Yesterday (Feb. 26) was Meher Baba's birthday, of importance to us Horry Co. folk because the spiritual master's Meher Spiritual Center (http://www.mehercenter.org/) is right here in our backyard, abutting Briarcliffe Acres, across from Colonial Mall.
Baba, whose followers include many famous musicians and creative types, took a vow of silence during his lifetime and is credited with coining the phrase ``don't worry, be happy.''
Bobby McFerrin thanks him.
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3 comments:
liked the steakhouse posting. don't care about the don't worry, be happy guy.
oh yeah, put some ho's pictures up on your blogpage!!
dude, isn't pete townsend a follower of meher baba? i know you didn't mean to leave that out.
This story is a bit long, but I love it. It’s from “Heaven is a Beautiful Place,” by Genevieve Chandler Peterkin.
“Elizabeth Patterson, the daughter of a wealthy developer in Myrtle Beach, got interested in Indian philosophy – that of India – and in a particular spiritual leader named Mehyer Baba. Up north of Myrtle Beach she deeded an extensive and beautiful beach-front acreage as a center for this man’s followers…
Anyway, I believe I remember seeing Mehyer Baba walking along Myrtle Beach’s Broadway Street wearing those sheer, flowing garments from India, and nobody like that had ever been here – nobody. And soon after that he visited Brookgreen. Mama came home from work that day just outraged. Quite a number of followers had accompanied Mehyer Baba to the garden. They were a large group, and Brookgreen did have these little signs stuck in the grass saying ‘Please stay on the walks.’ Well, Mehyer Baba stepped through the front gate and saw those ancient live oaks, and his reaction was the same as that of the mother and her four year old. He was overcome with the beauty of those trees with great gray-moss-covered limbs sweeping everywhere above that black-green ivy. He looked at the surroundings and fell down on his knees to pray, and all the two dozen or so people who were with him then went down on their knees on both sides, and being such a large group, they spread out onto the grass.
Immediately here came the guard, blowing his whistle and creaming for them to get off the grass. Mama was working over in the gallery, and the windows were open on this warm spring day. She ran to the window, and here was this scene of people trying to worship in the middle of ‘Get off the grass! Get off the grass!’ Mama was so humiliated, and she came home so angry that night.
Anyway, Mehyer Baba had taken an oath of silence long before this, and for Mama that was a problem because she did love to talk. The group finally made its way over to the gallery, and Mama was telling them about the history of the place and so forth, and something of the compassion she felt for these people and the embarrassment must have been showing in her eyes. Mehyer Baba approached her. He reached into his flowing garment, pulled out a single grape, held it up, and then gave it to her. She didn’t know what to do so she ate it.
That’s what she was supposed to do, but Mama lived a long time and died without ever knowing that. Three years ago June and I were on an Audubon birding trip, and we went over to the Mehyer Baba Center that’s still active north of North Myrtle Beach. These two lovely lady volunteers welcomed us. You don’t have to be a follower of Mehyer Baba, but they have his teachings there and little cabins where you can go on retreat. A beautiful piece of land. Woods thick with pines and freshwater ponds hidden behind the dunes, and all of it is kept very natural. I walked through with Ambica, one of the two women, and told her the story about Mehyer Baba visiting Brookgreen and the guard’s actions that disturbed Mama so and how Mehyer Baba had given her a grape which she ate. My guide was amazed and told me that Mehyer Baba only gave the grapes to people who he recognized were on a spiritual level with him and that when offered the grape you were supposed to eat it.
June and I were happy to hear that and sad that Mama hadn’t known. Then we headed toward the beach. We walked past these patterns of shells that Mehyer Baba had laid out in the sand and through dunes still thick with sea oats. We both have a habit of taking one shell from each beach we visit for a keepsake. So having arrived, I was skirting along just where the waves lapped the sand, and I spied a perfect little purple round shell. I thought. I leaned down, and the shell was a grape. I cross my heart and hope to die. Even as I was passing the spot where Mehyer Baba had laid out his patterns, I’d thought that this was such a serene spot the holy man’s spirit could still be hovering. And that grape couldn’t have been planted intentionally. They had absolutely no way of knowing that I would be coming with my story, and the event was so unusual they even wrote it up in the center’s newsletter. And yes, that grape probably had washed up from somebody’s picnic way down the beach. Still, a grape is a grape. I went running back to Ambica and said, ‘Ambica, Ambica, I thought this was a shell and look, I picked up a grape.’ She said, ‘Eat it.’ And I did – sand and all.”
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