Dear folks of Baba, In my early years with Baba, I tended to do everything in the extreme. During one period, I had decided to say His name inwardly with each footstep. It was during this time in the early 1970s in Meherazad that Eruch was taking a group of us up Seclusion Hill, sharing stories as we climbed. I was ten or so feet behind Eruch, and at one point I looked up from taking Baba’s name and Eruch gave me a poignant look which clearly said, “Jeff, you are so preoccupied with what you’re doing there that you are not with us in this moment!” At that very moment, I felt deeply the truth of his words. I had been so preoccupied with my little practice that I was not being natural. This is not to say that saying Baba’s name isn’t important and invaluable, but not to the extent that we are elsewhere in the moment and not really present. One day at Meherazad, during this same trip, a close friend and I were sitting just outside Mandali Hall on a bench with Eruch, and my friend said, “Eruch, I work as a house painter, and sometimes hours go by and I haven’t even thought of Baba. What can I do about that?” Eruch replied in his very casual way, “In the beginning, it’s important to remember Baba, to repeat His name, to see the movies, to go to where Baba has been, and to read all the 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 affirmed the supreme value of self-forgetfulness. That was a turning point for me in my life with Baba, because I had become a bit rigid and unnatural in trying to remember 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 experienced over the years. Since that brief, life-changing exchange with Eruch, I have found that self-forgetfulness and remembering 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!” All the practices we do as a part of our inner life with Baba—such as dressing our soul with Him, saying His name inwardly, our prayers, giving our interior to Baba, the provisional ego, focusing on His companionship--are like golden tributaries flowing into a glorious and magnificent river as it makes its way toward Baba’s all-inclusive ocean of Love. Eventually, all these practices become integrated into what Eruch would call “a natural life” with Baba, in which we forget ourselves as children do. Children spread innocence and spontaneity and love in this world, simply by their enthusiasm in the moment. Being “natural” is not a transcendent state, but is very much in “the here and now”, where we are in the world, in touch with what is happening. Over the decades, as we are swept up more and more in Baba’s love, the separation that we have felt our entire life begins to dissolve: between ourself and Baba, ourself and others, ourself and life. These distinctions gradually blur in the warm and simple presence of Baba’s love. Sooner or later, Baba brings us to a state where we are no longer driven by our usual agenda, ulterior motives disappear, and our life requires little micro-managing on our part. This does not mean that there are no ups and downs, but we take them as welcome challenges to be overcome with Baba. We will eventually find that the extremes of life, often experienced in youth, have been miraculously harmonized in a way that we could not have imagined! We find that Baba knows exactly what He is doing with each of us to bring us to a place where we are on our knees in gratitude. We realize that Baba has delivered us naturally to a state far more loving and full of warmth than we could ever have imagined possible. In following the many forms of remembrance of Baba, there comes a sense more and more that He is actually the doer, and we are the witness. An unexpected transition gradually takes place where it seems that Baba is orchestrating everything, that He is behind the unfolding of our day, a day definitely full of more love than if we were actually in charge. I am reminded of the words of Baba most often quoted by Eruch over the years in Mandali Hall: “To be natural is most godly.” What Baba meant by “natural” can mean many things. For me, I tend to believe it is doing what aligns with our deeper heart. How have you dealt with the challenge of making efforts to change while at the same time being natural? Do you feel ”being yourself”, so to speak, sometimes can lead to complacency without making any deeper efforts at all? What part does self-forgetfulness play for you in being natural? In His love, Jeff
