The Master's Prayer

I've always had an aversion to prayers, ever since abandoning Catholicism in 1965. However, today's email from the Avatar Meher Baba Bombay Centre reminded of Baba's 1953 prayer, dictated 68 years ago today. Such emails are an important source of remembrance of Beloved Baba, a daily reminder of his Avatarhood.

Opening page of Avatar Meher Baba
Bombay Centre website

To quote from Lord Meher, American ed., Bhau Kalchuri, Vol. 12, p. 4209:

Meher Baba dictated the Master’s (or Parvardigar) Prayer in Dehra Dun on Thursday, August 13th, 1953 and from that day until the 2nd of September, it was recited every evening with Baba taking part in the prayer. Donkin would read it aloud in English, and it was repeated by another mandali in Gujarati. When it was over, Baba would lay his head on the feet of each of the men mandali. This is the prayer:

The Master's Prayer 

O Parvardigar! The Preserver and Protector of All.

You are without beginning and without end.

Non-dual, beyond comparison,

and none can measure You.

You are without color, without expression,

without form and without attributes.

You are unlimited and unfathomable;

beyond imagination and conception;

eternal and imperishable.

You are indivisible;

and none can see you but with eyes divine.

You always were, You always are,

and You always will be.

You are everywhere, You are in everything, and

You are also beyond everywhere and beyond everything.

You are in the firmament and in the depths,

You are manifest and unmanifest;

on all planes and beyond all planes.

You are in the three worlds,

and also beyond the three worlds.

You are imperceptible and independent.

You are the Creator, the Lord of Lords,

the Knower of all minds and hearts.

You are Omnipotent and Omnipresent.

You are Knowledge Infinite, Power Infinite and Bliss Infinite.

You are the Ocean of Knowledge,

All-knowing, Infinitely knowing;

the Knower of the past, the present and the future,

and You are Knowledge Itself.

You are all-merciful and eternally benevolent.

You are the Soul of souls; the One with infinite attributes.

You are the Trinity of Truth, Knowledge and Bliss.

You are the Source of Truth, the Ocean of Love.

You are the Ancient One, the Highest of the High.

You are Prabhu and Parameshwar;

You are the Beyond God and the Beyond-Beyond God also;

You are Parabrahma; Paramatma; Allah; Elahi; Yezdan;

Ahuramazda; God Almighty, and God the Beloved.

You are named Ezad, the Only One Worthy of Worship. 

Baba had indicated, “I have given these prayers to humanity to recite. They are for all posterity. Whenever anyone recites these prayers, they will be helped spiritually because of My present personal participation.” 

I should recite this prayer more often. My early years of reciting Catholic prayers mechanically and unthinkingly has left me wary. I don't want to relapse into doing that. If I do recite the prayer then if must be done with awareness and sincerity or not done at all. As Baba says, He only listens to the language of the heart.

Another option is to have it recited it to you. You can copy and paste the prayer into a site like Natural Readers and have it read back to you. I found setting the speed to zero and using the voice of Peter (Premium UK) gives a pleasing result. See Figure 1.

Figure 1: screenshot from this source

An even more pleasing result can be had by listening to YouTube versions of the prayer, spoken by an Indian women:

There's another version spoken loudly and forcefully by Harry Kenmore, the blind chiropractor from the United States, but it's less to my taste. However, in that video he also reads out the Prayer of Repentance (given by Meher Baba on 8th November 1952) which is quite powerful:

Prayer of Repentance

We repent O God most merciful, for all our sins;
For every thought that was false or unjust or unclean;
For every word spoken that ought not to have been spoken;
For every deed done that ought not to have been done.
We repent for every deed and word and thought
Inspired by selfishness;
And for every deed and word and thought inspired by hatred.
We repent most specially for every lustful thought,
And every lustful action;
For every lie; for all hypocrisy;
For every promise given, but not fulfilled;
And for all slander and backbiting.
Most specially also, we repent for every action
That has brought ruin to others;
For every word and deed that has given others pain;
And for every wish that pain should befall others.
In your unbounded mercy, we ask you to forgive us, O God,
For all these sins committed by us;
And to forgive us for our constant failures
To think and speak and act according to your will.

Here is a version of the prayer in which the words are displayed slide by slide with accompanying music. The words are not spoken but it's quite beautiful: 

ADDENDUM

added August 25th 2021:

Baba came into the hall on August 25th, (1959) after working with Kaikobad. The men assembled before him. For some time, Baba sat with his eyes closed. He stretched and rested his legs on the bamboo stool. A bed sheet was    spread over his legs for warmth. After resting for some time in this position, Baba signaled for the men to go outside. He remained alone inside for several minutes and then clapped, and the men reentered.

Baba instructed, “None of you should do anything which might disturb my mood.”

He informed Francis, “In connection with the repairs to the old bus, it will be enough to paint it, because if any of the work involves hammering, it is likely to disturb and spoil my mood.” He added, “The world is at stake, and my health is also at stake.”

Pendu was asked by Baba to describe how Baba’s health was last night. “Last night, Baba’s health was very bad,” said Pendu. “These days, he generally feels unwell at night, but yesterday was worse.”

Baba’s face still appeared dark.

Baba stated that he would dictate a prayer, but before this he asked Aloba to perform namaz  (Muslim prayer). Eruch was directed to recite the Parvardigar Prayer.

“Last night, when I was in a very painful state, this new prayer came to my mind.” And humorously, he stated, “First, I memorised it, and now I will dictate it to you:

Beloved God, help us all

to love you more and more

and more and more and still yet more

until we become worthy of Union with you.

And help us all to hold fast to Baba’s daaman

until the very end!

Baba stated that the prayer would be recited again three days later on August 28th.

Lord Meher, American ed., Bhau Kalchuri, Vol. 16, p.5633.  

Gulmai Irani

August 10th marked the anniversary of the death of Meher Baba's spiritual mother, Gulmai Irani, who died in 1962 at age 80. Figure 1 shows my favourite photograph of Gulmai with Baba because she looks so utterly content.

Figure 1: Source

The following extract is taken from Lord Meher:

MEANWHILE, Adi’s mother Gulmai’s ill condition, due to kidney disease, worsened in August. While at Meherabad on August 6th, Baba informed Padri to be prepared for Gulmai’s burial on the Hill, as she would be dying shortly. On the evening of August 8th, Gulmai’s condition became serious, and Adi sent Sarosh to Meherazad to inform Baba. Baba instructed Sarosh that when Gulmai passed away, he should be informed and her body removed to Meherabad, where her coffin would be lowered into the grave in his presence.

On the morning of August 9th, Baba unexpectedly decided to be driven to Khushru Quarters to see Gulmai. Although she had ceased to recognize anyone and was almost in an unconscious state, she opened her eyes and her face brightened when she saw Baba. She caressed his face and managed to utter, “Ba-ba.” After kissing her on the forehead and embracing Gulmai, Baba returned to Meherazad.

The next day, taking a critical turn for the worse, Gulmai was unable to speak and suffered spells of unconsciousness. Even so, with great difficulty she was moving her lips and repeating Baba’s name. At midnight, she startled from a coma-like sleep and loudly called out Baba’s name. With all her strength, she continued this for a few minutes without pause. While uttering Baba’s name, Gulmai merged in him forever at the age of seventy-eight.

Waman Padole was sent to Meherazad to inform Baba of Gulmai’s passing.

At 9:00 A.M., on Saturday, August 11th, Gulmai’s body was taken to Meherabad Hill where a grave had been dug. Baba arrived at ten o’clock and performed the last rites by placing flowers on her forehead and body. Almost two hundred persons from Arangaon and Ahmednagar were present. As the coffin was lowered into the earth, Baba, looking extremely sad, tossed flowers over it while Kaikobad offered prayers. Thus Baba’s spiritual mother Gulmai came to rest in Meherabad, the place she herself had been so instrumental in laying at his feet.

Baba remarked to Adi, “She is very fortunate that I was present at her burial.” As if in an additional tribute to her, this was the last time Meher Baba ever went to Meherabad.

Gulmai’s dedication, service and love for Meher Baba are truly monumental, for she and her husband, Kaikhushru (Khan Saheb), were the ones who gave him the land in Arangaon later called Meherabad.

Lord Meher, American ed., Bhau Kalchuri, Vol. 17, pp. 5919 – 5923.

A full account of Gulmai's life can be found at this site. Figure 2 shows Gulmai's family tree.

Figure 2: Source

Figure 3 shows a photo taken of Gulmai, supposedly taken the day before she died, which seems to contradict the story told in Lord Meher (that she was at death's door). In any case, the photograph must have been taken not long before here passing. She has a faraway look in her eyes, that's for sure.

Figure 3: Source

Like Doctor Donkin whom I wrote about in my previous post (Baba on Masts), Gulmai is another person who surrendered to Baba completely and unconditionally.

Silence Day 2021

Another Silence Day. For the first time ever, I was aware of needing to maintain silence in my dreams and remember making at least a couple of slip ups in them. It's only mid-morning now in my waking life and so far so good. In the past, I've slipped up by speaking a word or two to my dog. Not so this morning. 

The current climate of fear makes it easier to keep silent due to the reduced opportunities for visiting people and the fewer people likely to visit. These are strange times and the need to maintain equanimity or poise is greater than ever. As Baba said:

What is spirituality? It is the undoing of what you have been doing since ages. You always thought of selfish motives for eating, preserving your life, and attending to every need with zeal. All these lives you have made a habit of looking [out for] yourself. If the slightest thing goes against your habit you are upset. Now, to undo all these selfish bindings, you have to do what you have not been doing, or not to do what you have been doing.

What you have been doing always is thinking of yourself; so now you must not think of yourself, but think of others. This is what is called love. But it needs character, poise, perseverance. Poise — what is it? That state of mind where nothing excites you, nothing upsets you. Only [if you have poise] can you help others, then only can you make others happy. That means love. Thinking not of yourself but of others.

If you are in the Sahara, and for four days you have no water to drink and all of a sudden one bottle of water appears — how do you react? If you have poise, you will let your companion drink and not mind dying and letting her live. But if you fight and grab for it, you lack poise and spirituality. It is this poise that makes you sacrifice and [make] others happy.

I just reread my post of December 25th 2020 titled Complete Detachment. In that post, I wrote:

As humanity heads into a dystopian future, it's not all bad news. If it lived in a utopia, the incentives for individuals to turn inward would be minimal. In a utopia, the lure of attachments draws the individual away from the inner life and makes detachment difficult. The growing dystopia that humanity is now entering poses the danger that individuals will actively shun the world and retreat into isolation, cynicism and misanthropy. 

In our pre-Covid world, we were attached to travel, socialisation and an illusion of freedom. Suddenly that was taken away and severe restrictions were placed on travel and socialisation. The illusion of freedom was cruelly shattered. For some, this was accepted as the necessary price for combating and controlling a dangerous pathogen. For others, like myself, who understand what is really going on, acceptance is not easy. 

It's tempting to be drawn into the great divide that is opening up within humanity between those who accept what is happening and those who do not accept it. Amongst the former is the belief that governments and the medical establishment are doing the best they can for us. If we just cooperate, we'll get through these trying times and, while things will never return to the way they were, things will at least get better.

For those who do not accept what is happening, reactions are mixed. Some want to resist. Others are resigned to the "sound of inevitability" as Agent Smith put it in the original Matrix movie. Whether an individual embraces opposition, withdrawal, resignation, acceptance or cooperation, there is in each case attachment. It's difficult not to take a side or choose a position. The powers-that-ought-not-to-be know this and exploit it, playing different sides off against one another.

It's not easy to remain detached. Retreating into "isolation, cynicism and misanthropy" is not detachment but instead it is a very powerful form of attachment. The fact that our former way of life has disappeared should remind us how illusory it really was to begin with. The freedoms that we thought were our God-given right were snatched away or willingly surrendered by the muzzled masses. These freedoms were not God-given after all but granted by our benign overlords.

Worldly-wise, things have gotten worse since I wrote those lines, making detachment even more difficult, and things are going to get far worse. The abnegation of basic human rights is chastening for the egos of those who realise the game plan of the cabal but seem powerless to oppose it. The spiritual aspirant must learn the learn the lesson that the ego is nothing but now even the non-spiritually inclined are learning that lesson as they are trampled underfoot by the fascist boot of the State.

What is the difference between squished under the fascist jackboot and being dust at the feet of the master? Someone who has been reduced to dust at the feet of the master has had their ego crushed by a spiritual master who has the enlightenment of the disciple as the goal. It is a very personal process between master and disciple. Someone who is being squished under the fascist jackboot is a victim of an impersonal process that is spiritually barren and that seeks to enslave and not liberate.

Humanity is currently being herded into a spiritually barren future and all we can do is to nourish our spiritual roots so that we do not wither and die. Baba of course saw where humanity was headed and it was not his intention to see a spiritual winter descend over the Earth only a few decades after he dropped his body. A spiritual flowering will occur but Baba, as Lord and Master of the Universe, works in mysterious ways and we can only hope and wait, and not lose faith in Him.

In these trying times, when the evil forces seeking to control the world have come out of the shadows, it's more important than ever to cling to Baba's daaman and not let go. It's easy to fall prey to despair and depression unless we constantly remember Him. Jai Baba!

Disillusionment

Had I died in January of 2020, I would have left with a relatively positive view of the world. I could travel wherever the whim took me and on very short notice to most countries because of my Australian passport. Sure, I knew the world was run by a global elite who controlled the banking system and mainstream media but that didn't seem to affect my daily life. Cut to June 30th of 2021 and things are so vastly different.

I don't need to spell out how different. Over the past year and a half, the iron grip of the global elite on NGOs, governments, health services and mainstream media has become glaringly obvious to many, even while the majority remain oblivious. The depopulation agenda, once a seemingly unrealisable fantasy of the psychopathic cabal, is now being realised and people are lining up to participate. What's particularly loathsome are the celebrities and musicians who have actively aided the globalist agenda. At least one of my favourite musicians has had the guts to stand up and speak his mind. That would be Van Morrison. Contrast the Van to Bruce Springsteen and his recent concert for the vaccinated only. The latter is off my listening list for good now. 

Part of the price for spiritual advancement is disillusionment with the "glamour" of the world and if I were to die today, I would be leaving with a sense of profound disillusionment with all the world has to offer. Such an attitude promotes rebirth with an innate disinterest in the world and accelerates progress on the spiritual path. It's also possible to take up residency on the subtle plane and not return to this shit hole ever again. There are 8.4 million occupants and vacancies must come up from time to time as souls move on to the mental plane. Less likely but who knows? For those who remain, the full horror of what is being wreaked on the planet will become clear and a profound distrust of global organisations, politicians and government, health authorities and media outlets will arise. Hopefully some of the more prominent individuals will be called to account.

The emptiness of the technocratic vision will promote a revival of spiritual values but not a return to organised religions. Those religions have failed us by allying themselves with the powers-that-be or, rather, ought-not-to-be. The different faiths have divided humanity instead of uniting it. As the one hundred year period following Baba's death in 1969 draws to a close, a Sadguru will arise who draws attention to the Avatar's most recent advent and a new spirituality will develop around what He left for a despairing humanity.

As I write this, it's the midpoint of the year. What horrors await us, I don't know. Only the psychopaths orchestrating this drama know what the plan is. Bankruptcies, depression, and suicides will continue but the toll on children is inestimable. The current crop of children may be the last as they fall victim to irreparable damage to their reproductive organs. Herded into smart cities, tracked and traced, medicated, irradiated by 5G, brainwashed by the media, gender-confused ... these children would probably not want to reproduce anyway, even if they could.

However, each individual must cope with the horror in his or her own way. Even though I consider myself to be psychologically robust and medication-free, I wake up some days and feel an overwhelming sense of despair. It's like being in a vice and the vice is getting tighter, ever tighter. Where once I might have engaged in spirited debate about the state of the world, now I don't bother. There is nothing to debate. There is only division. Division between those who know what's going on and those who don't. 

Amartithi 2021

Amartithi 2021 is virtual this year with a program made up of contributions by nearly 400 of Baba's followers around the world. It was 52 years ago today that Meher Baba dropped his physical body. The date was Friday, January 31st 1969. The current program runs from Saturday evening, through Sunday (the 31st) until early Monday morning.

Here are some screenshots I've taken in the evening of that day:

In these trying times, when the evil forces seeking to control the world have come out of the shadows, it's more important than ever to cling to Baba's daaman and not let go. It's easy to fall prey to despair and depression unless we constantly remember Him. Jai Baba!

Links Across Lifetimes

Figure 1

I watched a short video of Filis Federick talking about the links the Avatar makes with people during his advent. Don Stevens, she said, had been told by Baba that the Avatar decides in his current advent who will meet him in his next. These links are most important in the spiritual advancement of individuals. 

This got me thinking about my own links to the Avatar. Initially, I came to Baba via his book, God Speaks. It was Don Steven's book, Listen Humanity, that led me to Avatar's Abode. Figure 1 shows that I was then amongst the "people who have heard of Baba via the Internet, books or contact with people who know about Baba". 

On my first visit to Avatar's Abode, I met Lorna Rouse who, again referencing Figure 1, was one of those people who "have met Baba in his physical form" and was a member of his outer circle who had been allowed by Baba to live at Avatar's Abode. Lorna met Baba in 1958 and it was about forty years later that I met her. After this I met several other people at Avatar's Abode who had met Baba. I should say that throughout this "voyage of discovery" I was accompanied by my wife at the time. We had met in late 1992 and separated in early 2000.

I was with my wife when we travelled to Meherabad in the late 90's. The first person we met at the Pilgrim Centre in Ahmednagar was Bhau Kalchuri who was working in the garden and smilingly met us as we approached. Naturally, we assumed he was the gardener. Little did we know at that moment that he was Baba's gardener whose business it was to plant Baba seeds around the world. A year or so later Bhau visited Singapore and we were fortunate to meet him there for a few hours on his way back to Meherabad. Thus the first person we met was a member of Baba's inner circle.

I consider myself to be most blessed to have had these contacts and all that I can hope for is that these links may lead me to meet the Avatar in person during his next advent. Of course, that's up to the Avatar. You can find out more about Fillis Federick (second from the left in Figure 2) and other Baba lovers by visiting this site.

Figure 2

Working for Baba

Photo: © Meher Nazar Publications

A quote attached to a Baba post on Instagram caught my attention today. Here is what it contained:

"I have to work in My own way, having had to look to everything in these times of great spiritual upheaval. What it means, you have no idea. You all have to do great work for Me in the future, as and when allotted to you; and you must be in full spirit and strength for all that. This mental depression tells upon your health and energy, which are both essential for future work and should not be unnecessarily wasted like this ... I see in some a spirit of depression, total dejection at times. Why? Have you any idea of the greatness of the task that is ahead for the spiritual upheaval of the world! It will require a spirit that is prepared to face anything, rigid and  immovable like a rock, weathering all blasts of winds and storms from all four corners. You all have in you latent that spirit and iron will, and I am working at all that to bring it out ... Soon great events of great changes everywhere will transpire in rapid succession, transforming the very ideal and outlook of life all the world over, and a new awakening for the life spiritual will result, as I have been repeatedly telling you. You are all being prepared for your different parts in this Great Divine Drama that has to be enacted, and in which I am to play a leading part. Are you not glad that you have to play your parts with Me?

All My Love"

Love Alone Prevails by Kitty Davy pg.123

It is certainly a message for our time, for "these times of great spiritual upheaval" where "mental depression tells upon ... health and energy" and where even "total dejection" can overtake some. These are times that will require not "a spirit of depression" but "a spirit that is prepared to face anything, rigid and immovable like a rock, weathering all blasts of winds and storms from all four corners".

These are times when "great events of great changes everywhere will transpire in rapid succession, transforming the very ideal and outlook of life all the world over, and a new awakening for the life spiritual will result." In these crazy COVID times it's easy to yield to depression, give up on humanity and withdraw from the world. However, even though the forces of evil seem to have seized total control of the planet, there are unseen and formidable spiritual forces at work that are in opposition and, hopefully, "a new awakening for the life spiritual will result". 

It is important in the meantime not to give way to despair but to hold on to Baba's damaan. These tyrannical times may yet bring unforeseen spiritual benefits. As more people lose their jobs and lapse into financial difficulties, as food shortages start to bite and as more curbs are placed on social interaction and travel, the spiritual realm begins to hold more appeal. It becomes more apparent in such times that the world is a nasty place, controlled by nasty people with an agenda that is anti-human and anti-God.

I'm reminded of the lyrics to Bill Fay's song, The Healing Day, that run thus:

It'll be okay

On the healing day

No more going astray

On the healing day

Yeah we'll find our way

On the healing day

To where the children play

On the healing day

When the tyrant is bound

And the tortured freed from his pain

And the lofty brought to the ground

And the lonely rage

Ain't so far away

That healing day

Coming to stay

The healing day

Every battleground

Is a place for sheep to graze

When it all comes tumbling down

All the palaces and parades

It'll be okay

On the healing day

No more going astray

On the healing day

Yeah we'll find our way

On the healing day

To where the children play

On the healing day

Repeating His Name

I'm very near to finishing the third book of David Fenster's absorbing trilogy: "Mehera-Meher: A Divine Romance". At one point, Mehera says this in reference to repeating Meher Baba's name:

“You must repeat his name. It is essential to repeat his name because God's name should be on your lips as much as possible. When you are doing anything, you must feel that 'Baba, you are with me.' Wherever you are, you must feel his companionship. You must make him your companion. See that when you remember Baba, he is very near you. He is there all the time, but your love should be there to remember him. It is only that you can't see him. He can see you and is happy with your love. "Whatever amount you love him, even that much makes him happy. Give him more, and it will give him that much more happiness. Even the love that you have now for Baba is making him feel happy. You want to love him more and you will. The soil takes its own time to nourish the plant before it can bear fruit."

In reading this, I was reminded of the power of Meher Baba's name in my own life. In 1968, when I attended a Baba talk at the University of Queensland presented by Bill Le Page and another Baba Lover, all that I took away was the name: Meher Baba. Remarkably, with no reinforcement whatever over the next thirteen years, I remembered that name when I came across "God Speaks" and saw who the author was.

I kept that book on my bookshelf for another twelve years. Every few years, I would pick the book up and try to make sense of it before putting it down in frustration. In 1993, the penny dropped as they say and my spiritual adventure began. I was 44 years old and my meandering path through life had finally brought me to my Hidaya, as Islam calls it, meaning:

One of the beautiful names of Allah is Al-Hadi (The Guide), and Hidaya (Guidance) is one of the most important themes of the Holy Qur’an. Hidaya means “To lead and to guide.” From it also comes the word Hadiyyah, which means, “present or gift.” Hidaya, or Guidance, is the gift of The Creator to His creation. 

According to Imam Raghib Al-Isphani, the famous lexicographer of the Holy Qur’an, Hidaya means “showing the way or leading to the goal in a gentle and kind way.” It means both explanation and direction; and it also means helping and supporting a person to reach to his goal.

Source

"God Speaks" was certainly my BEACON OF LIGHT but it was Meher Baba's name that echoed in the halls of my memory down all those meandering years from 1968 until 1981 and gave the book its special meaning to me. Thus I am fully in agreement with Mehera when she says:

“You must repeat his name. It is essential to repeat his name because God's name should be on your lips as much as possible.

Of course, there are many names for God and one can repeat them all or repeat only one. It's up to the individual. For me it will be Meher Baba.

ADDENDUM

As I composed this post, on the 21st May 2020, I finished the third volume and was made aware that Mehera passed away at Meherazad on the 20th May 1989 at 9:43am.

Ram Dass

It was with some sadness that I read today of the demise of Ram Dass at the age of 88. Here is the obituary that appeared in The Washington Post:

Washington: Ram Dass, a popular author and white-robed apostle of Eastern mysticism who began his transcendental journey more than 50 years ago as the right-hand disciple of psychedelic-drug advocate Timothy Leary, died on December 22 at his home on Maui. He was 88.

His death was announced on his official Instagram account. He had a paralysing stroke in 1997, but the immediate cause of death was not disclosed.

"Be Here Now", Ram Dass' signature book, described his improbable evolution. Born Richard Alpert, the son of a railroad president and pillar of Boston's Jewish elite, he grew up as a self-described "closet homosexual" in a "Jewish anxiety-ridden, high-achieving tradition."

He gravitated to a lifestyle of heavy drug use in the 1960s while working as an associate professor of clinical psychology at Harvard University but found inner peace and spiritual enlightenment through meditation and yoga. An Indian guru gave him a new name, Ram Dass, which means "servant of God" in Hindi.

The book came out in 1971, just after the peak years of the socio-cultural revolution that dominated the 1960s, and sold 2 million copies. Decades later, New York Times book critic Dwight Garner called it the "counterculture bible".

A seemingly inexhaustible speaker, Ram Dass led marathon-length workshops and retreats that drew thousands of followers. He stood 6-foot-3 and was sinewy from years of disciplined eating and weight training, and wore robes that eventually gave way to cardigan sweaters and trousers.

His talks were filled with self-deprecating quips: "I'm not a guru. I'm only a student, and I give a good rap." He noted his own personal story while delivering a message that centred on self-reflection and finding meaning in a superficial, chaotic world.

In the Chicago Tribune, journalist Paul Galloway once described his teachings as an "Americanised Eastern philosophy" that was "nonthreatening, non-dogmatic, positive and cheerful, a kind of I'm-OK-You're-OK approach with a Zen spin, an assortment of comforting, if vague, prescriptions."

His message, sprinkled with phrases like "planes of consciousness," resonated in particular with his generation. "When I got into these planes in earlier days," he told one audience, "it was called getting high." But he added that he later learned "the game isn't to get high; the game is to become free."

Becoming free, he said, was to have contact with our "heart-mind source," or "who you are at your deepest level."

Early life

Richard Alpert was born in Boston on April 6, 1931, and was the youngest of three sons. He had a history of tension with his controlling father, George, a high-powered Boston lawyer, president of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad, and a founder of Brandeis University. His father harangued him to become a doctor, while the younger Alpert expressed interest in psychology.

After graduating in 1952 from Tufts College (now University) in Medford, Massachusetts, he received a master's degree in psychology at Wesleyan University in 1954 and a doctorate in psychology at Stanford University in 1957.

He developed a reputation in graduate school as a spellbinding teacher, and in 1958 joined the Harvard faculty as an assistant professor. "I had an apartment that was filled with antiques and I gave very charming dinner parties," he later wrote in "Be Here Now." "I had a Mercedes-Benz sedan and a Triumph 500 CC motorcycle and a Cessna 172 airplane and an MG sports car and a sailboat and a bicycle."

But he never realised how unhappy he was, he said, until he began tripping and "felt a new kind of calmness" and "a place where 'I' existed independent of social and physical identity."

He befriended Leary, a Harvard clinical psychologist a decade older who had sampled psychedelic mushrooms during a summer in Mexico, and the two set about establishing a psychedelic program at Harvard. Leary became America's best-known proselytiser of LSD and other hallucinogenic drugs. "Turn on, tune in, drop out" was his perennial exhortation to millions of followers of the "flower-child" generation. "You have to go out of your mind," he said, "to use your head."

As colleagues, Leary and Alpert preached a gospel of drug-fuelled, consciousness-raising sensory perception and mental expansion. Both men were enthusiastic users - Alpert at one point said he had used LSD 328 times in five years, journalist Don Lattin wrote in a 2010 book, "The Harvard Psychedelic Club."

The duo ran experiments on LSD with Harvard graduate students, and even tried to solicit the participation of eminent Harvard Divinity School professor Paul Tillich in their LSD trials. He turned them down.

But a 1963 article about their psychedelic experimentation in the Harvard Crimson, the daily student newspaper, led to Alpert's and Leary's dismissals. The former was fired for dispensing LSD to an undergraduate student in violation of his agreement with the University, the latter for dereliction in his teaching duties.

Within two years they were running an LSD research and experimentation centre at a farm near Millbrook, New York, where Alpert undertook a study that led to his disenchantment with the hallucinogens.

As told by Lattin, he locked himself in a bowling alley with five others, where once every four hours for two weeks they ingested huge doses of LSD. But it turned out that the larger the dosage, the less effective it was. The highs were no longer so high. Moreover, by the end of two weeks all of the participants had come to thoroughly hate one another.

"It was the beginning of the end of the dream," observed Lattin. "Alpert was starting to see that LSD would not save the world."

He went to India in 1967 to seek the guidance of an Indian guru, who gave him a new name. Back in Boston, he was met by his father, aghast at the sight of his son, then 39, with his hair and beard long and unkempt. He was barefoot, wearing a long white robe and carrying a tamboura for chanting.

"Quick! Get in the car before someone sees you," George Alpert told him, according to an account in the Times. The father mocked his son as "Rum Dumb." Other family members adopted more profane variants.

Ram Dass devoted the rest of his life to teaching, lecturing and writing about the techniques and principles of his new lifestyle, which he described as staying fully present in the moment.

He wrote sequels to his first book, including "Still Here: Embracing Aging, Changing and Dying" (2000) and "Be Love Now: The Path of the Heart" (2010), and was the subject of several documentary films.

His personal life was complicated. In a 1977 Times article, he said he was bisexual and intimated that he had been involved with a female follower, but also pronounced himself celibate because his "sexual hangups would have a negative influence on my teaching, my followers."

Unbeknown to him for a half-century, one fling during graduate school produced a son. In 2009, DNA testing showed that Peter Reichard, a banker in Greensboro, North Carolina, was indeed his offspring. They stayed in touch on Skype.

Long based on San Francisco, Ram Dass made his home in later years on the Hawaiian island of Maui and received visitors regularly. He came there, he said, to die.

"The game," he once told the Times, "is not about becoming somebody. It's about becoming nobody."

The Washington Post

What a wonderful way to put it:

The game is not about becoming somebody.

It's about becoming nobody.

As Meher Baba said:

To get nearer and nearer to God you have to get 

further and further away from "I", "my", "me", and "mine". 

You have not to renounce anything but your own self. 

It is as simple as that, though found to be almost impossible. 

I have an electronic copy of his 1971 book, Be Here Now, which I confess to never having read back in the seventies nor even later. After downloading the ebook I still haven't read it right through. I think I must have heard about Richard Alpert/Ram Dass at some point but it was only by watching YouTube videos that I became acquainted with him again. I remember watching a video of him in his LSD days, before his trip to India. He was certainly sharp and smart but it was while watching a video of him talking after his 1997 stroke that I was attracted to him. He came across as a sincere and humble spiritual aspirant.

A Year with Hafiz: November 20th

Seeing that I discovered Ladinsky's A Year with Hafiz (read my previous post) on November 20th, I'll start with his entry for that day (I've preserved the original spacing):

NOVEMBER 20

ALL THE HEMISPHERES

Leave the familiar for a while. Let your senses and bodies stretch out

like a welcomed season onto meadows and shores and hills.

Open up to the roof. Make a new watermark on your excitement and love.

Like a blooming night flower, bestow your vital fragrance of happiness and giving upon our intimate assembly.

Change rooms in your mind for a day. All the hemispheres in existence lie beside an equator in your soul.

Greet yourself in your thousand other forms as you mount the hidden tide and travel back home.

All the hemispheres in heaven are sitting around a campfire chatting, while

stitching themselves together into the great circle inside of you.

I'm reminded of Walt Whitman's "Song of the Open Road" as I read this. The pivotal phrase for me is "equator in your soul' which is echoed in the last line as "the great circle inside of you", with "great circle" being place in italics for emphasis. A great circle is a circle on the surface of sphere which lies in a plane passing through the sphere's centre. An equator typically refers to a great circle whose plane is perpendicular to the axis of rotation of a spinning sphere. This is illustrated nicely in Figure 1 that shows an equator and meridian as special types of great circles and where the hemispheres that are created are emphasised a well.

Figure 1

For a spinning sphere, it only the two hemispheres created by an equator that have centres of gravity that lie on the rotational axis. If sliced as shown, the two hemispheres created by the equator would continue to spin as before whereas those created by a meridian or any other great circle would fly off on opposite trajectories. The only poise or balance is to found on the equator where the hemispheres still exist but they are perfectly balanced.

It is a great metaphor for a Perfect Master, especially in light of the fact that a Sufi term for such a God-realised being is a Qutub, meaning literally an axis. To quote from Wikipedia:

Qutb, Qutub, Kutb, Kutub or Kotb (Arabic: قطب‎), means 'axis', 'pivot' or 'pole'. Qutb can refer to celestial movements and used as an astronomical term or a spiritual symbol. In Sufism, a Qutub is the perfect human being, al-Insān al-Kāmil (The Universal Man), who leads the saintly hierarchy. The Qutub is the Sufi spiritual leader that has a divine connection with God and passes knowledge on which makes him central to, or the axis of, Sufism, but he is unknown to the world. There are five Qutubs per era and they are infallible and trusted spiritual leaders. They are only revealed to a select group of mystics because there is a "human need for direct knowledge of God".

On the other hand, the hemispheres created by great circles other than an equator typify our lives before Realisation: 

All the hemispheres in existence lie beside an equator in your soul. 

In all these lives (the thousand other forms) the opposites are not in balance. It seems to me that Hafiz is exhorting us to step off the current great circle we are on (leave the familiar for a while) and for a while at least be bigger than we imagine ourselves to be:

Let your senses and bodies stretch out like a welcomed season onto meadows and shores and hills. Open up to the roof. Make a new watermark on your excitement and love ... change rooms in your mind for a day

All that has happened, all that is happening and all that will ever happened exist in a configuration beyond time. We move on our great circles and that movement we interpret as time passing. Our attention is constantly shifting from one point on the circle to the next and that shift in attention registers as time passing. All the hemispheres that we have created as we travel along our great circles, life after life, exist simultaneously.

All the hemispheres in heaven are sitting around a campfire chatting, while stitching themselves together into the great circle inside of you.

These are just some of the thoughts that arose from the November 20th entry and it is in no way an exhaustive analysis but it has served its purpose of focusing my attention on spiritual matters. It is spiritual exercise to borrow a phrase used by Saint Ignatius Loyola.

Image taken from here

Meher Baba and Iran

Meher Baba was born Merwan Sheriar Irani. There is a detailed account of his visits to Iran to be found at this site, including information about his Iranian heritage and his connections with various Iranians. Here is a copy of the map that's presented on the site with the city of Mashhad highlighted with a blue rectangle. 

The significance of this city can be read in the following quote on the same site:

Aloba reports that, in May 1943, Meher Baba stated: “The tree of my divine manifestation is to be planted at Mashhad, where it will grow and spread, ultimately covering the whole world”. This theme for long remained obscure; the rendition has varied, another version being worded as: "The seed of the tree of my universal manifestation is planted in Mashhad." 

There is a strong association here with Meher Baba's third visit to Iran in June 1931, when he stayed at Mashhad, ignoring other cities. There he favoured a major Shi'ite shrine for purposes of seclusion on three nights. This was the tomb of Imam Ali Reza (765-818). That sojourn evidenced both the religious neutrality and incognito policy of Meher Baba, who moved about the streets of Mashhad in disguise. The visitor was only able to enter the venerated shrine because a prominent mulla, who was caretaker, relaxed rules of admission after experiencing a powerful dream which melted his resistance.

Mashhad is a city of three million people described by Wikipedia as:

Mashhad, also spelled Mashad or Meshad, is the second most populous city in Iran and the capital of Razavi Khorasan Province. It is located in the northeast of the country, near the borders with Turkmenistan and Afghanistan. It has a population of 3,001,184 inhabitants (2016 census), which includes the areas of Mashhad Taman and Torqabeh. It was a major oasis along the ancient Silk Road connecting with Merv to the east. 

The city is named after the "shrine" of Imam Reza, the eighth Shia Imam. The Imam was buried in a village in Khorasan, which afterwards gained the name Mashhad, meaning the place of martyrdom. Every year, millions of pilgrims visit the Imam Reza shrine. The Abbasid caliph Harun al-Rashid is also buried within the shrine. 

Mashhad has been governed by different ethnic groups over the course of its history. The city enjoyed relative prosperity in the Mongol period.

Mashhad is also known colloquially as the city of Ferdowsi, after the Iranian poet who composed the Shahnameh. The city is the hometown of some of the most significant Iranian literary figures and artists, such as the poet Mehdi Akhavan-Sales, and Mohammad-Reza Shajarian, the traditional Iranian singer and composer. Ferdowsi and Akhavan Sales are both buried in Tus, an ancient city that is considered to be the main origin of the current city of Mashhad. 

On 30 October 2009 (the anniversary of the death of Imam Reza), Iran's then-President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared Mashhad to be "Iran's spiritual capital".

Prior to this third visit to Iran, Meher Baba made a fleeting visit in 1924 and a second, more sustained visit in the autumn of 1929, including a visit to Isfahan and a sojourn at the desert city of Yazd. Given Baba's Iranian heritage and his visits, it's not surprising that Iran has been so prominent in the history of the twentieth century and remains very much in the news as this second decade of the twenty first century draws to a close. The country may well play a pivotal role in world events over the coming months and years.

The Walled Garden of Truth

The film, The Shape of Water, that I recently watched concludes with the following dialogue:

“Unable to perceive the shape of You, I find You all around me. Your presence fills my eyes with Your love, It humbles my heart, For You are everywhere.”

As to the provenance of these lines, there is some debate. "Though he doesn’t remember exactly where the verse came from, del Toro remembers reading it in a book of Islamic poetry, found in a bookstore he’d frequent before going on set to film" ... source. Some have speculated on Reddit that it's from Rumi, another that it's taken from "Divine Eros" by Saint Symeon and yet others by a predecessor of Rumi named Hakim Sanai.

Regardless of the provenance of the lines, the investigation has led me to Sanai and Symeon for which I'm grateful. Of Sanai, the website Poetry Chaikhana: Sacred Poetry from Around the World says:

Sanai is one of the earlier Sufi poets. He was born in the province of Ghazna in southern Afghanistan in the middle of the 11th century and probably died around 1150. 

Rumi acknowledged Sanai and Attar as his two primary inspirations, saying, "Attar is the soul and Sanai its two eyes, I came after Sanai and Attar."

Sanai was originally a court poet who was engaged in writing praises for the Sultan of Ghazna. 

The story is told of how the Sultan decided to lead a military attack against neighboring India. Sanai, as a court poet, was summoned to join the expedition to record the Sultan's exploits. As Sanai was making his way to the court, he passed an enclosed garden frequented by a notorious drunk named Lai Khur.

As Sanai was passing by, he heard Lai Khur loudly proclaim a toast to the blindness of the Sultan for greedily choosing to attack India, when there was so much beauty in Ghazna. Sanai was shocked and stopped. Lai Khur then proposed a toast to the blindness of the famous young poet Sanai who, with his gifts of insight and expression, couldn't see the pointlessness of his existence as a poet praising such a foolish Sultan. 

These words were like an earthquake to Hakim Sanai. He abandoned his life as a pampered court poet, even declining marriage to the Sultan's own sister, and began to study with a Sufi master named Yusef Hamdani. 

Sanai soon went on pilgrimage to Mecca. When he returned, he composed his poetic masterpiece, Hadiqatu'l Haqiqat or The Walled Garden of Truth. There was a double meaning in this title for, in Persian, the word for a garden is the same as the word for paradise, but it was also from within a walled garden that Lai Khur uttered the harsh truths that set Hakim Sanai on the path of wisdom.

I managed to locate and download a sparse 14-page translation, in PDF format, of The Walled Garden of Truth from this website as well as a far more expansive 134-page translation, also in PDF format, and commentary from this website.

Of Symeon, I have this commentary from John McGuckin (forming part of a 21-page commentary):

The Byzantine saint and poet Symeon the New Theologian (949–1022) is one of the Christian world’s greatest mystics, if such a term can properly be used of ancient writers. It is here applied for the sake of convenience, and in order to unveil the author, as it were, who is not only a visionary of the highest order within the Eastern Orthodox tradition, but equally one of the Christian world’s most lyrical and rhapsodic writers. It is a startling fact that it is only in recent years that his works have become available in English translation, and a sadder one that his name is still largely unknown to a wider public who would otherwise undoubtedly be interested in a spirituality suffused with light and hope and one of the most profound senses of the mercy and compassion of God. 

I haven't yet located a copy of Symeon's Hymns of Divine Eros but this is what McGuckin says of the hymns:

There are a total of 58 Hymns in the authentic corpus, amounting almost to 11,000 verses. They are all written in liturgical style (probably with perfor- mance in mind not merely private reading) in a strongly pulsed rhythm that uses the metrical devices of either eight, twelve, or fifteen syllables to the line. Sometimes end rhymes and half-rhyme are used. Several have the poetic pulse that is comparable to Longfellow’s epic Hiawatha, and they run into similar problems (for most are long) in sustaining the drive of the sense over against the soporific beat of the line: though in some cases the juxtaposition of the startling contents (visions, revelations, denunciations of enemies, and lurid confessions of sins), are exactly balanced by the mantra-like beat. No existing translation has attempted to render this either exactly or impressionistically so far.