Conversations about Meher Baba

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.

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 #9 Renunciation. "If you renounce for Me everything physical mental and spiritual, 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

How the Master Works - Sharing Our Treasure of Stories and Anecdotes Brothers and Sisters in Baba, Some years back, Craig Ruff came to the SF/Bay Area. During his sharing with those of us who attended a meeting, he related an anecdote in which he related an incident where he asked Eruch Jessawala, “What will be the next phase,” meaning what will follow the phases of 1) having Baba with us in His physical form, followed by 2) the phase of having available, and interacting with, those who were close to Baba during that first phase?” Eruch stroked his chin thoughtfully and said, “You all will share.” There are a variety ways and media through which we have been sharing with one another: --we share our company at special gatherings, celebrations, regular meetings, centers, places of pilgrimage, and lately on the internet on BabaZoom. --together we read, listen, study Baba's discourses, cosmology, historical accounts; we share poetry, music/songs, dramatic presentations, stories, personal anecdotes, our thoughts and experiences of Baba's love, grace, and guiDANCE. Let's experiment with a BabaZoom meeting. The proposed title is “How the Master Works”. The content/activity will consist of participants telling stories and sharing anecdotal experiences that depict Baba's charming and meaningful ways of delivering His love, grace, and guidance, as His means to draw one closer to Him and away from desires and attachments. Reach Ron at meheronald@gmail.com Hosted by Ron Greenstein 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