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Dear Meher Center Family and Friends,
Greetings from the Center!
The Gateway is working on the annual holiday drawing for the period between December 18, 2026 and January 2, 2027. If you are planning to come to the Center for the Christmas and New Year Holiday season, please look out for a special email next week.
If you are planning to be here for our upcoming Artist is Residence program from October 5 - 11, 2026, reservations for that period are now open. To learn about our artists, please click here. A detailed schedule of the residency will be posted soon.
Below is the account of the first time Filis Frederick and Adele Wolkin met Meher Baba, which took place at the Center on May 10th 1952. After following Him for nine years, at last they were going to meet their Beloved face to face. They were driven to the Center on that day by Darwin Shaw.
Filis described that first meeting:
It was 9:30 A.M. when Delia, standing on the steps of the Lagoon Cabin, said, "Shri Meher Baba, this is Filis Frederick." How would Baba look? I did not know. I thought of Jesus, but at my first glimpse of Baba the thought flashed in my head, He looks Egyptian! The long eyebrows, dark almond eyes, the golden skin. He embraced me, and my heart beat fast: He is mine, He is mine. He gestured to a chair beside Him.
Baba asked through Adi, "How do I look?" I said to Adi (because someone had misinformed me we could not speak directly to Baba in the New Life), "He looks ill." As soon as I said it, I felt, No! He looks beautiful.
Eyes like black diamonds looked lovingly into mine. I felt my heart overflow with His love. He seemed so familiar, so intimate, so close.
"I heard about you from Norina, Elizabeth, Don and Margaret," Baba stated, "and I heard you from within. Do you love me? [Yes, Baba.] When I see such souls who love me, I feel very happy and strong. People like Filis are intimate ones. I love you because you love me so much."
After fifteen minutes, Baba called in Filis' "twin," Adele Wolkin, 34. "She has eyes like Babajan," Baba remarked, "very large, grey-blue."
He spelled out to them both: "I heard so much about you both that I feel so happy that at last I have seen you. Are you not nervous?"
"No," they said.
"I am overjoyed. Are you happy?"
"Very happy."
"No more happy than I am in seeing you. When you know me, you will love me like a little child. I am a child — grown up!
"I love humor, I love to tease and work hard here, and at various places, while talking to you now. And when you love me with pure, simple love, there should be no barrier. Love, pure and simple, then all doubts go away. Until then, mind gets tempted to doubt. Even if love is there, the mind goes on working, thinking this is right or wrong. But love does not bother; it loses its all in the Beloved. Do you love Baba honestly?"
"Yes, Baba!" they replied.
"What can I do for you?" asked Adele.
"What more can you do for the Beloved? I want love, nothing else! Love me, and let God love us.
“That is what I want. When you love Baba, God will love you, and God's loving means everything. So, Baba is very happy. One who really is the humblest of the humble is the greatest of the great. But it has to be in all honesty, in all truth. So, let us love, love, love; all else is illusion. So, Adele, what more can you do if you really love me? Do you love me?"
"Yes."
"Do you know where that love is coming from? When you love Baba, God's love means everything."
Filis later recollected: "At that moment, I felt the circulation of love from His heart to our hearts, back to His, so strongly, never again could I say, 'I love God.' That love is His gift. To say it is mine would be like a drop of dew saying, 'I am the sun,' when it sparkles."
“Filis and Adele then left to meet the women mandali at the Guest House.”*
In Baba's Love and Service,
Buz Connor,
For Meher Center board and staff
*Lord Meher, Bhau Kalchuri, Online Version, pp. 3056-3057.
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