IT IS SURELY HERE

There is no hope outside of You, Meher. So I trudge across the bosom of the Universe to bow down to Your samadhi. The Savior of the world, Thou art, so I cry out to you. If you will not save the world, then at least you will save that very Thou which is the Real Me encased within this framework of most finite limitation. To beings of the world you will not give your infinite treasure, Meher. But to a humble beggar that is more likely.

When I was with Baba in 1965, He was very interested to hear of our visit the day before to the samadhi of Hazrat Babajan. Baba asked us many questions about it. Baba asked, did we bow down to the tomb.

Phyllis said, "I don't know how." I at once thought what a marvellously humble thing for her to say. (Indeed, who knows how to bow down at the samadhi of a Perfect Master?)

And Baba said simply, "You will."

I never could have dreamed at that time that I would be coming back to bow down to Baba's samadhi. We all thought Baba was going to live to be ninety.

I said to Baba, "It meant nothing for me to go to Babajan's tomb, except to make me thankful that I have a living Master."

Then Baba said, "Babajan is in Me."

I have heard of the "fourth journey," but what in God's Name could that be? All I know is this interminable "first journey."

Baba asked, "Did you see pictures of Me and Babajan at the tomb?" When we answered "No," Baba explained that the man who was taking care of Babajan's tomb is a Moslem, and believes that pictures of God must not be shown; but, Baba said, if we had asked, the attendant would have removed a curtain to reveal pictures of both Baba and Babajan.

On our first day in Poona this trip (before meeting Jal) we went to Babajan's tomb where I paid devout respects to Babajan who is now in Baba. The caretaker was prompt to notice that I could not see well so he was most generously solicitous, taking me around to show me the things of interest such as Babajan's bangles.

He led me to two large framed pictures of Babajan, now exposed to permanent view. He took my hand and brought it up to touch the face in each picture. I noticed casually that the glass over the pictures was very encrusted with dust from the street traffic. Progress had been made, it was true; but this fellow was probably still a little too superstitious to be so bold as to dust them. We tend to expect Baba to change the world overnight, but Baba does not work that way. He has lots of time in which to get everything done.

But where was the picture of Meher Baba at Babajan's samadhi? I was taken to a dark corner where a drawer was opened as if going into an inner chamber. There was Baba's picture, tucked neatly away. I think this is the kind of thing that would definitely strike Baba as funny, especially considering that Babajan is in Baba. We might almost say that the whole of Babajan's samadhi is in that drawer.

One cannot imagine the Maha-Samadhi of the "Supremely Perfect One" to be at any one place. Nevertheless a point of identification for such an imagined place has been set up for us by Him, the Supremely Perfect One. That place is Meherabad Hill.

I have visited the samadhi of three Perfect Masters, not including the Avatar. We went to Sherdi and Sakori for one day to visit the samadhis of Sai Baba and Upasni Maharaj. They are only two miles apart. From these visits I feel that there is a vast difference between the samadhi of Perfect Masters and that of the Avatar of the Cycle. Perhaps this feeling that I have of the difference is to a degree subjective because Meher Baba is my own personal Master and Friend.

But I think that there is a real difference and that the difference lies in the fact that there is an atmosphere of religion and of tradition surrounding the samadhi of a Perfect Master; whereas around the tomb of Meher Baba there is no such atmosphere of religious tradition. One feels at Baba's samadhi something fresh, pure and pristine, something untarnished by the past or by the customs and attitudes of time-worn religion.

The Perfect Masters do not seem to entirely step out of the framework of religious thinking from which they were primed into perfection. The Perfect Masters seem to stay within the boundaries of precedent and custom. But the Avatar always and invariably steps free of the narrow religious boundaries in which He is brought up as a child.

The Avatar always seems to set about to tear down religious subdivisions and to erect in their place an entirely new way to approach and love God. That is what I feel at the tomb of Meher Baba, gleaming in the sun like the crown jewel of creation.

I had a talk with Eruch about the Creation on my very first visit with him at the Meher Baba Trust office. There seemed an unspoken understanding between us that we should straightway dispose of philosophical questions so that all "that" would be out of the way.

I said to Eruch, "Where is Meher Baba now?"

And Eruch replied directly, "Better you should ask, 'Where is He not?'" He reminded me that there never was a time when Baba was not. Universes come and go like great waves on the Ocean. Myriads of universes have swelled and burst, but there never was a time when the Creator was not. And so there never was a time when creation was not, for without His creation, the Creator would not be. The Creator being the Creator, necessitates creation.

Eruch pointed out that God's creation is His imagination and that as soon as God imagines anything, that anything takes form in illusion. The very instant God imagines a thing it exists in illusion as an apparent reality.

Eruch further pointed out that everything in God's imagination, though it be illusion, nevertheless carries with it the stamp of Reality from which the imagination has sprung. Everything in illusion carries with it the stamp of Baba's Reality. And this is what it means to say, "Where is Baba not?"

What is Meherabad? To some it is a place of historical importance, a place saturated with loving memories. To some it is the place where God lived once again the Divine Hero's life on earth. But to me Meherabad is the singular place where Soul is; the one Soul, the only Soul, the only Soul that ever was, the One without a second, walked and talked and ate and slept and mingled and sat alone and laughed and cried and hoped and despaired and suffered and rejoiced.

Meherabad is the place where I can walk and talk and eat and sleep and mingle and sit alone and laugh and cry and hope and despair and suffer and rejoice with the one everlasting Soul. If Soul can be said to exist anywhere in particular, it is surely here.