Conversations about Meher Baba

Dear folks of Baba, There was a woman who came to the Center who had lost the person most dear to her in this life. She was still in grief. In talking with a fellow Baba lover, he felt she was indulging in her feelings and urged her to get over it. She was deeply hurt but didn’t say anything. He had the mental conviction from Baba’s writings that this world is just an illusion, all its happenings a mere dream, but he did not really have this conviction through experience. If he had, he would have had more empathy for this woman. Within a year, someone who was very dear to him passed on and he suffered the loss profoundly. He found out that his idea that it is all an illusion did not protect his heart from great pain. It is through such experiences that Baba in a natural way awakens in us His empathy for others. Knowing with the mind is not the knowing of the heart. Similarly, some Baba lovers claim to have faith that Baba is in charge of this present war, and why are people worrying about it? After all, they assert, everything is in Baba’s hands. But there are people in our community who have family and friends in this war whose lives are being completely disrupted and even some who are being killed. Isn’t it possible to have genuine faith that it is all in Baba’s hands and still “suffer in the sufferings of others?” The mandali, who more than anyone knew the illusion of life, nevertheless showed such deep compassion and care for us through all our troubles and heartache. For myself, this more universal sensitivity has been very slow and painful to awaken in me. Darwin would say that the mind in collusion with the ego is so powerful that it can convince us that we already know the truth about things. The ego has found a way to keep us from dropping down into our heart where true wisdom resides. Those of us around Darwin often pondered what he actually experienced in his inner life with Baba. It was possible to infer from the things he shared with us what his experience was, but that was all. He was not forthcoming on this subject. But then one day, I said to him, “Darwin, you have a lot of rare wine in your cellar [speaking metaphorically] and if you die, it will only go to your relatives! I think we should bring it up and enjoy it now! You have been focusing on Baba for the last seventy years, year after year, day by day, moment to moment. What is your experience now?” He was amused by this lead-in, and so, at the ripe old age of 96, Darwin shared this with us: “Just as when we breathe all day, we don’t have to say, now it’s time to inhale, now it's time to exhale. This all happens automatically. Eventually life just unfolds. We are no longer trying to get things to go this way or that. We’ve let go. Consciousness is then freed at the level of the world. It goes up to the level of the spirit and out to the far corners of the universe, and we live in and through everyone and everything.” That is, when we’re let out of the prison of our finite identity, our life and consciousness expand infinitely in all directions. Looking across the table where he sat relaxed in Baba’s home in the West, who would have thought that this wizened old gentleman contained such a sublime experience! This was the glorious culmination of a lifetime of loving effort in living for Baba. The inner life that Baba spoke of was relatively unknown to us in our youth, but Darwin kept encouraging us to go deeper into Baba, inviting us to move from the monkey mind down to the unspeakable treasures of the heart. Years later, we discovered there was another side of Darwin that he rarely spoke of, and that was his compassion for this world of ours, the many hours he spent alone working inwardly at great depths to send Baba’s love to all those in need who inhabit this fair earth. In this inner work, he would first send love to his family and when he had enveloped them sufficiently with Baba’s love, he would flow out to the city of Schenectady, and then on to New York state and out to the Baba family scattered throughout the country, and then on to the whole world. He would not proceed to the next stage until he had enveloped that stage with Baba’s love. This was a part of the major inner work that Darwin did with Baba. It’s no wonder that such souls seem to us larger than life! I once asked him, “What is the biggest mistake the Baba lovers are making?” Not critically but as an encouragement to us, Darwin replied, “They think of themselves as small and they remain small. Think big! Think outside even the traditional spiritual box. They could open up to a much larger world and would be much happier." One of the lines from Baba's discourses that Darwin would most often quote was: “All finiteness and limitation is subjective and self-created.” The poignant prayer of Mother Teresa expresses all of this so well: “Dear Lord, break my heart so completely that the whole world falls in.” In His love, Jeff

Most people feel incomplete, that there is something profoundly missing in their lives. It is not their fault if they think that such a fulfillment lies in fame, recognition, a soul mate, material success, expertise in some field or producing a great work of art. And unfortunately, even when pursued, these goals are never fully secured. In the partial satisfaction of what they think is missing, the goal post keeps getting moved farther away. There is always much more that is needed! That is why eventually everyone turns to God who is Completeness Itself. The divine incarnations are the very embodiments of wholeness, and the feeling that there is something missing is dissolved when in their Presence. Unfortunately, everything on this side of the Divine is incomplete. That is why the focus on the Divine is regarded as the highest pursuit, which is our own completeness, and it cannot be attained at the level of the world. In focusing on Baba in any way, shape or form, we are moving toward completeness, toward our own wholeness. When our wanting the things of this world ends, wholeness can appear. There are many efforts we can make from our side that will help Baba awaken the experience of completeness in us. Two such methods are to cultivate self-acceptance and self-compassion. We are a mixture of love and selfishness, and we are going to witness ourselves falling short of love time and again. We will one day have to accept these shortcomings in ourselves and remain in the present and not be so self-critical. Baba has said that God-realization is the simultaneous experience of the extreme opposites. We have to one day become aware of life in its totality, including the opposites of good and bad, rather than accepting only its good side. This means being aware of both sides in ourselves and in the world, but without acting out the extremes. At the same time, we must remain sensitive and not become indifferent toward the pain and suffering of others. Such efforts lead to wholeness. Another requirement for attaining wholeness or completeness is to stay in the present and not live in the past or future. I once quoted Baba’s words to Meherwan Jessawala, one of the mandali, “Live more and more in the present which is ever-beautiful and stretches away beyond the limits of the past and the future.” I asked him what these words meant to him. He replied, “You won’t find Baba in the past or the future. You will only find Him in the present.” To stay in the present with Baba is to imbibe His oneness and through this, our own wholeness. We must build up an increasing tolerance for mental discomfort, because if we don’t, we will always be trying to escape into the past or future or to some distraction in the present. There is another challenging requirement for experiencing our intrinsic wholeness. Most of us find it easier to experience "the oneness of Baba within” in themselves, but find "the oneness within” in the company of others is a much greater challenge. Baba has said in this Advent that “the path is through people.” This requires experiencing Baba in others, tuning into their essence which lies behind the personality self. It requires a huge expansion of who we experience ourselves to be—that is, to include all others in the experience of our “self”. We have to become more detached from the likes and dislikes of our personality self, to rise above our attitude of approval and disapproval of others, and to penetrate beyond the external level to Baba within others. This oneness, when achieved, is permanent and is untouched by the ups and downs of our reactions to others and the world. When we respond to Baba in others, this does not mean that they will necessarily reciprocate. We have to share Baba’s love with no strings attached. It is enough to offer love from our side, so to speak, and if they respond with love, that is icing on the cake! The results are left to Baba. There are some occasions when we may have to keep an external distance from someone (as in the case of a person who is abusive), but not at the level of the heart; our heart should not close at the inner level because that would deny the truth of our innate completeness. All this requires tremendous work on ourselves, but Baba will make it happen one day in each of us. Our soul is meant to include all, not just those who please our small personality self. "A human being is a part of the whole, called by us “the universe,” a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thought and feelings as something separate from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening the circle of our understanding and compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty." - Albert Einstein In His love, Jeff

Topic: The Divine Qualities, the link to the Soul Dear folks of Baba, “To penetrate into the essence of all being and significance and to release the fragrance of that inner attainment for the benefit and guidance of others by expressing in the world of forms--truth, love, purity and beauty--this is the sole game that has intrinsic and absolute worth.” - Meher Baba As we surrender more and more of our interior to Baba, clearing out the strangers in our heart, we begin to create what Darwin calls “inner space.” With inner-directed awareness, we gradually see into the interior dynamics of our psyche, equivalent to lifting up the hood of our car to observe how the engine operates. We see on one side of this inner space our reactions to life linked directly to our impressions (sanskaras), the conditioning we’ve accumulated in all our lives. On the other, deeper side are our loving responses to life that are directly connected to our soul, to Baba Himself. A part of our essential work is to transmute our reactions into loving responses, through our divine qualities. This is the purification of the heart. As the heart is emptied of our sanskaric reactions, inner space is made for the divine qualities to naturally flow in from Baba. Giving our interior to Baba requires great effort on our part. As we gathered from Darwin, it involves focusing deeply on our reactions and emotional complexes, taking time to feel and delve profoundly into them and then give them energetically to Baba. In this way, these reactions and emotional complexes are gradually dissolved in Baba. Darwin would say, “The deeper the feeling, the deeper the healing.” The divine qualities can all be encapsulated in Baba’s words—truth, love, purity and beauty. For example, Baba says that the opposite of anger (a reaction) is patience and tolerance (our loving response). The opposite of greed (wanting, acquisition) is generosity. The opposite of lust (craving) is purity. The same is true of all our reactions; they have their counterparts flowing in from the soul: for example, retaliation is sublimated into forgiveness, self-centeredness into empathy and compassion, jealousy into appreciation of the qualities of others, suspicion into trust. Our reactions are experienced as a superficial (though sometimes very intense)aspect of our heart, whereas our responses have great substance and depth. In every situation, we are faced with a choice, whether to give in to our reactions or favor our loving responses. It is through the divine qualities coming directly from Baba that our consciousness moves its focus from our ego, with its self-centered reactions, to imbibing the universal love of our own soul. Baba’s divine impressions, as Darwin describes, “filter in through our heart center.” In fact, His Divine Love and Grace is radiating right now in this moment in each of us with full strength; we are mistaken if we think it only happens in His physical presence. I was truly heartened when I read where Baba says that the work we do in cultivating our divine qualities in this lifetime is carried over into our future lifetimes. Whatever progress we make with, say, patience in this life becomes our intrinsic capacity in the next life. We may lose our present material benefits in the next life, but the work we’ve done in cultivating any of the divine qualities is never lost. As our consciousness moves closer to our soul, Baba is then free to express the divine qualities through us. Our heart becomes a vehicle for the divine qualities rather than for our reactions. We are eclipsed by Baba. He becomes more and more the doer. As Darwin would say, we begin to “merge with Him.” Over time, Darwin assures us, “In His infinite, oceanic divine love radiation, we lose track of the little streams of our sanskaric currents. In their place, we experience a steady, sustained flow of truth, love, purity and beauty. We are meant to experience this coming in from Him within us, not in a sporadic or passing way, but continuously.” With our heart in this receptive state, a longing is naturally awakened in us to serve Baba in some way. What are we being called to do in our personal life? What type of service resonates with the unique nature of our heart? Baba says it is enough to be “in readiness” to serve and opportunities will then naturally arise, revealed to us in the needs in the world around us, especially where love is lacking. As Darwin says, “Each person who comes to Baba is put to work.” This may not require always some outward expression. Even just loving Baba within is service because through Him that love goes out to the world. “I am a little pencil in the hand of a writing God sending a love letter to the world.” - Mother Teresa In His love, Jeff P.S. We are continuing on page 89.

"I have fallen in love with the world." - Tracey Schmidt Sahavas for Everyone, third Thursday of the month. Avatar Meher Baba is in each one of us. And His Love is the focus of this gathering. Open discussion with each session having a topic or theme. Hosted by Laurent Weichberger in SC. Jai Baba! This event was recorded live. To be first to be notified of a new video on this channel, please hit the red subscribe button, then the notifications bell. To join future live events, see www.babazoom.net. Please join our Facebook group: www.facebook.com/groups/meherbabafamily

Dear folks of Baba, In attempting to surrender to Baba as He has asked of us, if we were to experience that we are actually surrendering our limited love in favor of His supremely unconditional Love, it would be much more acceptable. But we have to actually know and feel this greater Love in the One we are surrendering to. We are not comfortable with blind faith, and fortunately Baba allows us to test His love through the many situations in our life. Once our soul is fully convinced of Baba’s unconditional Love, we can then become completely confident in our efforts to surrender. Here is how Baba, back in early 1968, introduced me to the initial step of what He means by surrender. It was during college, and I found myself in great mental turmoil. I found myself agonizing over what I was going to do in the future, I was deeply regretful and ashamed of many of the things I’d done in my college days, I was nostalgic about my childhood that had been truly idyllic, and, I was faced with the prospect of being drafted into the Vietnam War which I determined was not going to happen! After struggling for months in this disturbing mental state, Baba rescued me one day with these words, conveyed to me within with perfect clarity: “In every moment, there is always something loving that can be done.” With those words came the implication from Baba: just look around and feel what love is prompting you to do. I found that even being in readiness to love was enough for Him. This message from Baba became the blueprint for my life. Years later, in working with Kitty Davy here at the Center, I found someone who was the very embodiment of these words from Baba! I saw that she came—unfailingly--to each moment with full awareness and gave her best in her efforts to please Him. With Baba, I found that surrender is not a one-time accomplishment. It is a moment-to-moment endeavor to try to express love for His sake. Baba brought home to me something that I found supremely important: in trying to love, that is, even if I am doing a poor and inadequate job of it—it is still love itself! It is the intention that counts with Baba. He has said, “Whatever you do with love has perfect results.” On the subject of surrender, Darwin would often share with us the importance of being a vehicle, a conduit of Baba’s love. Ideally, love is coming from Baba through us. It becomes important not to impede this flow from the inner dimension by imposing our expectations, our likes and dislikes and wants on this love as it expresses itself through us; we must eventually surrender completely to this flow of love. In order to accomplish this, Darwin would impress upon us the need to become intimately sensitive to our intuition in the moment, the voice of the heart, rather than the voice of the mind. Ultimately, Baba says, “Surrender is a gift from man to Master.” We need to make continual efforts on our part, however inadequate, to yield to the flow of His love through us. When this becomes more and more our natural state, Baba says that we will one day experience this truth: “He who surrenders knows no one but the Beloved.” He will become our All in all, and His love will be the only doer! A part of surrendering to Baba is our adopting the attitude that it is really Baba doing everything through us, what He calls the provisional ego. About the provisional ego, Darwin says, “It is a matter of taking responsibility for our actions and feelings, yet bypassing the ego and attributing everything to the Master, to His doing. Our purpose is to minimize the sense that we are doing anything.” This means not imagining that we are doing anything in isolation from Baba, that He is a part of and included in everything we do. Darwin confirmed this: “It means not holding anything back or keeping a secret life of your own on the side.” Everything is shared openly with Baba, even our so-called greatest sins. We discover that we can go through our most difficult periods much faster than if we face them alone, for He is our most intimate friend who always supports us through everything without condemnation. We are being invited into the intimate world of complete surrender. We move out of our old place where we once lived alone, and, as Darwin so aptly describes, Baba becomes our new address. There is no greater embodiment of this supreme surrender to Baba than Mehera, His Beloved. She responded to His every move, His every wish, His every mood, with perfect surrender, like the eyes surrendering effortlessly to light. In the few movies with Baba in which she appears, we see that intimate love and surrender. There is a popular song with words that capture Mehera’s one-pointed devotion to Baba: “You’re my world, you’re every breath I take. You’re my world, you’re every move I make. Other eyes see the stars up in the skies, but for me they shine within your eyes.” In His love, Jeff

Dear folks of Baba, In my early years with Baba, I tended to do everything in the extreme. During one period, I had decided to say His name inwardly with each footstep. It was during this time in the early 1970s in Meherazad that Eruch was taking a group of us up Seclusion Hill, sharing stories as we climbed. I was ten or so feet behind Eruch, and at one point I looked up from taking Baba’s name and Eruch gave me a poignant look which clearly said, “Jeff, you are so preoccupied with what you’re doing there that you are not with us in this moment!” At that very moment, I felt deeply the truth of his words. I had been so preoccupied with my little practice that I was not being natural. This is not to say that saying Baba’s name isn’t important and invaluable, but not to the extent that we are elsewhere in the moment and not really present. One day at Meherazad, during this same trip, a close friend and I were sitting just outside Mandali Hall on a bench with Eruch, and my friend said, “Eruch, I work as a house painter, and sometimes hours go by and I haven’t even thought of Baba. What can I do about that?” Eruch replied in his very casual way, “In the beginning, it’s important to remember Baba, to repeat His name, to see the movies, to go to where Baba has been, and to read all the literature. But in time it becomes important to forget yourself. When you forget yourself, then Baba can live through you. You’re not aware of it, but He is living through you. So, lose yourself in your painting.” He affirmed the supreme value of self-forgetfulness. That was a turning point for me in my life with Baba, because I had become a bit rigid and unnatural in trying to remember Him all the time. I had lost the playfulness that had always been a part of me since childhood, the spontaneous enthusiasm of my college days, the genuine fun in life that I experienced over the years. Since that brief, life-changing exchange with Eruch, I have found that self-forgetfulness and remembering Baba make a vital and complementary dynamic in my inner life. Eruch would say, “Get wholeheartedly lost in your activities, and when coming out of that absorption, remember Baba.” And he would add, “When you remember to remember, remember Him!” All the practices we do as a part of our inner life with Baba—such as dressing our soul with Him, saying His name inwardly, our prayers, giving our interior to Baba, the provisional ego, focusing on His companionship--are like golden tributaries flowing into a glorious and magnificent river as it makes its way toward Baba’s all-inclusive ocean of Love. Eventually, all these practices become integrated into what Eruch would call “a natural life” with Baba, in which we forget ourselves as children do. Children spread innocence and spontaneity and love in this world, simply by their enthusiasm in the moment. Being “natural” is not a transcendent state, but is very much in “the here and now”, where we are in the world, in touch with what is happening. Over the decades, as we are swept up more and more in Baba’s love, the separation that we have felt our entire life begins to dissolve: between ourself and Baba, ourself and others, ourself and life. These distinctions gradually blur in the warm and simple presence of Baba’s love. Sooner or later, Baba brings us to a state where we are no longer driven by our usual agenda, ulterior motives disappear, and our life requires little micro-managing on our part. This does not mean that there are no ups and downs, but we take them as welcome challenges to be overcome with Baba. We will eventually find that the extremes of life, often experienced in youth, have been miraculously harmonized in a way that we could not have imagined! We find that Baba knows exactly what He is doing with each of us to bring us to a place where we are on our knees in gratitude. We realize that Baba has delivered us naturally to a state far more loving and full of warmth than we could ever have imagined possible. In following the many forms of remembrance of Baba, there comes a sense more and more that He is actually the doer, and we are the witness. An unexpected transition gradually takes place where it seems that Baba is orchestrating everything, that He is behind the unfolding of our day, a day definitely full of more love than if we were actually in charge. I am reminded of the words of Baba most often quoted by Eruch over the years in Mandali Hall: “To be natural is most godly.” What Baba meant by “natural” can mean many things. For me, I tend to believe it is doing what aligns with our deeper heart. How have you dealt with the challenge of making efforts to change while at the same time being natural? Do you feel ”being yourself”, so to speak, sometimes can lead to complacency without making any deeper efforts at all? What part does self-forgetfulness play for you in being natural? In His love, Jeff

Last Saturday's discussion on giving and receiving care was so well-received that we wanted to give another opportunity for people to share. Many of us are at a time in life when we're either receiving or giving care to friends, family or pets. We can use some shared wisdom to buoy our spirits when caring gets tough. Join us this week! Last week's meeting is recorded at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3JpkDRHFQ8 Hosted by Betty Lowman in CA This event was recorded live. To be first to be notified of a new video on this channel, please hit the red subscribe button, then the notifications bell. To join future live events, see www.babazoom.net. Please join our Facebook group: www.facebook.com/groups/meherbabafamily

Dear folks of Baba, In the chapter on “Changing Our Address”, Darwin discusses at length the provisional ego recommended by Baba as a means of bypassing our ego, that small, limited self that hides our wholeness, our inherent divinity. Putting the provisional ego into practice is profoundly challenging and elusive, but it is where we are ultimately heading. How do we get there? What are the intermediate steps? Here is how Baba describes what He means by the provisional ego (provisional meaning temporary, a substitute arranged for the time being only): “Think of me in everything you do. Eat, dance, but forget yourself in the action and think of me instead. This is union through action. The less you think of yourself and the more you think of Baba, the sooner the ego goes and Baba remains. When you — ego —go entirely, I am one with you. So, bit by bit, you have to go. Today your nose, tomorrow your ears, then your eyes, your hands, everything. “Think of me when you eat, sleep, see and hear. Enjoy everything, but think it is all Baba. Baba enjoys it. Baba is eating it. Sleep soundly in Baba, and when you wake up remember it is Baba getting up. Keep this one thought constantly with you. If you do wrong, then think it is Baba doing wrong. If you get a pain, think it is Baba getting a pain. Then it will be all the time Baba ... Try to forget yourself and do all for Baba. Let it be Baba all the time!” For those on the path of self-effacement, the provisional ego is the final practice in annihilating the ego. It usually begins as an exercise, but ultimately the truth behind the provisional ego will be revealed in us through experience. That is, the provisional ego is useful as a method, but it has to eventually become a reality. In lifetime after lifetime, we identify with the character before us and are pulled into the whole illusion of Creation. What we are being asked to do is to remain fully aware of Creation and express love, but not identify with anything in it. Baba has said that we are really infinite, but we identify with the mind, and instantly we become a person! If we didn’t do this, we would remain the Infinite that we really are. All this is a very tall, tall order from Baba. Bit by bit, we have to go. We are not really our roles; we are really Baba in disguise. Kitty Davy would often quote this line from the Bible, “… I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.” What I found most difficult to reconcile in the practice of the provisional ego is Baba’s statement: “When you do wrong, then think it is Baba doing wrong.” That initially seemed like giving us a blank check to do anything. In spite of my wholehearted efforts to think of everything as being done by Baba, it took over a decade for this to begin to be real for me. I remember Eruch saying one day in Mandali Hall on this subject, “The moment you take credit for doing anything, the whole provisional ego collapses like a house of cards.” Too often my reaction to some of the selfish things I would do was just too intense to blame it on Baba and the provisional ego! I would have to go back again to the drawing board and start the practice all over again. Here is an exchange that took place years ago that was profoundly helpful to me as a valuable intermediate step leading toward practicing the provisional ego. I was in Mandali Hall in Meherazad, and I said to Meherwan Jessawala, one of the mandali, “I have tried Baba’s practice of the provisional ego over the years, sometimes for months on end, but I’ve never been able to make it stick. I do it for a while, and it is very helpful but then it somehow unravels and I don’t keep it up. It becomes more of a mental exercise rather than an actual experience. What do you suggest I do?” Meherwan looked at me very intently and said, “Try this. When you wake up in the morning, say to Baba, 'Come with me as I begin my day.' When you have breakfast, say, 'Baba, join me for breakfast.' When you go to work, say, 'Baba, come with me to work. Be with me when I come home.' When you have to piddle, say to Baba, 'Come with me. I have to piddle.' This was the perfect answer to where I found myself inwardly at the time—the perfect intermediate step. He was suggesting to me to first be more grounded in Baba’s companionship, He and I, before attempting to practice the provisional ego, a very tall order! I said to Meherwan, “What you have suggested is plan B until I’m ready for plan A.” He smiled at that and said, “Yes!” In following this practice, there comes a sense more and more that Baba is actually the doer and we are the witness. An unexpected transition gradually takes place where it seems that Baba is orchestrating everything, that He is behind the unfolding of our day, a day definitely full of more love than if we were actually in charge. What challenges have you faced in trying to put the provisional ego into practice? In His love, Jeff (or shouldn’t it be Baba?)

Baba says, "If we suffer in the sufferings of others, and feel happy in the happiness of others, we are loving God." Many of us are at an age where we need care, or have dear friends and family who need care. Let's get together today and share stories of our experiences. Bring helpful quotes or stories from Baba to share. Hosted by Betty Lowman in CA This event was recorded live. To be first to be notified of a new video on this channel, please hit the red subscribe button, then the notifications bell. To join future live events, see www.babazoom.net. Please join our Facebook group: www.facebook.com/groups/meherbabafamily

The Topic: Longing, A Divine Attribute Dear folks of Baba, Darwin used to say that our longing is an invaluable essential in carrying us on our journey home to Baba. As he maintained, it is critical in “redirecting our energies and transmuting our lower desires to a higher purpose. We slow down the wanting machine…by diverting the imagination to more constructive ends. This is sublimation.” Longing is not an emotion but is one of the divine attributes, like gratitude, that flow into our deeper heart directly from Baba. Darwin went so far as to refer to the sublimation of our lower energies into longing as the “new mysticism.” Rather than struggle endlessly with our desires, that is, fighting the negative in us, we make positive and herculean efforts to turn our full attention toward our longing for love, for the divine, for Baba’s immediate presence in our lives. Darwin would say that the tremendous energy locked up in our desires can actually be transmuted into longing for God. How can we help Baba in awakening this longing in us? I think all of us find that focusing on His lovely form through photographs and movies, and steeping ourselves in the details of His life naturally awakens a longing to be more intimate in our relationship with Him. We are so attracted by His personal attention and care for us; no one in our life has ever loved us and responded so deeply and knowingly to who we are. We cannot help but long for a greater and greater intimacy. We may sometimes feel relatively content with our love for Him, but if we focus more deeply on our love, we will see its limitations: the conditions we place on expressing it in this world, our tendency to put so much focus on our problems and worries, and all our likes and dislikes. If we compare our love to Baba’s unlimited and unconditional love--its sweetness and uplifting quality, and His personal care for each one--we will never be fully content: our soul will never be satisfied with our love for Him and will eventually come knocking at our door with intense and deep longing to break out of our limitations! Feeling the limitations of our love and comparing it to Baba’s unlimited love in itself creates longing. Mansari, one of the women mandali, used to say, “Always be satisfied with Baba’s love for you. Never be satisfied with your love for Him.” However, if the limitations of our love create a feeling of unworthiness, the ego has entered the picture: we are letting unworthiness and sometimes even the delusion of not wanting to burden Baba keep us from asking Him for love. He has clearly said, “He who asks for my love will be my chosen one.” Longing will eventually lift us above our desire nature and self-centeredness and turn our focus on Baba’s ever-present, expansive love. In time, the longing within us becomes abiding, and it is a quiet joy at various moments during the day to feel this longing for Baba’s divine love. Rumi has said it beautifully, “Longing is already a taste of what we’re looking for.” And elsewhere, he has written, “Your longing for Me is My message to you. All your attempts to reach Me are in reality My attempts to reach you.” Darwin is not referring to the acute longing that some advanced souls experience due to their separation from God. Baba has said, “One who obeys the Master who is one with God, need not suffer these things, for in obedience is the Grace of the Master.” In obeying Him by remembering His love and in carrying out our responsibilities in the world wholeheartedly, we needn’t suffer the agony of separation; in our obedience is Baba’s presence. Our longing grows steadily and is in fact an actual participation in the goal of Baba’s Love itself, which dissolves to a large extent the pain of separation. Longing is not felt then as a lack of love in ourselves, but is experienced as a taste of Baba’s sweet love in this moment and in the moments to come. Baba said to Rick Chapman in 1966, "Pay no attention to the thoughts of the mind … It is the nature of the mind to have all variety of thoughts, good and bad. You should just keep longing in your heart for me." On another occasion, at a small gathering, Baba had this couplet read out, written by Hafiz on the night of his Realization: My ceaseless longing has achieved this union, I am reaping the reward of that longing tonight. What awakens and inspires longing in you? Seeing Baba in photographs and movies, reading about His life? Yearning for a deeper love and intimacy with Him and with others and the world? Is it Baba’s many precious interventions in your life that create longing in you? What do you do when you are not experiencing longing? In His love, Jeff This event was recorded live. To be first to be notified of a new video on this channel, please hit the red subscribe button, then the notifications bell. To join future live events, see www.babazoom.net.

"Meher Baba is the Truth to me, the Embodiment of Truth." - Reza special guest Reza Abrahimzadeh Sahavas for Everyone. Avatar Meher Baba is in each one of us. And His Love is the focus of this gathering. Open discussion with each session having a topic or theme. Hosted by Laurent Weichberger in SC. Jai Baba! This event was recorded live. To be first to be notified of a new video on this channel, please hit the red subscribe button, then the notifications bell. To join future live events, see www.babazoom.net. Please join our Facebook group: www.facebook.com/groups/meherbabafamily

We will come together to celebrate Baba Zoom, community style! We will be celebrating SIX years! Let's PARTY! Angela will provide virtual cake & balloons, but the rest will be potluck (you eat what you bring, haha!) Angela will give a short talk, https://docs.google.com/document/d/1w5zDdDBPieTxKKfuoQZB9OFMRNhiarHF1sLE9ijk0cQ/edit?usp=sharing Then we will have music and sharing from the heart - let's celebrate Baba Zoom and celebrate Baba, community style! ♥️ Hosted by Angela Lee Chen and Baba Zoom team This event was recorded live. To be first to be notified of a new video on this channel, please hit the red subscribe button, then the notifications bell. To join future live events, see www.babazoom.net. Please join our Facebook group: www.facebook.com/groups/meherbabafamily

The Topic: A Most Intimate Practice Dear folks of Baba, Of all the meditations for following Baba, I have found that the practice of “dressing our soul with Baba”—sahaj dhyan--has awakened for me the deepest intimacy with Him. He has said that if we follow this practice which takes only four seconds, we will eventually feel His presence throughout the day. Four seconds a day? No meditation teacher of any credible reputation would get away with requiring from their students only four seconds of inner focus; however, it is God Himself who is offering this to us! This meditation was first introduced by Baba to eighteen Western men who were invited to India as His guests in September 1954 in what became known as “The Three Incredible Weeks.” One day during their visit, Baba said that he would give them a special meditation. The men, many of whom had been in the mystical tradition before coming to Baba, were eager to receive a meditation from the Master Himself, thinking it would be something very esoteric. Calling it sahaj dhyan, meaning “natural meditation”, Baba described it this way: “The first thing in the morning, before doing anything, think of Baba for one second. Baba is then worn by your soul: early in the morning dress your soul with Baba. At 12 noon, for one second do the same. Do it again about five o’clock: when you retire do it also.” Just for the length of time it takes to adjust your tie, Baba told the men. “If you do it, I will be always with you, and you will feel my company all the time. Do it for four seconds every day, then you will be in the world, yet Baba will be with you all the time.” What does it mean to dress your soul with Baba? Baba left the interpretation of that to us. Some imagine their body being infused with a warm presence. Others might think of it as being wrapped up in a warm down coat worn on a cold winter day. Or it might be a deep awareness turned toward the innermost blissful realm of the spirit. It is entirely individual and unique to each one. Baba said, “At first, you will have to do it deliberately, then it will become natural.” And as Darwin said, “It has the potential of markedly raising the consciousness of those who do." Behind this simple meditation that Baba introduced to the men, there is His hidden divine cleverness. Darwin used to say, for example, “As we approach twelve noon, we might check our watch or clock and see that it’s only 11:15. Well, why not dress our soul then in case we might be too busy at noon and forget. And if we miss noon and it’s 12:20, well, do it then. In this way, at various times other than the four seconds of remembrance Baba asks of us, we are dressing our soul with Him.” Eventually it becomes such a rewarding practice that we begin doing it in our spare moments during the day and before you know it, a series of moments is strung together like beads on a string and we move toward having His presence with us throughout the day, just as Baba predicted! He is such a "sneaky sweetie” as Mansari, one of the women mandali, used to call Him! Why do we continue this in our spare moments? Because of the sweetness we eventually feel in doing it. Over time, some say they experience a warm glow lighting up their body, some feel surrounded by Baba’s presence; for some an exquisite love floods their being deep within, and others are touched simply by doing something that would please Baba. As Baba said, we will eventually feel His presence and companionship throughout the day—palpably! Those who have been doing this for decades will attest to the quiet intimacy with Baba that this always brings. Darwin shared that “…instead of falling back into bodily habits and personality paradigms, we dress our soul with Baba’s consciousness instead of our lower consciousness. It counteracts other trains of thought that clamor to come in.” In carrying out this practice, the question naturally arises: where is the soul and where is Baba? Are they somewhere beyond the heart? Through this meditation, we find that Baba from His side gradually awakens the experience of our soul, a timeless, spacious realm within us: the soft, warm, silent and peaceful place at the core of us. We are dressing our soul with Baba, who is our very soul, the drop and ocean merging! We are moving away from being solely identified with our personality and asserting our soul’s identity. And inevitably and unexpectedly, who Baba is to us and where our soul is, goes on expanding and deepening in a most natural way! Of course, there are also countless other ways His lovers remember Him. “When you remember to remember, remember Him!” Eruch In His love, Jeff P.S. We are continuing from page 78 Please subscribe, then the notifications bell. To join future live events, visit www.babazoom.net.

Dear folks of Baba, In the next chapter, Darwin speaks of an invisible current flowing in everyone. He would actually gesture at the heart level that for most people this current is flowing toward themselves, toward “I, me and mine” and often stops there. They are focused on what will benefit them. He would say that this current needs to be reversed, it needs to flow in to Baba and out toward the world. It is a fusion of our love and vitality, a vibrational flow that emanates from the heart center, and not from the head with all its thinking. It is characterized by a generosity of spirit. If we let this current flow toward Baba, which is the best thing we can do, it is His joy to return it spiritually transformed into a living substance and, as Darwin has said, “it flows back into us where it can be expressed in the world of forms as a giving energy.” By developing our inner awareness in greater depth, it is possible to track this invisible current and determine its dynamics: is it receding (self-focused), stalled or flowing? (Some experience this dynamic metaphorically as an expanding and contracting energy in themselves.) In time, this inclusive current becomes something that can be monitored throughout the day. Those of us in the early 1970s around Darwin explored in depth the monitoring of this invisible and inclusive current flowing into us from Baba and attempted to put this into practice. Darwin, in his usual unassuming way, left us, if we were inclined, to figure out for ourselves how to do this. This is the version I came up with: When I wake up in the morning, I usually feel groggy and weighed down. My inner current is stalled. Instantly, I begin saying Baba’s name inwardly from the heart, which affirms that He is in the room with me. I continue with His name and centering myself in Him, and at some point, I say the prayers until I feel I have transmuted the heavy impressions I first woke up with into a flowing, vibrant substance. This is so that by eight-thirty when I go into work, it is this refined substance—Baba’s inclusive presence--that fuels my day. I do all this internal work even as I carry out my morning routine: shower, breakfast and checking my email. Once I experience Baba’s living presence, I’m ready to begin my day. Everything then flows from there, rather than from the bundle of sanskaras I woke up with. Mind you, I have to wake up very early to do all this! A mistake I would often make the moment I woke up: I would invariably ask myself, how am I doing? For this, I would immediately check my sanskaras, my mood, rather than my magnificent and fortunate connection to Baba! And consequently, this false assessment often would go on to substantially color the mood of my day. Then, throughout the day, I periodically focus on monitoring my inner current. Sometimes by mid-afternoon, the strength of my inner current begins to weaken, and I have to make a pro-active effort to get the flow going again. I might concentrate on Baba’s name deeply within, or join a game of volleyball or play with children, go outside and do some gardening, which I love, or maybe read some mystical poetry, or connect with someone about Baba—whatever works to get the flow going again. For each person it will be different, and he or she may have a thousand different ways to get that inner current flowing. When the flow fades, life to me feels just ordinary. But when I get the flow going again through some inner or outer activity, I don’t have to search for where Baba is: He is present in the flow. The atmosphere acquires a luster, an inner expansiveness, even if only for brief periods. There is also the incomparable practice of “dressing our Soul with Baba” that we will discuss next week. Through this simple practice, carried out over fifty years, Baba has made my life ever-fulfilling and alive. It is a pro-active approach to the day, not just a passive enduring of whatever happens. It should be said, however, that this is just one of the major approaches for following Baba. Without Darwin bringing our attention to this inner inclusive current, I don’t know how long it would have taken for me to discover it on my own. Do you have a sense of this inner dynamic playing itself out in the course of your day? Do you have another way of monitoring the emotions, feelings and desires that move through you? How do you experience Baba’s loving vibration in you? "The Beloved is the Master Tailor, but unless you bring the scattered strands of your life into a single thread, how will you be able to pass through the eye of His needle. Succeed in this, and day by day, He will sew you into the magnificent tapestry of His own being!" Rumi In His love, Jeff

Dear folks of Baba, Overcoming worry, which Baba repeatedly urged us to do, is an ongoing challenge of a lifetime. By comparison to many other weaknesses in ourselves, worry appears relatively harmless with few real consequences; we think of it as mainly our own problem, a minor botheration perhaps, and on the surface doesn’t seem to seriously affect others. For this reason, we often don’t treat it as a critical impediment in our inner life with Baba. Nothing could be further from the truth! Baba has said that there are few things that drain our psychic energy more than worry. He stated, “It substantially curtails the joy and fullness of life.” I was always amazed at how worry seemed to be absent from Darwin’s consciousness; he had a supreme trust and faith in Baba that I was unable to achieve myself. It was something to witness. He would quote Baba, “Don’t worry. Let Me do the worrying. I enjoy working things out. There is no need for both you and I worrying. If you are going to worry, then I won’t worry.” When we worry, Baba is saying, we are robbing Him of something He “enjoys”—"working things out.” There are things that Baba has said that aid us in overcoming worry, and the mandali with their many years of experience with Baba have also shared what has worked for them. Darwin has said that worry is actually one of the many manifestations of fear, but rather than facing our raw fear directly, we usually think of how we can protect ourselves by worrying rather than giving the fear in the moment to Baba. This approach is like clipping off the tops of weeds without digging down and eliminating the roots. The weeds will only grow back. Few people think to fully give the raw fear directly to Baba in the moment and let Him help us dissolve it at its source. When we experience fear, we are being given a rare opportunity with Baba to tackle the root cause of worry itself. Adding to the problem of worry, when faced with an unnerving situation, we often instantly view it within the perspective of time and space. How can we get out of the uncomfortable present and escape to somewhere else? We go to the past (memory) to see what we’ve done before to look for a solution, and we then go to imagination (the future) to implement what the past tells us to do. That is, we leave the present, the Now, where Baba and intuition are accessible with their creative, sometimes unprecedented and spontaneous solutions. If we look back on our life, there are many terrible things we thought would happen that never came to pass. Rarely do we hold our minds accountable, which is a serious mistake. We move on. We are not inclined to look back, but if we don’t, we tend to indulge in similar worries in the future. We are programing our subconscious minds to avoid dealing with negative situations. Therefore, we must strive to unfailingly hold our mind accountable for its misleading assertions, otherwise our worrisome mental patterns will only continue. From Darwin, we learned to discipline our subconscious to hold our mind accountable in all cases, large and small. As long as worry preoccupies our mind, the ego takes center stage and our focus on Baba is pushed to the background. But when Baba is in the foreground, when we return to Him again and again in thought, worries gradually dissolve in His loving presence. In remembering Baba in this moment, we are less vulnerable to being pulled down into a state of worry. Darwin said that “the antidote to worry is faith and trust in God … Counteracting worry through building our faith and trust opens up a vast new area of possibilities for self-improvement within and in our outer life.” A situation that causes us extreme worry can have a positive effect if it causes us to get down on our knees and ask Baba for help. It can link us up with Him. There is a quote that Mani, Baba’s sister, used to share, “I prayed to You for strength to carry out Your work. You gave me weakness so I would depend on You.” Eradicating worry is one of the last hurdles to be crossed in gaining control of the mind. It requires us not to make so much of the outer events of life so that they become secondary compared to the inner life; we have to become more profoundly aware of the deluding power of imagination. Mark Twain, the American humorist, once said, “I’ve been through many trials and tribulations in this life, and most of them … never happened!” Whatever you do, though, don’t worry about worrying. I once asked Meherjee Karkaria, one of Baba’s intimate mandali, what method he had for overcoming worry. He gestured with his hands circling around his head, as if besieged by thoughts, “Around Baba, I was always worrying!” Yet he didn’t worry about worrying! “Love will control the future, so why worry? Do not think: feel My love.” Meher Baba In His love, Jeff

Participants are invited to bring their Baba's Birthday Quotes to share, out loud! Personalized Quotes are sent out via email to anyone who is listed in the Baba Zoom Community Directory. If you did not receive one, feel free to bring any favorite Baba quote to share! Tech host Betty Lowman in CA This event was recorded live. To be first to be notified of a new video on this channel, please hit the red subscribe button, then the notifications bell. To join future live events, see www.babazoom.net. Please join our Facebook group: www.facebook.com/groups/meherbabafamily

"Through unconscious programming—stocking our subconscious with limiting beliefs—we have schooled our minds in limitations, and our minds have become tyrannical. Because of this, we put conditions on Baba’s ability to bring about changes in us, and we also place limitations on our own ability. All these limitations we believe to be real are entirely self-programmed.” Darwin Shaw In the above quote, Darwin encapsulates a profound insight into one of our major impediments to an expansive and harmonious life. In what he gathered from Baba, Darwin often spoke in-depth about how we have been programmed to live with countless limitations, many of which we imbibed and bought into in early childhood before we were fully aware and mature. To give a few examples: we imbibed the belief that we are separate beings, and others and the world are outside of us. We were often told that what we are looking for in life is in the future, and that the present moment is just a stepping stone to some future existence. We may have taken on the belief that God disapproves of us if our behavior fails to follow a prescribed set of values and standards. We may have been made to feel that if we don’t work hard, we will never amount to anything. There are countless false beliefs that limit the fullness of our lives. Sometimes the overall hidden impact of such beliefs that we have absorbed in growing up is that there is something wrong with us, we are insufficient, not enough, forever incomplete. Darwin stressed emphatically that we need to re-program ourselves in the light of the highest truths, the spiritual values that come from deeper within us, which are eternally available in this moment. Darwin encouraged us to take seriously Baba’s words: “Whatever you want to be, that you become.” That is, what we envision ourselves to be will come to pass, and so it is important to ponder deeply what we want to become. Darwin came from the tradition known as “the power of positive thinking." Darwin asserts unequivocally that our soul is intimately linked not only to Baba’s love, but to His omnipotence, to the Universal Mind as well as to His immediate personal Presence, and we can draw upon this eternal Source (sometimes called First Cause) to help change our experience from being one of continual limitation into the expansiveness and inclusiveness of the Divine. There are many speakers who advocate using this tremendous divine power to “manifest” abundance for themselves: wealth, position, a house, a lucrative job and the like. And it can work. But Darwin insisted that with Baba and this divine power in our hands, rather than being tempted to use it for selfish purposes, we can, through Baba’s grace, access it for fostering a more loving life dedicated to Him. We can let go of our narrow programming in favor of His unlimited programming. Baba has encouraged us to break up our old patterns and “insist on creating something new by our own inner vision.” We can actually be active participants in becoming more universally loving rather than using this divine power to be more successful in the world. In Darwin’s presence, it was clear that he was not only radiating Baba’s love, but he was also asserting from within Baba’s omnipotence which lifted him above the limiting and narrow conditions of this world. It was something to behold! Darwin insisted that if we approach Baba with how we would like to be, bringing Him our deepest longing and intention, the tremendous divine loving power, which is ever-present, will bring this about. We are bypassing our lower limitations and worldly conditions (our usual karmic timetable) and appealing to Baba’s omnipotence and the higher part of ourselves. There is nothing selfish in doing this. We are drawing not just on our love for Baba, but on our faith and conviction in His transformative power to intervene in our life. At a practical level, we can even bring the power of this supreme intention down into our everyday life. Through actively asserting Baba’s omnipotence within us and staying keenly aware, we can convert in the moment our negative reactions into loving responses to life, our better angels. Thus, our anger can be sublimated through loving intention into patience and tolerance, its opposite as Baba has said. Greed can be sublimated into generosity, its opposite, lust into purity, retaliation into forgiveness, and disinterest into empathy. Darwin said, “The truth is that we are unlimited spirit and one with God, so if we take our stand on the truth, this will manifest and become our experience…By thinking of Baba as God the Infinite (or Universal Mind), we are plugging into both the personal and impersonal avenues of power, energy, truth and reality.” Baba has said, ‘I am in you, and the Universal Mind can give anything, to anyone, at any time.” In His love, Jeff

"Celebrating the Humanity of the Divine Beloved" a talk by Charles Haynes for Baba's birthday. Hosted by Betty Lowman in CA This event was recorded live. To be first to be notified of a new video on this channel, please hit the red subscribe button, then the notifications bell. To join future live events, see www.babazoom.net. Please join our Facebook group: www.facebook.com/groups/meherbabafamily

Sahavas for Everyone. Avatar Meher Baba is in each one of us. And His Love is the focus of this gathering. Open discussion with each session having a topic or theme. Hosted by Laurent Weichberger in SC. Jai Baba! This event was recorded live. To be first to be notified of a new video on this channel, please hit the red subscribe button, then the notifications bell. To join future live events, see www.babazoom.net. Please join our Facebook group: www.facebook.com/groups/meherbabafamily

The Topic: The Harm of Judging Ourselves Dear folks of Baba, Darwin was very insistent that we give up judging ourselves negatively, maintaining that it is one of the most insidious traps of the ego. We were young in Baba, and this was welcome news, because most of us had grown up regarding judging ourselves as a normal thing to do. Darwin has said, “Baba is not judgmental in any way, nor does He hold our weaknesses against us.” We had never met anyone who was like this, although for many of us, our mothers may have come the closest to this kind of love. In reading about Baba’s training of the mandali, we might conclude that He was often judging and disapproving of their behavior, but in fact He was only acting in their best interests. He is like a music teacher with perfect pitch pointing out that a student’s guitar strings are sharp or flat, which is interfering with their performance. Although Baba’s love is unconditional and not judgmental, from our side we must do our part by developing self-compassion and self-acceptance (two qualities, as Marion says, we must have in our “tool box”). Darwin would say, when we are hard on ourselves, we are interfering unnecessarily in our reception of Baba’s love which He is ever-ready to shower on us. Our receptivity is infinitely more crucial to our life with Baba than we could ever imagine. We must be absolutely accepting of His love and not buy into all our psychological and moral limitations. Baba is inviting us to be more loving, to truly love ourselves as He does, and each effort we make toward becoming more loving is His victory in us. Why is it so difficult to refrain from judging ourselves? Among the many ways we do this, there are two that are particularly difficult to avoid. It seems only natural to hold ourselves accountable when we are selfish or do something “wrong”. It is our habit. And we must continue to make efforts to be more loving. But Baba says in His description of the provisional ego, which He encourages us to adopt, that we must think it is “Baba doing everything.” He says, even when we do something wrong, we should think it is Baba doing wrong. That for me was one of the greatest hurdles I have had to rise above and still struggle with. I would think to myself that Baba would never be as critical of others and as petty-minded as I am! Too often, we unquestioningly take credit for what we do, good and bad, but Baba insists that He is the sole doer. We must continue to strive to live by the most loving values we are capable of, but unfortunately much of the struggle in our lives is due to the fact that we are often trying to improve our personality self exclusively, our lower identity, rather than thinking more and more of Baba and aligning ourselves with Him who is our higher Self. One of the most surreptitious contributors to negative self-judgement is our mental ideals that we have bought into, which are set too high for what we are really capable of achieving. We wind up always falling short and even after decades, we may find that we are still harboring the thought, “I’m not good enough. I feel so inadequate.” Our negative self-judgment may even be secretly masquerading as humility. One thing I learned from the mandali is that our ideals should be practical—what is the next baby step we can take—not the impossible achievement of the highest ideal. We don’t learn patience or forgiveness overnight. The ego has a way of colluding with the mind to guilt-trip us when we fall short of our mental ideals. On the other hand, the ideals formed in the heart are much more compassionate, not so black-and-white. The heart knows just what we are capable of in the present, our next step. In fact, the ego is fighting a battle for the supremacy of our attention, and it is a victory for it when the ego can get us thinking negatively about ourselves instead of remembering Baba and others with love. The ego can also hide in feeling superior to those who have a healthy attitude toward themselves, seeing their attitude as naive and an expression of the ego! Or the ego can hide out in envy of others, rather than having a positive appreciation of the valuable qualities they express. All the time we spend thinking critically of ourselves, we all know, is time spent away from thinking about Baba and responding to the love He’s asking us to share with others and this world. In judging ourselves, we are clearly not fully in the present where Baba is most found, but rather we are mentally in the past or the future. And consequently, we are not really in a receptive state in the present moment either to Baba or to others. Rumi has said, “We are so obsessed with the bad stitching on our sleeve That we’re blind to the magnificent beauty of our own garment.” In His love, Jeff

Dear folks of Baba, Darwin would sometimes describe life with Baba using the metaphor of an ascending spiral encircling Him to depict the spiritual path. It starts at the outer ring, and spirals upward and very gradually narrows around Baba until, sooner or later (usually a lot later), we are face-to-face with our Beloved! There are walls that separate the ever-narrowing spiral. To expand on what Darwin describes: in the beginning, as we move along the outer ring, we revolve through all the many repetitious experiences we have to face in life: our diverse emotional complexes, desires, tests, bindings, breakthroughs, relationships, disappointments, failures and successes. Taking, as an example, one complex such as the fear of public speaking: at the beginning of the spiral, say, we have to give a talk before a class in college. We go through all the agony in anticipation, extremely fearful that we might lose the thread of what we want to say. We try to give the whole ordeal to Baba as best as we can in our agitated state. In the actual talk, we find ourselves stumbling over our words, struggling to remember what we planned to say, and in the end, we embarrass ourselves. We are left with a painful memory. We now avoid public talks in any way we can, but suppose a year later we have to again give a talk which is unavoidable. We go through all the incredible mental turmoil like the previous time. We say to ourselves, “Not this again!” And the talk goes about the way it did the year before—poorly. We conclude that we’re not making any progress whatsoever. This goes on year after year. We do get better, but not enough to call it a substantial progress. What Darwin would say is that unknown to us, each time we face this fear, we have made a circuit of the spiral and are dealing with the fear at a higher level. We are facing our complex at a more refined elevation even though it seems like the same “stubborn old problem”. Again and again, we have to work intensely with the fear, and we surrender a little more of the complex to Baba. Every time we deal with such difficult situations in our life, we are really working at a higher level, and at the same time, we are moving closer and closer to Baba who is ever-present at the center of the spiral. That is, we are making headway even if it doesn’t seem so at all. Going around and around the spiral, rising slightly and often imperceptibly higher each time, we are, Darwin would say, gradually freeing ourselves of our sanskaras (our past karma). But there comes a point when we see that we can burn through the wall of the outer spiral where we are and into one of the inner spirals, and bypass the longer outer route. This is when we make Baba the center of all our aspirations, when we are facing directly toward Him and are turned away from all our emotional complexes that we have had to face along the outer spiral. Darwin calls this a “spiritual bypass”. Through Baba’s grace, we can actually burn through the walls of the outer spirals one by one, and we find ourselves closer and closer to His immediate presence and facing away from the presence of the world and all our karmic complexes. This greatly speeds up our progress toward merging with our Beloved. We are facing the sun, as Baba says, with our backs now turned away from our shadow, the world and our many issues with it. In a Rumi quote liked by Darwin, he says, “On the spiritual path, effort is required. But grace is a thousand times greater than effort. When the morning sun appears, the candle of self-effort can be blown out.” I have always found Darwin’s metaphor of the inner path very helpful and hopeful and which confirms that we are really drawing closer to Baba all the time through our seemingly muddling efforts! Baba, in a profoundly encouraging message, says in His Discourses, “The aspirant is generally conscious of the manner in which he has been responding to the diverse situations in life, and rarely conscious of the manner in which he makes progress towards self-knowledge. Without consciously knowing it, the aspirant is gradually arriving at self-knowledge by traversing the Inner Path through his joys and sorrows, his happiness and suffering, his successes and failures, his efforts and rest, and through his moments of clear perception and harmonized will as well as through the moments of confusion and conflict. These are the manifestations of the diverse sanskaras which he has brought from the past, and the aspirant forges his way towards self-knowledge [towards Baba] through the tangles of these sanskaras like the traveler threading his way through a wild and thick forest.” Does Darwin’s metaphor of the inner life clarify how we proceed on the path? Is it clear how turning directly to Baba within can be a spiritual bypass of our otherwise slow karmic journey? In His love, Jeff P.S. We are continuing on page 68

Join host Evie Lindemann and guests Marnie Frank and Sevn McAuley as they talk about the history and work of the Beads on One String Foundation, whose mission is dedicated to the exploration and expression of the Oneness that lies at the heart of all. Hosted by Evie Lindeman and Ashley Lowe in NC This event was recorded live. To be first to be notified of a new video on this channel, please hit the red subscribe button, then the notifications bell. To join future live events, see www.babazoom.net. Please join our Facebook group: www.facebook.com/groups/meherbabafamily

Dear folks of Baba, In our early years with Baba, many of us were surprised that the mandali did not give “good” the prominent place in life that we did. Rather than being the ultimate quality we need to cultivate, it is something in the end we need to rise above, for most of us mistakenly conflated good with love, often with binding consequences. Good is a learned or cultivated behavior that becomes a part of our conditioning (our sanskaras), whereas love springs spontaneously from within, from the innermost dimension, the soul. Victor Hugo, the French novelist, said it very insightfully, “Virtue, as in the case of vice, is a calculated action, but love is not calculated. It wells up in the heart and expresses itself spontaneously.” In my early years with Baba, Eruch once said to me seemingly out of the blue, “Jeff, the accumulation of virtue is not the goal.” It can take years to discern the difference between good (or virtue) and love. Baba has said, “Feelings and emotions are the creation of mind and energy. Love is the creation of the soul.” Feelings and emotions (the heart) are great vehicles for love, but also for the ego! For this reason, you don’t want to give the heart a blank check! Because both good and love make their appearance in the heart, it is easy to equate the two. As I gathered from the mandali, it requires keen inner awareness to see that love expresses itself through the heart, whereas good comes from the heart. Love, because it comes from Baba, is “impression-less” as Darwin and Eruch used to say, and has its origin in the soul, from beyond the world of time and space. Although good is learned and originates in our conditioning (our sanskaras), this is not to say that good is bad! Baba has said that in general we go “from bad to good to God [Love].” Yet good, in its highest expression, is transactional; it still seeks to get something however infinitely subtle that might be. Love gives itself away spontaneously and is not seeking some hidden result for the self. Good has a limited fund of energy to draw from, and when overdone can lead to burnout. Love has an unlimited source of energy because it springs from the soul. The kind of love Baba is inviting us to explore and experience has a different, more exquisitely refined vibration. Eruch, in his seemingly casual remark, was actually hinting that the highest virtue or good that we are capable of is still within the realm of duality and is at best a reflection of the highest Love, not its source. This is similar to the moon, which is not the source of its own light. That is, the good or virtuous sanskaras in us, at their highest levels, only reflect Divine Love and its qualities, but they don’t have the spontaneous beauty of these qualities, and there is invariably the sense of the “I”. Good or virtue involves the effort of willpower, motive and deliberation, whereas love is effortlessly expressed, spacious and liberating. Baba once said to Bhau, “In a virtuous life, evil is suppressed and good surfaces; but the evil is still there. The bad sanskaras remain and have to be worked out, if not in this life, then in the next or the one after. In the spiritual life, both good and bad sanskaras express themselves, and both get nullified. A spiritual life leads one toward naturalness, whereas a virtuous life, in the guise of humility, inflates the ego and perpetuates it!” To discern the difference between the highest good or virtue in us on the one hand and the divine qualities of Love on the other is like distinguishing between crystal and pure diamond; we have to become expert jewelers. Over time, I feel Baba awakens this discernment in us when it is helpful to our spiritual unfoldment. The divine qualities (or divinely human qualities) are like the refracted rays of the Sun of Baba, and they originate directly from Him. The more we are drawn to the divine qualities (as well as to Baba’s immediate divine presence itself) and away from the good and virtuous sanskaras, the more our consciousness moves toward merging with the Divine, our Beloved Baba. As the mandali have said, at first this merging is fleeting, but eventually after many years, through longing and Baba’s grace, we will spend more and more time moving toward the Soul, toward Baba and Oneness, until, as one of His mandali, Dr. Harry Kenmore, once said, we become “His residence”, where He lives permanently. Eruch, in hearing this from the doctor, confirmed the supreme importance of our becoming His residence, a home for His Love. In His love, Jeff

Dear Lovers of the Lord and anyone else who likes him. I am giving a talk about my experience of the first Amartithi when Meher Baba gave up his body in this advent of His. I was there to help cover his body. I will tell you about what happened and the intensely intoxicating atmosphere surrounding the area during my time there. Hosted by Diana Goodheart in NC This event was recorded live. To be first to be notified of a new video on this channel, please hit the red subscribe button, then the notifications bell. To join future live events, see www.babazoom.net. Please join our Facebook group: www.facebook.com/groups/meherbabafamily

Dear folks of Baba, “The way of My Work is the way of effacement, which is the way of strength, not of weakness and through it you become mature in My love." - Meher Baba In the coming chapter, Darwin Shaw writes about the path of self-effacement encouraged by Baba. It was a new concept for most of us, and the term is rarely used even in spiritual circles. Simply put, it involves vacating our interior, so to speak, and letting Baba move in. His mandali would use the phrase: “When He takes over.” This transformation does not occur instantly, but gradually over our lifetime as we surrender our interior to Him. In my view, Baba affirms two major spiritual approaches, that of self-realization and that of self-effacement. On the path of self-realization, we seek to realize our spiritual potential, going up through the planes of consciousness, gross, subtle and mental, to realize our own divinity. Many of the saints are on this path. On the path of self-effacement, which Baba guided most of His mandali and close ones on, is about vacating our interior and allowing Baba to live our life, with us as the witness. In the Bible are the words, “Not I, but Christ liveth in me.” Unlike the path of self-realization, self-effacement means giving up even our spiritual experiences, which can be so compelling. Rick Chapman, in his meeting with Baba at Meherazad in 1966, was told by Him, "In fact, pay no attention whatsoever to the spiritual path, the planes of consciousness, or to any spiritual experiences—they are all nothing but toys for children, because they are nothing but illusion.” In this approach, Baba is implying to even renounce our "spiritual experiences " in favor of self-effacement. Such spiritual experiences are still in the dual realm. In truth, Love is the higher self, which is ever-present in everything, in what is “unspiritual” as well as “spiritual.” It is a matter of realizing Love heart-to-heart with Baba and each other, not chasing after spiritual experiences. The one Love that surrounds us and is ever-present only needs to be cleansed of its impurities, and its sanskaric veils removed. In clarifying the two approaches, Baba gave the metaphor, as Irwin Luck shared with me, of two methods of taking down a large tree. Paraphrasing, in the first method, we go to the top of the tree and cut down, say, ten feet of the topmost branches, and then we come down another ten feet, and then another and another, until we reach the base of the tree. This is like going through the inner path of consciousness, plane by plane, until Divinity is reached. In the second method, continuing the metaphor, Baba introduces termites into the bark of the tree, and gradually the tree is hollowed out, so that to all intents and purposes the tree appears to be thriving at the gross level. We remain at the level of the world where we can express Baba’s personal love to those around us. Baba becomes the indweller, and we become vehicles of His love in the world, rather than regarding our self as the base of operations. The remembrance of Baba in any way, shape or form acts like an invasion of termites that eventually destroys the tree. As has been said, Baba affirms both paths. The path of self-effacement allows us to empathize with others in the gross world; we are spared the infinite vastness and complications of the overwhelming experiences of the higher planes. However, we are nevertheless exposed to the experiences of the ups and downs of life in the gross world. Baba has said, “I will teach you how to move in the world, yet be at all times in inward communion with me as the Infinite Being.” On the path of self-realization, the bliss of the higher planes makes it difficult for the advanced aspirant to truly empathize with others in the gross world; there is sympathy and the sharing of the higher expression of love, but empathizing with others as they experience themselves at the gross level is not really possible. Among the myriad methods leading toward self-effacement, adopting the provisional ego is essential, in which we imagine Baba as living our day and doing everything through us. What starts as a mental exercise eventually becomes our actual experience, the gradual transition from micro-managing our lives to letting Baba take over. And of course, focusing on Baba in all the ways that we can is paramount, making Him our constant companion, which over time, gradually effaces our ego in Him. “I believe that as spiritual aspirants our concentration should be on loving God and merging with Him, and the predominant process we are engaged in is not self-realization but complete self-effacement, which is both total annihilation and complete merging of the personality self into God.” - Darwin Shaw P.S. We are continuing on page 61

We have some informal chat after every arti, the "post-arti party"! But once a week, Jeff Wolverton joins us for some serious mining of the spiritual depths. Join us for conversation, more readings, songs, quotes - you never know what treasures will be uncovered! The Topic: No Villain Is Required Dear folks of Baba, When I went off to college in 1962, although coming from a free-thinking, fun-loving and non-religious family, I nevertheless naively bought into the world as being the “reality" as it is described in the excellent article below. I think probably all of us did. This was before Baba entered my life in January, 1968. It was soon after that I found myself going to Darwin and Jeanne Shaw’s meetings in Schenectady, N.Y. Darwin would speak of the myriad ways of the world as a “mayavic trap”, and at the time I felt, although he radiated such a rarified love, that he was a bit too detached from the world—ha! He didn’t seem to see some of its valuable and creative possibilities—haha! My parents encouraged my siblings and me to strive to leave the world a better place. Now decades later, I find my orientation toward the world has changed 180 degrees. What I had struggled with for years and found most difficult to resolve is this: How do I express the love within me in this world without getting bound up in it? Ultimately, I have had to give up even "my own loving agenda" in regard to the world and actually liberate Baba’s Love in me from my agenda—who would have imagined that! I had to quietly step out of the game and let Baba and His Love do its own thing. Here are Baba’s magnificent words about our purpose in the world: To penetrate into the essence of all being and significance, and to release the fragrance of that inner attainment for the guidance and benefit of others, by expressing, in the world of forms, truth, love, purity and beauty—this is the sole game which has any intrinsic and absolute worth. All other happenings, incidents and attainments can, in themselves, have no lasting importance. To me, this has meant to not live in the world on its terms, but on Love’s terms—Baba’s Love has its own agenda. How is this done? This is taking me a lifetime to fathom. The article below describes succinctly how difficult it is to disentangle from the clutches of the world. It is not only colorfully written, but in my view, reveals a very profound insight into the subtlety of Maya, the principle of ignorance. It bears studying. I should say that it isn’t written knowingly from Baba’s point of view. In His love, Jeff A link to the PDF of Effort and Grace: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xrR75eksY-tErdKZm9aOBs3omuhioasb/view?usp=sharing To join the email list for Late Night Chats, contact Angela

Dear folks of Baba, Darwin Shaw’s book, Effort and Grace, is an in-depth inquiry into the inner life with Baba. It describes one of the major approaches to Baba by one who was devoted to Him for over 70 years, which culminated in a glorious intimacy with Him. Darwin was always so encouraging and optimistic in what we can do to open up to Baba’s immediate loving presence. He asserts that many of the blocks to this intimacy can be removed by our inner efforts and by inviting Baba’s ongoing intervention and grace. He would often stress the importance of tuning in to our inner momentum at various times throughout the day and inspire those thoughts and feelings in ourselves that keep Baba front and center in the moment. We were encouraged to ask ourselves: Is what I’m doing creating that inner aliveness that moves me to remember Baba and awaken His loving presence or am I drifting into an uninspired mood that is just filling up time and space? There are countless ways that we can enliven our lives that may not overtly seem like a remembrance of Baba, like spending hours out in the garden planting flowers or taking our grandchildren to play in the park—activities that are entertaining to Him. One of Eruch’s most often quoted words of Baba were: “To be natural is most godly.” Baba didn’t say to be spiritual or good is most godly. What Darwin warned us against is falling into a state of inner inertia where we find ourselves “just existing”; such states make more work for Baba in us. There are many things, both inner and outer, that we can do to keep our spirits up. Baba has said, “The aspirant who attempts to reach the goal carries with him all the sanskaras he has accumulated in the past. But in the intensity of his spiritual longing, they remain suspended and ineffective for the time being. Time and again, however, when there is a slackening of spiritual effort, the sanskaras hitherto suspended from action gather fresh strength and, arraying themselves in a new formation, constitute formidable obstacles in the spiritual advancement of the aspirant.” It requires great sensitivity to tune in to our inner current at the level of the heart: Is it flowing toward Baba and life in the world or is it stalled and even receding? Because, Darwin would say, once we get trapped in spiritual inertia, it has a way of sabotaging our efforts to draw closer to Baba. It puts off our efforts till tomorrow; it causes us to get too caught up in duties that drain our inner vitality, distracting us from remembering Him. Returning again and again to Baba in our thoughts and heart center is ever available to keep our inner vitality alive. As Baba said, “Don’t go anywhere without Me.” Over time the companionship with Baba enters into almost all the moments of our life; for some, He is ever-present. Equally important is to lose ourselves in the things we love doing, which, as Eruch says, is an unconscious remembrance of Baba. Such a life keeps us out of the lower frequencies of the world, what Darwin calls “our habitual paradigm”, and lifts us into the higher vibrations of the soul. Often Baba lovers and spiritual seekers come to the Center because they have reached a state in their lives where they feel they are stagnating, and they find that Baba’s presence on the Center and their receptivity renews their inner life and sends them on their inspired way. Going to Baba places and joining Baba get-togethers are often natural ways of keeping the inner life with Him alive. There are valuable practices that I inherited from the mandali that elevate my day. In my early years with Baba, I would wake up and immediately check in with my mood, that is, my sanskaras, to see how was I doing. Those first groggy impressions would then color my day and narrow my day down. From Darwin and Eruch, I learned to first check in with my connection with Baba, the joy and privilege of knowing that He is in my life, and that would give a real inner momentum to my day. There are many such practices that lift us out of ordinary consciousness. Witnessing Kitty Davy over the years, I could see that she came to each moment intensely aware and alert; there was no such thing as being half-aware or sleepy. She was fully present for each one, from the mailman to an elderly Baba lover to a small toddler, giving them her best for Baba. I never saw her bored; there were no moments when she was only partially aware and uninspired, and she carried that spirit right up to her hundredth birthday! The mandali told us if we take one step toward Baba, He takes ten steps toward us. What do you do when you find yourself in a dull period of the day or for a longer stagnant period in your life? How do you re-ignite that original spark that inspired you to draw closer to Baba and the inner life? In His love, Jeff P.S. We are continuing on page 61 A link to the PDF of Effort and Grace: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xrR75eksY-tErdKZm9aOBs3omuhioasb/view?usp=sharing

Dear folks of Baba, Whether we like it or not, Baba has built into Creation the conflict between the opposites such as good and bad, masculine and feminine, justice and injustice, superiority and inferiority, repression and indulgence, moral and immoral. These opposites make their appearance at the level of daily life. When these opposites clash, like the two poles of a battery, they generate great power, both positive as well as negative. The energy released when the opposites meet, if integrated properly by us, has the potential of lifting us out of the dual realm and propelling us to a higher level, giving us an experience of oneness. More often, however, the conflict of the opposites initially evokes a negative reaction in us, and we attempt to suppress one of the opposites and accentuate the other. Do we perceive these conflicts as originating in others alone or do we perceive these conflicts as coming from Baba through others? In either case, a great deal of adjustment is usually required to resolve the clash of the opposites. Our inner harmony can depend on whether we take these opposites and the often herculean adjustment required as a challenge from Baba or an irritation manufactured by the world. Can we find the third position, as Carl Jung, the famous psychiatrist, referred to, beyond the duality where the conflict of the opposites is resolved? According to him, whenever there is any problem, there will be two opposite approaches for resolving it. Neither solution will be correct, but must undergo the tension that will result, if one perseveres, in a third approach. That third approach will result in an integration of the duality within the individual’s psyche. Darwin says, “The combination creates a balance of the opposites; the tension of the paradox creates a current, releasing the locked energy, creating momentum, and canceling out both of the opposites. The effect is that we are bringing together two forces, a positive and a negative, which ignite and create energy, and, together with the self-denial that is part of the spiritual path, precipitate the consciousness to a higher level. However, if you act on [only] one of them, the current is diffused.” In explaining this phenomenon of opposites, Bhau, one of the intimate mandali, would occasionally say, “Sometimes it takes a nightmare to wake us up from a pleasant dream.” We have a great resistance to being awakened even when it is for our own good; we tend to resist change and so easily justify our negative reaction. There are many ways that the conflict between the opposites makes its appearance. Baba gives the example of the polarity of the masculine and feminine qualities in us. When these opposites are embodied in two persons as they interact, they can generate a tremendous energy and even inspire a lifelong love and devotion. Someone in love can cross deserts on foot, suffering incredible thirst and hunger, just to be with his or her beloved. But also, if a person loses their loved one to someone else, especially if jealousy enters the picture, the energy created by the polarities can result in a lifelong hostility. Both responses generate great energy. Baba says that to overcome the polarity of male and female is to overcome much of the problem of duality. In the Discourses, He writes, “The transcending of the sex duality does not amount to overcoming all duality, but it certainly goes a long way towards facilitating the complete transcendence of duality in all its forms.” To overcome this duality, Baba says what is required for the individual is to experience, through imaginative or intuitive projection, what their partner feels themselves to be in their own experience, rather than viewing their partner through their own personal lens. In this experience, the individual finds a third way, a resolution above duality through non-identification with the gender of the body. And this third way comes about through the energy brought on by the clash of the opposites itself, which Baba uses as a tool for our awakening. Baba describes the ultimate challenge of rising above the opposites in these words: Remember in the future, that when anyone hurts you, it is I who hurt you; when anyone loves you, it is I who loves you; when anyone laughs at you, it is I who am laughing; when you love anyone, it is I whom you love. I am in all things. How can you realize My infinite presence if you shrink from me in those who hurt you and welcome Me only in those who please you? In His love, Jeff A link to the PDF of Effort and Grace: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xrR75eksY-tErdKZm9aOBs3omuhioasb/view?usp=sharing

Participants are invited to bring their New Year's Day Quotes to share, out loud! Personalized Quotes are sent out via email to anyone who is listed in the Baba Zoom Community Directory. If you did not receive one, feel free to bring any favorite Baba quote to share! Tech host Diana Goodheart in NC This event was recorded live. To be first to be notified of a new video on this channel, please hit the red subscribe button, then the notifications bell. To join future live events, see www.babazoom.net. Please join our Facebook group: www.facebook.com/groups/meherbabafamily

"Christmas with the Living Christ" - a Christmas message from Charles Haynes and Christopher Wilson. Hosted by Diana Goodheart in NC This event was recorded live. To be first to be notified of a new video on this channel, please hit the red subscribe button, then the notifications bell. To join future live events, see www.babazoom.net. Please join our Facebook group: www.facebook.com/groups/meherbabafamily

Dear folks of Baba, Once in Mandali Hall at Meherazad during the 1980s, Eruch shared with us about the phenomenon and nature of the dual realm, which divides everything into opposites. The triune attributes of Infinite Knowledge, Power and Bliss, when they come down into this world of Illusion, are divided into opposites. Thus, the Infinite Knowledge of God is divided into ignorance and worldly knowledge, the Infinite Power of God is divided into weakness and strength, and the Infinite Bliss of God is divided into misery and happiness. The Supreme Being, when it incarnates in this world of Illusion, takes the forms of masculine and feminine; Adi, Baba’s secretary, shared with us that Baba had told him that in this advent, Mehera is playing the role of His feminine counterpart. For eons of time, we are caught at the level of duality, trapped more or less in one opposite or the other; we invariably think they are the only options we have. It usually doesn’t occur to us that we can go beyond the dual world of opposites into the Divine Realm within and experience our intrinsic completeness, the oneness of our Soul. Baba has said that the trajectory of human beings is to basically go from bad to good to God. However, we first have to entertain the possibility of going beyond duality by giving up our obsession with the opposites such as worldly knowledge as opposed to ignorance, strength as opposed to weakness, and happiness as opposed to misery. Darwin was forever encouraging us in so many ways to leave the seemingly safe harbor of the opposites and set out with Baba into the unknown open seas. In his words, “Why strive to become something in the dual realm when you have to let the whole realm go? “ In early childhood, we lived for a time in the realm of relative oneness, but as we grew older, we set out unconsciously to make our mark in the world of duality, to make efforts to achieve our future goals, to educate ourselves to do so, and to strive to arrange for ourselves a secure place in the world. But then Baba entered our lives, usually when we were most vulnerable, calling us to leave the dual world behind and join Him in His realm of Oneness. And as Baba says, the challenge is to do this and still live a practical life in the world at the same time! Baba is our ticket out of the world of duality. In this world of preferences, how can we prefer Him above all our other preferences? How do we get out of the world of duality? Our efforts should eventually be directed toward focusing entirely on Baba in each moment. One of the major hurdles we have to rise above is our unexamined identification with what Darwin calls our personality self. It is the personality self that has myriad preferences--all our ambitions for achieving things in this world such as success, control, comfort, recognition and pleasure. We have to go beyond the personality self which Darwin referred to as merely “a storefront for the soul. We make such a big deal of the window displays, changing them with the seasons when we could enjoy the priceless merchandise inside!” We have to create some inner space between our personality self and our consciousness (our soul). The personality is meant, as Darwin would say, to be a “conduit” or vehicle for love and the soul, not a base of operations as it is for most of us. To focus on Baba in any way, shape or form is to immerse ourselves little by little in the Oneness beyond duality and the personality, and this can be experienced in our day-to-day lives. It is the quickest and fastest way to move beyond the opposites. We choose loving Baba over wanting the many things in this world. The two major ways to rise above duality, according to Eruch, are: remembering Baba consciously and the losing of ourselves in activities that we love (which is an unconscious remembrance); it’s hard to realize that losing ourselves IS Baba! Baba is always there within, ever ready to personally help us in this. As we focus on Him, our attachment to the dual realm begins to drop away from sheer neglect. There is a gradual psychic shift from seeking fulfillment in the world to finding fulfillment in Baba. He is the very embodiment of Oneness that leads to inner freedom beyond the opposites! As Dr. Harry Kenmore, one of the Western mandali, would say, “You can’t get perfection out of imperfection no matter how you contort yourself. Perfection has to reach in from the realm of Reality and pull you out!” What flashes of insight or painful experiences have moved and even driven you to see that you need to move out of the dual realm? What stages have you gone through that would indicate that you are moving toward Baba’s Oneness? Mother Theresa describes beautifully the state of being a vehicle for divine love: "I am a little pencil in the hand of a writing God sending a love letter to the world." In His love, Jeff P.S. We are continuing with chapter, Expressing Ourselves

Sahavas for Everyone. Avatar Meher Baba is in each one of us. And His Love is the focus of this gathering. Open discussion with each session having a topic or theme. Hosted by Laurent Weichberger in SC. Meher Baba and His "Twelve Ways of Realizing Me," way #12 "LOVE: If you have that love for Me that St. Francis had for Jesus, then not only will you realize Me, but you will please Me." Jai Baba! This event was recorded live. To be first to be notified of a new video on this channel, please hit the red subscribe button, then the notifications bell. To join future live events, see www.babazoom.net. Please join our Facebook group: www.facebook.com/groups/meherbabafamily

Losing Ourselves in What We Do Dear folks of Baba, Most of us are struggling with how to live in and relate to this world. When we were with Darwin, he spoke often of being detached from the world, but in my early years with Baba, it was not really clear to me what this meant. It was Eruch who helped me immensely to see life in this world from a unique and more comprehensive perspective. There was a time in 1975, before starting at the Meher Center, when I was working for a buddy of mine painting houses, which included doing fine interior jobs over in Briarcliffe Acres, just north of the Center. In this upscale neighborhood, we had to do quality work. Back then, I would describe myself as a Baba remembrance machine; I would say “Baba, Baba, Baba...” inwardly with each brush stroke, while sanding, caulking, cutting in windows and baseboards. In my early years with Baba, I tended to do everything in extreme. I worked with my buddy for six months, and then we went to India. One day at Meherazad, we were sitting just outside Mandali Hall on a bench with Eruch, and my buddy said, “Eruch, I work as a house painter, and sometimes hours go by and I haven’t even thought of Baba. He is the most important One in the world. He asks us to make Him our constant companion, and I let hours go by and I’m not even remembering Him. What can I do about that?” Eruch replied in his very casual way, “In the beginning, it’s important to remember Baba, repeat His name, to see the movies, to go where Baba has been, and to read the Baba literature. But in time it becomes important to forget yourself. When you forget yourself, then Baba can live through you. You’re not aware of it, but He is living through you. So, lose yourself in your painting.” He highlighted the supreme value of self-forgetfulness, and his words unexpectedly resonated to the depths of my soul and were forever emblazoned in my heart. Previously I would have thought that losing yourself in painting was like burying yourself in the complete mundane; what has house painting got to do with spirituality and Baba except, maybe, earning a living in the world? That moment outside Mandali Hall was a turning point for me in my life with Baba, because I had become a bit too serious, rigid and truly obsessed with remembering Him all the time. I had lost the playfulness that had always been a part of me since childhood, the spontaneous enthusiasm of my college days, the genuine fun in life that I had experienced over the years. Since that brief, life-changing conversation with Eruch, I have found that self-forgetfulness and the conscious remembering of Baba make a vital and complementary dynamic in my inner life. Eruch would say, “Get wholeheartedly lost in your activities, and when coming out of that absorption, remember Baba.” And he would add, “When you remember to remember, remember Him!” So, this is how I translate Eruch’s words into my life: when I get wholeheartedly into something, such as volleyball or music or gardening or a conversation, I forget myself. Baba then can live through me as Eruch has said even though I am not aware of it. And after the activity, I remember Him. So, it’s an alternating between Baba remembrance and self-forgetfulness. I found, when it was all Baba remembrance, I would become a little stiff and unnatural, and if it’s all self-forgetfulness, that also can sometimes become unbalanced, like watching football all weekend on television. Self-forgetfulness and Baba remembrance, for me, work beautifully and harmoniously together. Baba liked games, skits, jokes and movies, because in them we forget ourselves. I asked Margaret Craske’s dancers, most of whom were deeply devoted to Baba, if they remembered Him out on the stage in the midst of their performances. They all said that they remembered Baba before going on stage, and then lost themselves in their dancing. Afterwards, they would dedicate their performance to Baba. They had all tried at one time to remember Baba during their performances, but they confessed that it didn’t work; it took away from their total absorption in the dance. So, Darwin’s encouraging us to become detached from the world, through Eruch, took on a much deeper and more practical meaning for me. I am approached by young people, many of whom have computer jobs in which they are absorbed for hours with data and digital work. They often confess that they don’t find the work fulfilling. What Eruch has said gave a new and different meaning to their work, giving them permission to be wholehearted in what they do, knowing that Baba is living through them and is vitally present. And in the moment when they come out of their absorption in work, they can remember their Beloved! In this way, they are actually “in the world, but not of it.” In time, this approach, with its effacing of the self, leads to the knowing that Baba is the sole doer of everything. In His love, Jeff

Dear folks of Baba, The micro-managing of our lives—with all the struggles, dreams, fears, ambitions, successes and failures that this entails—can all be carried out more effortlessly and efficiently and simply by the love and support that Baba will happily and freely give to us. What is an eternal burden to us can be given over to Baba, so that our day unfolds more and more in His way and not in our way which continually seems to require so much decision-making, so much guess work and so much ongoing anxiety. Baba would like to take over our lives for us, but we don’t have a clear understanding of how to let Him. The mandali, Baba’s intimate ones who lived with Him, were forever urging us to give everything to Him, but how is this to be done? Is there a method or practice for turning our spare moments throughout the day over to Baba? The mandali were embodiments of various practical and touching ways of doing this. In my many hours of being with them and asking countless questions, here are some of the most helpful practices they shared in gradually turning our day over to Baba. The mandali brought home to us that Baba’s love is continuously flowing into us every moment through our soul, and from our soul into our mind and heart, and eventually into our day. Unfortunately, this river of Baba’s love, which begins so pure and pristine at its source, has to pass through our mind with its interminable swirl of thoughts and cauldron of beliefs of right and wrong, good and bad, spiritual and unspiritual, and it also has to pass through our heart with all its congestion of emotions, desires and feelings. This pure and pristine river, as it flows into our day, unfortunately picks up the residue and sometimes even the pollution of the mind and heart along the way which can create a massive congestion in the moment we find ourselves in. This pristine river is then sometimes experienced as a murky stream, or a stagnant bog, and yet occasionally, if we are fortunate to be open to Baba’s grace, a fresh flow of pure water. All that we do that is not inspired directly by love leaves an impressional residue in us. Is there something we can do in the moment to encourage this pure and pristine river to flow through us without contamination? Yes, according to the mandali. Whatever we are feeling in the moment--anxious, happy, angry, lustful, greedy--we can let it flow in an energetic stream toward Baba before us (or however you might describe this giving). When we lose this flow of love and instead feel our negative side in the moment, we can let that flow toward Baba. He is right here before us always, face to face; He is not just in some transcendent state far above and beyond us. As Eruch would say, we have to “kid” ourselves into believing He is right before us, and one day we will experience that this had been true all along. Baba’s being is impression-less as Eruch and Darwin Shaw have said, and all our impressions that we give to Him, good, bad and ugly, are instantly dissolved in His being, but only one layer at a time. When the flow of our love becomes congested in the good, bad and ugly of our minds and hearts, we can give these less desirable impressions energetically to Baba. Over time, the obstructions and the congestion they cause, begin to break up and loosen due to the force of giving them to Baba in the moment. Often taking decades, our life begins to flow more and more with Baba’s love, and our day starts to unfold in His way, and we are relieved little by little of the burden of having to micro-manage our life. In addition to these efforts, any remembrance of Baba and the taking of His name in our spare moments is continually dissolving automatically our massive accumulation of past impressions (sanskaras). As we give Baba the “strangers in our heart”, we make more room for Him to live in us. Our life, as Darwin has said, eventually becomes a “constant state of giving to Baba.” If this is all we did in our spare moments throughout the day, that would be enough to experience a very fulfilling life. We constantly forget that Baba is always right before us, personally waiting for us to see the sun of His shining personality through the clouds of our impressions, and give ourselves to Him. Prophet Mohammed once said, “Between you and Me, there are forty-nine veils. Between Me and you, there are no veils.” The glorious overall theme of Darwin’s book, Effort and Grace, is about giving ourselves little by little to Baba, which culminates in our complete surrender in which He takes over the reins of our life. As it says in the Bible, “Not I, but Christ liveth in me.” This is the supreme destiny of everyone! What is your experience of giving things to Baba? In His love, Jeff P.S. We are continuing after six weeks on page 52 A link to the PDF of Effort and Grace: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xrR75eksY-tErdKZm9aOBs3omuhioasb/view?usp=sharing

Sahavas for Everyone. First and third Wednesday of the month. Avatar Meher Baba is in each one of us. And His Love is the focus of this gathering. Open discussion with each session having a topic or theme. Hosted by Laurent Weichberger in SC. Meher Baba and His "Twelve Ways of Realizing Me," way #12 "LOVE: If you have that love for Me that St. Francis had for Jesus, then not only will you realize Me, but you will please Me." Jai Baba! This event was recorded live. To be first to be notified of a new video on this channel, please hit the red subscribe button, then the notifications bell. To join future live events, see www.babazoom.net. Please join our Facebook group: www.facebook.com/groups/meherbabafamily

Nick will tell stories he heard from the Mandali, in the context of trying to live a life of the spirit. Questions and comments welcome! Hosted by Diana Goodheart in NC This event was recorded live. To be first to be notified of a new video on this channel, please hit the red subscribe button, then the notifications bell. To join future live events, see www.babazoom.net. Please join our Facebook group: www.facebook.com/groups/meherbabafamily

Irwin will allow Baba to inspire his talk to us today! He will share experiences of his life with Meher Baba, through stories, poetry and his personal correspondence with Meher Baba. Irwin's talks are always wonderfully infused with Meher Baba's Love and Humor. Hosted by Diana Goodheart in NC This event was recorded live. To be first to be notified of a new video on this channel, please hit the red subscribe button, then the notifications bell. To join future live events, see www.babazoom.net. Please join our Facebook group: www.facebook.com/groups/meherbabafamily

Sahavas for Everyone. First and third Wednesday of the month. Avatar Meher Baba is in each one of us. And His Love is the focus of this gathering. Open discussion with each session having a topic or theme. Hosted by Laurent Weichberger in SC. Meher Baba and His "Twelve Ways of Realizing Me," way #11 "SURRENDER ... If your surrender to Me is as wholehearted as that of one, who, suffering from insomnia, surrenders to sudden sleep without fear of being lost, then you have Me." Jai Baba! This event was recorded live. To be first to be notified of a new video on this channel, please hit the red subscribe button, then the notifications bell. To join future live events, see www.babazoom.net. Please join our Facebook group: www.facebook.com/groups/meherbabafamily

"Last Glimpse: With two gestures, the Beloved says it all" - A talk by Charles Haynes Hosted by Dyan Ullman in CA This event was recorded live. To be first to be notified of a new video on this channel, please hit the red subscribe button, then the notifications bell. To join future live events, see www.babazoom.net. Please join our Facebook group: www.facebook.com/groups/meherbabafamily

Sahavas for Everyone. First and third Wednesday of the month. Avatar Meher Baba is in each one of us. And His Love is the focus of this gathering. Open discussion with each session having a topic or theme. Hosted by Laurent Weichberger in SC. Meher Baba and His "Twelve Ways of Realizing Me," way #11 "SURRENDER ... If your surrender to Me is as wholehearted as that of one, who, suffering from insomnia, surrenders to sudden sleep without fear of being lost, then you have Me." Jai Baba! This event was recorded live. To be first to be notified of a new video on this channel, please hit the red subscribe button, then the notifications bell. To join future live events, see www.babazoom.net. Please join our Facebook group: www.facebook.com/groups/meherbabafamily

Nick will tell stories he heard from the Mandali, in the context of trying to live a life of the spirit. Questions and comments welcome! Hosted by Diana Goodheart in NC This event was recorded live. To be first to be notified of a new video on this channel, please hit the red subscribe button, then the notifications bell. To join future live events, see www.babazoom.net. Please join our Facebook group: www.facebook.com/groups/meherbabafamily

Marking the 63rd Anniversary of the East-West Gathering, November 1-4, 1962 Our guests today will share stories from the East West Gathering. Goher Mobed was seven years old. She remembers getting Mani's dress to wear when her own dress was drenched in the rain. Nasosherwan (Nosh) Nalavala and Irwin Luck were young men at the Gathering. They each have a store of colorful stories to tell. And Cathy Riley will read East-West Gathering excerpts from her husband Tom's beautiful book More Light. Hosted by Betty Lowman in CA This event was recorded live. To be first to be notified of a new video on this channel, please hit the red subscribe button, then the notifications bell. To join future live events, see www.babazoom.net. Please join our Facebook group: www.facebook.com/groups/meherbabafamily

Nick will tell stories he heard from the Mandali, in the context of trying to live a life of the spirit. Questions and comments welcome! Hosted by Diana Goodheart in NC This event was recorded live. To be first to be notified of a new video on this channel, please hit the red subscribe button, then the notifications bell. To join future live events, see www.babazoom.net. Please join our Facebook group: www.facebook.com/groups/meherbabafamily

Today, at numerous levels of society, there is a pervasive and unapologetic attitude among many about their selfish behavior that in the past would have resulted in remorse and the sting of conscience. There is an illusion of freedom in not having to be hindered and slowed down by remorse and conscience in their effort to climb up in society and wield authority. But in overriding remorse and conscience, which are qualities of the heart, we become victims of a hidden guilt, which is of the mind in collusion with the ego. This unconscious guilt takes up residence in the shadows of our psyche, and our unending preoccupation then becomes to adopt a frantic forward-looking life style that keeps us just ahead of our guilt, and we pray that it doesn’t catch up with us! This repression of guilt often manifests as a feeling of unworthiness. People don’t like guilt, and no matter what strategies the mind comes up with to get rid of it, we only reduce it superficially. Guilt cannot do away with guilt. It is as futile as clipping off the tops of weeds, thinking that they won’t come back! We have to get at the root cause. Einstein said it clearly, “No problem can be solved with the same level of consciousness that created it.” The qualities of remorse, repentance and conscience, old-fashioned terms as they might seem today, are essential in changing our behavior because they reside in the heart, and it is at the heart level that change in us must be made. When we feel genuine remorse for something we’ve done--a harsh remark made to someone, betraying a confidence, not helping a neighbor in need—rather than diminishing us, our spirit is affirmed and even ennobled. As uncomfortable as it might be, we know we are doing the loving thing. Our conscience is chastising us so that in the future we will try to be more loving. Guilt is concerned with our self-image; remorse is about transforming our heart. Remorse and guilt don’t come up just in present moment situations. We all have selfish things in our past that we often unconsciously drag around with us that make us feel unworthy and which cast a shadow over our present. Baba assures us that we can change our relationship with the past. The selfish behavior back then can be dissolved in the present. Here are two immensely helpful methods. One, which we have discussed in recent weeks, is to bring up in our heart, situations in the past that we feel guilty about and deeply ashamed of and give them energetically to Baba in the present. (Shame is not really an emotion; it is a combination of severe self-condemnation and guilt, and it persists because it is a verdict handed down by the court of our ego and which allows no appeal. It masquerades as a permanent sentence. The ego is that cruel!). In bypassing the ego-mind that has little empathy, but instead, by appealing to our heart, Baba assures us that we will be readily forgiven by Him. This can happen instantaneously, but in most cases we have to access and then give Him our selfish past layer by layer before it is dissolved. Here is a second method: In the course of our day and week, events are bound to happen that remind us of the selfish and unkind things we have done in the past. Normally, we might cringe when these memories, triggered by present situations, come up in our mind. And when we cringe and feel that shot of guilt running through us, this is the moment when we can give that memory to Baba and even send His name and love toward those past actions. In this way, the negative self-condemnation is not continually being reinforced in memory by guilt and shame; we maintain a positive self-compassionate attitude toward what we had done. After all, it is not really fair to judge what we have done in our past, using what we know about love today. There is this sage advice, “Give up all hope ……. of a better past!” In putting these two methods into practice, the power of the past to cast its shadow over the present can be greatly diminished, and over time, it can become completely transformed by Baba. He even goes a step further by transforming the guilt associated with our past selfishness into empathy for others in the present. It enables us to relate compassionately to our fellow beings who suffer with many of the same weaknesses that we have. Bhau Kalchuri would share with us a very helpful and insightful equation that went something like this: If you do something selfish and unkind and justify it, you will not be able to repent. And if you don’t repent, Baba cannot forgive you. And if you are not forgiven, you won’t be able to change your behavior. Along the same lines, Darwin writes, “Meher Baba is the gateway to the Infinite, and a contrite spirit is the key that opens wide the gates of forgiveness. A contrite spirit is thus a vital part of this dynamic. We cannot accept forgiveness without repentance. This, then, is the loophole in the otherwise ironclad law of karma.” P.S. We are continuing from page 29

Sahavas for Everyone. First and third Wednesday of the month. Avatar Meher Baba is in each one of us. And His Love is the focus of this gathering. Open discussion with each session having a topic or theme. Hosted by Laurent Weichberger in SC. Meher Baba and His "Twelve Ways of Realizing Me," way #10 Obedience. "If your obedience is spontaneous, complete and natural as the light is to the eye and smell is to the nose, then you come to Me." Jai Baba! This event was recorded live. To be first to be notified of a new video on this channel, please hit the red subscribe button, then the notifications bell. To join future live events, see www.babazoom.net. Please join our Facebook group: www.facebook.com/groups/meherbabafamily

Dear folks of Baba, "Dear friend, your heart is a polished mirror. You must wipe it clean of the veil of dust that has gathered upon it, because it is destined to reflect the light of divine secrets." -- al-Ghazzali, a Sufi mystic In the last two sessions we talked first about becoming aware of the heart center and then offering to Baba its content of emotions, desires and impulses that clutter the heart. As we empty the strangers from our heart and give them to Baba, our heart begins to let in more of the light of Baba’s love, our own soul. The Sufis compare the heart to a mirror covered with dust; when it is polished clean, it reflects the sun. Baba’s face and form, which have been invisible for lifetimes, eventually begin to appear in the mirror of our heart. And ultimately, there is room for Baba to actually live our life, as it is said in the Bible, “Not I, but Christ liveth in me.” It’s not that the light of love really increases in us. In essence, we are the light itself, and our heart is becoming increasingly more receptive to it. The reward of feeling more love and light in our heart spurs us on to empty it of strangers with greater determination. The formless divine presence is everywhere, but with Baba, that divine presence has taken human form and enters our lives. That is, as Baba lovers, we are not just tuning into the formless divine presence; Baba has come to us as a divinely human presence to personally share in our lives. He embodies the divine presence which is everywhere. This work of giving our interior to Baba needn’t take place only on the higher planes, but can happen right down here at the street level amidst our everyday situations. As the mirror of the heart is wiped clean, Baba’s form and personality begin to be reflected in our heart. We have the great good fortune to enjoy the intimate companionship of Baba as our heart moves toward the light of the Soul. In emptying the strangers from our heart to Baba, He gradually becomes inwardly more real to us. Baba is really there in person to receive everything we give to Him. On our ascent to the soul, we enjoy the intimate companionship of Baba with each step. The more intimate our sharing from the heart with Baba, the more intimate He becomes with us. We have the opportunity to share with Him things in ourselves that we might be very reluctant to share with anyone else. And not only will He not disapprove of what we give Him; He is grateful and touched that we would be so vulnerable before Him. In focusing on His finite form and life, how is it that our heart expands beyond its usual bounds! It is because, as Baba has said, even though His form is illusory, it houses the Reality—"Truth and Truth’s body” as Francis Brabazon has written in the Australian Arti. Both Eruch and Darwin refer to Baba as impression-less Being, and any focus on Him dissolves whatever impressions we are experiencing at the moment. In absorbing more and more of the details of Baba’s life as Darwin suggests, He becomes more real as a personality and accompanies us throughout the day. The personalities of the Avatars are eternal even though their bodies last only for a time. The Christian saints in the Middle Ages, for example, enjoyed a present moment relationship with Jesus many centuries after He lived on earth. For the longest time, we feel Baba’s presence in our lives, but we don’t see Him except perhaps on rare occasions. Eventually, Darwin says, the eye of the heart (not the mind’s eye), which has been closed for eons of time, begins to open, and Baba, who has always been right before us though invisible, suddenly comes into view. It is to share this experience with us that Baba has come: it is our destiny to eventually see Him face-to-face! However, as sublime as this experience is, Adi K. Irani, Baba’s early disciple and secretary, points to something beyond even this. One day in his office, he said to a friend of mine, “See that photograph on the wall. I can make Baba come out of the photograph and stand right before me,” and without pausing, he went on, “But I have work to do!” Working for Baba as he did his entire life and striving to please Him, according to Adi, is even greater than seeing Him face-to-face! That is something to ponder. "Everyone sees the Unseen in proportion to the clarity of his heart, and that depends upon how much he has polished it. Whoever has polished it more sees more--more Unseen forms become manifest to him." Rumi In His love, Jeff P.S. We are continuing on page 26 To join the email list for Late Night Chats, contact Angela This event was recorded live. To be first to be notified of a new video on this channel, please hit the red subscribe button, then the notifications bell. To join future live events, see www.babazoom.net. Please join our Facebook group: www.facebook.com/groups/meherbabafamily

We have some informal chat after every arti, the "post-arti party"! But once a week, Jeff Wolverton joins us for some serious mining of the spiritual depths. Join us for conversation, more readings, songs, quotes - you never know what treasures will be uncovered! Dear folks of Baba, Around 1970, a buddy of mine and I were visiting a college mate of ours in upstate New York, and in looking at a map of the area, we discovered that nearby was the city of Schenectady, where we had heard that an elderly couple lived who had met Baba. One day we got up the nerve to call them, and much to our surprise, they invited us right over. It turned out that this was Darwin and Jeanne Shaw, two of Baba’s early Western mandali who had first met Him back in the 1930s. We were spellbound listening to their most intimate stories of what it was like being with Baba! When we left several hours later, we knew that this was the opportunity of a lifetime, to be in the company of these two rare souls. We quickly found a place to live, and Darwin helped us find jobs at the county nursing home. To read the whole story, click on this link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1CTJG2W4Bqst6EYoNRV9XXkvfouVtQP4-JJx7jub0hGA/edit?usp=sharing To join the email list for Late Night Chats, contact Angela This event was recorded live. To be first to be notified of a new video on this channel, please hit the red subscribe button, then the notifications bell. To join future live events, see www.babazoom.net. Please join our Facebook group: www.facebook.com/groups/meherbabafamily

Sahavas for Everyone. First and third Wednesday of the month. Avatar Meher Baba is in each one of us. And His Love is the focus of this gathering. Open discussion with each session having a topic or theme. Hosted by Laurent Weichberger in SC. Guest Naosherwan Nalavala Jai Baba! This event was recorded live. To be first to be notified of a new video on this channel, please hit the red subscribe button, then the notifications bell. To join future live events, see www.babazoom.net. Please join our Facebook group: www.facebook.com/groups/meherbabafamily

Dear folks of Baba, In the first part of this chapter, “Giving Our All,” Darwin talks about the stages of becoming awareof our heart center, and the second part is about giving its content of desires, emotions and deeper feelings to Baba. Our massive load of impressions (sanskaras) that we have accumulated over eons of time are the byproduct of our journey to develop full consciousness. These impressions, as necessary as they were, form a vast and elaborate scaffolding, so to speak, surrounding and hiding the glorious mansion of our own soul. Our consciousness is woefully enamored of this scaffolding and is unable for the longest time to see anything else. The mansion of the soul is only a theory or belief until, through divine grace, we catch a glimpse of its breath-taking splendor, embodied by our Beloved Baba! In order to see the soul, we have the formidable task of detaching our consciousness from our thoughts, desires and emotions—from our addictive focus on the scaffolding itself. Darwin used the metaphor of an octopus’s tentacles to describe how our consciousness is enmeshed in the world. He writes, "Like those sea creatures whose tentacles constantly float out trolling for food, we extend unseen tentacles [of consciousness] into the gross world, seeking experiences.” With our tentacles of consciousness, we are feverishly possessed with attaching to more and more experiences, not just in the world, but in the subtle and mental realms within. Our hunger for worldly knowledge and experience can be bottomless. Darwin, in his usual low-key fashion, encouraged us to first withdraw the tentacles of our awareness from being enmeshed in thoughts. With great effort, we learned to watch the trains of thought race by without jumping on board; we had taken trains of thought to the end of the line thousands upon thousands of times and been dropped off in the middle of nowhere! We learned that what we were looking for was definitely not in the mind! Over time, as we detached from the ticker-tape of thoughts passing by, our awareness (consciousness) was able to withdraw from the mind with its unending thoughts and drop down to the heart center and observe the desires, emotions and deeper feelings at point blank range. We were surprised to find that awareness can actually be detached from the mind! That is, we were not “thinking” from the head about our heart below, but we experienced the heart center with our awareness alone. As long as we are in our head, we are one remove away from the direct experience of the heart. We choose knowing with the intuition in the heart over the thinking with the mind. We discovered, however, that the river of desires, emotions and the deeper feelings passing through us is often raging and tumultuous, and it is difficult not to be pulled into its swift currents and wind up thirty-five miles downstream! Withdrawing our awareness from these intense forces, we found, is infinitely more difficult than detaching from thoughts. Over decades, with a more detached and keen awareness of our heart center and all of its desires, emotions and deeper feelings, we then face the challenge of giving these limiting and often tenacious sanskaras to Baba. Darwin has said, “You can’t heal what you don’t feel,” and “The deeper the feeling, the deeper the healing.” That is, we first have to become aware of what we want to give to Baba—to empty the strangers from our heart. In the latter part of this chapter, Darwin delves into one of the major methods of giving to Baba, which will be described in the next email. Fortunately, after decades of effort with Baba, we eventually achieve enough detachment so that we can begin to see through the scaffolding of sanskaras to the glorious mansion of the soul itself. As we withdraw from enmeshment in our thoughts, emotions and desires, our consciousness, which we usually think of as a neutral space, begins to slowly fill up unexpectedly with the fragrance of Baba’s love and light. That is, the intrinsic light and love of our consciousness is no longer darkened by being entrenched and buried in maya. Baba as Buddha said that His one mistake, which He said He makes in each advent, was to assert that Nirvana is the ultimate goal (emptiness) rather than Nirvakalpa (the divine fullness). In 1956 in New York City, Baba said privately to the Shaw family in part, “One must give everything to Baba if you really love Him. He is in everything and everyone. You belong to Him, so keep nothing to yourself. Give it all to Baba, and be free. Give your whole self to Baba; your pain and pleasure are Baba’s pleasure. Give it all to Baba.” How do you experience being aware of your thoughts, desires, emotions and deeper feelings? What desires, emotions and thoughts distract and pull you into their intensity? In His love, Jeff PS. We are continuing on page 23 Please hit the red subscribe button. To join future live events, see www.babazoom.net.

Dear folks of Baba, In this next chapter, Darwin says that Baba “is more interested in our progress than we are.” That is, He’s not waiting for us to make our way to Him on our time but rather than on His time, which is completely different. He is, you might say, courting us to draw closer to Him and is working tirelessly with each of us, even though we may only be aware of an infinitely small fraction of His efforts. As Darwin says, it’s not that He works with us “a little bit every now and then.” He is eternally working with each one, though such intimate and personal care is greatly unfathomable to us. In one of Kitty Davy’s favorite Rumi poems, he ends with the line: “I never knew that God, too, desires us.” In her life before meeting Baba, she felt in her devotion to Jesus that she was trying to attract His attention by her dedication and service. In her experience, Jesus was more of a passive presence. But when Baba entered her life and would come to Europe to visit His Western followers during the 1930s, they found that Baba, from His side, was truly dynamic in making the most loving and personal efforts to attract them! This was entirely unexpected. Darwin would insist that we not let our weaknesses, failings and disobediences create a feeling of unworthiness in our relationship with Baba. This is a mistake many Baba lovers make, especially in the beginning, and in doing so we forfeit our intimacy with Him which is the very means of overcoming our weaknesses. The intimate focus on Baba turns our attention away from our personal “melodrama” and toward a feeling of belonging to Baba with its accompanying joy and love. Darwin says, “His disposition toward us is that of unbroken sweet, loving care all the time.” For many of us, as a part of our relationship with Baba, focus on His form and personality is paramount and indispensable. Once in Mandali Hall back in the 1980s, Eruch posed the question, “What does it mean to hold on to Baba’s damaan?” Holding on to His damaan (the hem sewn in clothing) is a metaphor for a young child in a crowd of people holding on to his mother’s sari so as not to get lost. Eruch invited us to share what we felt holding on to Baba’s damaan meant. The discussion went on for nearly an hour, and in the end, we asked Eruch what it meant to him. And he said, “His form.” That was a relief to us; it wasn’t something esoteric, but something within our capacity. Ramakrishna, the Perfect Master from the mid-1800s, was once asked, “What is the highest form of love?” He gave this answer: It was the love that the gopis had for Krishna. As most of you know, Krishna grew up as a cowherd in the village of Brindaban, even though he was of a royal family and destined to be king. The villagers, the gopis, loved and adored him, and he enchanted them with his divine personality. At age sixteen, he left Brindaban as was destined. He was forced to fight and kill his evil uncle, and he then became king. One day, as king, he sent one of his ministers to Brindaban to see the gopis and bring them a message. As I remember it, his minister came down the hillside to the village on horseback, and all the gopis ran excitedly to see him. They called out, “Where is Krishna? Where is Krishna? Why haven’t you brought our Krishna?” The minister replied, “But Krishna is the Lord of Creation. He is everywhere.” “Don’t tell us that! We don’t want the Lord of Creation. Bring us Krishna!” Ramakrishna said this is the highest expression of love—to demand the form of the Avatar and be attached to it! Darwin used to say, “His form is the doorway to the Infinite. He is both the Way and the Goal.” To this end, Darwin says, “Our thought has to be used in the process. It sounds like an impossible thing, but my experience is that we can be aware of Him the more we think of Him; we can learn to feel His presence. When I was at my job, I had to try to keep my heart going: keep my feelings, my heart center, awake and active, feeling Baba’s presence, even though my mind had to be occupied elsewhere.” In my experience, there are some followers of Baba who are more drawn to His impersonal aspect, His divinity, rather than to His humanity, His personality. Both approaches are equally valid. How do you relate to Him? Do you feel that Baba has been actively drawing (courting) you in your life with Him? “When you are with everyone but Me, you are with no one. And when you are with no one but Me, you are with everyone.” - Rumi In His love, Jeff PS. We are continuing on page 22 To join the email list for Late Night Chats, contact Angela Please subscribe to our channel. To join future live events, see www.babazoom.net.