No, none of those things, I told him. ♦ "So what do you get?" ♦ "I don't know," I pondered, "I guess, love." My friend couldn't wrap his mind around that amorphous noun; he wanted something more concrete. What I should have told him was that we got to hang out with great souls, like Bhau Kalchuri, Mani Irani, Eruch Jessawala, and all the other extraordinary Mandali members whose radiant examples continue to inspire us to love and serve Beloved Baba.

♦ We were privileged to spend time in Bhauji's company, and blessed beyond all measure to be able to call him our friend and companion on the Beloved's path. Thank you Baba.

at a moment ordained & timely   you flew away

you declared yourself a potato   why potato?

now may naught but my mind remind me   you flew away

having broadcast the bloody joy   of constant bhakti 

how you curtained the pain till blimey!   you flew away

I essayed the shape of bhairavi    at Meh'rana

but before I could play sublimely    you flew away

you retracted your yad rakh yarn!   what a conundrum!

yet before that Word could unwind me   you flew away

Raphael hasn't puzzled out how    to bend love's bow

with love's target bullseyed    benignly you flew away