Conversations about Meher Baba

Sahavas for Everyone, led by Laurent Weichberger, Oct 16, 2024, live on Baba Zoom

Sahavas for Everyone. First and third Wed 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. 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

Late Night Chat: guest Kevin Connor, Oct 13, 2024, 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: Special Guest Kevin ConnorDear folks of Baba, Tonight we have as our guest Kevin Connor who will share his story of coming to Baba. He has written this brief biography of his life in advance of our sesion: " My spiritual journey began in 1987 in New York, when I first encountered Meher Baba's name and image while attending a 3-day training course. Immediately after that I bought and began reading Meher Baba's Discourses and was immediately gripped by His stunning truth that resonated in my heart and mind. However, I was deeply convinced of the Divinity of Christ, so I was not prepared to accept Baba's claim to be Christ come again. So, I appealed to Baba and put the burden on him to lead me to a person that could have such authority and real-life experience that would help me see, experience and accept. That search continued for almost 3-years until Meher Baba turned the key in me at the Meher Baba Spiritual Center in Myrtle Beach on my second visit there. I will share that experience tonight. During my first pilgrimage to Meher Baba's tomb, I met my first wife, who had been born into a family of Baba Lovers. Our 20-year marriage brought us three sons: Narayan, Jelal, and Francis, named after Narayn Maharaj, Jalaludin Rumi and St. Francis of Assi. Each boy has found their own connection to Baba, and lives with conviction and love for Baba as the Avatar of the age. My life has been enriched by countless daily experiences with Baba over the past 34 years. By Baba's unfathomable Grace he has allowed me to live 3-miles away from the entrance to His Center in Myrtle Beach for the last 23 years. Hardly a day goes by that I do not visit the center and Baba's grace has extended to giving me the privilege of volunteering at His center including overnight watchman duties." Looking forward to seeing all of you on Sunday. In His Love & service, GoherTo 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: Nuances of Honesty, Oct 6, 2024, 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! The Topic: The Nuances of Honesty Dear Folks of Baba, What does Baba mean by honesty? I think Baba lovers are very challenged in interpreting what He means when putting honesty into practice in their lives. There is the world’s definition of honesty, but that can be misleading, for sure, and often creates complications. Baba’s definition is a challenge to the usual definition that we may have grown up with. For example, Eruch, His close disciple, grew up in a Zoroastrian family where honesty is considered one of the highest values. In his early years with Baba, he was very honest by the standards of the world, but his honesty would sometimes hurt others. Baba allowed him to carry on with his notion of honesty for some years until one day, He took him aside and said to the effect, Eruch, you are very honest, but your honesty is different from Mine. Your honesty sometimes hurts others. Baba then said, “The truth when told is that which uplifts another. Anything which crushes another person cannot be true.” Even if what you say is factually true, if it hurts another, it is not true! This is a different type of honesty from what we are used to. In another example, there was a couple who came regularly to the Center, and on one of their trips, the wife confessed that they had never told her mother, who was a devoted Catholic, about their life with Baba, their trips to India and that her husband was Jewish. The couple was feeling guilty and dishonest, that after nearly thirty years, they had kept the truth from her mother who was now in her eighties. They were asking whether they should now tell the “truth”. We talked about it at length, and they decided that telling her now would be too much of a shock in the last years of her life. To have shared it earlier in their marriage would have been the appropriate time, but now they felt it was too late. There are nuances with honesty that require viewing it in a larger context. Here is an example of when love, which is truth, is more important than the factual truth. There was a young woman who came to India whose aunt had paid for her trip. She made her niece promise to go to see the Taj Mahal, one of the architectual wonders of the world. The young women was so profoundly moved by being in Meherabad and Meherazad that she just couldn’t leave. Time went by, and on the last day in Ahmednagar, she suddenly felt terrible that she hadn’t gone to the Taj Mahal as she had promised. She told this to Mani, Baba’s sister, in desperation. Surprisingly, Mani told her that in Mumbai there is the famous Taj Mahal Hotel. Before leaving India, Mani recommended that she should go there, which she did. This is a case where honoring the rare love she felt with the mandali in Meherabad and Meherazad took precedence over the fulfillment of her aunt’s request. Honesty is not so simple. Baba gave a unique definition of honesty to the Sufism Reoriented group. He conveyed that when asked how you feel about something, what you say should reflect your feelings accurately. For example, say your boss asks you whether a particular person should be hired to join your company. If you feel 70 percent that they are suitable and 30 percent that they are not qualified, what you say should reflect those percentages. As an alternative, Baba said that it is not dishonest to choose not to express your feelings or your opinion, but if, just to please someone, you express full approval of something when you have misgivings, that would be dishonest. Honesty can sometimes be a great challenge when the person you are talking to is easily angered, frightened or hurt. How have you dealt with such situations? Do you find you have to keep much to yourself because you don’t feel that you will be understood? Baba says not to hurt the heart of another; is that different from hurting someone’s pride? There are many nuances to honesty. What challenges have you had to deal with in your life with Baba? Many Baba lovers face the uncomfortable dilemma of how much to tell friends and relatives about their life with Him and His declaration that He is the Avatar. It will be valuable to hear from all of you.In His love, Jeff 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

Late Night Chat with Jeff: the Role of pets, Sep 29, 2024, 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 Role of Pets with BabaDear folks of Baba, As you know, I have invited suggestions for topics recently, and surprisingly, this past week, three of you suggested this same topic: the role of our pets in this life with Baba. Even though I haven’t had a pet since childhood, I have observed how intimately pets have entered into the adult life of many Baba lovers and their children. The love they have for their dear pets, and the very touching love their pets have for them, is something precious to behold. Mehera once wrote, “Animals have played a special role in our life with Baba, not only as His pets, receiving His personal touch and contact, but also, it seems, as a channel of His work, reaching out to all the animal world and the whole of creation … He is the Perfect Caretaker of all animals, big and small, beautiful and ugly … He shared with us His sweet love of nature and all forms of life.” I was surprised on my first trip to India to see beside Baba’s tomb and the graves of His close women mandali, a nearby place devoted to the gravestones of Baba’s own dogs that He loved so dearly. There are numerous stories of Baba with His many pets, ranging from monkeys to peacocks to the white horse that had belonged to Mehera as a child. At the tombs of other Masters or saints, I have not witnessed the graves of their pets. In my early trips to Meherabad, Naju Kotwal, the daughter of Baba’s nightwatchman, used to give several of us a tour of the large stone-walled compound of Upper Meherabad where the Eastern and Western women stayed during the late 1930s through the 40s. Naju lived among the women as a child. She would show us where all the different stalls had been where the wide variety of animals were kept. It was a veritable zoo! Baba’s work with animals was not covered in detail in most of the biographies of Him. Among His animals, there were deer, goats, English bulls, monkeys, parrots, mynah birds, horses, a donkey, a mongoose, a pet snake, and a wide variety of dogs. Eruch, Baba’s close disciple, once said out of the blue in Mandali Hall, “You Americans need to go back to your roots.” Someone piped up, “You mean our Judeo-Christian roots?” “No,” Eruch replied, “The American Indian!” I took this to mean that Christianity and Judaism, as they’ve come down to us through the centuries, primarily emphasize our treatment of other people and not of the other kingdoms. The American Indian has been taught a profound reverence for all living beings as well as for the inanimate world. Just as Baba loved the company of all his pets, the lives of so many Baba lovers are enlivened by the presence of their pets: dogs, cats, gerbils, hamsters, rabbits, horses, goldfish, koi, birds and many more. The loving devotion of pets is one of the most precious experiences to be the recipient of. How have your pets entered into your life with Baba? Are there any experiences from your childhood with pets that were part of the growth of your love? For those of you who have pets now, what role do they play in your life? What places do they fill in your heart? Many Baba lovers drew great comfort from the company of their dear pets during the isolation of the pandemic. How have you have managed over the years to recover from the loss of these intimate companions?In His love, JeffTo 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: Staying in the Present, Sep 23, 2024, live on Baba Zoom

Meher Baba has said, “Live more and more in the present which is ever beautiful and stretches away beyond the limits of the past and the future.” But how to stay in the present? Most of us in early childhood lived for beautiful periods in an expansive, timeless present. Back then, one day could last a month! We lived in the present free of regrets or nostalgia about the past, and we were strangers to anxiety about the future and its compelling dreams. We were deep into the adventure and vastness and wonder of the present moment. Even if you can’t remember vividly your early childhood, I know that most of you have had this deep timeless experience in your coming to Baba and in your life with Him, and in many moments throughout your daily life. As we got older, if we were unhappy in the present, we no longer entered deeper and deeper into the moment in search of adventure and engagement; we gradually developed the habit of living in the past when times were better or imagining a future free of our present suffering. Our educational system, with its relentless orientation toward the future, captivated our imagination more and more. The present became a means to a future end. Before long, we developed the habit of energetically projecting ourselves into the past and the future; and we even began wanting more and more to be some place other than where we were. Leaving the timeless, expansive present of early childhood, we were now trapped as permanent residents of the passing world of Time and Space. But then thankfully Baba came along from beyond time and space! In my very early years with Baba while I was in college, I frequently agonized over what I was going to do with my life, and I was nostalgic as well as regretful of many things in my past. One day, Baba asked me inwardly, “How much are you in the present?” I focused within, pondering this deeply at some length and concluded, “Ten percent.” For me back then, the present was mostly just a blur between the past and the future! Sadly, as adults we lose touch with the expansive, timeless experience of early childhood, except in rare moments. Many think of this period of our lives as just a fantasy that we eventually grew out of. However, Baba is inviting us back into that realm again. How can we remain in the present moment without always going energetically into the past or the future? That is the great challenge for those who are opening up to the inner dimension, the spiritual realm within. How to stay in this moment and still remain practical? Darwin was a great help to us in this. He introduced the practice of giving things to Baba. In giving our emotions, desires and deeper feelings to Baba in the present, it is possible to stay energetically out of the past and the future. This method was of immense help, which Baba worked on with us. For example, rather than going back and re-living past events, we would focus on the nostalgia or regret we felt about the past and give this energetically to Baba in the present. In this way we would remain in this moment without going energetically into the past. The same is true for the future. We would give our anxiety or hope for the future to Baba in the present, and in this way, we would remain in this moment. We could still make plans or study in preparation for something in the future, but we would stay in the present while doing this. And, rather than going back to the past, we found that the past would come to us in the present when it was relevant to the moment at hand. We all have experienced someone who is very worried about something in the future, like a root canal that is to happen the next week. It is clear that they are not fully present. We say they’re not quite themselves. Or someone may be sharing the break-up of their marriage, and we witness that in the preoccupation with the past, they have almost left us and the present moment behind. In withdrawing our energy from the past and future, all that energy can be used to live more and more--like young children do--in the present. Unexpectedly, due to Baba’s grace, we found ourselves moving very, very gradually out of the passing present--which is a part of the past, present and future paradigm--and lifted into the expansive timeless present, which miraculously includes all time and space. In rare moments, we would sometimes find ourselves on the banks of the river of Time watching time flow by. We discovered in brief moments a secret doorway opening into a timeless realm where young children spontaneously play and love and explore with wonder. The timeless expansive present is not a transcendent state or an escape from life, but an entering into Baba’s eternal reality. Baba has said, “When every moment is rich with eternal significance, there is neither the lingering clinging to the dead past nor a longing expectation for the future but an integral living in the eternal Now.”

Late Night Chat with Jeff: pleasing Baba, pleasing others, Sep 15, 2024, 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! The Topic: Pleasing Baba, Pleasing OthersDear folks of Baba, One of you wrote this as a suggestion for a topic: “I'm curious to explore ‘the fear of being judged’ and how this leads to ‘people pleasing’ but not necessarily pleasing Baba. It's something I've been working on letting go of and surrendering, but there are lots of layers. I think it stems from this longing to belong and be loved. The ego is seeking, and does not realize we already always have this belonging and love within.” Most people grow up having been taught that it is important to please others. And in most cases, that is better for the sake of harmony than displeasing others. However, in agreeing with others and going along with what they want is often a way, in the short term, of avoiding conflict. It feels like the safer choice, but over time it doesn’t succeed because we are often having to make compromises with the deeper part of ourselves. As Baba lovers, we are very fortunate. Few people have ever been exposed to what Baba has introduced to us, the critical importance of pleasing Him in others, or pleasing the divine in others. This distinction is rarely discerned and understood, and yet it is paramount to achieving a harmonious interior life. In pleasing others, there is always an element of self-interest; we are usually trying to avoid the discomfort of coming into conflict with others. In pleasing Baba, our concern is for the spiritual well-being of others. We are taught to be good, but there is a world of difference between being good and being loving. The mandali emphasized the supreme importance of distinguishing between the two. Good, for example, springing from our conditioning (sanskaras) is really calculated and has a great difficulty in saying “No”, because it wants to please. Whereas love, with its concern for the spiritual well-being of others or oneself, has the courage to say “No.” And this “No” can be very displeasing to others when it goes against what they expressly want, even when it is in their best interests. Of course, we have to be very diplomatic in how we convey this; the ego in others does not like to be opposed or contradicted, and we may be judged. Decades can go by in trying to master this nuance. How do we know when we’re pleasing Baba in others as opposed to pleasing them? There is no easy formula for this. I take it that when we sincerely make sacrifices for the spiritual well-being of others, in whatever way we interpret that, we are pleasing Baba in others. We attend to the growing love in them. Over time, Baba awakens the sensitivity and insight that can discern the qualitative differences of frequency; pleasing others is of the sanskaras, our conditioning, whereas pleasing Baba in others comes from beyond the sanskaras; it arises as a spontaneous prompting of love itself. What makes discernment so difficult is the fact that, in whatever we do, there is always an admixture of both responses, self-protection and affirming the spiritual well-being of others. What challenges have you faced in trying to please Baba in others as opposed to just pleasing others? Are you able to discern a qualitative difference? Do you find yourself being judged for taking a stand that is contrary to what another wants or is different from the conventional response to situations? Do you find it difficult as Baba has said, “to take a stand on the Truth within”? Has it driven you closer to Baba in facing these challenges? Do you feel that you are somehow betraying yourself in your interactions with certain people? How much does fear of rejection play a part in your reactions to others?In His love, JeffTo 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

Late Night Chat with Jeff: Feeling Uninspired, Sep 8, 2024, 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: When We’re Feeling Uninspired, What To Do?Dear folks of Baba, In struggling for a topic for this Sunday, I felt uninspired and hoped that Baba would provide one. A day went by with no word, but on the second day, still uninspired, Baba flashed this as a topic: What do we do when we feel uninspired? That is, we know Baba is here with us, but we are sometimes caught in an uninspired limbo, neither fully content resting in Him nor doing something with Him. What I did in my situation was to lie down and say His name for hours, filling in the time until something inspiring emerged. And this topic eventually made itself known. What do you do in your life with Baba when you find yourself down to the pilot light, no initiative, no inspiration, when nothing seems appealing? For people here in Myrtle Beach, a trip to the Center can usually be the solution; Baba rewards that effort often with a renewed vitality, or a conversation that elevates, or a rich silence within that has a life of its own. For others, it might be getting together with grandchildren who give us a sense of loving purpose. Even a trip to the grocery store may lift us out of aimlessly spinning our wheels at home and awaken Baba’s active presence. Reading from a book of Rumi poetry can sometimes catapult one out of the doldrums. A much-needed vacation can definitely regenerate our inner vitality with Baba. What approaches work for you? What activity or preoccupation can you lose yourself in? Eruch once said to a buddy and me when were young, “In the beginning it’s important to remember Baba, to repeat His name, read His books, watch the movies and go where He has been. But eventually it becomes equally important to forget yourself. If you lose yourself in what you are doing, Baba can live through you, even if you are not aware of it. Lose yourself in your activities or work, and when you come out of the absorption, remember Baba. When you remember to remember, remember Him!” There is something renewing in losing ourselves in things, especially when we are wholehearted and one-pointed, and as Eruch said, that can be a form of remembering our Beloved. So, put on your work clothes, grab a trowel and pruners, and head out into the natural beauty of your garden. Hopefully, hearing about your unique approaches to enlivening Baba within and in your outer activities will inspire the rest of us with new approaches! In His love, JeffTo 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: The Soul: What is it?, Sep 1, 2024, 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! Our Topic: THE SOUL, WHAT IS IT?Dear folks of Baba, One of you suggested this topic to get a sense of where the soul lies in the terrain, so to speak, of our interior and what are the intimations of the soul in our day-to-day life. These are some of my reflections. Baba has said that the soul is beyond creation, but when it interfaces with creation it is known as the spirit. For this reason, I regard the terms as synonymous. The soul (or spirit) is beyond the consciousness of most people. Just as on an overcast day we say the sun isn’t out although it is certainly there, our awareness of the soul is beyond the consciousness that is clouded over with our impressions or sanskaras. It is the elephant in the room that we rarely even talk about. Rumi has said, “If the door of the soul were to open for an instant, you would see that the heart of every existent thing is your intimate friend.” So beautifully put. He is not referring to the opening of the door of the heart, which we all know and experience. As invaluable as the heart is in our lives, there is always the duality—me and other: I love you, you love me, I love Baba, He loves me. With the soul, there is oneness, no duality; the Sufis refer to the soul as the heart of hearts. Baba has said we are sometimes blessed with the fleeting experience of unity with the divine, the soul, and the goal is for these moments to become abiding. Darwin would use the word: merge. As we move toward the soul, we begin to merge with everything, from rose to ant to people to ourselves, and unifying everything—the love of Baba and Mehera. The soul is all-encompassing. Nothing is left outside. Darwin used to encourage us to rise to the level of the spirit, which is a realm beyond the heart, and live from there. Mani, Baba’s sister, used to say, “You have to see things through Baba’s eyes.” I didn’t realize back then that this was an option. As an intermediate experience, we sometimes get the experience of impulses and inspiration coming from the soul even if we don’t experience the soul itself directly. We know its color and fragrance: on rare occasions we might experience this sometimes with music, we say, she sang from her soul; we might feel this in witnessing a father coming home from work, and the kids race out of the house and run into his arms. Or a lost dog that finally finds its master. We might have seen a hundred sunrises, but on this occasion the beauty is so exquisite that we are left breathless. And most important, when we experience Baba’s presence, that is the very soul itself, the Soul of Souls, because He is the embodiment of the Soul. When one is deeply moved to their core, they say their hair stood on end, they felt goosebumps, or a thrill in the deepest strata of their heart. When we experience things at the most profound level, we are touching on the soul. In the course of our lives, we have these moments. Our consciousness eventually expands to include the experience of the soul, or ourselves as soul, and it is complete when we are fully conscious of Divine Love itself—Baba. The doorway to the soul is not ultimately through the heart center, but as Esfandiar Vasali, one of the Prem Ashram boys, would explain, it is further below at the level of the abdomen. He said this realm is deeper than the seven chakras. He referred to this place as the “del” or “dil”. The thrill we felt at the bottom of our stomach when we went very high in a swing as kids is where I place the doorway to the soul. The soul, of course, is beyond the body. What experiences have you had that seem to be of the soul? What situations in your life touch the deepest strata of your being? Do you sometimes find yourself feeling so complete with Baba that nothing more needs to be added? Are there inner states within you that you find are more receptive to the experience of the soul? What impedes in your access to the soul? The heart is always striving to rise above duality, but the soul is deeply content and complete, requiring nothing more. The soul may be prompted to make great efforts by expressing love to improve a situation in life, but at the innermost level, the soul is always at peace with “What Is.”In His love, JeffTo 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: Loving Others, Loving Baba, Aug 25, 2024, 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: Loving Others, Loving BabaDear Folks of Baba, In my early years with Baba, I found it difficult in the moment to know how much I should focus on Baba within and how much I should focus on others. As long as I was tuning into Baba’s presence, I felt comfortable, but when I was relating to others, was I really simultaneously focusing on Baba? That is, was I able to relate to Baba in others or was I just relating to them as others independent of Baba? This deep questioning within myself led me to a decades-long effort to find Baba in others, or in another way of approaching this which worked best for me: to see others as Baba in disguise. I remember one day Eruch bringing out this quote by Baba in Mandali Hall: To love Me is to love all. To love Me in all is also to love Me. To love all is not to love Me. This was a challenge to my way of thinking. I realized that I was going to have to ponder the whole question of loving others: to harmonize my love for Baba with my love for others so that my love for others didn’t take me away from Baba. The mandali, I could see, seemed to have found a way of expressing this harmony of loving Baba and others naturally and effortlessly. This search was helped further for me by something Dan Ladinsky once shared with me. Eruch would greet us by name on the veranda of Meherazad when we arrived in the bus. We all enjoyed his embrace. But at five in the morning in Baba’s bedroom when His birthday was being celebrated by shouting out, Avatar Meher Baba seven times, Eruch would afterwards embrace each of the Western volunteers and the mandali gathered, one by one, saying, “I love you, Baba”. Was Eruch experiencing each one as Baba in disguise, his Beloved aseach one? I took this deeply to heart, and there were rare times over the years that followed when I would have this experience, so that being with Baba within and being with others would merge. The two experiences would be harmonized. In another instructive moment, I remember when one of the Prem Ashram boys, Esfandiar Vasali, one in whom Baba awakened divine love, was here at the Center. I asked him if he was able to see Baba in others. His answer truly surprised me, “I have not yet attained to that high state.” He radiated Baba’s love so powerfully, but he was yet to experience Baba in others. He shared that when he was a teenager at Meherabad, he would wait for Baba to come to say goodnight to him and the other boys, and Baba would not come until he experienced in his heart that it was “Baba loving Baba.” Have you dealt with this challenge of loving Baba and loving others? What methods and ways have you found to harmonize these two loves? Have you found that you can love those who are near and dear to you and love Baba at the same time without any effort? Do you encounter resistance in yourself in trying to love others with Baba’s love? When asked what our relationship to others should be, Ramana Maharshi, according to Baba a 6th plane saint, replied, “There are no others.” In His love, JeffTo 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: Telling others about Baba, Aug 18, 2024, 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! The Topic: Explaining Baba to Others: A ChallengeDear Folks of Baba, We all have been faced at some point with trying to explain who Baba is to those who haven’t heard of Him, and we have also had to face being around family, neighbors or people at work who disapprove of our life with Baba. These two situations are often challenging in their own way. How do you deal with these? In the first situation, do you say directly who Baba says He is, or do you skirt around the issue by referring to Baba as a spiritual master from India or deflect the question by talking about His teachings instead? Do you have a usual way of introducing Baba or do you often have to use your intuition each time in assessing the situation? Baba has said, “Your job is to bring My name to the ear of a person, and My job is to bring it from ear to heart.” You may feel relieved that He has discouraged “proselytizing” which often puts people off. I’ve heard a wide range of approaches to sharing Baba, and they are all valid. I’ve never heard a fellow Baba lover say, “Mind your own business!” when that is exactly what one might fantasize sometimes. Just joking! Explaining Baba to others can definitely be a challenge, and there is a natural fear of being rejected or even scorned. In the second situation, it can be difficult and even alienating when family or colleagues or people in our neighborhood express their outright disapproval for following Baba. How can we explain that we had no choice; it was our destiny. In some cases, the Baba-lover sometimes becomes an outcast, the black sheep of the family, and is never really accepted.This can definitely be very hurtful and even lonely sometimes, especially when there are no Baba-lovers where one lives. Some have chosen to go completely within in their life with Baba to avoid being hurt or disapproved of. Others have joined meditation and religious groups, spiritual centers and yoga classes to find like-minded people. For many, joining zoom meetings has been a godsend for those who find themselves cut off from family and friends. Have you had to deal with such circumstances and what have you done? I think it will be informative and helpful to hear what others have done. Some of their methods might be applicable to your own situation.In His love with the help of friends, Jeff 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