Losing Ourselves in What We Do Dear folks of Baba, Most of us are struggling with how to live in and relate to this world. When we were with Darwin, he spoke often of being detached from the world, but in my early years with Baba, it was not really clear to me what this meant. It was Eruch who helped me immensely to see life in this world from a unique and more comprehensive perspective. There was a time in 1975, before starting at the Meher Center, when I was working for a buddy of mine painting houses, which included doing fine interior jobs over in Briarcliffe Acres, just north of the Center. In this upscale neighborhood, we had to do quality work. Back then, I would describe myself as a Baba remembrance machine; I would say “Baba, Baba, Baba...” inwardly with each brush stroke, while sanding, caulking, cutting in windows and baseboards. In my early years with Baba, I tended to do everything in extreme. I worked with my buddy for six months, and then we went to India. One day at Meherazad, we were sitting just outside Mandali Hall on a bench with Eruch, and my buddy said, “Eruch, I work as a house painter, and sometimes hours go by and I haven’t even thought of Baba. He is the most important One in the world. He asks us to make Him our constant companion, and I let hours go by and I’m not even remembering Him. What can I do about that?” Eruch replied in his very casual way, “In the beginning, it’s important to remember Baba, repeat His name, to see the movies, to go where Baba has been, and to read the Baba literature. But in time it becomes important to forget yourself. When you forget yourself, then Baba can live through you. You’re not aware of it, but He is living through you. So, lose yourself in your painting.” He highlighted the supreme value of self-forgetfulness, and his words unexpectedly resonated to the depths of my soul and were forever emblazoned in my heart. Previously I would have thought that losing yourself in painting was like burying yourself in the complete mundane; what has house painting got to do with spirituality and Baba except, maybe, earning a living in the world? That moment outside Mandali Hall was a turning point for me in my life with Baba, because I had become a bit too serious, rigid and truly obsessed with remembering Him all the time. I had lost the playfulness that had always been a part of me since childhood, the spontaneous enthusiasm of my college days, the genuine fun in life that I had experienced over the years. Since that brief, life-changing conversation with Eruch, I have found that self-forgetfulness and the conscious remembering of Baba make a vital and complementary dynamic in my inner life. Eruch would say, “Get wholeheartedly lost in your activities, and when coming out of that absorption, remember Baba.” And he would add, “When you remember to remember, remember Him!” So, this is how I translate Eruch’s words into my life: when I get wholeheartedly into something, such as volleyball or music or gardening or a conversation, I forget myself. Baba then can live through me as Eruch has said even though I am not aware of it. And after the activity, I remember Him. So, it’s an alternating between Baba remembrance and self-forgetfulness. I found, when it was all Baba remembrance, I would become a little stiff and unnatural, and if it’s all self-forgetfulness, that also can sometimes become unbalanced, like watching football all weekend on television. Self-forgetfulness and Baba remembrance, for me, work beautifully and harmoniously together. Baba liked games, skits, jokes and movies, because in them we forget ourselves. I asked Margaret Craske’s dancers, most of whom were deeply devoted to Baba, if they remembered Him out on the stage in the midst of their performances. They all said that they remembered Baba before going on stage, and then lost themselves in their dancing. Afterwards, they would dedicate their performance to Baba. They had all tried at one time to remember Baba during their performances, but they confessed that it didn’t work; it took away from their total absorption in the dance. So, Darwin’s encouraging us to become detached from the world, through Eruch, took on a much deeper and more practical meaning for me. I am approached by young people, many of whom have computer jobs in which they are absorbed for hours with data and digital work. They often confess that they don’t find the work fulfilling. What Eruch has said gave a new and different meaning to their work, giving them permission to be wholehearted in what they do, knowing that Baba is living through them and is vitally present. And in the moment when they come out of their absorption in work, they can remember their Beloved! In this way, they are actually “in the world, but not of it.” In time, this approach, with its effacing of the self, leads to the knowing that Baba is the sole doer of everything. In His love, Jeff
