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: Baba’s Inspiring Intervention

Dear folks of Baba,

“We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.” These are the insightful words of Teilhard de Chardin, a Catholic Jesuit theologian and philosopher, who lived during the first half of the last century. Even though Baba encourages us to be in the world and live a natural life—“To be natural is most godly”—it is important not to lose sight of the fact that in essence we are spirit. It is Baba, through our spirit, who is inspiring us to sublimate our age-old selfish reactions to life and cultivate instead our divinely human qualities, our better angels. In the process, we enjoy Baba’s personal companionship as Darwin describes it: “He is our best friend – and not only our best friend but also our ally, working with each one of us. He has consummate understanding and insight into the sanskaras of each individual, and He really does work within us to expedite our freedom of consciousness.” Darwin was always encouraging us to go for broke, “to accept and believe in the highest possibility in this incarnation” with Baba. Don’t think the journey will take forever. And if our longing is to be with Baba next time He comes, we have the opportunity to work now toward providing “a clear consciousness for His use.”

I once asked Darwin, “What is the biggest mistake the Baba lovers are making?” He replied, without a trace of criticalness, “They think of themselves as small, and they remain small. Think BIG. Think outside even the conventional spiritual box.” In being inwardly more inclusive of all of life-- all the different and whimsical inhabitants of this planet!--our heart expands, and we begin over time to feel ourselves “merge,” as Darwin would express it, with all of life. We move out of our ages-old subjective bubble and experience others as theyexperience themselves. In his latter years, Darwin described his experience as one where “you Iive in and through everyone.” Eruch used to remark from time to time in Mandali Hall, “This whole world is yours, but you have to claim it. Through love, you bring what is outside, inside!” He was implying that it is Baba’s inclusive love that can become ultimately ours. To give an example, if we become an avid bird watcher, and we learn the names of all the birds in our area, their feeding habits, their migratory patterns, how they care for their young, following all this with our binoculars—over time, the birds begin flying inside of us; we’ve incorporated them into our own being. Our heart expands. Just think if we did that for all of humanity!

What strong likes and dislikes in yourself do you feel get in the way of the inclusiveness of your heart? What traits in others that you react to have you seen in yourself?

“To love one soul is like adding its life to your own; your life is, as it were, multiplied and you virtually live in two centers. If you love the whole world, you vicariously live in the whole world.”

Meher Baba

In His love, Jeff

PS: We continue on page 16

To join the email list for Late Night Chats, contact Angela

Login 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

Sahavas for Everyone. First and third Wednesday 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.

Meher Baba and His "Twelve Ways of Realizing Me," way #8

Selfless Service. "If you have the quality of selfless service unaffected by results, similar to that of the sun which serves the world by shining on all creation, on the grass in the field, on the birds in the air, on the beasts in the forest, on all mankind with its sinner and its saint, its rich and its poor, unconscious of their attitude towards it, then you will win Me."

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

How the Master Works - Sharing Our Treasure of Stories and Anecdotes

Brothers and Sisters in Baba,

Some years back, Craig Ruff came to the SF/Bay Area. During his sharing with those of us who attended a meeting, he related an anecdote in which he related an incident where he asked Eruch Jessawala, “What will be the next phase,” meaning what will follow the phases of 1) having Baba with us in His physical form, followed by 2) the phase of having available, and interacting with, those who were close to Baba during that first phase?”

Eruch stroked his chin thoughtfully and said, “You all will share.”

There are a variety ways and media through which we have been sharing with one another:

--we share our company at special gatherings, celebrations, regular meetings, centers, places of pilgrimage, and lately on the internet on BabaZoom.

--together we read, listen, study Baba's discourses, cosmology, historical accounts; we share poetry, music/songs, dramatic presentations, stories, personal anecdotes, our thoughts and experiences of Baba's love, grace, and guiDANCE.

Let's experiment with a BabaZoom meeting. The proposed title is “How the Master Works”. The content/activity will consist of participants telling stories and sharing anecdotal experiences that depict Baba's charming and meaningful ways of delivering His love, grace, and guidance, as His means to draw one closer to Him and away from desires and attachments.

Reach Ron at meheronald@gmail.com

Hosted by Ron Greenstein in CA

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

Nick will tell stories he heard from the Mandali, in the context of trying to live a life of the spirit. Questions and comments welcome!

Hosted by Diana Goodheart in NC

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

Merwan Mehta will share stories of meeting Baba and the Mandali. He appreciates a conversational interaction, so please bring questions!

Hosted by Betty Lowman in CA

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

Dear folks of Baba,

In our last session, a number of us were unclear about what Darwin means by the subconscious and its distorting influence on our lives. He has said, "Often self-interest and secret desires that are lurking in the subconscious have a surreptitious way of veiling our consciousness. We are more conscious of the sanskaras at our surface consciousness, whereas in the subconscious we may be aware of them only as feelings or impelling forces.” He stressed the importance of working at becoming aware of the contents of our subconscious where all the impressions of our past lives (both positive and negative) are stored. These impressions affect our everyday behavior “as if”, as Baba has said, "from behind a screen.”

Much of the distorting influence is due to beliefs and attitudes that we have bought into from past lives as well as from naively accepted beliefs from our early childhood in this life. In childhood, we often take on erroneous beliefs long before we have the emotional maturity to evaluate them, and they greatly distort our behavior in later life. "The relationship between conscious and subconscious sanskaras,” Darwin has said, "is that there is some ‘coloring' of our conscious thought because of our subconscious sanskaras.” To use a metaphor, the subconscious is like the extensive layer of cirrus clouds high above the earth, whereas the cumulus clouds that we are most aware of are near the earth’s surface. We often fail to see the upper layer of cirrus clouds that cause a major veiling of the sun’s rays. Our task is to work with Baba to dissolve the virtually unseen layer of cirrus clouds, so to speak, so that more sunlight can flood into our inner being.

There is a new type of therapy that delves into the beliefs from early childhood that we embraced naively from our parents and in our upbringing that are patently erroneous and which have never been fully examined. For example, we may have picked up from our parents the false and hurtful belief that if we are not constantly working at something, we will never amount to anything in this life. And then as an adult, we suffer under the unexamined belief that we are never enough; we have to be always doing something to give us a sense of self-worth. Thus, in adulthood, this belief is lodged in our subconscious and is not even seen, and yet it exerts a major influence in our life.

There are many beliefs and attitudes that we adopted unconsciously from past lives or from childhood in this life that often live on in our present life and assert themselves from the level of our subconscious. Delving into these subconscious beliefs which are behind our behavior and often exert a negative influence is an important work with Baba, and when uncovered, leads to a growing sense of inner harmony and freedom.

We also inherit many false beliefs from our past lives which are stored unbeknownst to us in our subconscious. Thankfully, in loving and working inwardly with Baba, many of the impressions that form these false beliefs are being automatically dissolved. As we all know, Baba helps by making us face many uncomfortable situations in which these beliefs are examined and eventually sublimated and even eradicated. Is there a problematic situation that Baba has helped you to rise above and gain a larger and more compassionate perspective toward yourself and others?

"The sure sign of a real hidden conflict is the sense that the whole of one's heart is not in the thought or action that happens to be dominant at the moment. There is a vague feeling of a narrowing down or a radical restriction of life. On such occasions an attempt should be made to analyze one's mental state through deep introspection, for such analysis brings to light the hidden conflicts concerning the matter.

When the conflicts are thus brought to light it is possible to resolve them through intelligent and firm choices. The most important requirement for the satisfactory resolution of conflict is motive power or inspiration, which can only come from a burning longing for some comprehensive ideal. Analysis in itself may aid choice, but the choice will remain a barren and ineffective intellectual preference unless it is vitalized by zeal for some ideal appealing to the deepest and most significant strata of human personality."

- Meher Baba

In His love, Jeff

To join the email list for Late Night Chats, contact Angela

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

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 Spirit--What is It?

Dear folks of Baba,

Darwin Shaw in his book, Effort and Grace, refers again and again to the realm of the “spirit” and unfortunately this term is usually very vague in the minds of most people. Baba has explained that when the soul interfaces with Creation, it is known as spirit. The soul is sovereign, pure and independent and it does nothing. It just is. It is outside of creation, but as “spirit” it is intimately connected with our life and with all the activities in this world. As I gathered from Darwin, the spirit is the loving awareness that participates in everything, all the events of our life, and yet it remains untouched. It remains always still even though the body, mind and heart are activated by its presence. It is like the sun that shines on everything and yet nothing dims its light.

The spirit does not acquire any impressions in the activities that it participates in; it is the body, mind and even the heart that collect innumerable impressions from what we do. The spirit does not have its origin in the sanskaras; its presence flows from the Soul itself (Baba). Unfortunately, our awareness is usually trapped at the level of the body, mind or heart. When our awareness rises to the frequency of love, it is in the realm of the spirit. From there things just flow with love, and no impressions are created. The light that comes through what we do is directly connected to the degree that we are being loving—that is, expressing our better angels, the divinely human qualities. This love expresses itself primarily through the heart.

How do we rise to the level of the spirit? Our problem is not our awareness of the body, mind or heart; it is our identification with them. Our delusion is that we are convinced that we are our body, our mind and our heart, as Baba has told us. We think that they are real, and for this reason we remain at the lower level. Our challenge is to penetrate to the spirit that is present within the body, mind and heart. But how to detach from the identification with the body, mind and heart, which we have been doing for eons of time? Baba tells us that focusing on Him who is love itself, or any of the Avatars or Perfect Masters from the past, in any way, shape or form, is the supreme and most effective way. When we are in the state of love, we automatically rise to the level of the spirit. The more we express the divine qualities of love, such as patience, empathy, forgiveness, humor, purity, beauty, generosity, the closer we are to the realm of the spirit. Very gradually, we have to withdraw the tentacles of awareness from being enmeshed in the body, mind and heart in order to attain a direct experience of the spirit. As Baba has said, we all have fleeting moments of merging with the spirit, and our aim is to make them permanent. Darwin used to reiterate that rather than thinking of ourselves as a base of operations with our ego in charge, we have to strive to become a vehicle or conduit of the loving spirit within us. Gradually, after decades of effort and Baba’s grace in helping us to live in the spirit, all the elements of life begin to merge into a oneness; our experience of being separate from others, from all of life, from our Soul and Baba, begins to dissolve. This is the theme and gift of this book which Darwin explores, offering many methods and practices to bring about this merging, which is our destiny—a returning Home. How do you experience the spirit in your day-to-day life?

“To penetrate into the essence of all being and significance, and to release the fragrance of that inner attainment for the guidance and benefit of others, by expressing in the world of forms, truth, love, purity and beauty—this is the sole game which has any intrinsic and absolute worth. All other happenings, incidents and attainments can, in themselves, have no lasting importance.”

Meher Baba

In His love, Jeff

PS: We begin on page 13 in Effort and Grace

To join the email list for Late Night Chats, contact Angela

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

Sahavas for Everyone. First and third Wednesday 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.

Meher Baba and His "Twelve Ways of Realizing Me," way #7

Control Through Love.

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