Encounters with Meher Baba Part II

That first night, my intention was to stay in my cabin and meditate after dinner until bedtime. A family with several children were just moving into a cabin near mine. The children were yelling at one another, and one was dribbling a basketball. I figured, "Okay, they are just getting settled." And I focused on allowing the sounds to pass right through me. Within minutes, I became mentally hooked, and I began to think of nothing but the noise! The children continued to dribble and scream at each other. They were slamming doors and screaming, "Mommy!" And a righteous indignation began to arise in me. "This is a retreat center, for Christ's sake! Not a family motel!" I'm thinking to myself.


So, as I was already completely hooked and couldn't unhook, already fantasizing the nightmare of an entire weekend like this, I decided to do the most compassionate (toward myself) thing. I broke my own pledge of silence to ask the parents if the kids could dribble and play elsewhere...like at the playground. The father looked at me as if he was on his last legs after driving across country all day with a car full of children and said with great patience, "We just need to figure out where that is!"

After that, I couldn't resist slamming my own door shut, after which point I fell on the bed crying in a rather entertaining drama about my rotten luck and how the only thing I wanted, the only thing, was complete rest and solitude. "Is there no peace and quiet left on this earth? When you can't even get it at a bloody retreat center?!!" I live in a neighborhood full of children playing, and this was not the "getaway" I was anticipating. But aside from that, I was upset that I had lost my cool, already broken my silence, and that I was now behaving like a child myself!

I didn't want to hear humans or even machines and noise. Suddenly, in this heightened sensitivity, I couldn't even stand the hum of the fan in my room, and believe me it was HOT. Everything, especially my own mind, was so LOUD! I cried myself to sleep with such grief...not about this family making noise but about the cacophony of the mind and all of life. I was grieving the trap of the senses, the endless distraction, the veil of illusion. Only in hindsight did I see the perfection of this entire encounter. I had to feel that place...that desperate longing for peace and quiet. I had to experience the din to contrast it to the peace and silence that was eventually available to me all over the place. And I had to come to realize that it was there all along...and always in me.


The next morning, I woke feeling very sober. I walked to the Meher Abode and spent an hour and a half meditating at Baba's bedside. Finally, I was in that absolute stillness and quiet I longed for, my mind at rest, feeling the delight and blessing of an answered prayer. I loved Meher Baba's room because there was no room for "me" in it. Everything was illuminated. If nothing else, that moment made my stay there worth everything! But the blessings were just beginning.


Next: Blessings in the Library

Encounters with Meher Baba Part I

This is the first in a series of five writings on my recent trip to the Meher Baba Spiritual Retreat Center in Myrtle Beach, SC. I knew very little about Meher Baba...just that a friend of mine in Florida several years back held him in very high esteem and that many friends in my area now have made trips to the center which is situated on virgin beachfront property. Back in April, I began to feel a desperate need to get away. I needed not only a change of scenery but a real retreat from the world. So I wrote to the Baba Center and asked if I could visit in June. Fortunately, they had room! It was only then that I began to read up on Meher Baba and learned that he shared my love of silence. He also stated, "I have not come to teach but to awaken." That resonated with me. And when I arrived at the center and was shown my cabin, I received an unexpected confirmation as the room was something I had dreamed a year or so ago right down to the furniture.

That first day, I was able to visit The Baba Abode, the home where Baba lived. As soon as I stepped inside, I wanted nothing else but to be silent...and from that point on for my three day visit, I remained so (with one exception which I'll write about later). I felt such a crispness in that house, so clean, so impeccable. When I entered Baba's bedroom where visitors are allowed to sit and meditate, I stood at the foot of his bed unmovable. I just kept inhaling deeply into every cell of my being the incredible, indescribable presence. It was reminiscent of the Palace of the Jaguars in Teotihuacan, Mexico. Tears streamed out of my eyes as I stood in delight. I wondered, what was sleep like for Baba? What kind of dreams did this man have? I would later get my answer from a book in the library. : )

Next: Diving deep into the ocean of longing

Mantra to Overcome Challenges

This is one of my favorite chants. It is a mantra to overcome all challenges and bring prosperity. Enjoy!

http://spiritvoyage.net/2008/12/11/meditation-for-prosperity-aap-sahai-hoa-sachay-daa-sachaa-doa-har-har-har/

The Song of the Universe

Cymatics reveals to us how vibration creates form. It reveals to us our birth, for we too, like the sand, are subject to vibration. Some unseen, unheard song is creating us...singing us into being. We are the sand upon the vibrating plate taking shape into our existence believing we are the peaks and points that take forn...believing we are this or that. And sometimes, we get stuck. We freeze in a familiar formation and say, "I am this." In reality, we are meant to be maleable, moldable, and at the mercy of the Great Sound. For if this great sound were to cease or be disrupted, these mighty houses we've constructed would disperse like so many grains of sand flung to the wind. Something is conscious of us and listening as it plays upon the instruments we are. It takes delight in the cocophony, an orchestration so grand it is far beyond our contemplation. It is masterful, elegant, swift, and awesome. It is the Song of the Universe, and still more. It is our Composer, and one who Loves beyond conditions, beyond the beyond.

If the law of "as above, so below" holds true, then we too are composers. We too sing songs that breathe shape into reality. But are we listening? Are we paying attention to the composition we create? What is our rhythm? What is the order we sing out of chaos? Are we in harmony with the Great Sound? With the words we speak, do we breed forgiveness or hatred? Do we give form to self-pity and blame or maturity and wisdom? Do we relinquish our masterpiece to our reasoning minds, ignoring the awkward thud that deflates our spirit? Do we allow the voices of others to influence our melody with fear or with hope? What are the consequences to our choices? You see, we are in the in-formation age. Our reality is forming based on the vibration of our thoughts, feelings, and actions...and based on the overwhelming amounts of information constantly being fed to us.

Someone is ALWAYS listening. What are you saying? In essence, our words do not matter. They are but sand upon a plate. You are the vibration that stirs the sand. You are the energy that forms the peaks and points and geometic patterns. Where is your faith? In the words with the meanings that have been told to you, in the words themselves, or in your own musicianship? Can an artist infuse hatred with love, fear with love, resentment with love, violence with love? Yes! Reclaim the symbols (agreements) and Be Love, sing love, create love, perpetuate love. Make sure the music that everyone hears in your presence is the Divine Song, no matter what.

Changing the World

I had a client today who shared with me that she sat with Max, the Crystal Skull. She was told in session with him that she "is here to change the world." "What a burden!" I smiled, noticing that she was using this bit of information to make her life seem stalled and unfulfilled. Such a belief is a burden when we take it as it comes within this illusory three dimensional dream we are living...the literal world. But it isn't so important or special as it sounds, and as many people would take pride and comfort in believing, because it doesn't just apply to a few. Max said something very true, not just of my client but of us all. We are here to change the world. But what does he mean?

Is it enough when a person is a full-time mom? "How can I save the world that way?" she asks herself? Should we drop everything and run to an ashram? Are we meant to write a miraculous book that will change people's lives? "But I don't even have a college education! I'll never meet my potential," someone else argues. Are we meant to work with the poor like Mother Theresa? Perhaps. Perhaps not.

These considerations and doubts simply don't matter. You see, each of us is a world unto ourselves. That is the world to which Max was referring. That is the only world we can ever hope to change. That is the only world we should want to change, for it's the only one we have even a prayer of affecting. Yes! You ARE here to change the world, the world that you are... And suddenly the burden lifts. For there is nothing more we need to do than wake up every day with the intent of changing "the world" for the better. That's it. Done. Put the books away and save all that workshop money.

Kaleidoscope

Each of us is like a kaleidoscope. With just a turn of circumstance or a change of mind or heart, we make such amazing patterns, each of us unique and brilliant. When we are in flow with life, the image of ourselves is fluid and ever-transforming like the images one sees when one turns the dial of the kaleidoscope. But what tends to happen to us? We fixate on an idea of who we are and all that we could be becomes stuck into one fixed image. I am like this. I am like that. I can’t do this. I don’t do that. Yet each of us has so much untapped potential…so many gradients of colorful expressions. What will it take to explore all your colors and let them show?

Imagine walking through life as if you were looking at everything through a kaledioscope. Everything would shift and move before you could pin it down.

Talking to Plants

On the back of my car, I have vinyl lettering on the windshield spelling out my website http://www.thevoiceoflife.com/. Today, one of my students at the college where I work part time asked me what that meant. I explained to him that I work with sound for healing. As usually happens when I answer that question, I got a blank stare and then a strained attempt at relating to what I had just shared. People often try to understand sound healing as they understand any kind of western approach to health. "Oh, so it's like eating foods that are good for an illness?" Yes, I said. Only one uses the voice instead of the food for the health effect. I said working with sound in this way was my passion.

As the student was leaving for the day, he turned to me and said, "Now I am going to spend time in my passion." He explained that he works with a friend to tend a garden. He went on to describe how he and his friend have divided the garden in half. They both talk to and give lots of attention to the left side while the right side, they just tend without involvement. On the left side, they touch the plants with their bare hands while on the right, they wear gloves. He said, "You know, that left side is doing so much better than the right. Those plants like to be talked to!"

"Exactly!" I said. "So you do understand sound healing!"

Plants don't speak English or French or any other language save one. They speak the langauge of the soul. They respond to the vibration of intent. When we speak to our plants with loving, compassionate words, they feel that energy, and they respond. It isn't much different for us. We too respond much more to the energy behind the words rather than the words themselves. We too grow and trust and open when we receive the kind attention of others, be it a smile, a thoughtful word, or a simple "ungloved" touch. And that is just the beginning.