♦ Avatar Meher Baba blessed Meher Mount with His presence when He visited on August 2, 1956. Upon His arrival, Meher Baba gestured and said, "I love Meher Mount very much and feel happy here."  With His visit, Meher Baba left an invisible fountain of spiritual energy that touches all who come to Meher Mount.

Blue skies and green meadows signal winter at Meher Mount. This is a view looking toward Baba's Tree with the Pacific Ocean in far background. (Wayne Myers photo)

Meher Baba's Touchstones

♦ A touch point for many visitors and the symbol of Meher Baba's visit is Baba's Tree, the Coast Live Oak on the brow of the hill overlooking the Pacific Ocean. It is for many, a means of remembering Him. ♦ Others find inspiration, solace and rejuvenation spending time under Baba's Tree. One visitor, knowing nothing about Meher Baba, referred to it as "that cathedral tree." ♦ Visitors also spend time near the fireplace that was part of the guest house where Meher Baba greeted visitors in 1956. This building and all others on the property were destroyed in the New Life Fire on October 14, 1985. The chimney is

Avatar Meher Baba touring Meher Mount (August 2, 1956)

the only remaining artifact of Meher Baba's time.

A Pilgrimage Destination

♦ Meher Mount is a pilgrimage destination for followers of Avatar Meher Baba from all over the world. During His visit, Meher Baba told His followers, "You are so lucky to be with me so closely..." ♦ At the same time, Meher Mount attracts visitors who may know nothing of Meher Baba, but come because they have heard that Meher Mount is a spiritual place. Some visitors want to know more about Him, but most just seem to fall in love with the "feeling" of His place. ♦ For many, their visit to Meher Mount is the first time they hear Avatar Meher Baba's name. They appear to be drawn by His unseen hand to come closer into His orbit. It seems that Meher Baba uses Meher Mount to draw all of us closer to Him.

The Founding of Meher Mount 

♦ Meher Mount was founded in response to instructions from Avatar Meher Baba requesting that a retreat center be established one-to-two hours outside a major city. ♦ A serendipitous pull of destiny led founders Jean Adriel, author of Avatar, ♦ Alexander Markey, and Agnes Baron to the heights of Sulphur Mountain. As they motored through the Upper Ojai Valley, a curious stand of

Baba's Tree, a source of inspiration for many who visit Meher Mount. One visitor called it "that cathedral tree." (Wayne Myers photo.)

Avatar Meher Baba at Meher Mount on August 2, 1956, with co-founder Agnes Baron. During His visit, Meher Baba said, "I love Meher Mount very much and feel happy here." (Archive photo.)

Meher Baba Visits in 1956

♦ On August 2, 1956, Meher Baba spent the day at Meher Mount driving from Hollywood where He was staying. When all had arrived, Meher Baba called everyone into the guest house on the property, since burned down in the 1985 fire. ♦ He asked the group how they liked Meher Mount. One said, "It has a spiritual atmosphere."  Another said, "It compares to Meherabad Hill [in India where Meher Baba's Tomb Shrine is located]." A third commented on the lovely fragrance. Filis Frederick, who wrote the account of Meher Baba's trip in her publication The Awakener, said, "It reminds me of the hills of Assisi [in Italy where St. Francis lived]." ♦ Jeanne Shaw, a follower of Meher Baba, agreed, "It has instant appeal." Meher Baba nodded and added, "This land is very old, I have been here before." He never explained what He meant by that statement. Later Meher Baba remarked, "I will come here again."

Open to Visitors

♦ Meher Mount is open from Noon to 5:00 p.m. on Wednesdays through Sundays to welcome visitors. All are welcome. Bring a picnic lunch, walk in the footsteps of the Avatar, and spend time enjoying the serene setting and beautiful landscape.

They approach Baba's Discourses as a source of perfect guidance for navigating today's complex world. Each week after the group discussion, a report is posted to the Youth Discourses Facebook page. We're delighted to host this fresh, energetic group of "old souls in young bodies" at Meherabode.

♦ We enjoyed a love feast gathering at the three-day annual "Silence Day" Sahavas held at Meherabode in early July. The theme this year was "Make Me your Constant Companion", our guest speaker was Mehera Arjani, who met Meher Baba frequently in her childhood; and our guest musician was Adrienne Shamszad, a young, gifted singer-songwriter from the Bay Area. We feel Baba chooses His own guests and arranges everything. How we were able to invite, fly in, and host Mehera from the sacred region of Meherazad, only Baba knows. Mehera shared many tales from her life with Baba since her childhood. She also shared about the importance of repeating Meher Baba's name in our daily lives, and emphasized the view that the only way to surrender to Baba wholeheartedly is to constantly repeat His name. Adrienne Shamszad delighted us with many songs celebrating Beloved Baba and His creation. Everyone had such a great time. A more detailed report on this Sahavas will be shared in the next Gazette issue early next year.

♦ Another notable Meherabode event was the Brainstorming Town Hall Community Meeting, held in September. This get-together was intended, in part, as a forum for sharing ideas and discussing ways we might develop and improve the life of our Center as a vibrant Baba community.  The meeting went so well and many members enthusiastically shared their suggestions for the Center with helpful feedback on how the Board of directors might improve the its efforts. We plan to hold a sequel Town Hall community meeting next year.

♦ Meher Baba's "New Life", as a special phase of Baba's spiritual work, was explored in two weekly programs by Ed Flanagan, who dipped into the treasury of experiences, ideas, and stories comprising Baba's New Life. ♦ We then had a full month of reading, exploring, and discussing the main concepts in Meher Baba's book God Speaks in October. It started with the Annual All-Day Out-Loud God Speaks Read-a-Thon!, where the whole book (excluding the Supplement) was read (in 30 minute segments) by many participants, all day. ♦ Ward Parks, the scholar of Meher Baba literature, treated us to a 4-day/ 2-weekend God Speaks Immersion Seminar. Ward covered many aspects of God Speaks, and noted that God Speaks will surely serve as a major foundation in future centuries whenever human beings try to fathom their place in the cosmos and their relation to the Supreme Reality. The power of Baba's words and a little grasp of His cosmology proved so powerful and intoxicating to some of the participants. Ward shared how this book is a huge revelation by the Avatar of the age about the spiritual mechanics of Creation, called by Meher Baba The Divine Theme. In a future Gazette issue, we will include highlights from an interview with Ward, covering some details of his exposition.

I want you all to listen very carefully to what I say. It appears so simple, yet it is so very important for My lovers. To love Me is to lose yourself in Me and to find Me as your own Self is to leave all your pleasures and pains to Me. (39) Be resigned completely to my Will and my Will will be yours. (40) If you do wrong, think Baba is doing wrong. If you get a pain, think it is Baba having a pain. If you do all this sincerely, you will know something and forget yourself and do all for Baba.[41]

♦ There are three interrelated elements in the aspirant's attempted surrender to Meher Baba. The first includes a resignation to everything as Baba's will. Such resignation does not imply passivity or apathy -- Baba usually encouraged enthusiastic energy in worldly duties. It means being able to leave the results of one's best efforts to Baba, trying not to get ego-involved in success or failure. It also includes trust in Baba, a confidence that all ev:ents, positive or negative, can be helpful for spiritual growth

I want you to remain undisturbed and unshaken by the force of life's currents, for whatever the circumstances, they too will be of my own creation. If you endure your lot with patience and contentment, accepting it as His will, you are loving God.[42]

♦ A second facet of the process of surrender involves making Baba the nucleus of one's activities, creating a "provisional ego" -- adopting the attitude of doing things for Baba, not for oneself. The objective is not to enhance the ego, but to give it up:

Seek me not to extricate you from your predicaments, but find me to surrender yourself wholeheartedly to my Will.... Do not ask me to bless you with a good job, but desire to serve me more diligently and honestly without expectation of reward. Never beg of me to save your life or the lives of your dear ones, but beg of me to accept you and permit you to lay down your life for me. Never expect me to cure you of your bodily afflictions, but beseech me to cure you of your ignorance.[43]

♦ A third aspect involves realizing the near impossibility of total and complete surrender to Baba while aspiring to surrender, starting to build the creative habit of resignation, fostering internal dependence on Baba as one's real Self. Surrendering to the Avatar has always been a private, internal process. It need not be affected by Meher Baba's physical passing.

♦ Taken together, the trinity of love, obedience, and surrender forms a basic unity on the path of the God-Man: