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Artists working on a II NN HH ISIS sculpture and murals in SS ERVICEERVICE the Meher Pilgrim Retreat JANUARY / 2006 A NEWSLETTER FROM M EHERABAD In 1998 the Trust Meherabad. Since formulated a Meher Pilgrim the distances will be Development Plan, greater, roads and announced in the inaugural shuttle services will play a December 1998 issue of this Retreat to role, linking the various parts of newsletter, whose centerpiece Meherabad in a vital nexus. The was to be a new accommodation Open in Meher Pilgrim Retreat itself will facility for pilgrims at serve as a place of food, lodg- Meherabad. ing, and light conversation. Eight years later, on June 2006 For darshan, pilgrims will 15th June 2006, the Meher walk, or take a shuttle bus, to the Pilgrim Retreat is scheduled to have its grand opening. Samadhi. Strolling on down the Hill, they can visit Welcoming pilgrims from east and west and all over the Lower Meherabad with its historic sites–the Jhopdi world, the MPR, located on the Hill slightly more than where Baba began His Silence, the Table-Cabin where half a kilometer to the west of the Samadhi, will provide He wrote much of the Book. Talks, song sessions, and rooms, food, and other amenities for 200 people. This other programs will take place in Mandali Hall. capacity exceeds by almost four times that of the current Meanwhile, the theater in Outer Meherabad will feature Pilgrim Centre at Lower Meherabad, which has hosted programs several days a week– songs and music, dance, pilgrims since 1980 and will now be put to other uses. films, lectures, and every month or so, an original drama. The total costs for the construction of the new CURRENT PREPARATIONS. To make all this pos- building have run to about $1,250,000. In the coming sible, the Trust staff and administration are scrambling months further costs will attend the procurement of to finalize their arrangements and preparations for furniture, creation of facilities for the handicapped, what is sure to be a vast transformation in the daily life building of a water catchment tank, purchasing of of Meherabad. From the standpoint of “hardware,” buses, and other finalizing steps. When complete, the most of the infrastructure–electrical connections, Meher Pilgrim Retreat will join Hostels C and D and water supply, etc.–is ready or nearly so. Construction the Dharamshala in a constellation of accommodation of a paved road linking the MPR with the facilities that will lodge pilgrims across a wider diame- Ahmednagar-Daund highway is in progress. ter and bring a broader tract and expanse of this sacred But the greater challenge at this stage is to put in Meherabad property, hallowed by the footprints of the place all the systems required for the management of a Ancient One, into active use. much larger operation and expanded work force. For MPR IN AN EXPANDED MEHERABAD. Located room assignments and coordination with the registra- on the crown of the ridge extending and rising slightly tion office in Lower Meherabad, a new software to the west (the far side) of Meher Baba’s Tomb- program has been created and will be tested out in Shrine, the Meher Pilgrim Retreat has an orientation coming months. Longer hours and increased work and setting quite distinct from that of the Pilgrim load, particularly in the areas of pilgrim reception and Centre that preceded it. The Pilgrim Centre nestles at housekeeping, will require new personnel and close the east foot of Meherbad Hill and is surrounded by a coordination. Special care will have to be taken new growth of trees. Architecturally it turns inward, regarding security, especially in view of the banditry toward its garden courtyards and dining room. The that has afflicted the areas around both Meherabad MPR, by contrast, is a place of open skies and wide and Meherazad of late. horizons. From the terrace on top of the women’s Amid all the changes, one important strand of dormitory, one can see for miles in every direction–on continuity for pilgrims accustomed to the old Pilgrim a clear day, all the way to Seclusion Hill at Meherazad Centre at Lower Meherabad will be the people. Overall, twenty kilometers to the north. While the verandas the staff–the volunteers as well as the Trust employees– and courtyards and dining areas provide many kinds of will be more or less the same, with some additions. In spaces, intimate as well as more public, in its broader pilgrim registration, reception, kitchen, laundry, house- design the building turns toward the Samadhi: its men’s keeping, and medical care, the faces will be mostly and women’s quarters, each separately, are open square familiar. In human terms, essentially the same operation C’s facing to the east. A view corridor runs through the will continue but now in a new location. middle of the Retreat, between men’s and women’s In coming years, as Baba has told us, Meherabad sides, in that direction–one of five such footpaths, like will become a place of pilgrimage for the masses of the spokes of a wheel, all of which, when completed, humanity. Slowly, a bit at a time, we can see a new will lead to the Samadhi as the hub and center Meherabad unfolding, like petals of a flower at the of Meherabad. approach of dawn. While much of old Meherabad is The inauguration of the MPR, and the stretching passing in the way of all things, we trust that, when by of the envelope to the west side of the estate, marks a His grace the New Humanity arrives here, they will new stage in the history and development of find Him waiting for them with open arms. Photographs by Adair Adams INFINITE INTELLIGENCE Dadi Kerawala Released in November Returns to Baba In November of 2005 a and mental spheres. Meanwhile, Infinite Intelligence major new book of Meher identifies what it calls the “fine” world, a term which On 30th September Dadi Baba’s authorship, enti- refers to the state of latency and which disappeared Nasserwanji Kerawala, a life- tled Infinite Intelligence, from Baba’s explanations after this early period. long lover of Avatar Meher was published by Sheriar A central theme of Infinite Intelligence is the Baba and one of the trustees Foundation in Myrtle dichotomy of “imagination” and “thinking,” which are of the Avatar Meher Baba Beach, South Carolina also called “creation” and “realization.” Thinking is the Trust, passed away in his (USA). Running to 776 consciousness of the Intelligence. Imagination is a family’s residence in Pune. pages–which includes point of nothingness within the ocean of that thinking. Dadi Kerawala Born seventy-eight years 450 pages of primary text When thinking begins, Ishwar– Creator, Preserver, and earlier on 24th August 1927, Dadi was a cousin of Cover of Infinite Intelligence as well as introductory Destroyer–projects this point of nothing into a seem- Eruch and grew up in a family that was devoted to and supplementary materials, photographs, and twen- ing infinity, which this thinking progressively realizes Baba from his early childhood. He pursued a career ty-eight full color figures–the book is an extraordinary through the series of evolution. in horticulture and later, with Baba’s approval, got exposition on the divine Intelligence as the source and The book also provides extended treatments of the a Ph.D. in that field at Michigan State University substance of all creation. Though the manuscript subject of sanskaras. The climactic chapter discusses in in East Lansing. which is its source is unsigned and undated, clearly the detail how sanskaras are eliminated, respectively, Through the later 1950s and 60s, Dadi held material originated with Meher Baba, probably during though karma, dnyan bhakti, and raj yogas. Towering the coveted post of horticulturalist at the experi- the early Meherabad period of the mid-1920s. over the spiritual landscape is the figure of the Sadguru, mental station in Ganeshkin Gardens in Pune. The publication of the book culminates a seven- who plays a decisive role in the process of Self-realiza- Through his influence, Baba was able to stay there year project carried out under auspices of the Avatar tion. With Ishwar at His left hand and Parameshwar at with His mandali through several summer seasons. Meher Baba Trust and, specifically, under the direction His right, the Sadguru culminates and embodies with- At one juncture Dadi was much troubled by of its Chairman, Bhau Kalchuri. The original two- in Himself all the stages and manifestations of the certain of his fellow workers, who were falsely volume, 250-page manuscript, now housed in the Trust Infinite Intelligence. accusing him of a certain vocational malfeasance. Archives, was found by Bal Natu in a Meherazad MATTERS OF EDITORSHIP. Infinite Intelligence When Dadi related this to Baba, Baba told him, go-down shortly after Meher Baba dropped His body; is a new kind of book, in that it presents material of “Why worry? You haven’t done anything wrong. the handwriting has not yet been identified, though Meher Baba’s authorship in an edited form without From now on, I and you are on one side, and the certainly it is not Meher Baba’s. Since the idiosyncrat- that editing having been reviewed by Him. Other state and local governments on the other. Let us ic style of the original would be impenetrable to most books of His too, such as God Speaks and Discourses, see what happens.” Thereafter, whenever the state readers, the text had to be edited extensively; this edi- were edited as per Baba’s directive.

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