Lud Dimpfl on Video

Several years ago, before a series of four taped interviews with Lud Dimpfl was released in Wendell Brustman’s Witness Series, the videos were shown at Meher Center, and I wrote up accounts of as many of the stories as I could take notes on. Now that Lud’s interviews are available on video, under the title My Experiences with Meher Baba, I strongly recommend viewing them, as I could not cover everything, and of course on the tapes you get it straight from the horse’s mouth. I hope from this summary you’ll get a taste of the fantastic lessons and stories that Lud provided.

[1: 1952]

In 1985 Wendell Brustman recorded an interview with the late Lud Dimpfl, telling how he met Baba and recalling some of the events at the Three Incredible Weeks in 1954. We have seen the interview at Meher Center, and I initially wrote up summaries of the videos to share with the members of the Meher Baba Listserv. (Of course, Lud’s own accounts have also been published in various places.) The first one covers Lud’s first meeting with Baba.

The camera focused on a relaxed, smiling Lud appearing considerably slimmed-down compared with his appearance in films of the 1950s such as Meher Baba’s Call. Lud explained that he was a chemical engineer who had worked with Don Stevens at Standard Oil. After being a religious churchgoer in his youth, he turned to atheism with a vengeance because he had become fed up with the clergy. In discussions with Don Stevens, in which he tried to convert Don to atheism, he instead was intrigued by Don's
thoughtful comments and ended up joining a Sufi class and eventually becoming a member of Sufism Reoriented.

The name of Meher Baba first came up when by Murshida Ivy Duce's request, Don began to teach the Discourses in his class (which up to then had been studying Inayat Khan's writings). When Don told Lud that Baba was the Avatar, Lud became highly excited and wanted to go to India immediately. Murshida calmed him down and explained that he would have to wait, since Baba was then in the New Life. When Baba stepped out of the New Life for a period, Lud had the opportunity to write Him a letter. He received a reply, and while I can't recall the wording of the reply, I do recall Lud's emotion in telling it—and I couldn’t help responding with a few tears on seeing Lud so profoundly moved by this contact with Baba.

When Baba was finally to come to the U.S. in 1952, Lud followed his instinct to fly to Myrtle Beach to meet Baba instead of waiting for Baba to come to San Francisco. When, as it turned out, Baba had His automobile accident in Oklahoma on the way to California, Lud was grateful that he had followed his intuition and gone to see Baba in Myrtle Beach, despite the opposition of his family.

Lud's first glimpse of the Beloved was when Baba's car crossed paths with the car that Murshida Duce and Lud were in. He was struck at how Murshida leaped out of the car and ran to Baba with such joy. Later Lud met privately with Baba in the Lagoon Cabin. Murshida had warned him that one doesn't waste time with a Master, and knowing that he'd have only a few minutes with Baba, he had prepared what he was going to say while on the flight to Myrtle Beach. He told Baba he had a good career but that it meant nothing to him and he just wanted to go to India and live with Baba. Baba embraced him and said that He was happy with what he'd said. He called Murshida in, and when she heard what Lud had said, she told Baba that Lud couldn't go to India because he had a wife and three children (and I think he said one on the way). Lud had not mentioned this to Baba because he assumed that Baba, being God, already knew everything. Now, on hearing about the children, Baba gestured by pointing to His own eyes, meaning that He had seen the children, and He said, "They are my angels." A chill went down Lud's spine, as he interpreted this to mean that the children would die—and he, Lud, would be
the cause of it.

Baba concluded the interview, having given Lud the instructions to always tell the truth, and not to leave his job or sell his house, and that Baba would call for him in a year. Lud went home and, confident that in a year he would be in India, began telling the truth to his co-workers rather recklessly. Twelve months passed, and no word came from Baba. It wasn't till Baba called the men to India for the 1954 sahavas (the "Three Incredible Weeks") that Lud realized that three weeks was all he would get. (When he had told Baba that he wanted to live with Him in India, he hadn't specified "for all time," again assuming that Baba knew what his thoughts were. Gradually he was learning that you do have to tell Baba things in a normal way and not depend on Baba to read your mind. Baba wanted people to be at their ease and natural with Him.) Now Lud would have to clean up after his careless "truthfulness" at the office. Baba, he said, allows us to get into predicaments of our own creation and then get out of them as best we can—that's how we learn.

An even more important lesson for Lud was his understanding that he really was not ready to live with Baba in India. He had realized that Baba's comment about the "angels" did not mean that the children would die; but Lud's misreading of that comment showed that he didn't have the necessary detachment to live with Baba. He was still very much attached to his family.

In 1954, when Lud met Baba in India, he was shocked when Baba asked who he was. He thought Baba would remember him immediately. When Baba was reminded, then He recalled "that boy in Myrtle Beach." This helped Lud to understand that Baba really is fully human and forgets things just as we do. Baba lived His human life to perfection without ever "stepping down" from His Divinity or demeaning His Godhood in any way. The first video ended with this important observation. We were promised a further installment in two weeks and looked forward to it eagerly.

[2: 1954]

The second video was concerned with the Three Incredible Weeks. Baba had invited Western men age sixteen and up to be with Him in India for the three weeks in September 1954. Scenes from this period are shown in the film Meher Baba’s Call. In addition to meetings between the Western men and Baba, there was a mass darshan in Ahmednagar at Wadia Park, a smaller darshan at what is now the Trust office compound in ’Nagar, and a visit by the men to Upasni Maharaj’s ashram in Sakori.

In all there were twenty participants, as listed in Lord Meher: Charles Purdom, Will Backett, and Fred Marks from London; Bill Le Page, John Ballantyne, and Francis Brabazon from Australia; Max Haefliger from Switzerland; John Bass, Fred Winterfeldt, Philippe Dupuis, and Darwin Shaw from New York; Alexander Markey, Fred Frey, Lud Dimpfl, Joseph Harb, and Malcolm Schloss from California; Frank Eaton from Myrtle Beach; Dana Field from Florida; Ben Hayman from Texas; and Frank Hendrick from the West Coast. Lud marveled at the diversity of personalities among these men. He seemed particularly struck by the fact that some were highly educated or intellectual, others “all heart.” Perhaps Lud counted himself among the “head” types, since, as we see in the first anecdote below, he appeared baffled by the feeling expressions of the other men.

The following are some of the stories Lud told on the tape. They carry lessons of honesty, obedience, and Baba’s omniscience.

Baba would meet with the men in the water tower building on Upper Meherabad Hill. At their first meeting Baba asked each of the men to say how he felt about being there. Everyone was speaking in superlatives about the heightened experience they were having, and Lud felt as if he must be very unspiritual, as he was not having such strong feelings. When it was his turn to speak, he told Baba he didn’t understand what the others were talking about. He felt that “we” were not really having such lofty experiences. Lud could sense that the other men were reacting angrily to the way he was characterizing the group’s feelings. When he was done, Baba said He was happy with Lud’s honesty, but that he should say “I,” not “we.” This was an important lesson in honesty. Baba brought home to Lud on several occasions that the truth is the most powerful thing there is.

The dormitory where the men stayed was also in the tower building. Joe Harb kept putting his suitcase on Lud’s bed in order to go through his stuff, and then he would leave it there. After this had happened several times, Lud angrily took the suitcase and dumped the things out onto Joe’s bed and left the dorm. Then he realized that he couldn’t meet with Baba after having done that, so he went back and put the things back into the suitcase and stowed it under Joe’s bed. He entered the meeting room just in time to hear Baba tell Francis, “And if you get angry at anyone, don’t empty his suitcase onto his bed!” Francis was baffled and said, “Why would I do a stupid thing like that?” Lud’s facial expression was pure joy as he laughingly recalled how Baba revealed His awareness of Lud’s anger.

Baba told the men to feel at home—if they felt like smoking or stretching out their legs, they should be at their ease. So Lud lit up a cigarette and took his shoes off. Later Meherjee told him he shouldn’t have smoked in front of Baba, that Baba hated cigarette smoke. So the next time he saw Baba, Lud told Him that he didn’t need to smoke if it bothered Baba. Baba asked him who told him not to smoke, and he said “Meherjee.” Then Baba scolded him for listening to Meherjee instead of Baba.

Each person had a fifteen-minute private interview with Baba. Lud had meant to use his interview to ask Baba about coming to India to live with Him. But when he got to the interview, he forgot all about it. Toward the end, when Baba asked him if there was anything else he wanted to talk about, Lud told Baba there was something but that he couldn’t quite remember what it was. Baba gave him a few more minutes to think about it, but he never did remember—until after he was home. Again Lud laughed with good humor at the way Baba had outsmarted him.

When they visited Upasni Maharaj’s shrine in Sakori, each one was to put his head down at Upasni’s tomb. Lud had the thought that it was a good thing his religiously Christian father would never witness Lud bowing down to an Indian master’s tomb—and just as he put his head down, a flash went off—an Indian Baba-lover had taken a photo. (Of course, Lud’s father never saw the photo—Lud himself didn’t see it till many years later—but the fact that it was snapped did seem to be Baba’s response to Lud’s thought.)

There were some of Upasni’s books for sale, and Lud and some others wanted to buy some. Meherjee came in and said that Baba wanted to see the men. Instead of going right away, Lud took two more steps to get his books and then went to Baba. Meherjee told him he should have come immediately. (The mandali had learned the importance of dropping everything as soon as Baba called.) When they came before Him, Baba collected all the books they had bought and told them He would decide later whether to return them. He never did.

Baba had them play marbles—each man was given a marble and had to try to strike another marble with it. No one came even close, so they were given a second try. This time it occurred to Lud that he didn’t have to actively throw the marble—he could simply release it. When he did it that way, his marble struck the other marble right on. It was a great lesson for him to see how little effort he had to put in, realizing that Baba was behind it all. He had a similar lesson in 1956 at the Delmonico Hotel in New York when Baba was throwing grapes to people. He gestured to Lud to hold out his cupped hands and keep them still. When Baba tossed the grape, it looked as though it would miss his cupped hands, so he extended them in order to catch it; but the grape fell just where his hands would have been if he had kept them still. Baba asked him to try again, and to keep his hands still. Again he could not resist trying to position his hands so as to catch the grape, and again the grape missed his hands. Finally on the third try he forced himself to hold still, even though he was sure the grape would not reach his hands—and yet it fell precisely into them.

[3: 1956]

When Baba came to the U.S. in 1956, Lud’s wife, Bea, wanted to come along on the tour with Baba. Lud said with a wry smile that one of the tasks or lessons given to him to work on in this lifetime was his relationship with his wife, which was sometimes difficult because they had very different views of spirituality. Now, he figured, Baba would take one look at Bea and grasp the nature of the difficulties Lud had been having. They approached Baba hand in hand, and when He saw Bea, Baba’s face lit up. He said to Lud, “Where did you find her? She’s perfect for you!”

Baba was asking people whether they loved Him. When it was Lud’s turn, he said, “Not enough, Baba.” Baba affirmed, “You love me.”

Lud wasn’t sure he knew what love was. He complained to Murshida Duce that he didn’t feel anything around Baba—he was emotionally wooden. She brushed this off, saying it didn’t matter—people are all different in their responses, and just because you don’t feel a lot, that doesn’t mean anything. Lud thought Murshida didn’t understand. He got so frustrated feeling that he couldn’t get through to her that he started to cry. She commented to the effect that a grown man who cries can hardly be said to be wooden.

I was struck in watching these videos that although Lud was obviously a keenly intelligent person, he also seemed a very feeling person, and the play of emotions on his face and in his voice appeared very evident to me. I think it’s significant that although many people don’t experience that they have strong feelings, this doesn’t mean that they are unfeeling or lack the capacity for deep feeling.

In the back of his mind, Lud was worried about what would happen if an order from Baba conflicted with an order from Murshida. Which should he obey? He felt it would be gauche to actually ask this question, so he kept it to himself. But Baba answered it in His own way. They were in L.A., preparing to go to San Francisco. They were two days ahead of schedule, so some new plans had to be made. Baba laid out the plans of what they would do in S.F. Lud was glad to hear Baba’s plan, because it matched his own ideas exactly. Baba said to go and call S.F. and explain the plan to the secretary at the Sufism Reoriented center. He went to Murshida and asked to use the phone in her hotel room. She asked what it was about, and he explained the plan Baba had given. Murshida said, “Oh no, that’s wrong—that can’t be what Baba told you.”

So here was exactly the situation Lud had worried about: Murshida was contradicting Baba. He told Murshida that he felt strongly that he had to do what Baba had directed. She said, “Well, if that’s how you feel, go ahead and make the call.” So he did. As soon as he was done, Meherji came and said Baba wanted to see Lud and Murshida. Baba asked Lud if he had made the call, and Lud said yes. Baba asked Lud to repeat what he had told the secretary. When he did, Baba said that it was not what He had ordered. Lud began to realize that when he had listened to Eruch interpreting Baba’s gestures, with Eruch’s Indian accent Lud had allowed himself to mishear what was being said so as to make it fit his own preconceived ideas about what the plan should be. So from this incident he learned that masters know what they are doing and do not contradict one another—if there appears to be a contradiction, one’s own ignorance is at fault.

Baba asked Lud how he was feeling, and Lud said he thought he was coming down with something. Baba had him go to bed, and a doctor was called. Lud was feverish, and the doctor said he had pneumonia. Baba told Lud he’d be up in three days; the doctor, however, thought that Lud would be laid up for two weeks. But in three days, Lud was better. He found out that while he was sick, Baba had told the other people that Lud just had a cold and didn’t feel like attending the meetings with Baba. So the others were very disapproving of Lud and let him know that they would never have let a little thing like a cold keep them from Baba. Lud commented that people are often quite eager to teach us lessons that they think they don’t need themselves.

Baba told Lud, “Do you realize how fortunate you are to have fallen ill in My presence and be visited by Me?” With a rueful smile Lud recounted his reply: “No, Baba, I don’t realize how fortunate I am.”

Lud still had in mind that he wanted to go to India to live with Baba—a desire that he felt he had not succeeded in impressing on Baba in 1952 or 1954. When there was the opportunity for an interview, he planned to ask Baba about it. Right before the interview, Bea said something to Lud about her wanting Baba to straighten out the mess Lud had made of their finances. Immediately after she said that, Meherji called them in to meet with Baba. In Lud’s mind, then, there was some connection between what Bea had said and the fact that Baba had called them in. In fact there was no connection (apart from the fact that Baba was setting the stage for a lesson). When they came before Baba, Lud wanted to talk about going to live with Baba in India, but he figured he’d better get this other question of finances out of the way. Baba asked him what he wanted to talk about. He started, “Baba, there’s this problem about money…”

Baba said, “What? You’re asking about money?” Lud realized he’d blown it. “No, I didn’t really want to talk about money, but…” But it was too late—now Baba said he had to talk about money, since he’d started it. He could ask only one question. Baba said, “You will talk about money and be happy about it,” and Lud realized this was an order. “So, disemboweled as I was, I picked my bowels off the floor and stuffed them back into my abdomen.” He explained about how Bea wanted a new house, but if they paid for that, there wouldn’t be enough money for the children’s college. Baba asked Bea if she wanted a house, and she said yes. Baba told Lud to buy her a house. So Lud said, fine, we’ll buy the house and the children won’t go to college. Baba said, What do you mean? Of course the children must have the best education possible. Baba asked Bea if there was anything else, and she said she wanted Lud to buy her more insurance, because she felt insecure. Baba told Lud to buy her all the insurance she wanted. Lud was sure Baba was failing to do His arithmetic, because it just didn’t add up.

Finally Baba told him, “I don’t usually tell this to people, but I will tell it to you: You will never have to worry about money in this life.” Despite this, Lud was still convinced he was headed for bankruptcy. But later his company sent him to work in Iran for a few years, with a fifty percent increase in salary, which paid for the house he built and other expenses. (Baba eventually came and stayed overnight in that house.)

Baba also said that if Lud continued to worry, Baba would stop worrying about him. Only one of them could worry. Lud would have to stop worrying if he wanted Baba to take care of everything.

In 1958 Baba came directly to Myrtle Beach. There wasn’t enough room on the Center, so Lud and his family were going to stay in a hotel across the road from the Center. People were gathering on the Center in anticipation of Baba’s arrival. Lud ran into Murshida driving out, and she told him that she was about to go pick up “a friend of yours”—Baba! He then went to register at the hotel and returned to sit on the fence to watch the road and catch sight of Baba as He first arrived instead of meeting Him with the crowd on the Center. He waited along with a couple of other people and his daughter, 3-B (Diane). Traffic was going by, and sometimes as trucks passed, they obscured the sight of vehicles moving from where Baba’s car would be coming. Time passed and dusk started to fall. Lud started to have the thought that this was hopeless and they might as well go. But then he realized, no, he would stay until it got pitch-black; he wouldn’t miss the chance to see Baba. About ten minutes after he had this thought, Baba’s car arrived, and Baba waved to them from the window. Then they saw the car stop, and Baba got out. Oblivious to traffic, they raced across the road and embraced Baba.

This last story touched me especially. In San Francisco, people had arranged for their friends and relatives to meet Baba. After Baba had met two of these people, He asked Lud whether the remaining people who had appointments were going to be similar to these first two. Initially Lud thought he couldn’t possibly know whether the people were the same—how could he know anything about their inner thoughts and feelings? But since Baba was asking him the question, he felt he had to try to reply, so he reached within himself for the answer. He realized that yes, they were alike in that they were not people who had sought out interviews with Baba of their own accord. They had been persuaded to accept appointments made by Baba-lovers who wanted them to meet Baba. Lud told this to Baba, and Baba directed him to cancel the interviews. Lud called the people and discovered that they were all glad to hear the appointments were canceled—either they didn’t really want to come, or they had another engagement, or they’d forgotten all about it anyway.

Lud realized that no matter how much we might like our friends and relatives to come to Baba, if they don’t have the connection with Him and don’t have the love and the longing, it just won’t happen. Baba did not come for such people—He wants to be with His lovers. The Avatar incarnates for the whole universe and gives a push to every being in creation. But His lovers are special to Him—He comes to love us and to receive our love.

[4: 1958]

The last of the four Lud videos covers 1958, 1960, and 1962. This account is just of 1958, since this video is long. I guess you’ll have to watch the videos themselves for the complete story!

Lud picked up his narrative at the point in 1958 when Baba became his houseguest in Kentfield, California. Baba had just visited the Center, still displaying the painful aftereffects of His 1956 accident in India, when He shattered His hip. Now Baba walked only with great difficulty, using two canes.

Lud was the only one allowed to accompany Baba and His mandali (Eruch, Adi, Donkin, Nariman) on the flight from Myrtle Beach to San Francisco, where Baba would catch His flight to Australia. It would stop at Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles before finally landing in San Francisco. Some change in the airline schedule led to a situation where Baba needed a place to stay overnight in San Francisco. Nariman explained to Lud that they could insist that the airline put them up at a hotel, but Baba would prefer to stay in one of His lovers’ homes, and Lud was asked to find a suitable place. Lud’s face lit up and he said, “Baba can stay at my house!” (This was the house that Lud built after Baba told him, in 1956, to comply with his wife Bea’s wish for a new house.) Nariman then warned him that there were conditions—there must be a separate room for each of the four mandali; there must be a secluded part of the house for Baba alone; there must be no one else staying in the house. Lud assured Nariman that his house met all the conditions, and he drew a floorplan to prove it. And so it was decided.

During the flight, Lud sat next to Baba, who kept asking him, “Where are we?” Lud pulled out the airline’s flight map that was in the seat pocket and managed to identify where on the map they were at the moment. Since Baba kept repeating the question, Lud was kept busy figuring out their exact progress in the flight. For whatever reason, Baba wanted this information. I wonder if it was connected with some work He was doing with the people in the areas they passed over.

Lud recounted two stories or comments of Baba’s—during the flight, I think. (I forget some of the details.) One was about a time that Krishna was in seclusion and a well-respected sixth-plane yogi wanted to see Him. Krishna would not allow it, so the yogi tried to get Krishna’s disciples to intercede. When Krishna’s mandali pleaded with Krishna, then permission was given. The yogi came and fell at Krishna’s feet, and the moment he touched the feet, he was God-realized in that instant and dropped his body.

The other story that struck Lud was Baba’s remark that when He was on earth as Shivaji (one of His “innocent” incarnations, in which the Avatar does not realize He is the Avatar), all of them—meaning, I inferred, the four mandali and Lud too—had been His warriors. Lud began to reflect how different life was these days, when he felt that he could do nothing significant for Baba while living an ordinary life.

Baba suddenly asked Lud what he was thinking. Lud replied, “Two things, Baba.” He explained that he was thinking about how they had all been Baba’s soldiers yet they could not do anything definite for Baba in this life, like take a fort. Baba looked at Lud with disgust, as if to say, “Haven’t you learned anything from your time with me?” Then He asked Lud what was the second thing he’d been thinking.

A little apprehensive as to how his answer would be received, Lud said that he’d also been thinking about the yogi who dropped his body upon meeting Krishna, and “how fortunate we were to be in Baba’s presence instead of yogis on the sixth plane.” This time, Baba beamed and made the symbol of perfection (joining His index finger and thumb in a circle). Lud said this exchange with Baba was like a little discourse, showing in a nutshell what was important and what was not.

When they arrived in San Francisco, it was nighttime on Memorial Day 1958. They drove to the Kentfield house. There was nothing much to eat in the house, and it was too late to shop on a holiday weekend. But Baba wanted food and Seven-Up. So Lud and one of the mandali got into the car to go searching. The mandali went into an all-night fast food place called “The Eat and Run” to get dinner while Lud looked for the Seven-Up. He came upon a liquor store owner just closing up his shop and persuaded him to let him buy the sodas. When they returned home, they found that Baba had poked into all the cupboards and found some items so that Eruch could start preparing some food for Him.

Baba decided to sleep in Lud’s daughter’s room—that’s Diane Dimpfl Cobb, whom Baba called 3B. (Lud’s wife and children were presumably still in Myrtle Beach at this point.) A dividing line was established, and Baba would be on one side and Lud would stay on the other and was not to cross it. Now, while Lud and his family had been in Myrtle Beach, the hot water heater and furnace had been shut off. Lud got permission to enter Baba’s side of the house in order to turn on the water heater; Baba said not to turn on the furnace. At about 1:00 AM, Adi shook Lud out of a sound sleep and told him Baba was cold, so he got up to turn on the furnace and instruct Adi in how to use the thermostat, and then went back to bed. Lud recounted this episode with a smile. I think that lovers of Baba such as Lud, who have begun a little to understand His ways, can appreciate the discomforts, inconveniences, and changes of plan that are a typical part of the way Baba teaches us how to love and serve Him.

At breakfast in the morning, Lud was having his customary toast with butter. (He was also having some leftover hamburger from Baba’s fast-food dinner of the night before, which Baba had saved for him.) Baba asked him, “Do you like butter?” Lud replied in the affirmative while continuing to “trowel” butter onto his slice of toast. Baba then stated, “You must have butter only once a week.” Adi said, “That means you can have butter once a week and margarine the rest of the time.” Baba said, “No, that’s not what I meant. You can have butter or margarine once a week.” “Oh,” said Adi, “then that means you can have a week’s worth of butter all at one sitting.” Baba again said that this was not what He meant. “Two pats only.” Lud subsequently realized that Adi was voicing all the questions that would later arise in Lud’s mind as he started analyzing Baba’s order. This way Adi helped him get it straight from the start.

Lud initially thought that this order was simply a matter of health, of the proper amount of fat intake. He approached it with the idea that he would plan the use of his two pats so that he could have them with, say, corn on the cob or some other food that he liked to eat with butter. But eventually it dawned on him that this was not the point at all. The order was Baba’s way of arranging to give His prasad to Lud each week. With this new understanding, Lud had his two pats of butter with his Sunday morning toast and ate them with the wonderful feeling of receiving Baba’s prasad. He said that he continued this weekly practice “to this day.”

Highlights of an Amartithi Talk by Irwin Luck

On the 31st Amartithi, January 31, 2001, we heard a talk at Meher Center by Irwin Luck, who attended the first Amartithi—the seven days, February 1-7, 1969, during which Meher Baba’s body lay in the crypt in his Tomb, surrounded by flowers (with just his face exposed), while thousands of pilgrims came to pay their last respects. Among the masses of Easterners was a handful of Westerners, including Irwin and his brother, Edward Luck, Allan Cohen, Rick Chapman, Don Stevens, and Delia DeLeon.

January 31, 1969, the day that Baba dropped his body, was an unusual day for Irwin. In those days he was driving a taxi in New York City. On the 31st he drove around the city all day, yet not one single passenger got into his cab! And after that he never drove a cab again.

When the news came that Baba had dropped his body, his lovers around the world were eagerly preparing for the Darshan that was to take place in April-June 1969. Irwin and Ed, however, had not signed up for any of the group flights going from the United States. Instead, their plan was to go to India earlier and wait until the Darshan began. After all, Baba had said that his lovers could travel anywhere they wanted to before the Darshan —but after the Darshan, they were to go straight home, without stopping to visit other places or sightsee. Well, Irwin and Ed reasoned, since they could go anywhere beforehand, why not go to Poona a month before the Darshan? They of course would not want to disturb Baba, but if he should just happen to want to see them, they would be there.

And so, when the telegram came announcing that Baba had dropped his body, Irwin and Ed’s money was not tied up in the group flight set for later that spring. Although group heads were at first advising people not to go in April-June—because they assumed that such pilgrims would be a burden to the mandali—Irwin and Ed felt that they could take care of themselves and would not bother the mandali. The primary consideration, as Irwin expressed it, was this: When a father passes away, where should his son go? The Luck brothers felt that they were Baba’s sons, and so of course they must go immediately to India to attend his funeral.

Until they arrived on February 7, the Lucks assumed that the body would already be interred and had no idea that they would still be able to see Baba’s face. This was the last day when anyone was able to do so, because Mehera, recalling that Baba had told her on January 31 that his suffering would last for seven more days, said that the interment should take place after seven days.

The atmosphere that Irwin experienced at Baba’s Samadhi was replete with Baba’s love and presence. He recalled Dr. Harry Kenmore exclaiming in his booming voice, “This is intoxicating!” It was a love feast where one was drunk without wine. Despite the profound sense of loss—suffered in particular by those who had lived in such intimate proximity with the Beloved—Irwin could feel Baba’s presence even though the body was no longer alive. And he recalled how many times Baba had emphasized, “I am not this body.”

Several people that Irwin met in India had the miraculous experience of seeing Baba open his eyes and looking at them from the crypt. One of these was a Zoroastrian priest who told Irwin and others how he had been traveling and saw a vision of Zoroaster rising straight up in the air. He saw smoke in the sky of a particular color that was believed to indicate the death of a great soul, and so he followed this smoke. And that is how he arrived at Baba’s Samadhi. (There was no actual smoke coming from Meherabad Hill—that was just part of the priest’s vision.) Standing on line to pay his respects to Baba, he had trouble seeing over the heads of those in front of him, when suddenly he saw Baba lift his head and look right at him. What a remarkable gift Baba gave to this priest, who normally would be the last person on earth to go to Baba.

Baba’s body had been placed on top of a coffin lid; around him blocks of ice were positioned to keep the body fresh in the intense heat (and remarkably there were no signs of decay or odor during the seven days), and these were sprinkled with sawdust to absorb any melting water, and then covered with an abundance of beautiful flowers. On the seventh day, the ice blocks were removed. In a film taken at the scene, which had been shown at the Center the previous night, we saw Irwin and Edward among those on the “bucket brigade” line, passing the ice from hand to hand. At 12:15 P.M. the inverted coffin was lowered over Baba’s body by means of ropes, and this was covered with earth and flowers. (For a long period, the earth was simply covered with a cloth, until sometime later a marble slab was placed over the crypt. Irwin described humorously how, when the marble arrived up on Meherabad Hill, although no instructions had yet been given, some Arangaon villagers picked it up and carried it into the Tomb—causing Padri to come running, as there was concern over the fragility of this marble that had been made specially by a master craftsman in Italy. But the trusty villagers safely put the marble in its place.)

Irwin and Edward spent four months in India altogether, attending the Great Darshan in Poona at the end of that period.

In connection with Baba’s passing, Irwin addressed the question of Baba’s silence and the breaking of his silence. Most people expected that Baba was going to literally utter a word or words before shedding his physical form. Noting that Baba’s silence had many meanings, Irwin recalled some of Baba’s statements: “I am never silent. I speak eternally. The voice that is heard deep within the soul is My voice--the voice of inspiration, of intuition, of guidance. Through those who are receptive to this voice, I speak.” “When the Word of my love breaks out of its silence and speaks in your hearts, telling you who I really am, you will know that this the Real Word you have always been longing to hear.” Such statements suggest a deep inner meaning to the breaking of his silence.

Baba once said that when he would break his silence, his word would have the effect of an atom bomb. Such an atom bomb, Irwin said, would produce a tremendous shock—but it would be a “love-shock.” We all know about the destructiveness of the atom bomb—but just think of the constructiveness of the infinite power of love as the divine presence of Baba continues to grow in the world. One day this presence will be so powerful (Irwin reports Baba as having said) that some will even attain illumination through seeing Baba on film.

Irwin remembered that even when one was with Baba, one didn’t see him every minute. At times Baba would retire into another room or the visitors would have to leave his presence. Yet they could still sense his atmosphere even when he was not before their eyes. In the same way, we must learn to tune in to Baba’s presence now that his body is no longer on earth. Once we develop this ability to feel his presence, we can carry it with us wherever we go.

When Irwin's talk was finished, an interesting comment was made by Phyllis Ott during the question-and-answer period. Phyllis said she had heard that before the coffin was put over Baba’s body, a handkerchief of Mehera’s was placed over his face. Although no one present was able to verify this, it’s intriguing to think that a future “shroud of Turin” or veil of St. Veronica may have been created.

Repentance: A Key to the Treasure

I grew up in a milieu that was attuned more to psychoanalysis than to religion, and as a teenager I ridiculed religion as the refuge of people who felt neurotically guilty about their “sins.” Repentance was just a word in a cartoon showing a wild-eyed, bearded figure carrying a sign that read: “Repent Now! The End Is Nigh!”

But when I came to Meher Baba, my understanding of religious concepts such as sin, repentance, and forgiveness were transformed. I began to have an appreciation of repentance as a central necessity of spiritual life, and the word that I once laughed at became strangely beautiful to me.

The words for repentance in Judaism (Hebrew teshuvah) and Islam (Arabic tauba) have the connotation of turning back, retracing one's steps in order to return. The Christian idea of repentance is expressed in the Gospels by the Greek word metanoia, which means “thinking in a new way.” In all three traditions it means turning away from one’s sin and back toward God.

In the discourse entitled “The Removal of Sanskaras, Part I,” Meher Baba discusses repentance as an effective means of unwinding sanskaras, the binding impressions deposited on the mental body by our every thought, word, and deed down through the ages. Baba seems to use the word “repentance” interchangeably with “penance.” However, there is a distinction between the two. Repentance is an internal, mental and emotional event in which we recall our wrongful thoughts, words, and deeds with a “remorseful heart” and “acute disapproval.” By contrast, penance is an external act that expresses one’s repentance. An example that Baba gives is “self-humiliation,” or cultivating humility toward others. Baba discourages the practice of self-mortification as penance, which He says is best accomplished under the loving direction of a master.

Repentance, however, is a meditative act that we can do anytime. For example, as a nightly practice, we could review the day’s actions, identifying those that are undesirable and summoning up feelings of remorse and resolve in connection with them. We might ask God for forgiveness for disobedience to Him and apologize to people we have wronged. An especially important practice is to mentally give the results of all our thoughts, words, and deeds—both bad and good—to Baba.

An ideal way to get acquainted with repentance is to recite the Prayer of Repentance given by Baba in 1952. This prayer not only teaches us what kinds of things we ought to repent for, but actually enables us to arrive at true repentance. This is because Baba participated in the recital of the prayer in order to help anyone who would say it in the future. For that reason, I believe that it is beneficial to practice this prayer even if we only say it mechanically. However, making an effort to say the prayer with deep feeling is more rewarding.

Baba says, “Self-condemnation accompanied by deep feeling can negate the sanskaras of anger, greed, and lust.” By “self-condemnation,” Baba does not mean “gloomy pondering over one’s own failings”; repentance must not lead to “lack of self-respect or self-confidence.” Its purpose is merely to “render impossible the repetition of certain types of action.”

It is essential that we completely turn away from the object of repentance. Baba says in The Everything and the Nothing: “. . . people ask God's forgiveness, and He forgives them. But they, instead of forgetting that for which they asked forgiveness, forget that God has forgiven them, and, instead, remember the things they were forgiven—and so nourish the seed of wrongdoing, and it bears its fruit again.”

Those who have studied the art of repentance agree that it is an ongoing process, with many different states and stages. One Sufi master, Dhu’n-Nun, links repentance to the two divine qualities Majesty (jalal) and Beauty (jamal)—that is, His Wrath and His Mercy. Those who perceive God’s Majesty repent out of fear of the consequences of their bad behavior, while those who gaze upon God’s Beauty repent out of shame before His generosity. “The people of shame are the companions of intoxication; the people of fear the companions of sobriety.”

The different levels of repentance have been analyzed by Sufi masters. For beginners the task is to turn away from wrongful actions. The intermediate level means turning away from inappropriate thoughts and intentions. And the advanced stage means that one turns away from even one’s own self, for to maintain a separate existence is to deny the Absolute Being of God. A Persian poet wrote:

When I said, “I did not sin,”

She said in reply:

“Your life is a sin

to which no other sin can compare.”

The spirit of repentance may be born with a simple willingness to look critically at our own life and behavior, an openness to change and to new ways of looking at things. The results can be amazing. A Jewish saying asserts that “repentance is a key that opens any lock.” The Sufis call repentance “the beginning of all happiness.”

God is always ready to forgive, so the gates of repentance are never closed to us. In fact, as Baba says, “Forgiveness of the created was already there in His act of creation,” so in reality forgiveness precedes repentance. Someone once asked the saint Rabi‘a, “If I repent, will God forgive me?” She replied: “No. But if He forgives you, you will repent.”

Although God has already forgiven us, our repentance pleases Him. I think here we find a secret of repentance. As we turn toward Baba with a simple act of wishing to please Him, and turn away from something that displeases Him, a key turns and a door opens. Repentance may seem difficult, but He can make it easy. We have only to take a first step to find out what treasures it unlocks.

Tales of Drunkenness and Cruelty: Does God Really Make Us Suffer?

In late 1999 I moved to a neighborhood three miles from Meher Center in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina—Meher Baba’s Home in the West. Soon afterward I heard an interesting piece of apocrypha: that Baba had said that his influence radiated out from the Center in a “seventeen-mile radius.” I also heard comments about how if you were caught in that seventeen-mile radius, you were finished—your life would be ruined.

It seems common for Baba-lovers to remark that when you come to Baba, he ruins your life. If you want something, Baba will make sure you don’t get it. Or if you have something, Baba will take it away. A joke that made the rounds recently asked, “How do you make Baba laugh?” And the answer: “Tell him your plans.”

Admittedly, one also hears Baba-lovers attributing their good fortune to Baba. After all, didn’t Baba advise (in the message “My Wish”), “When you feel happy, think: ‘Baba wants me to be happy.’ When you suffer, think: ‘Baba wants me to suffer.’ Be resigned to every situation and think honestly and sincerely: ‘Baba has placed me in this situation.’”? We are asked to create a “provisional ego” that attributes all our actions and experiences to the Master (see Discourses, “The Dynamics of Spiritual Advancement”). So maybe those who complain that Baba has it in for them are really obeying his advice to make Him our constant companion and think constantly of Him.

Still, something in me resists the idea that Meher Baba is deliberately making me suffer. It seems discourteous to accuse Baba of such meanness. Does the Lord of the Universe really place obstacles in our worldly path out of some perverse motivation to make us miserable until we surrender to His will?

Well, there is a tradition for it. It is well known in Sufism that whomever the Beloved loves, He slays. When we give our lives over to His care, He sets about dismantling our false self so that we can realize our real Self. Sufi literature speaks of the “tavern of ruin,” a state of total self-forgetfulness likened to the plight of a drunkard. Baba says, “The lover’s drunkenness begins with a drop of God’s love which makes him forget the world. The more he drinks, the closer he draws to his Beloved, and the more unworthy he feels of the Beloved’s love.” This is the real “ruin” that we are in for on this path of love—to become a kind of spiritual Bowery bum on the brink of death. We are told that this death or forgetfulness of the false self is what leads to the experience of union with the Divine Beloved. “First the moth must be consumed; then it may sit with the candle” (Kamal Khojandi).

But what is that to a hopeless destitute passed out in the gutter of Love Street? To us this death appears to be a slow and agonizing one in which we can look forward to all kinds of deprivation and loss. Baba has warned that the path of love is not for the faint-hearted and the weak. It takes real heroism to suffer not merely the adversities of ordinary life but the wounds we receive in the inner world. “The night is black, the sea is deep, and my fear of this whirling abyss is never felt by those resting on the shore” (Hafiz). Disgust for the world and longing for authentic love grow within us: “Flowers and orchards do not interest me. The garden has no charm without the Beloved” (Dard). At the same time there is the frustration of finding ourselves still shackled to mundane desires and attachments. Along with increasing reliance on Baba as the source of our sustenance comes the pain of feeling abandoned and ignored by Him. “I have been killed by Your love, and yet, You cruel Beloved, You do not even glance at me!” (Hafiz). The only comfort may come in reading Persian poems that tell us that this is just the way things are meant to be—we are exactly on course! In some mysterious way, He is cruel only to be kind. “Why are you bothered by whatever the Friend does? From His love there is both joy and pain.”

These painful spiritual opportunities are not something that awaits us in the future when we are dignified pilgrims treading the higher planes—they are experiences available to us gross-plane slobs right now! As ordinary people we experience all the ups and downs, the losses and disappointments, the daily humiliations, self-doubts, and sorrows that are the lot of everything that lives and breathes in this world of duality. But unlike ordinary people, we are asked to accept suffering as our labor of love to reach the Goal. “In Love, to face the torture open-eyed is purest joy. To close your eyes and die is something anyone can do” (Mir). Playing the divine game of lover and Beloved—with all its heartache—is actually the best and swiftest way to attain our heart’s desire.

Or so Baba tells us. If you believe Him, how blessed you are. Because if you really want to encounter unbearable suffering, just imagine a life without Beloved Baba.

It is impossible to explain, but at a certain point Baba actually makes suffering attractive. There is a strange kind of pleasure in it, even for those who are not advanced souls. If you haven’t experienced this pleasure yet, don’t make the insane mistake of thinking that such a bizarre experience is not meant for you. It is exactly meant for you. “Do not worry, because behind the curtain, undreamt-of scenes are being set in motion” (Hafiz).

But I think that in order to experience it, there may be a condition. It is expressed in a line found in the booklet Meher Baba Calling: “Either keep away from the wine of love of Beloved Baba or, if you taste it, seal your lips against complaints.” We must try not to complain too much about Baba’s ways, because part of His way is that He imparts His gift to those who remain outwardly cheerful and silent about the joys and sorrows of love. “Either peel off the layers of wounds of the heart and throw them out of sight, or accept the wounds of separation as positive signs of love” (Seemab). This may be part of the daring that Baba wants us to have on the path—the audacity to look beyond appearances to discover the treasure buried in the ruin.

If we do, who knows? We might find ourselves actually longing to live in that “seventeen-mile radius” (figuratively speaking), just to enjoy the pleasures of suffering for the Beloved!

“I tell myself: Hafiz, never let go of your love.

Whenever you find it, let the whole world slip by.”

Always Fresh

Story told by Meherwan Mistry on 25 February 2006 at Meher Center:

Once Meherwan Mistry was taking a walk with Eruch’s brother Meherwan Jessawala. Meherwan Mistry was saying that Baba groups often invited him to give a talk but that he always told the same stories over and over, never had anything new to say, so why do they want him to speak again and again? Meherwan Jessawala told this story in reply:

In the old days, the 1930s, when the Jessawala family was first staying with Meher Baba in his ashram, Baba’s mother, Shireenmai, used to visit from time to time, and Baba appointed Eruch’s mother, Gaimai, to take care of her needs and keep her company. Each time Shireen visited, in the evening after Baba retired for the night, the two women would sit and talk, and Gaimai took these opportunities to ask Shireen about Baba’s younger days. After a while, Shireen began to realize that Gaimai was asking her the same questions, and she was giving the same replies, and this annoyed her. She said to Gaimai, “Why do you keep asking me the same questions about Merog? Don’t you get tired of hearing the same stale answers?”

Just then, Baba walked into the room and asked them what they were talking about. When they told him, Baba, said, “Stories about Me can never be stale. They are always fresh.”

Magical Moments with Baba: Franey and Shireen at Meher Center

Franey’s Talk

On December 30, 2000, we were treated to a talk by Freni Irani and her daughter, Shireen Bonner, at Meher Center. Each told her story in turn, and it was interesting to notice some parallel experiences shared by mother and daughter.

But first, some family background. Freni’s father was the brother of Sarosh K. Irani, one of Baba’s close ones. The brothers were cousins of Meher Baba’s secretary, Adi K. Irani (referred to as Adi Sr., to distinguish him from Baba’s youngest brother, Adi S. Irani, who is called Adi. Jr.). The three families lived in the compound that is now the Avatar Meher Baba Trust office. Baba frequently visited, to see Adi Sr.’s mother, Gulmai, who He said was His “spiritual mother.” It was Franey’s grandmother who first took Gulmai (her sister-in-law) to meet Upasni Maharaj, which led to Gulmai’s meeting Baba.

Freni married Baba’s brother Adi Jr., and Shireen is their daughter. Adi Jr. also had a son, Dara, whose mother (Adi’s first wife) had died and who was largely raised by Sarosh and his wife, Villoo.

Well, enough of trying to get the kinship systems straight! Let’s just say that when the Avatar comes, He seems to conveniently place many of His close lovers into related families.

Freni told the story of a life lived completely in the loving nazar (glance of protective grace) of Meher Baba. She began by telling us about growing up in the family compound, which at that time was known as Khushru Quarters. She felt that she had been with Baba from the beginning of life, because of the circumstances of her birth: Her mother, who had suffered a previous miscarriage, was worried about the pregnancy, and so Sarosh offered to ask Baba about it. Baba conveyed the reassurance that she would have a girl and the baby would be fine.

As a toddler Franey recalled seeing Baba visit the compound. In awe she watched him float by in his white sadra, his feet never touching the ground, and she thought to herself that he must be a magician.

When, at the age of eleven or twelve, she was going to be formally introduced to Baba for the first time, she was nervous and eager to be at her best. Wanting to be pretty for Him, she spent a tortured night with her hair in metal curlers. Unfortunately, it didn’t work, and her hair frizzed up. She tried wetting it down, but nothing helped. It looked awful and she felt terribly self-conscious. So when she first met Baba, she was shy and preoccupied. She feared Baba would say something about her hair, but thankfully He didn’t—yet one of the Western women touched her hair and commented on it, much to her dismay.

By the time Franey was thirteen, she was quite tall for her age, and her mother complained about it to Baba, saying she couldn’t keep buying Franey new clothes. So Baba put his hand on Franey’s head. Franey said, “Electricity went down me, and I knew I wouldn’t grow after that.”

Now let’s skip some years to the wedding of Freni and Adi, which took place at Khushru Quarters in 1947. The evening before, they got the message that Baba wanted her and Adi to see Him in the morning. He saw Freni first, alone, and helped her relax by playing childlike games with her, such as asking her if she could rub her tummy and pat her head at the same time. He held her hand and told her not to be nervous. Then Adi was called in, and Baba joined their hands. He said never to worry and that He would always be with her. Franey felt that the meeting with Baba that morning was her real wedding; the ceremony that followed was just a ritual.

The couple didn’t have a honeymoon, but when Baba was going to America in 1952 with some of the mandali, He suggested that Adi and Franey go to England and then meet up with them in Europe. This didn’t work out as planned, because of Baba’s accident. They received a cable to return home immediately, and they were able to accomplish this directive despite the fact that the shipping companies were all booked and they were assured they would never get a berth. But they did—first class at that. They had a chance to have a couple of days in Paris beforehand, so they did have a honeymoon after all.

Later on, Franey began to feel tired of living in India and wanted to see the world. The possibility arose of going to America under the sponsorship of Don Stevens, but Baba said no, go to England. Franey was happy at this, as she had liked England on their visit there. But in August 1955, a week before they were to leave, they received a cable from Baba telling them to cancel everything and to stay in India. They forfeited the money spent on tickets, their furniture was in storage, they had to find a place to stay—nonetheless they willingly obeyed Baba. Finally, in December, He told them they could go in February. It turned out that London had undergone its worst winter in years, so apparently Baba had wanted to spare them that. They moved in time to celebrate Baba’s birthday at a meeting in London.

Franey found it hard to find work in London. She was trained as a beautician but told that without experience they could not hire her. When she notified Baba of her difficulties, He said that if she found nothing by a certain time, they could leave London. He also asked her if she wanted a child, and she replied, “If You want me to have one, Baba.” He said, “We’ll see.”

At that time Franey and Adi were staying with Minta (Delia DeLeon’s sister), who suggested that Franey should cut her long hair and wear Western clothes instead of a sari when job hunting. This she did, and at her next interview, the long queue of applicants made her feel discouraged, yet miraculously she was given the job.

But not long after starting work, Franey started feeling ill. Adi took her to the doctor, and they discovered she was pregnant. When informed, Baba told Mani she would have a girl. “And I had this wonderful daughter,” Franey said, gesturing toward Shireen.

Shireen’s Talk

Shireen’s first contact with Baba was when she was brought to India as an infant. She grew up in London seeing photos of her uncle all over the house. When she reached the age of seven, her grandfather--Franey’s father, who was a devout Zoroastrian—wanted her to have the traditional navjote, the Zoroastrian counterpart to the confirmation ceremony. Baba gave permission, since it would make the grandfather happy. And so they were to go to India for the ceremony—and to see Baba, of course. To prepare Shireen, her father sat her down and explained to her that her uncle was God. This seemed quite natural, and she accepted it. He said that just as Christians believe in Christ, we believe in Baba, and He is Christ come again.

In India, Shireen was terribly excited about meeting Baba. She was all dressed up in a pretty frock, and Baba’s big American car was sent to pick them up. She brought presents for Baba that she had made herself, and her favorite toys to show him. When they arrived at Meherazad, Shireen recalls the warm greetings, the hugs, and the women mandali dressed up in saris. They proceeded to Mandali Hall, where Baba was waiting for them. Adi Jr. had carefully instructed Shireen on how to behave: she was not to jump on Baba or ask questions. She should garland him, salute him with her joined palms, and step away to let the next person approach. As a well-brought-up English child, Shireen tried hard to be obedient. But the moment she saw Baba with His beaming face and outstretched arms, she forgot everything (“I think I threw the garland aside!”) and ran into His embrace.

Shireen had prepared a number of questions for her visit to Baba, some of them remarkably “metaphysical.” She was convinced that Baba was a magician who knew everything and could answer anything. Mani describes some of Shireen’s questions in her Family Letter of 29 January 1965. For example, “Baba, I know we are born again and again, but You are God, so how is it that You get born?” And Baba replied, “Once in a while God takes birth because of His love for His creation. I am born in human form so that you may see Me as you are, and if you are fortunate to know Me and love Me, then someday you will see Me as I really am.” And then there was the famous question about why God created bad things like snakes and scorpions. But since these questions are documented, let me recount some that Shireen told which aren’t in Mani’s letter.

One question was planned in collaboration with one of Shireen’s friends back home in London, to whom she had confided about the trip to see her uncle who was God. Their question was: “Which is higher in the sky—the sun, moon, stars, or clouds?” Baba answered, “I am the Highest of the High.”

Shireen was quite worried about witches and asked Baba whether they were real. He took a moment to think and then said, yes, they were real. This unexpected answer was disturbing to Shireen until Baba explained that witches were just bad people, not supernatural beings, and that satisfied her.

She also asked Baba why she could see a halo on Him in His photos but not in person. He replied that when she loved Him as He should be loved, she would see the halo. Later, Shireen told Mehera and Mani that she wanted a magic wand, and when they asked what she would do with it, she said, “I would see Baba with His halo.”

The family spent three months in India in all, and it was an intimate time with Baba, with all the attention and affection a child could want. Baba wanted Shireen to make friends with His beloved pet Mastan, and even though she was frightened of the large dog, she eventually petted, hugged, and fed him at Baba’s urging. She enjoyed sitting with Baba in his pretty pink bedroom, showing him her toys and playing games. She would ride Goher’s bicycle in the garden, and one day she found what she thought was a “secret” path that went to the side door to Baba’s bedroom. Baba was resting, but she peeked in the window and saw Him lying on His bed. He saw her too and beckoned her in with a loving twinkle.

At meals Shireen would eat with Baba and the women, and Mani let her take her own seat at Baba’s left (Mehera was seated to His right). Shireen loved eating with Baba, though she did not care for the Indian dishes, as she’d been brought up on Western food. She was struggling with how to deal with her serving of rice and dal, torn between her good manners and hating the food. Baba asked her whether she liked the food, and to be polite she said yes. He then caught her off guard and popped a large amount of rice and dal into her mouth. Though Shireen was very startled by this, it turned out to taste good, and after that she had no trouble eating rice and dal.

On another occasion she was served a special treat, some tinned fruit salad that someone had sent. The best part of the fruit salad was the cherries, and Baba had Katy give Shireen several of them. Baba asked whether she’d enjoyed the cherries, and Shireen said yes, so Baba gestured for Katy to give her more. Katy said she wasn’t sure there were any more, since each tin only had a few. But sure enough, she found a few more. Again Baba asked Shireen if she wanted some more, and this was repeated several times, and each time Katy miraculously discovered a few more in the bowl. Shireen told us that she’d been hoping Baba would do something magical, and apparently this was His playful way of granting that wish. In later years Shireen asked Mani about it, and Mani humorously agreed that it was “a never-ending production of cherries.”

To prepare for her navjote, Shireen was made to memorize prayers, which was difficult for her. By “coincidence,” Baba at that same time asked that Shireen learn the Master’s Prayer, and the date by which he wanted her to learn it was the morning of her navjote. She succeeded in learning Baba’s prayer, and after she recited it for Him, He gave her a sadra and kusti, so that this was what she regarded as her real confirmation, not the formal navjote ceremony—a grand affair at which she got all the Zoroastrian prayers wrong in front of the many distinguished guests.

After the family returned to England, they continued to be in close contact with Baba through letters and telegrams, and He was involved in every detail of their lives.

When Shireen was about eight or nine, she wished to cut her hair, which was down to about her knees. Since Baba had liked Shireen’s long hair, Franey said they would have to ask His permission. Shireen wanted short hair, to look more like an English girl. But Baba said no at that time, so she could not cut it. (Mani in later years remarked that maybe people would be better off sometimes if they didn’t ask Baba for permission, because often they were not prepared to have Him deny their request.)

Shireen saw Baba one more time when the family went to India in 1968 for Dara and Amrit’s wedding. This trip was of course very different. Baba was frail and ill, and it was a brief stay. At age eleven, Shireen was much more self-conscious. She was asked to perform for Mehera, who loved ballet. Shireen had been studying only since age eight and was not very accomplished. Although she wanted to please Baba and Mehera, she felt awkward and ungainly. Since Baba was not well, she was asked to dance in His bedroom, where there wasn’t much room. To top it off, the cassette she had brought to accompany her tarantella didn’t work. But no matter--Baba said that Mehera would clap to keep time! So Shireen thudded about in her gypsy costume and somehow got through it, and Baba applauded warmly at the end. She was happy when she later got a chance to treat Baba to some entertainment of her own choosing—by telling jokes taken from a popular Irish comedian on television, Dave Allen, whose humor was aimed at the Church as well as the drinking habits of the Irish. Baba laughed at the jokes and wanted to hear them several times.

After this marvelous talk, it struck me that there had been several parallels in the stories told by mother and daughter. Both Franey and Shireen had a strong sense of Baba as an all-knowing magician. Franey felt that her real marriage was performed by Baba, while Shireen felt that He conducted her real navjote. Both Franey and Shireen had experiences of feeling awkward and clumsy in Baba’s presence. And finally, we might say that each woman at a young age had a “bad hair day” with the Beloved!

Carry Your Life in Your Sleeve: An Evening with Esfandiar

In the evening of Thanksgiving Day, 23 November 2000, we attended a talk at Meher Center in Myrtle Beach by Esfandiar Vesali, an Iranian Zoroastrian who as a boy attended the Prem Ashram. This was the unique “love retreat” for imparting spiritual knowledge to young boys of various religious backgrounds, founded by Meher Baba at Meherabad in the 1920s (for details of this school, see Lord Meher by Bhau Kalchuri and Ramjoo’s Diary by Ramjoo Abdulla). Ever since then the main focus of Esfandiar’s life has been to love Meher Baba as he should be loved.

Esfandiar was visiting the Center from Los Angeles, where he moved from Iran about a year and a half ago. He was accompanied by his interpreter, Farshid Namiranian, and Farshid’s family. All had taken up residence in Dilruba (the house formerly occupied by Elizabeth and Kitty and now used for office work and Sunday afternoon teas). This was the last day of their stay, and a large group had gathered in the Meeting Place at Meher Center to hear this unique lover of Baba’s. During his stay we heard many different stories; this evening’s comments were only a fraction of what Esfandiar had to offer, yet in a way that fraction contains all we need to know if we are looking for some meaningful words of inspiration and guidance.

Esfandiar is a beautiful soul, a handsome white-haired man with a serene expression and a quietly blissful presence. There is something uplifting about just being in his presence—visiting with him seems like a lovely a way of “keeping company with the lovers of God.” But he also has some good stories of Prem Ashram days and his later life with Baba; and although he does not always comply when pressed for details of what he calls his “inner work,” he does have some valuable advice for those with ears to hear.

Esfandiar had first seen Baba’s photo when he was four or five years old, in the home of his mother’s uncle—Baidul (Rustom Jafrabadi Irani), a member of the mandali who joined Baba in the 1920s and who had the reputation of having a fine “nose” for finding masts (God-intoxicated pilgrims of the spiritual path). When Esfandiar was twelve or thirteen, he read about Baba’s school in a magazine and told his mother that he wanted to attend. She, a Baba lover, was pleased, but his father was not. Finally the father agreed, and Baidul brought Esfandiar to India along with some other Iranian boys (about fourteen in all).

After arrival in Ahmednagar, they traveled by bullock cart to Meherabad. The boys lined up to meet Baba, and Esfandiar was the last in line because he was the oldest and tallest. He was eagerly watching for the moment when Baba would appear. Baba arrived and began moving down the line of boys, greeting each one. When he got to the end of the line, Esfandiar was about to bow down and kiss Baba’s feet, but Baba moved quickly away before he could do this. The same thing happened the next several times that he saw Baba. Esfandiar did not comment specifically but left me with the impression that Baba thus kindled the fire that was soon to burst into flame in Esfandiar’s heart.

In the meantime, classes had begun, and Esfandiar—who had come to the school with the ambition of eventually studying engineering or medicine—was transformed when he heard his teacher recite a poem stating that a human being can reach the point where he sees nothing but God. This idea so thrilled Esfandiar that he no longer wanted to study; he would remain alone repeating the name of Yezdan (God) and wanted to run away to the forest. When he was brought to Baba and asked why he would not do his schoolwork, at first Esfandiar would not say. But when Baba said he would send Esfandiar back to Iran unless he revealed the reason, Esfandiar told Baba, “I want to see God.” Baba held him in a close embrace for fifteen or twenty minutes. He then took Esfandiar into another room, and Baba lay down on the bed, his face beaming, and covered himself with a sheet. When he emerged after some time, he looked sick and yellow. Esfandiar did not venture any interpretation, but it seemed as if Baba may have been doing some intense work on Esfandiar in order to make his heart’s desire come true, and in some way this must have taken a toll on Baba. Truly the Avatar does suffer intensely in order to give us the precious gift that he came on earth to impart to his lovers.

Baba took Esfandiar with him in a rickshaw (the one now in the museum on Meherabad Hill). There was hardly room for Esfandiar to sit, and Baba told him to hold on to his arm as they went up the hill. At the top he asked Esfandiar, “Did you see how bumpy the road was? If you hadn’t held on to my arm, you would have fallen off. That’s how the Path is also; you have to hold on to me. . . . If you want to see God, you must obey me. . . . From now on, I am your father, your mother, your relatives—your everything. Think of me and nothing else.” He also instructed Esfandiar to keep silence (for a limited period, obviously). If he accidentally broke the silence, he was to tell one of the mandali, and they would bring him to Baba, who would forgive him.

Baba began to instruct Esfandiar in his “inner work” by coming at night to his room (Hall #2 in upper Meherabad, opposite the museum); while the other boys were sleeping, Baba sat with Esfandiar and directed him in the way to do this work. At first it sounded as if Esfandiar was referring to some kind of meditation, but he subsequently clarified that when he spoke of his inner work, he was referring to his “inner journey” in general, which consisted in efforts to love Baba more and more. When asked what were the exact instructions that Baba gave him, Esfandiar simply replied that Baba said to love him.

The stay at the Prem Ashram lasted for twenty months, after which Baba sent the boys away and Esfandiar returned to Iran. After two years Baba came to Iran, and Esfandiar was able to be with him for four days. He did not see Baba again for twenty-eight years.

In connection with this separation, an interesting episode concerned a story Esfandiar had read or heard, about a saint meditating in the mountains, and how the force of his love caused the snows to melt and spring flowers to bloom around him. Esfandiar had doubted that this could really happen, until an unusual event occurred. He set out to get some medicine for his sister in Yazd, riding a donkey in a snowstorm. He began to get freezing cold and thought that he might not survive the storm, but then he remembered that Baba had promised that Esfandiar would see him again, and he began to weep. At that moment it was as if he were drenched with boiling water. The snow around him melted, and he had an inner experience of bliss, which persisted for some time (and there were no ill effects from his exposure in the storm). I am reminded of the Tibetan Buddhist masters such as Milarepa who practiced tummo, or inner fire meditation, producing so much heat that they wore only a thin cotton garment in the midst of a frosty winter in the mountains. But while Tibetan tummo meditation is a formal practice involving complex esoteric visualizations--which not only create physical heat but also burn away ignorance and lead to bliss--Esfandiar appears to have stumbled onto similar results through the “easy” medium of his natural, spontaneous love for Baba.

During the years apart from Baba, Esfandiar wrote to India about his desire to return, but several times the mandali wrote back saying that Baba was in seclusion. Finally Baidul wrote in 1963 and told him he could come to India, but Esfandiar replied that did not have the money. Baba told him to speak to the trees in his cherry orchard and tell each tree of his desire. Usually the blossoms would freeze each year, ruining the fruit, but this year they gave an ample crop of cherries, enabling him to make the pilgrimage. (As soon as he knew that the fruit would be abundant, he borrowed the money for the trip—evidence of his complete faith in Baba.) When it was time for him to leave India, the airline would not let him pay for his return ticket in rupees, and he had to wait to receive Iranian currency in order to get the ticket. In the meantime he got to stay with Baba an extra twenty-eight days—interestingly (it occurred to me after the talk), the same number of days as the years apart from Baba.

When he returned to Iran, he realized that in order to be with Baba, he must pursue the inner work of loving him intensely that he had learned in the Prem Ashram. He started loving Baba with all his existence and all his soul, with the aim of loving him to the point that he would forget himself. Esfandiar told about the hard time he had when he broke his hip, and his wife had a broken leg at the same time. At first he was quite depressed because not only was he unable to walk, but also the pain made it hard for him to do his inner work. This broke his heart, and it was that broken heart which led him to a very special inner experience. He was sitting on his bed, inwardly loving Baba, when he reached the point of experiencing infinite bliss and power. He wanted to use his power to do something, but he realized that he could not—Baba was blocking that channel. Then it occurred to him that he could use that power to love Baba more. By doing that, he lost his finite self in Baba’s infinite Self. This continued until somehow he came back to his body. The feeling persisted for some time, along with the consciousness of the body.

In the question-and-answer period, Esfandiar’s replies to various requests for advice were all variations on the same theme: Love Baba, commune with Baba, hold his image with the inner eye, and this will open the path. It is not enough just to repeat Baba’s name—it must be done with love. Imagine, he said, that you have been married for thirty years and all that time have been unable to have the child you longed for. Then, after thirty years, God gives you a child. Think how much you would love that child. That is how you should love God.

Someone asked if there was an “easy way” to love Baba (this evoked a peal of laughter in the audience). Esfandiar replied that control of one’s thoughts was an important step. He mentioned avoiding bad thoughts, but I also took his reply to mean that through self-control we can turn our attention away from our attachments and place our thoughts on Baba. It seemed similar to the idea he had expressed when describing the inner experience of infinite power and how he turned that power toward loving Baba. We may not feel that we possess power that is infinite, but each of us nonetheless has our own source of power that we can learn to channel so as to intensify our love for Baba.

Esfandiar quoted Hafiz to the effect that it is impossible to express and explain love, and he added that the aspirant will recognize it by doing it.

Three or four times in the talk he repeated a couplet of Hafiz, translated by Farshid as:

“The abode of Mister Love is higher than the mind.
Only the one who wears his life on his sleeve is able to kiss that
threshold.”

Farshid explained the expression "wear one's life on one's sleeve" as meaning "being ready to give up one's life." Baba quoted the same verse, as reported in Listen, Humanity (page 17):

"Hafiz describes the bare truth about love when he says:

‘Janab-e ishqra dargah basi bala tar-azaq'l ast:
Kasi in astan busad kay jan der astin darad.’

“The majesty of love lies far beyond the reach of intellect;

only one who has his life up his sleeve dares kiss the threshold of love."

I was curious to find out more about this expression, “having one’s life up one’s sleeve.” In English we speak of wearing our heart on our sleeve, and it means that we do not conceal our true feelings of love for someone. Or we may say that someone has something up his sleeve, meaning he has some scheme he is concealing. But these do not seem to be the meanings intended by the Persian expression. Frank Bloise offered the comment that “one who holds his life lightly unshackles his heart so that it is open to receive the gift of Love.” I also asked Carl Ernst, a specialist in Islamic Studies at the University of North Carolina, and he provided some illuminating comments:

“The phrase has to do with the large and capacious sleeves that in Hafiz's time were used to store large money purses and things like food. There is a nice play on words here: the one who can kiss that threshold (asetan) has his life stored in his sleeve (asetin), ready to give it away. So it is quite different from the English phrase. More precisely, I would translate:

‘The court of the Lord of Love is much higher than the mind
The one who kisses its threshold has his life inside his sleeve.’

“This has a lot of royal imagery--the court (dargah), the lord of it who is master of its ‘inner sanctum’ (harim), the threshold, etc. One always approaches a king with a gift, and in this case it is one's life. Unfortunately the literal translation of the phrase does not convey to an English-speaking reader the implication of giving away something stored in
the large sleeve.”

When it was time to end the talk, Esfandiar was asked for one last word of advice. His answer:

“The best backpack on this path is intense love. Once you have that, it will take you where you need to go.”

Demystifying Death: Highlights of a Talk by Filis Frederick

The video summarized here is now online at YouTube.

Adele Wolkin visited Myrtle Beach from L.A., as she does every April near her birthday, and on April 10, 2007, she shared with some friends a dvd of a talk given by Filis Frederick at the 1985 L.A. Sahavas.

Adele and Filis were close friends, and Baba recognized their soul connection by calling them collectively “Filadele.” Filis died in 1987. I shouldn’t use that word, though, because in the talk Filis said quite firmly that “no human being has ever died.” Filis thinks of death as a transformational event, “passing through the golden door.” Life is one unbroken continuity, and the “real death,” according to Baba, is the cessation of desires (Discourses, 1987 ed., “Selfishness, p. 13).

About Filis, Adele commented that in the ‘60s and ‘70s she had played the role of “mother of the hippies,” counseling a generation of Baba-lovers, and that she had had psychic gifts, which, however, was something that Baba never encouraged, and Filis herself pointed out several times in her talk that it was not something to be pursued.

In taking notes I tried to get Filis’s exact words down, but as this was not fully possible, this article will be a summary of her comments, and sometimes I have changed the sequence of her remarks to order them more logically. I want to emphasize that it was not always possible to tell from Filis’s remarks which things are directly from what Baba has taught about death and which were gathered by Filis from other sources, such as near-death research, other metaphysical literature, and her own experiences or intuitions. So I am not sure we can take this talk as a definitive version of Baba’s teaching in every detail, though it certainly is helpful in terms of general principles. Occasionally I have added comments from my own research. (For a collection of quotes from Baba about death, see members.aol.com/markar1/LifeEternal/dead.html.)

Lakhs of Lives

As she looked around at her audience, Filis began with a comment about how Baba draws us together through links—links of love. I am sure many watching the dvd together felt it too.

Filis then wondered aloud what need there was for her to tell us anything about death (the topic had been suggested by the Sahavas committee), since we have all experienced life after death many times—“eight million four hundred thousand, to be exact.” (This figure, referred to in India as “84 lakhs,” is the number of lives and deaths Baba said were necessary before God-realization. It is a traditional number in Indian philosophy for the amount of births necessary to attain human form. But Baba in God Speaks refers to 84 lakhs of human reincarnations, as well as “50 crores of sleeps of death,” or pre-human forms. A crore is 10 million. You do the math!)

Filis had studied all the major religions before meeting Baba and was especially drawn to Buddhism, which she said has the most realistic approach to death. Especially in Tibetan Buddhism, the practitioner is encouraged to act intentionally in the after-death state, in order to move through the experience skillfully and choose the next incarnation wisely.

Our life in the gross world is in a sense just half of our lives, since the time we spend “on the Other Side” is also important, Filis believes. The phrase “Other Side” is not quite accurate, since the worlds are interpenetrating. Most of us can’t see the Other Side, but it’s right here. There are people without gross bodies who attend Baba meetings! They can see us, but we can’t see them. (Apparently Filis was able to see them. And at the 1969 Darshan, I recall Filis telling us she saw Baba in his “light body” moving among us as we sat in Guruprasad Hall.)

What Happens After Dropping the Body

Filis spoke of what happens to the “average person” after they drop the body. She quoted from the Bible: “The silver cord is loosed and the golden bowl is broken” (Eccles. 12:6). The silver cord is the connecting thread between the gross and subtle, and when that cord is severed is the moment of death, Filis said.

Unless the patient is heavily medicated, they will lose consciousness for a short time, then regain it and see and hear as before; the senses of taste and smell are gone. If you’re in bed, for example, you will see where your dead physical form is lying, and if you don’t know much about what to expect, you will likely stay with that view, not knowing where to go or what to do. You may see grieving relatives and emergency staff at your bedside, and you will remain as if transfixed by this sight until someone from the Other Side helps you move away from that perceptual fixation.

Functioning with limited senses and looking down at yourself (not the dead body in the bed, but your own form), you may feel as if you still have a physical body, but actually it is merely an image projected by the subtle body. This partly explains why many people do not realize that they have died, which can become a problem. Again, if a friend or helper tells you, “Come with me,” or urges you to move on, that will help you.

Now, how do you accomplish the act of moving on, away from the scene of death? You can no longer move by physical locomotion. Now you move by imagining being somewhere else. You think of it, and instantly you are there. This accounts for the fact that many people naturally think of their home or loved ones, and the ethereal body is suddenly there and may even be perceived by the living at that location. If you think of Meher Baba’s Tomb-Shrine at that moment, you are thus likely to go there. If you don’t know to do this, you may simply linger in the place where you died, whether the hospital or an accident or suicide scene, or wherever, and you may be bewildered and crying out for help. This is why it’s important that we pray for someone who has died, especially if by suicide. Our prayers will help bring helpers quickly from the Other Side to assist the person, who is unable to proceed because they don’t know the secret of locomotion in the disincarnate state.

Where do you go, once you have begun to move on? In the Bible, Jesus speaks of the “many mansions” that God has prepared: There are many possible destinations. If you have a strong connection to others, whether a connection of love and friendship or hate and resentment, you will be drawn to those people, and if they have been on the Other Side for a while, they will have created a subtle environment around them, out of their own thoughts. Unless you are on the subtle planes, you will be using your subtle body indirectly to build environments in the semi-subtle (or astral) world. For example, using semi-subtle energy, you may think of a structure and it will automatically be created as a thought-form. Some may create very beautiful environments, while others create dismal settings, according to their habitual mind states. If a slum hotel where alcoholics congregate is all that someone knows, for example, that will be what he creates, and if you are drawn to him, that’s what you will perceive as well. That’s why the creative ability to project is very important, so that you create your own environment—otherwise you may end up in someone else’s seedy “dollar-a-night room.”

These are very exact worlds determined by the vibrational plane you operated on while alive in the gross; you cannot go anywhere else, as that’s all you know. In telling this, Filis implied that the mental habits we cultivate in life are very significant, and if we make an effort to practice positive thoughts, this may make all the difference in the after-death experience.

Many may be disappointed, Filis said. For instance, a minister who expected to be escorted to the Pearly Gates or the courtyard of the Lord may see nothing more than his usual church parish, since he goes wherever his vibration allows him to go (as well as the vibration of the people who care about him). Filis also gave the example of fundamentalist believers who fully expect to lie in their graves until the sounding of the “last trumpet” of the final resurrection of souls, as foretold in the Bible, and so they will experience exactly that, not realizing that they can and should move on to the next phase of their journey.

Filis once listened to a tape of a séance, and when one spirit was asked what it was like on the Other Side, the reply was: “Nothing matters but love.” If you’re a negative person by temperament, you’ll be drawn to negative, depressed people. Drug and alcohol abuse can especially affect this experience, attuning you to perceive the astral hell state. So in that sense, the orthodox teachings are right: we go where we deserve by virtue of our own mind-set, and people are sorted out after death into different groups according to their feeling and vibrational nature.

When spirits send messages from the Other Side via mediums and channelers, they often give conflicting information, and that’s because they don’t really know the truth; they only know what they have been conditioned to believe. Filis urged us not to “be a dummy”—we should learn and impress the truth into our subconscious by studying Baba’s words, especially in God Speaks. If God Speaks is too demanding, one can at least study the shorter description of “The Divine Theme” that Baba provided. Filis said that once Baba asked them to meditate on it for 40 days. They first read it aloud, then thought about it mentally. If we impress this understanding of the Divine Theme into our subconscious, then this is what we will carry with us, in seed form, when we pass over.

[See “The Divine Truths (for meditation through reading): The Journey of the Soul to the Oversoul,” in Discourses (1987), pp. 222-227 (in the 1967 ed., vol. 2, p. 138ff); see also “The Divine Theme,” in the supplement to God Speaks (2nd ed.), pp. 234-239; in the Indian edition, pp. 220-224. There is also a film on the subject by Tim Thelen, available on dvd, called The Theme of Creation: An Exploration of Meher Baba's “God Speaks.”]

Rest, Recovery, Recall, and Regrouping

After the shock of dropping the body, there is a need for a place for rest and recovery. Filis spoke of the “law of recall,” meaning that one must undergo a life review rather like an instant replay. In this rest period you look at the lifetime you just lived and you may have guidance to see why you did the things you did. You will see both the low and the high points of your life, and there may be much remorse for things you did to hurt others, while there will also be joy in the love that you shared. This is what Baba means when he speaks in the Discourses of the temporary hell and heaven states. She added that all these impressions, or sanskaras, that you are experiencing are in the ego-mind, not the subtle body.

Intuition and conscience are built up over many lives. We learn the hard way, by hurting someone and then experiencing the result of it ourselves—knowing what that pain felt like for the other. Whatever suffering you have caused, you will have to go through also. Then when you return, you will be more merciful. “It’s a long journey. We are very obtuse.”

Sometimes, if someone is advanced, they may review past lives, not just the most recent incarnation, but this would be rare. It’s not necessary to know our past lives. When you make jam, you cook a lot of fruit down to get the essence—that’s what we get to work with, the essence of our past lives, and there’s no need to go over the details. In some cases, though, Filis felt that past-life regression could be therapeutic if done very carefully by an expert. If the therapist is not expert, the process may stir up problems that they cannot handle. In general, fooling around with the occult is highly inadvisable. Baba has specifically said not to use divination methods, pendulums, Tarot cards, and the like. Filis emphasized the difficulties of being psychic—the fact that you may foresee something dire but be unable to change it. Our focus should be right here and now, on Meher Baba.

After a while the sanskaras start to re-form into new groupings, determined by the law of opposites. To give an extreme example (which would not be typical of most people but which makes it easier to make a point), someone who had been very poor may begin to amass impressions leading to a subsequent life of wealth, or a person who experienced much illness may begin re-forming sanskaras so as to enter a life of health—or vice versa. This rearranging enables us to identify with the opposite of what we have already experienced. Thus we will also change from male to female incarnations at some stages. Filis commented that sometimes the gender transition does not completely go through, resulting in an identification with the opposite sex of one’s own body.

The sanskaras regroup because within each life we can only work out a certain number of the sanskaras available for expression. Say you have a latent talent for dance or voice; it will have to wait for the appropriate lifetime to emerge and be expressed. The seeds of those impressions start vibrating and wanting to express themselves. In the semi-subtle world, although you can experience what you want to experience by merely thinking of it, this experience is nonetheless nebulous; it doesn’t have the “push” of gross life. Therefore the sanskaras are seeking expression in an actual gross lifetime.

Complications of Addiction and Suicide

Addictions planted in the seed-mind can be critical in their effect on the transition of death, Filis said—even cigarette addiction. If you pass over with cravings for drugs, you may be still addicted on the Other Side. For this reason, she expressed concern about the use of pain medications and sedatives for patients in the hospital. She said that in Bhau Kalchuri’s book The Nothing and the Everything, Baba describes how a suicide or addicted person will hang around the lower areas of the astral plane, which is linked to the gross plane. The addicted deceased will be drawn to living people who are similarly addicted and will attempt to satisfy their cravings through that living person’s indulgences.

Baba goes into detail about why it is such a mistake to commit suicide. In effect, you’ve chopped off your karma prematurely. Normally, you drop your body naturally at the point when the particular bundle of sanskaras you’ve chosen to work through in this lifetime have been exhausted. When your sanskaras for that lifetime are finished, your body will simply drop, even if there’s no apparent medical reason for it.

One time at work, when Filis was employed as a toy designer for Mattel, she ran into her boss, a healthy man in his forties, and to her shock she could see no aura around him at all; since the aura reveals the colors of the sanskaras, this was equivalent to seeing a corpse, whose sanskaras were all used up. This made her feel sick and restless, for there was nothing she could do about it. The man went to watch an experimental demonstration of a gasless engine; there was an accidental explosion, and a piece of metal struck his heart and killed him. Another time, Filis looked at her brother at Thanksgiving time. She was talking to him, but “there was nothing there”; there was no life in his eyes. His sanskaras were gone and she knew he would die soon, which he did.

In suicide, you drop your body, but the sanskaras have not yet exhausted themselves, and therefore you cannot move on to the semi-subtle sphere where you can create environments and occupations; you can go neither forward nor back. If you were supposed to have lived 30 more years, you still have to live out those remaining impressions somehow. You may attempt to do it through some living person who is doing the things that you were supposed to be doing. The clear implication is that this is not good for either the deceased person or the one they are trying to vicariously live through.

Because the gross body provides insulation against extremes of emotional stress, Filis said, now you are vulnerable to increased stress. You can’t even escape in sleep but are always awake. To avoid this predicament, don’t commit suicide! Filis said she’d been suicidal herself in the past. If you are suicidal, call for Baba’s help, or ask for someone else’s help. And if someone threatens suicide, do something about it. Don’t believe the myth that a person who threatens suicide won’t actually carry it out; they do.

When someone does kill themselves, Baba’s grace can still help them. If you love Baba, he will come and shorten this difficult period.

“Coming to Baba” after Death

Will we see Baba after we die? Will he be waiting for us on the Other Side? Baba-lovers who have clinically died have described the classic near-death experience of moving through the dark tunnel, which Filis said was related to the stretching of the silver cord between the subtle and gross realms. Near-death experiencers have seen Baba at the end of the tunnel, gesturing to them to go back, as it was not their time and they still had to finish out their karma.

With faith in Baba, he will shorten the hell state and give us more of the bliss state. Filis also feels that we may reincarnate more quickly with faith in Baba; it was speculated that many of us here today had died in previous lives in World War II.

Baba has said that “those who die thinking of me come to me” and especially that repeating his name at the moment of death was important. In researching this notion, I see that Baba told Charles Purdom: “To come to me means Liberation, experiencing me as I am. No more bondage of births and deaths. But it does not mean the state of a Perfect Master, of Perfection. That is only to be attained in the gross body. So if you are not blessed with this state of Perfection, at least you can have Liberation. If you just take my name, just at the moment of dropping your body, you will come to me. Yes, anyone.”

When informed of his lovers’ deaths, Baba often sent telegrams to the effect that “So-and-so has come to me.” However, Filis mentioned that Mani explained that to “come to Baba” can mean different things depending on the circumstances. Sometimes it may just mean remaining in a long state of bliss before rebirth, or being reborn in a Baba family.

Baba reminded us that unless we start practicing now, we won’t remember to say his name at the time of death. Any Avatar’s name or God’s name would be also good, Filis said, but Meher Baba’s name is the most powerful.

It would seem crucial that taking his name occur precisely at the moment of death. What if one falls unconscious? Filis pointed out that people have been heard to repeat Baba’s name even when in a coma. Yet to “escape the rat maze” takes real skill. It is good if the people around you are repeating Baba’s name while you are dying. Filis’s mother did not believe in Baba (though she had met him), and when she was dying, Filis sat by and said his name under her breath.

Questions & Answers

On the question of what to do with the body of someone who has died, Filis said it was best to do nothing for three days, since Baba had said that it takes that time for the soul to detach from the gross form. Filis remarked that Baba had said burial was the best choice. I found this surprising, especially since most Baba-lovers seem to choose cremation. I see in Lord Meher that in the case of the mandali, they or their families were permitted to choose the manner of disposal, and in the absence of a preference Baba chose cremation for some of them (see vol. 13: 4629). Therefore I am not completely convinced by Filis’s statement. In Pascal Kaplan’s book Understanding Death, Murshida Duce is quoted as saying she is uncertain what Baba had said about it but thought he may have leaned toward burial. (It seems that Masters are typically buried rather than cremated in India. Islamic tradition calls for burial, as do Christianity and Judaism, owing to a belief in physical resurrection at the end of time.)

On the appearance of a discarnate person (in an apparition or to the person him/herself): Filis said that initially someone on the Other Side looks as they did at their age at the time of death, but eventually they go back to their “prime youth image.” She would see her mother and grandfather as young. Filis commented at one point that the question of time in the afterlife is iffy, because it’s not the same time scale as here. We can’t say how long it takes from death until the next life.

A child who dies sees him- or herself as having a small body, but children have helpers who assist them in growing and learning on the Other Side, where they undergo a period of learning with other children of the same age. In time they actually develop a more mature appearance (meaning that the soul begins to think of itself as bigger and older).

The question arose of whether a Baba-lover’s parents and children would be Baba-lovers in their next life even if they hadn’t been in the present. Filis thought that because they heard about Baba through us, eventually in the future they would come to Baba, having formed the link. That’s why it’s important for them to hear his name from us.

One questioner expressed anxiety that they should recognize Baba as soon as possible when they return in the next incarnation. Filis said the more you impress Baba into your subconscious, the better. Thinking about him, loving him, repeating his name will cause us to be born into a Baba family, or perhaps we will meet our fellow Baba-lovers as teachers or playmates. “If you love Baba now, it’s going to flower again.”