Encounters with Meher Baba Part V

Earlier that day, I had visited the Lagoon Cabin where Baba used to give his interviews and such. I sat facing the chair in which he used to sit, but something remained illusive to me. I had the thought, "This isn't the view you want," and just briefly I decided to sit on the floor in front of Baba's chair facing out, taking in the room from his perspective. There was some mental chatter going on from past belief structures about not turning one's back to a master, and I couldn't, in that moment, get past that. My meditation was shallow, and I left.

Later that day, after the beach and a shower, I wasn't quite ready for dinner, so I returned to the Lagoon Cabin. This time, I sat in a chair to the side of Baba's (and it was just right) facing a large photograph of Meher Baba sitting in a chair as I was. In that way, we were mirror images of one another. And to me, it felt like we were sitting across from each other for real.

I read the prayers on the walls, thought about some of what I had read the day before, and inferiority began to arise. There were some beliefs operating about not being good enough or ever in a million years being able to measure up to this Avatar. I don't perform the miracles of Meher Baba. I don't administer to the sick and poor. I am not selfless, nor fully awakened in every moment, nor free of petty thoughts or emotions. All the ways we are different flooded me.
But the thoughts didn't cling. Like waves, they receded. I dropped the idea that I had to live my life like Baba lived his to be close to God. I dropped the concept of worth. And then I decided to say a prayer that don Miguel Ruiz taught called the Circle of Fire Prayer. In a way, I was saying to Baba, "Here is a prayer I love and how I choose to live my life to the best of my ability." It was my offering. It was, in that moment, the only treasure I felt I had.

When I got to the line "we will respect all creations as a symbol of our love communion with the one who created us", something in me popped and opened. I had a realization that the one who created the perfect being Meher Baba also created the perfect being Dielle. That One began to shine through from behind Baba's photo. I saw we were brother and sister, a projection of the same source, not master and student. We are animated by the very same source. I sat across from Baba as an equal creation in God's eyes...not a lesser one. I don't perform the miracles of Meher Baba. I don't administer to the sick and poor. I am not selfless, nor fully awakened in every moment, nor free of petty thoughts or emotions. AND I am a perfect creation.

This was the first time in my life I ever truly felt the complete absence of self-hatred. I only thought I knew what that was before this moment. I felt a wave of such deep gratitude, kinship, and peace to be me. There were two books on the table. The first was titled "Love Personified." My eyes took it in and then POP! I realized, "Oh, that's me!" The second was titled "God in Human Form". And POP! "Oh, that's me too!!!" I laughed, and I thanked Baba and exclaimed Jai Baba! to which I heard in reply Jai Dielle! And I laughed some more. And I swear, the photo of Baba grew brighter and his smile three times wider.

I floated to dinner, and the next morning I went to give my blessing to the sea. The sun was just coming up turning the waters a liquid shining silver. I prayed for all its creatures, for its protection, for its continued majesty. And I gave it my gratitude. And the waves rose gently lapping, kissing my feet.

Encounters with Meher Baba Part IV

My third day at the beach, I was determined to live as completely and richly as I could. I wanted every sensation to be heightened and enjoyed to the fullest. I had so much fun swimming, walking, eating my snack and drinking fresh water from my cooler (which I had forgotten the day before). I watched crabs and gulls and little fishies. I delighted in every little thing. And when the waves got bigger, I got more bold. I swam further out than I dared, and I rode the waves back. I nearly drowned twice caught unawares by two really big ones. But I loved every minutes of it...feeling like I didn't know up or down, feeling sea water filling my nose and mouth and pouring down into my gut, gagging, wondering if I would ever see the light of day again...and then coughing and laughing at the same time as I came up wondering if I hadn't lost a limb out there somewhere, my eyes and throat stinging with salt.


That day, I realized that since the "dribbling neighbors incident", I had been wearing a smile on my face almost the entire time. I even caught myself thinking "I better tone it down! I'm gonna freak people out!" and immediately corrected that and thought, "NOT!" It was funny how much internal dialogue the smile on my face stirred. "Maybe I'm not really this happy. Maybe I'm faking it. This can't be right!" Ha! There was so much to smile about! "Wow! This is me happy! Dielle is happy!"


That evening, I had what I almost hesitate to try and write about because it was so beyond wordly description, and yet it was what felt like my whole reason for being there. Baba said, "I come not to teach but to awaken." That evening, I had my awakening.




Next: Awakening

Encounters with Meher Baba Part III

After my meditation at the Meher Abode, I was scheduled to go on a tour of the center. After being in that quiet for which I longed with every atom of my being, the tour was somewhat painful. It was a large group of people, not all of which were staying at the center, and some of whom were quite bestowed with historical knowledge they felt compelled to share. There's nothing wrong with that, except all I wanted to do was go back to the silence! Somehow I endured. And when, after the longest hour and a half of my life, we were dismissed, I ran with my arms outstretched through the woods happy to be alive and free at last and "back on retreat".

I spent that afternoon at the beach swimming and enjoying how like the mind the ocean is. The waves, like thoughts, never rest. They just keep coming and coming and coming...relentlessly. Yet underneath all that, there is so much depth and mystery and blackness.

That evening, I saught refuge in the air conditioned coolness of the library reading room. Eventually, I had it all to myself and was able to read some of Baba's Discourses. Within those pages I discovered the answer to my question about Baba's sleep. He wrote that when a master "rests his body, he experiences no gap in consciousness."

Afterwards, I went into a very deep meditation feeling Baba's loving presence stir my own. It was so powerful. Heaven! Tranquility!

Next: The Ocean of Love

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