My favorite thing about Pune, is leaving town for the weekend. As much as I like this amazing city, the noise, the pollution, and the constant hustle get to me after a while. I’m just not used to it and as anyone who’s been here will tell you, India is relentless. So taking a break and leaving the city for the weekend is always a good idea.
One of my dear friends, someone who was really there for me at a time in my life when I needed him, has long since retired and left the U.S. for Asia. I remember when I met Barry that he would leave, and in fact did leave, for an ashram in India every year. But I was 18 years old at the time, Yoga studios did not adorn every town, and Eastern culture was somewhat obscure and synonymous with hippies — an era of my life yet to come — so I had no idea what he was talking about.
Barry is a Baba-Lover, and Baba-Lovers believe Meher Baba was the most recent incarnation of G*d — on par with Jesus, Mohammad, and Buddha. (On a personal side-note, Meher Baba dropped the physical body in 1969, eight months before I entered mine.) In the East these people are called Avatars and they don’t show up very often. To have the opportunity to meet such a person is considered great karma. To visit the tomb where he was buried and to see the legacy he left behind, is as close as I could get. Meherabad (the area was renamed when he declared it his place of pilgrimage) is an increasingly beautiful place with numerous points of interest where iconic Baba locations are honored and preserved.
This is actually my second major exposure to the Meher Baba community. The first was in 2007 when I began work on my spiritual documentary film project, Walking the Path. (You can see clips of this project which has evolved into an ongoing, online documentary by visiting my other website, Reel Change Films.) I stumbled upon the Meher Baba Community Center in Myrtle Beach, SC, where I had gone to visit some friends from LA. I toured the grounds and made plans to return the following week to shoot some interviews with elder members of the community, but my cameraman went in for knee surgery, so the trip never happened. Instead, however, I had what Baba-Lovers consider to be a pretty amazing dream.
It was Christmas, and I was back in Myrtle Beach at the center for the holidays. I was traveling alone, it was noon, and there were about 30 people in “The Barn” getting ready to start the festivities. These people were mostly white.
Americans, and they were all ages, including families and kids who were running around making quite a bit of excitement, as kids are want to do. Meher Baba lit the star on the tree to officially begin the celebration, and then he motioned me outside. We walked through the door, into the sunny winter day. There was snow on the ground, but Baba was barefoot wearing only a Chadar (an Indian shawl that sometimes covers the whole body) and he was barefoot. We walked toward the “Lagoon House,” which is where Baba spent much of his time meditating (or “Doing his work”). Walking on my left, he put his arm around my shoulder and said to me, “Jason, I really want to be in your movie.” And then he disappeared into his chambers for some much-needed solitude.
I awoke from this dream with an incredible feeling. The only way I know how to describe it is that I was dripping in bliss.
*** NOTE *** Meher Baba took a vow of silence in 1925 and he never used spoken words to communicate again. Instead he used a letter board and lectured through his translators. He later developed a type of sign language only his closest devotees understood. Many have reported dreams and/or visions of Avatars such as Meher Baba. Dreaming about someone like him is considered a good omen. Enlightened individuals are said to visit their devotees in dreams and continue to teach and awaken. The fact that he broke his vow of silence to speak directly to me about being in my movie seemed pretty significant as well.
Meherabad is a growing community about five hours East of Mumbai in the deserts of India. A number of Westerners have set up residence there — many staying for only part of the year, and others for 30 years running. Every year, on the weekend of January 31st, thousands of people descend on the region to honor Meher Baba’s Maha-Somadhi (The day he dropped the physical body). I was fortunate to be there before this pilgrimage as I could enjoy the grounds without standing in line for hours just to look inside one of the rooms. I also had the opportunity to photograph many of the remarkable paintings recounting his life and important moments in it. You will notice bamboo framing in a lot of my photos. This framing will become tents — temporary housing for the pilgrims coming to celebrate the great life of their master.
Click here for more information on Meher Baba.