STAY WITH GOD A Statement in Illusion on Reality Third edition 1990 By Francis Brabazon An Avatar Meher Baba Trust Online Release June 2011 Copyright © Avatar’s Abode Trust 1984 Source and short publication history: This Online Release reproduces the third edition, which is the first illustrated edition (1990), of Stay With God, published by New Humanity Books, Melbourne, Australia. Stay With God was originally published by Edwards and Shwa for Garuda Books, Woombye, Queensland, in 1959, and a second edition was published in 1977 by Meher House Publications, Bombay, India. eBooks at the Avatar Meher Baba Trust Web Site The Avatar Meher Baba Trust’s eBooks aspire to be textually exact though non- facsimile reproductions of published books, journals and articles. With the consent of the copyright holders, these online editions are being made available through the Avatar Meher Baba Trust’s web site, for the research needs of Meher Baba’s lovers and the general public around the world. 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Stay with God by Francis Brabazon Third Edition First Illustrated Edition 1990 Copyright © Avatar's Abode Trust 1984 An Avatar Meher Baba Perpetual Public Charitable Trust Online Release May 2011 Stay with God STAY WITH GOD A statement in illusion on Reality Francis Brabazon Illustrated by John Parry N–B New Humanity Books STAY WITH GOD A statement in illusion on Reality by Francis Brabazon Copyright © Avatar's Abode Trust 1984 All Rights Reserved NEW HUMANITY BOOKS 83 Bourke Street Melbourne Victoria 3000 AUSTRALIA First Edition 1959 Second Edition 1977 Third Edition First Illustrated Edition 1990 Paperback ISBN 0 949191 07 8 Limited Edition 500 Cloth Copies Published for AVATAR FOUNDATION Printed in Hong Kong by Bookbuilders Francis Brabazon - A Biographical Sketch Francis Brabazon was born in England in 1907. He moved to Australia with his family when he was a young child, the youngest of five children. They settled on a farm in Victoria. In his book THE WIND OF THE WORD he describes these early days. He was close to his father who had been a drama critic and through him became interested in literature. By his early teens he became disillusioned with his Anglican faith because of the lack of answers to his questions. In the early 1930s in Melbourne, in the midst of the Depression, he worked at odd jobs and educated himself, learned to play the piano and achieved an unofficial Australian record at weightlifting. Francis met the Baron von Frankenburg, a Sufi teacher from the school of Hazrat Inayat Khan. Many of the Baron's group later became followers of the Spiritual Master Meher Baba. Francis began to paint, was drafted into the army early in the war but did not fit into the military life - too many questions again. An exhibition of his paintings in Melbourne during this period influenced the fledgling Antipodean Movement in Australian painting and especially the early work of one of Australia's greatest artists, Sidney Nolan. Brabazon turned to poetry and was published in the controversial Angry Penguins Magazine and Ern Malley's Journal until his poetry became mystical and from then until his death was ignored by the various literary movements in Australia, except for the young La Mama poets of the late sixties. His first published books PROLETARIANS - TRANSITION and EARLY POEMS were written during the 1940s. In 1947 the Baron gave Francis the DISCOURSES of Meher Baba. Meher Baba stated that he was the Avatar, the Christ, God in human form. Francis was extremely interested. The Baron died in 1950 and in 1952 Brabazon travelled to the USA and met Meher Baba, who made a profound impression upon him. In 1954 Meher Baba called Brabazon to India where they travelled to Andhra Pardesh. JOURNEY WITH GOD published in the same year describes this experience. SEVEN STARS TO MORNING, his first major book of poems was published in 1956, the year of Meher Baba's first visit to Australia. Country Life said of it: " . covers the planet in a riot of intellectual experience . sincerity and much dignity." This was followed by publication of a long narrative poem CANTOS OF WANDERING in 1957 and a book of seven mystical plays SINGING THRESHOLD in 1958. In the same year Meher Baba visited Australia again and stayed at a place in Woombye, Queensland, that Francis and other followers had built for him. This was to become known as Avatar's Abode. Subsequent to this visit Meher Baba invited Francis to India again where he stayed with him as an intimate disciple for the following ten years until Meher Baba dropped his physical form in 1969. When Brabazon went to India he took with him the almost complete manuscript of STAY WITH GOD which Meher Baba had asked him to write. Francis says in the preface to a later work THE WORD AT WORLD'S END: " . I have infinitely crafted my ideas before beginning to write; and in my best work the idea forged its own form of expression. In STAY WITH GOD the opening line came to me twelve years before I wrote that book. And it was not an odd line jotted down and forgotten; I carried it with me, noting its possibilities and acquiring the material it would need." Meher Baba had the book read to him three times stating that it gave life to his own book GOD SPEAKS and said: "My love will touch the hearts of all who read it as no book has ever done." STAY WITH GOD (1959) is a lucid exposition of the Advent on earth, in our time, of the God-Man and of this living embodiment of Godhood as the Salvation of Mankind from its state of permanent anxiety and threatened annihilation. This God-Man is not seen as the Son of a Father, but as the very Self of each one of us and therefore, easily knowable to anyone directly, without an intermediary. In the creative process of perceiving the meaning of the God-Man, the author examines the values of Mankind, both Eastern and Western, past and present, as represented in Art and Literature. His language, arising directly from the urgency of his message and the clarity of his vision, avoids rigid crystallizations, by which modern poetry is immobilized and essence and vitality excluded. Upon return to Australia THE WORD AT WORLD'S END (1971) was published, then IN DUST I SING (1974), a collection of poems written at the insistence of Meher Baba. These poems were based on the form of the 'ghazal' - perfected by the Persian poet Hafiz of Shiraz (1320-1390): Meher Baba's favourite form of poetry. Another collection of Brabazon's 'ghazals', THE BELOVED IS ALL IN ALL, were published posthumously in 1988. Other published works of Francis Brabazon include LET US THE PEOPLE SING (1962) songs, THE EAST-WEST GATHERING (1963), THREE TALKS (1969), WIND OF THE WORLD (1976), THE SILENT WORD (1978) a biography of the early life of Meher Baba and THE GOLDEN BOOK OF PRAISE (1982), songs. Some of his writing remains unedited and unpublished. Francis Brabazon died in 1984. His grave is at Avatar's Abode on the side of the hill, under the pine trees, overlooking the ocean. Dedicatory To Meher Baba, my Lord and Friend, Lord and Friend of the worlds, here is the book On the theme you set me, and which I took Into my heart and pondered to the end That your dear Name be known to men, and send Perhaps one to your Feet.