Conversations about Meher Baba

"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