Late Night Chat with Jeff Wolverton: Relating to Others, Nov 20, 2023, live on Baba Zoom

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!

Topic: The Challenge of Relating to Others

Dear Folks of Baba

A friend of mine would often jokingly say that he would already be merged with Baba if it weren’t for the distraction of others. How we relate to others is a major element of the Path, and as Baba says, “Right adjustment to others involves self-forgetfuliness and love.” In the latter 1930s, Helen Dahm from Switzerland lived with the Eastern and Western women on the hill at Upper Meherabad and was the one who painted the mural inside Baba’s tomb. She was an anti-social type and found it very difficult to live communally with so many other women. One day she complained to Baba, and He explained to her, saying that “the path is through people.” People can definitely be disturbing in our lives by bringing up elements in us that we would otherwise not have to face. This is ultimately helpful, but it takes a long time to see that this is really so. For lifetimes we have been focussed on ourselves primarily, but eventually we have to learn to connect with others who are really ourselves in another form (or Baba in disguise). And through connecting with others, our experience of who we are truly expands beyond our little personality self. The Indian saint, Ramanamaharshi, was once asked what our relationship with others should be. In his thoughtful and quiet manner, he replied, “There are no others.” It is all really our Beloved playing all the roles. Many decades have to pass before this truth is understood!

It is love that unlocks the door into finding Baba in others. He once said, “All differences between one another are merely superficial and cannot affect the love we feel for each other deep down.” Our differences, in other words, often obscure and get in the way of the love we actually have for each other in the present. It is not that our love for others grows, but that the veil of imagined differences begins to lift and we see we have loved each other all along. It is this truth that is backed entirely by our soul. Baba is introducing a completely different paradigm from the way most people in the world view others.

What have been the greatest challenges to your loving others, and what methods have you found that help you in this endeavor? For some, prayer is of immense help. Thinking well of others as Baba has conveyed goes a long way in overcoming ill-feelings. Becoming more interested in what makes people “tick", a profound curiosity about why they are the way they are and seeing similar traits in ourselves—such preoccupations awaken our empathy and compassion for others. And the foremost method eventually becomes: putting all differences and conflict with others directly at Baba’s feet.

Agnes Baron, the caretaker at Meher Mount in California, had an ongoing conflict with one of the Baba group heads, complaining to Him, “Baba, you say we should love everyone. I don’t love everyone. What are you going to do about that?” Knowing that she had a heart of gold, Baba replied, “Agnes, you love everyone. You just don’t like everyone.” There’s hope for all of us!

In His love, Jeff

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