"Last Glimpse: With two gestures, the Beloved says it all" - A talk by Charles HaynesHosted by Dyan Ullman in CAThis 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 NCThis 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 CAThis 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 NCThis 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 dimin

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 #10Obedience. "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,

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=sharingTo join the email list for Late Night Chats, contact AngelaThis 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 NalavalaJai 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 frag

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,

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 #9Renunciation. "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 AnecdotesBrothers 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.comHosted by Ron Greenstein in CAThis 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 NCThis 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 this chapter, Darwin introduces the metaphor of an inner barometer for reading our internal weather. Is the sun coming out or are we heading toward a cloudy day? As our awareness turns away from being primarily focused on the outer world toward the heart center within, we begin to see the ever-changing dynamic of emotions, desires and the deeper feelings. We begin to observe more of what is clouding our awareness and what is letting in the light. This is not an intellectual or mental approach to our interior, based on theory and belief, but an actual first-hand reading of our heart center using awareness itself and not the mind. The mind can only take momentary snapshots of our heart, whereas our awareness can view the whole panoramic film of what is taking place in our heart center. We may ask ourselves, what is the effect of this emotion that is now moving through my heart? Where is it leading? Is this impulse I’m feeling aligned with love or is it reinforcing something selfish in me? Is this deeper feeling flowing into me bringing in more light? From Darwin we learned that we could be pro-active in creating our inner environment with Baba. Prior to that, in my youth, my attitude was to just let things happen as they will, a more passive approach. By being pro-active inwardly, we are able to head off unwanted and binding impulses closer to their source and give them energetically to Baba before they project themselves into action. The practice of scanning our interior, which Darwin and also Eruch greatly encouraged, is something we can do in spare moments throughout the day. Baba has said that as we put into practice those things that partake of the light, using our intuition, more intuition will be awakened in us. Rather than viewing life through the lens of the past and the imagined future, which is our age-old habit, we make efforts to stay more and more in the present moment and view our life instead through insight and intuition, which are faculties of the deeper heart. In all of this, Baba is always working intimately and continuously with us, though it may take a long time to see that this is so. The work of heading off unwanted impulses, desires and emotions is what Baba calls the process of sublimation. The lower selfish impulses are exchanged for the expression of our better angels, our loving responses. This process is not easy but requires tremendous and ongoing efforts, as we are often struggling against the ages-old power of our selfish inclinations. But as Darwin would say, this effort of giving our negative side to Baba does not lead us into a void because this loss is being replaced simultaneously by an increasing measure of inner freedom that leads us toward a higher and more loving expression. Thus, as Baba has said, anger is sublimated into patience and tolerance, greed and possessiveness into generosity, and desires and cravings into purity. We become adept at picking up the first vibration of anger, the initial feeling of possessiveness or the first sensation of desire, and give these to Baba. Our negative and selfish reactions are gradually transmuted into loving responses, and all the energy that was locked up in our reactions is transmuted and released into longing for Baba and the Divine. Darwin speaks of “peace of heart” which is much more difficult to achieve than peace of mind, for the impulses, desires and emotions of the heart are much more intense and require great effort to bring them under a natural control. The quote of Baba often repeated by Darwin over the years was: “All finiteness and limitation is subjective and self-created.” He would say that we are beneficiaries of unlimited freedom, and through our inner efforts, we can help Baba to help us rise to the highest in ourselves. We have only to catch the prevailing breeze of His grace. Faith is the sail hoisted above the ship of your being. When t

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: “We Are Meant to Flow”Dear folks of Baba, “We are meant to flow”—these are the words that we heard Darwin Shaw repeat many times when he would share with us his life with Baba. He would tell us, we are meant to flow with the divine love that Baba has infused in each of us, and our work is to keep the heart open so that love can grace our own lives and the lives of those around us. Too often, however, our awareness is trapped behind a formidable dam, so to speak, that is impeding the ocean of this love from flowing into our lives. What is this massive dam? It is the accumulation of countless impressions (sanskaras)that we amassed during the long journey involved in acquiring consciousness. Our destiny is that this dam will gradually break under the loving force within us! What causes our hearts to close? Unfortunately, our reactions to others, to ourselves and to the world can frequently impede the flow of Baba’s love emanating through us. One of the major obstructions to this flow is our mind with its notions of right and wrong, good and bad, appropriate and inappropriate, loving and unloving. We release or withhold this love according to what our mind deems worthy. We let our likes and dislikes, which we feel are our right to assert, dictate who we will love and who we feel is not worthy of our love. Fortunately, we have the example of Baba and His intimate mandali who received everyone with their wholehearted love whoever they were. Baba has said that human love is conditional; certain conditions have to be met before there is a release of love. We often require that the object of our love must be deserving. Our love is rarely unconditional. Darwin would insist that we are capable of unconditional love in this very life! Baba has said that divine love “is released … even in circumstances which would be looked upon as unfavorable by those who have tasted only of human love.” Whenever we choose not to flow out to a situation or a certain person, we diminish ourselves. We remain small. Baba urges us to always be wholehearted in what we do and how we express ourselves in this world. Even certain attitudes like unworthiness or feelings of superiority interfere with the flow of our love.Darwin has said, “Letting love flow, instead of thinking of selfish things, helps to remove veils in our consciousness by dissolving the selfishness, which is based on misconceptions and what Baba calls ignorance of the truth. It is not a matter of arbitrarily forcing the mind or the feelings along certain lines, but entails becoming subtle enough to be aware of how our selfish thoughts are formed from desires, where those desires come from, and what all of that leads to.” Baba encourages us to live in the present; in each moment and situation, we are given the choice of favoring our selfish desires and self-interest or opening to the expansive ocean of love within. If we let this loving current flow toward Baba, which is the best thing we can do, it is His joy to return it transformed and, as Darwin has said, “it flows back into us where it can be expressed in the world of forms as a giving energy.” Another way of putting it, this flow might be described as the natural generosity of the spirit. It is a fusion of our love and vitality, a vibrational flow, which emanates from the heart center, and not from the head with all its self-focused thinking. What attitudes and likes and dislikes do you find that impede the flow of your love? Are you able to experience that the flow of love is on a higher and different track in you than the lower emotional or desire track? Can you feel that withholding your love leaves you feeling diminished in a subtl

The topic: Grace, What Is It?Dear folks of Baba, In his book, Effort and Grace, Darwin Shaw refers again and again to the importance and presence of Baba’s grace in our awakening to Divine Love. Several of you have expressed the wish to explore more in depth what he means by grace. Here is my own winding journey in trying to describe it: In the 1970s, I had been working inwardly for years in trying to more clearly understand the nature of the deeper feelings in my heart. They seemed so various and unique and indefinable, and it was critical to me that they definitely needed to be distinguished from the ongoing happenings in my mind and the superficial emotions of my heart. My deeper feelings all seemed like individual planets, each bringing different and specific sensations into particular locations in my heart space. Was there one sun that these unique planets, my deeper feelings, all revolved around? One day in the old Pilgrim Center in Meherabad, Baba flashed before my inner vision an image that was immensely helpful to me in this, that of sunlight passing through a prism and reflecting a whole varied rainbow of colors. The colors all have the same origin, the sun whose light is refracted through the prism to form the rainbow that we see. Baba once said that these colors are identical with the light itself. So, in this vision that He flashed to me, He conveyed that when the light of Divine Love which is always within us passes through the innermost depths of our heart, it is refracted, so to speak, into our deeper feelings, our better angels. These deeper feelings are actually not feelings, but divine love, the attributes of Baba Himself, manifesting in our deeper heart. Among these attributes are empathy, forgiveness, generosity, enthusiasm, purity, joy, creativity, compassion, patience, humor and courage. What Baba conveyed through the rainbow example is that it is the same One Love that manifests in the various situations in our life, which changes in color, so to speak, depending on which attrubutes of love are being called for. For example, in speaking truth to power, courage, empathy and often a sense of humor may be needed. In responding to a child who is lonely and wants someone to play with, fun-lovingness, creativity and patience might be what is required. I had initially thought that the deeper feelings were all somehow different in origin, located in separate places, but now Baba, through the image of a rainbow, integrated them all more clearly in my awareness. Because of the Baba’s metaphor about our deeper feelings, I am inclined to view His grace and His other divine attributes as coming from One Source. For this reason, I have never really tried to define His grace. I am always disposed to favor simplicity when I think of how Baba manifests in my life—it is His One Love flowing into me and into this world. If His love flowing into my life moves me to make efforts to be more loving, I call it His inspiration. If His love flowing into my life helps me in making the difficult decisions in my life, I call it His guidance. If it flows into my heart’s longing for closeness, I call it His companionship. If it flows into my life causing me to expand in being, I call it His unlimitedness. If it flows into my restless spirit causing me to move toward peace and harmony, I call it His Being. If it flows into my depleted body and mind, awakening my vitality and lifting my spirits, I call it His power. If it flows into my depressed and despairing heart, the dark periods of my life, I call it His light. If it flows into me, causing me to make an extra effort to express love beyond my normal capacity, I call it His grace. Yet to me, it is all His same never-failing love flowing into me, and it only seems different depending on which situation in my life it manifests. If I were to choose an expression to encompass all the above manifestations of Baba in my life, I would simply call

Ward Parks on “Meher Baba’s Words: Evaluating Attributions to the Silent Avatar""Creation and its Causes," like "Infinite Intelligence," "Tiffin Lectures," and other books have been published with Meher Baba identified as author. This is following Trust policy, which is based in large part on a crucial clause in Meher Baba's "Last Will and Testament." But it brings into focus many important questions as to what we mean when we say "Meher Baba's words." One can't forget, of course, that Meher Baba was actually silent.This is a discussion in which the world of Baba's lovers ought to take part, and it seems that now is a good time to start. Please come listen to Ward Parks explain how this has been evaluated and presented, and participate in the discussion as Christina Riley, Greg Dunn, and Richard Blum join Ward. Cassandra Bramucci serves as moderator.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 AnecdotesBrothers 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.comHosted by Ron Greenstein in CAThis 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