Conversations about Meher Baba

Late Night Chat with Jeff Wolverton: E&G: Baba is Courting Us, Sep 7, 2025, live on Baba Zoom

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, my heart center, awake and active, feeling Baba’s presence, even though my mind had to be occupied elsewhere.” In my experience, there are some followers of Baba who are more drawn to His impersonal aspect, His divinity, rather than to His humanity, His personality. Both approaches are equally valid. How do you relate to Him? Do you feel that Baba has been actively drawing (courting) you in your life with Him? “When you are with everyone but Me, you are with no one. And when you are with no one but Me, you are with everyone.” - RumiIn His love, JeffPS. We are continuing on page 22 To join the email list for Late Night Chats, contact AngelaPlease subscribe to our channel. To join future live events, see www.babazoom.net.

Sahavas for Everyone: Renunciation, Sep 3, 2025 live on Baba Zoom

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 stories, Sep 3, 2025, live Baba Zoom

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 Principe ”Sharing Baba’s Kindness,” Sep 2, 2025, live on Baba Zoom

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

Late Night Chat with Jeff Wolverton: E&G: Our Inner Barometer, Aug 31, 2025, on Baba Zoom

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 there is a sail, the wind of the Beloved’s Love can carry you to place after place of grace and wonder. Without a sail, your ship will only drift with the tide of the world. - Rumi As Baba lovers, I’m sure we all have our own version of this practice, checking in with our interior state. What is your unique approach of tuning in to the heart? How does it help you as you respond to the daily situations you find yourself in? Do you find that this practice brings you into a great intimacy with Baba? In His love, JeffPS. We continue on page 20 To join the email list for Late Night Chats, contact AngelaThis event was recorded live. To join future live events, see www.babazoom.net. Please join our Facebook group: www.facebook.com/groups/meherbabafamily

Late Night Chat with Jeff Wolverton: E&G: We are Meant to Flow, Aug 24, 2025, 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! 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 subtle way? “If the door of your soul were to open for an instant, you would see that the heart of every existent thing is your intimate friend.” RumiIn His love, JeffPS: We continue on page 19To 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

Late Night Chat with Jeff Wolverton: E&G: What is Grace? Aug 17, 2025, on Baba Zoom

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 it His loving grace. What is Baba’s grace for you and how do you experience it in your life? Baba has said that His grace “is flowing sufficiently all the time to fill one and all receptacles everywhere,” but “there is rarely a vessel which is not filled with other things. A vessel must first be emptied before it can be filled by the flow of my grace. It is also my grace which helps a vessel to become completely emptied in the first place.” And He added, “The flow of my grace to you depends upon the intensity of your love, for it is love which attracts my grace to you.”In His love, JeffPS. We continue from page 18 To 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

”What Did Meher Baba Say?” with Ward Parks, November 3, 2022 live on Zoom

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 stories, Aug 13, 2025, live Baba Zoom

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

Late Night Chat with Jeff Wolverton: E&G: Baba’s inspiring intervention, Aug 10, 2025, 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! The Topic: Baba’s Inspiring InterventionDear folks of Baba, “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.” These are the insightful words of Teilhard de Chardin, a Catholic Jesuit theologian and philosopher, who lived during the first half of the last century. Even though Baba encourages us to be in the world and live a natural life—“To be natural is most godly”—it is important not to lose sight of the fact that in essence we are spirit. It is Baba, through our spirit, who is inspiring us to sublimate our age-old selfish reactions to life and cultivate instead our divinely human qualities, our better angels. In the process, we enjoy Baba’s personal companionship as Darwin describes it: “He is our best friend – and not only our best friend but also our ally, working with each one of us. He has consummate understanding and insight into the sanskaras of each individual, and He really does work within us to expedite our freedom of consciousness.” Darwin was always encouraging us to go for broke, “to accept and believe in the highest possibility in this incarnation” with Baba. Don’t think the journey will take forever. And if our longing is to be with Baba next time He comes, we have the opportunity to work now toward providing “a clear consciousness for His use.” I once asked Darwin, “What is the biggest mistake the Baba lovers are making?” He replied, without a trace of criticalness, “They think of themselves as small, and they remain small. Think BIG. Think outside even the conventional spiritual box.” In being inwardly more inclusive of all of life-- all the different and whimsical inhabitants of this planet!--our heart expands, and we begin over time to feel ourselves “merge,” as Darwin would express it, with all of life. We move out of our ages-old subjective bubble and experience others as theyexperience themselves. In his latter years, Darwin described his experience as one where “you Iive in and through everyone.” Eruch used to remark from time to time in Mandali Hall, “This whole world is yours, but you have to claim it. Through love, you bring what is outside, inside!” He was implying that it is Baba’s inclusive love that can become ultimately ours. To give an example, if we become an avid bird watcher, and we learn the names of all the birds in our area, their feeding habits, their migratory patterns, how they care for their young, following all this with our binoculars—over time, the birds begin flying inside of us; we’ve incorporated them into our own being. Our heart expands. Just think if we did that for all of humanity! What strong likes and dislikes in yourself do you feel get in the way of the inclusiveness of your heart? What traits in others that you react to have you seen in yourself? “To love one soul is like adding its life to your own; your life is, as it were, multiplied and you virtually live in two centers. If you love the whole world, you vicariously live in the whole world.” Meher BabaIn His love, JeffPS: We continue on page 16To join the email list for Late Night Chats, contact AngelaLogin info can be found at babazoom.net (http://babazoom.net)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