17 September 2010 - Walk with Meherwan

It had been almost a week since our last walk due to work commitments. It turns out that Meherwan was getting over a rare cold that both he and Manu had caught from one of servants from the village. It had been years since his last cold.

video: http://www.box.net/shared/8qbogln7py 19 sec.

Later in the day we had a "heti paus" (elephant rain) as a thunder storm arrived in time for tea. We could hardly carry on a conversation over the sound of the rain.  

I was there to check the termite traps for signs of activity, and instead got to sit out the storm for more than an hour in Mandali Hall.

WALK PAST SECLUSION HILL (30 minutes)
 Audio link - http://www.box.net/shared/d1vo21o1v9
[Note: times following subject headings are beginning time markers]

View from Goraknath Temple Mount towards Meherazad

- Story of the birth of Goraknath and His Master Matsendranath  (beginning)

Foreground Trust land and beyond neighbor's onion field.

- Discuss rain and water table
(4 min. 30 sec.)

- Meherwan's cold,
  and a malaria case
   at the dispensary
   (5 min. 30 sec.)

Cows regularly graze below and on Seclusion Hill

- Subject of Pandharpur arose during visit to a co-workers home. (9 min. 25 sec.)
  [Rahul, the pharmacist at Meherazad Free Dispensary, tells of his grandparents who had a farm and dairy and of the biannual pilgrimage to Pandharpur while at the home of one of his nine uncles who all live in the village next to Happy Valley.
(video: http://www.box.net/shared/yfvdx59s2c 1 min. )
  

Lord Vitthal and Rukmini in the Pandhapur Vithoba Temple

- Story of Pundalik                  
   and the Origin of Pandharpur
    ( 11 min.)

video: http://www.box.net/shared/48g03sfkib - 31 sec.)

- Looking at 4 Weaver Bird nests
   (22 min. 55 sec.)
  

- Meher Baba's visit to Pandharpur with Gadge Maharaj
  ( 24 min. 19 sec.)

Little flowers along the path enjoying the Grace of His rain

7 September 2010 - A Walk up Seclusion Hill (click on photos to enlarge)

Tuesday morning we headed out from Meherazad on our first recorded walk and instead of walking our usual path past Seclusion Hill and over towards the Staff Quarters, Meherwan suggested we go up Seclusion Hill. What a wonderful first recording. Here is an outline of the walk which is in two parts:

1) CLIMBING UP THE HILL (22 minutes)
Audio: http://www.box.net/shared/mkdxdxem3n/1/50858110/502872756
[Note 1 : times following subject headings are beginning time markers] 
[Note 2: Meherwan's audibility improves once he begins carrying the recorder in his pocket.]

- Practical jokes  (45 sec)
- Baba's humanity, Infinite Intelligence & need to read Baba's words (5 min)

Halfway up the Hill with the new Staff Quarters in view.

 - The Perfect Master, Goraknath, His story
     (9 min 30 sec)


    - "Sahaj Bolne" Even the ordinary talk of the Master is a discourse
 (15 min 50 sec)

Earthen bunds demarcate field boundaries as well.

- Bunds to collect water, ownership
   of the Hill, and about the forest
   on the hill  (have reached lower

    summit)
    (19min  05 sec)

  - Sisal plant hedge around Hill
      and how it is  processed to
       make rope (21 min)




2) TIME ON THE SUMMIT AND THEN DESCENDING (29 minutes)
Audio: http://www.box.net/shared/mkdxdxem3n/1/50858110/502891330

Site of Manonash Cabin (immediate foreground)
Ahmednagar reservoir built by the British on the horizon.

 - Sisal (continued) & reservoir

  - site and account of Manonash Cabin
    & Ram, prior Saints in the area
    (2min 40 sec)

Pipal (Bodhi) tree planted by Forest Service during
forestation project on exact site of 2nd cabin. 

  - How trees survive on the
    hills & Manjer Sumba Hill
    (6 min 8 sec)




 - Moving the Manonash Cabin
    and the 2nd cabin
    (8 min 11 sec)
  

Path by Pipal tree leads to the "facilites" used by the
Mandali when on the Hill with Baba during Manonash

- More on sisal fiber industry in Nagar   (15 min 13 sec)
- The steps up the Hill and 1st Young Adult Sahavas Work  project (20 min17 sec)

 

 The camera is near the Manonash Cabin
where Baba stayed and lower cabin is where
He did His seclusion work. 

- How Baba walked up the Hill
   and its significance
    (22 min. 45 sec.)  

5 September 2010 A walk past Seclusion Hill (Click on photos to enlarge)

View of Seclusion Hill from the Meherazad Staff Quarters

In recent weeks week I have joined Meherwan Jessawala on his morning walk at Meherazad.  The conversation is very casual and wanders here and there, but invariably yields moments of such depth and insight regarding his life long companionship with Avatar Meher Baba. We soon agreed to record the walks using my cell phone recorder which works quite well. The first recording was made today on a walk up Seclusion Hill. I will post it as soon as I figure out the procedures necessary to do so, In the meantime here is taste.

5 Sept  2010

In India they imposed heavy fines to enforce the change to the metric system. Its too late for America to change to this good system.

We see a hoopoe bird on the ground. It lets us get close. Can see the tips of its crown feathers that flashes blue to my eyes as it flew off to join its mate in a bulbul tree.

It's all a zero. In mathematics the concept of zero came from India. It has spiritual significance. Baba explained a zero in front of 1 is nothing, but behind it, it has significance.

Pass a rock bubble along the path. It is a rounded basalt-like boulder protruding form the ground and surrounded with a garland of soft layered rock. The surrounding rock is the same rock but gradually breaking down and becoming porous.

The Deccan plain was a molten sea and rock bubbles formed. We see  another across the path that is an advanced state of decay. Millions of years old and progressing through metamorphosis into the metal form. It's all a zero, Imagination. God's imagination is infinite.  Baba has to come into creation to free us from this "tamisha" illusion. There is a ghazal where the poet sings. You have gambled so many times, so many lives and gained nothing. Why not gamble now on this "tamasha" - surrender to the Master. What do you have to lose. But the mind has been the dictator for so long playing all these farces ("tamisha"). It doesn't want to give up its power of infinite imaginings,

Meher Baba at Mahabaleshwar, India
May 1954

To have the good fortune to come into relationship with the Avatar: what an unimaginable blessing. Hold on with both hands, Clutch to Him with all your might: don't let go. This is an incalculable benefit to you and to generations past and to come and to friend's no matter what they feel.  

Meher Baba, May 1965, Guruprasad, Pune, India

But the mind is afraid of losing its limitation, its infinite imaginings. A life dedicated to serving the Master, the Avatar, to letting go of attachments, triggers the fears of the mind right up to crossing the chasm between the 6th and 7th plane. The mind doesn't realize it will not cease to be but only give of its limited functioning. Only God can pull us out of the mind's "tamisha". 

How fortunate we are to be in His company, to try to serve and remember Him and to try to love Him more and more despite how we may feel. 

Avatar Meher Baba
Photo taken in Chase Studio July 30,1956
The same day, President Eisenhower signed into law
"In God we Trust" to be the official motto of the United States of America