JOURNEY OUT OF DARKNESS

 
It was the month of March, 1964, and Yvonne was still coming to treat my aching back. She and I were sitting at the teakwood kitchen table after one of my back treatments. Phyllis had just served us mugs of coffee. I remember the afternoon sunlight slanting through the kitchen window above the sink where Phyllis remained at work. A white mug of coffee glowed on the teakwood table in front of Yvonne. We were in a mood of relaxation.

I looked at Yvonne and asked, "Would you tell me what Tom was doing in India a year or two ago?"

"I thought you knew. He went to see Meher Baba."

"Meher Baba? Who is that?"

"Meher Baba is the Avatar, Avatar of this age." I could see at once, Yvonne was delighted to tell me this; she was responding in such a forthright, almost joyous manner.

"What is an Avatar?" I asked. Now in retrospect, it seems surprising to me I had never heard the word, 'Avatar', before that moment.

"The Avatar comes every seven-hundred to fourteen hundred years," she explained. "He was Buddha, then came as Christ, and after Christ, Mohammed. And now He is here as Meher Baba. You see, the Avatar is one and the same always, the Savior of the world." She was smiling. I could see how much it pleased her to be able to tell me all this.

This was not a put-on. I felt certain of it. Somehow I knew she was speaking the Truth, communicating what she knew from her own substantial inner conviction.

It sounded so simple, so matter-of-fact, the way she put it, as if everybody in the world should know such elementary truth, almost as if she were talking to a first grade child. But her vitality of enthusiasm seemed to lift to the mountain top all she was telling me. What she conveyed seemed to shine forth out of her mischievous, almost teasingly, evocative grey green eyes, as if the whole of life were a kind of divinely esoteric sport, which she seemed incredibly adept at playing. She conveyed from her demeanor that there was nothing really ponderous about this Meher Baba. What she was revealing to me about Him was too buoyant to be anything but an announcement of joy and exultation. Whatever it was she had found in this Meher Baba, that was for me. It was shining in her eyes. It wasn't at all complicated, for obviously all she was saying about Meher Baba vibrated with life, and was therefore true, by virtue of its magnetism, her magnetism.

I did not hesitate to question whether this could be, in fact, the Truth. I simply accepted it. It rang so clear, all she was saying. Suddenly I was aware that my whole life, its meaning, it's real purpose, had come down to this point to shift vividly into focus. It had required from me only the slightest adjustment in my mind. In my thinking all was now miraculously different purely because of this singular Truth. I had found my way, seemingly by chance, into some sublime essence of pure awareness. How fortunate I felt at this moment to have received this grace of recognition. My life-long burning question had been answered at last. The identity of Christ had finally come to this house. For me there was not the faintest possibility of doubt!

How incredible! This entrancing, strangely exotic young woman sitting across the table from me had managed by some mysterious power of grace to swing open a mighty gate. Now it seemed I had but to pass through this wide open portal to find my place in it all. Miracle of miracles, I understood, the living Christ was on earth now at this very moment! He was pervading this very household. Immediately it made a world of difference!

Why was it everybody didn't know so incredible a fact? Then I recalled, but a few minutes before, I myself had not known it. This surely was miraculous. It seemed a sudden gift from an all-pervasive Benevolence.