I just woke up from a dream.
I was with Meher Baba, he was a young man, and exceedingly handsome, beautiful. (Such as seen here.)
We were at the home of an Indian woman disciple of his. She had a dog. It was night time and the woman had shown us the guest room we were to stay in that night to sleep.
Baba liked the room and got into the bed. Baba’s bed was against the wall, in the corner of the room, to the right as you enter. My bed was lower than Baba’s (maybe on the floor even), and I remember my head was towards Baba’s feet. In other words, I was turned around so that where Baba’s feet were in his bed, my head was in my bed, if that makes sense. Also near the foot of my bed was a low sink for water, against the wall.
It was like this:
The woman asked Baba, as she was leaving the room, (actually she made a statement) something like, “I should take the dog out of your room…” implying that Baba would be happier if the dog were not in the room. At that point the dog was already lying on the floor, very happy and comfortable. But, Baba said, “No, the dog can stay.”
I remember feeling and thinking – wow, Baba is so warm, and so loving when he just said the dog can stay… It melted me. Then suddenly, the dog just got up and left the room as our hostess was turning off the light and about to leave the room.
Then it was just Baba and me in the room.
I looked over at Baba’s bed. His body and head were completely under a sheet, top to bottom, he was quick to do what he wanted to do. But he had just been having this little conversation about the dog, so I asked, “Baba, are you still awake?” He responded, “yes.”
I said that I had a question. He said, “What is it?” in a compassionate but sort of waiting-to-hear-my-question-before-implying-that-he-would-be-interested-in-dealing-with-it-at-this-bed-time-hour kind of way. I knew I was pushing my luck a bit.
I said, “In Hafiz, there is this word in Persian, ‘Mashuq’… is there really such a word and what is the meaning of this word?” I knew a little about the meaning, but was not sure if it was being properly translated and it had a special importance to me with Baba. There was motion under the sheet, and then Baba appeared, and then he got out of bed, and sort of squatted by the foot of my bed, but over a sink that was there, so I was looking up at him.
He explained all about “mashuq,” and about other related words in Persian to me. I had remembered another Eastern disciple had used certain Persian words in my presence just the other day, different than mashuq but relevant, and asked if that was related, and Baba thoughtfully smiled and said “yes,” and we had more of a conversation about all that.
Then the scene shifted. I was still with Baba. It was very strange. Something I had written about my own spiritual experience was sort of embossed on a piece of metal, gray metal, and put up somewhere where it could be read by others. I had not known about this, but there it was, and I found myself reading it with Baba standing next to me and he also read it with me. In this writing, I had described some spiritual experience (don’t remember what it was now) except I remember that it included “tears,” that is I shared about my crying during the experience. Baba started to explain my own writing to me, saying in effect that this was not the real thing, that it was too much about my emotions.
The whole implication was a kind of a stark, but warmly loving, critique by Baba himself of what I had written. Nothing about the style – purely the content. The essence of what Baba started to say was that, while I had certainly written about something and had experienced something, it was not the real experience. Basically he implied, without saying it directly, that it was not worthy of being written about, certainly not worthy of this treatment, which someone had given it, of being embossed in metal!
I had no trouble understanding his message to me. It was unusual for me to be in this situation, then it seemed as if Baba was searching for what to say more about this to me, to help me, but he became silent. I could tell he wanted me to understand more deeply what the real experience was more like, or more about, but words were not helping. I trusted he would find a way to help me.
Internally I was not crushed, but this conversation had increased my longing for deeper understanding. I wanted more clarity. It was as if Baba had said – not this – but had not given me a, “but that,” yet. If that makes any sense at all.
Then we walked together, I followed Baba to another spot that He wanted to show me. We approached very quietly a place, and as we were outside I could see there were a few people, maybe ten or twelve, all standing but only one saw us, I believe. The rest were totally absorbed in silent devotion, facing away from where we stood, and many had closed eyes. I don’t know what to say about it. I walked up to this place with Baba, but they were so absorbed that they didn’t even see Baba, they were facing something made of stone, kind of like a wall, but I don’t remember much about it… It kind of had the feeling of people who are on the line to enter the Samadhi, and then they get to the Samadhi wall just before the door to the Samadhi, and they turn and face the wall and sometimes hold the wall, or put their head, or hand against the outer wall of the Samadhi, and just pray or become absorbed in love like that.
The Samadhi of Meher Baba, April 10, 2010, photo (c) by L. Weichberger.
It had that feeling of deep love, deep devotion (bhakti), deep longing.
I turned to ask Baba something I was formulating about – what was then my most real experience – meaning, if that other thing I had written was – not the thing – then what, of all the things I had experienced with him, was the most Real? At this point his comments to me had shaken something up, and felt I needed his help to get my bearings.
But, when I turned to Baba, and before I could ask my question out loud, I noticed that his eyes were closed and he was working with these people. They didn’t know he was right there, because they were focused away from him towards this stone-wall-type-area, and I was watching them, and then watching Baba who gestured to me with closed eyes, pointing to the people.
He pointed to them very gracefully, not with a long outstretched arm, but with a gentle, subtle, with arm-barely-raised-at-all motion which I took to mean, “This is not the time for more questions, I am working with them now.” I was deeply touched by the exchange of love between Baba and His own lovers in this way, and it was completely clear to me how pleased he was with their love.
I also took it to mean that this was at least the first part of Baba’s answer to me about what was important to Baba, not the crying, or weeping, or writing of experiences but this silent longing, which he now worked with in front of my very eyes. Even as I was formulating my next question, Baba was giving me the answer in the fact of this place and these people silent loving him. None of them approached Baba.
The scene shifted, as we walked away from the stone area, towards a work area. I was talking with Baba about the people I feel a strong connection with in India, as he seemed to have asked me about this … I mentioned this one and that one, Dolly and Jal, were in my mind but I had to search for names, also Amrit and Dara came to mind, and others, including some westerners living in India, all of which I mentioned to Baba as names came to me.
Upper Meherabad, India, April 10, 2010. Photo (c) by L. Weichberger.
Then we got close to this kitchen work building, and other sort of partially sheltered areas, like roofed shelters with no walls, shaded, for eating or working outside. Heather Nadel was walking around there, and I was so happy to see her, as always. I went into one of the buildings, where I worked, and was thinking about my good fortune to have naturally fallen into a group of workers where I felt completely at home, it was like my little family, and we were so close, and it made me so happy to work with them and share my life with them this way. At this time, other workers were arriving in the area, as we had to prepare and serve a big meal together. I brought something outside to one of the shaded eating areas. It was getting busy.
L.W.
COMMENTARY:
Xia: This encourages me for I have long felt that my desire – my silent, burning longing – which intensely drives my Faith, should be given precedence above beliefs which shape my perception and possibly birth emotions which might be rather inaccurate, or vastly different, in a bigger picture.
Laurent: This is one of the most personal and profound dreams of Meher Baba I have ever had, and to me it spans the spectrum of what I am living with him, including the appearance of dearest Heather Nadel, who recently suffered the loss of her darling husband Erico, and much physical suffering. Honestly, I am still processing this dream and its deeper meaning which I believe is extremely profound, so I have no real comment now, except to say that the part where we walked to where the people were in worship (devotion) but didn’t see Baba, “because they were focused away from him towards this stone-wall-type-area, and I was watching them, and then watching Baba who gestured to me with closed eyes…” had a feeling almost identical to Baba’s Tomb (Samadhi) where his body is buried at Meherabad, but it was a ruin, it was just a partial structure not a building.
Come (True) 