Winking Back

The number 225 has always been big in my family. Meher Baba's birthdate was like a secret code, a password between us and the universe, the digits that turn the combination lock to its sweetest spot, reminding us to remember Him. We would look for it everywhere: on mailboxes and buildings, among the long list of numbers on a credit card, in the phone number of a new friend or first date, in flight numbers and on hotel room doors. And, of course, on clocks--the one place we had a twice a day chance to catch the magic number, look again at our surroundings and suddenly feel connected to what was mundane a moment ago: the glint of the sun off the car's hood, the gait of a teenager swaggering home, the curve of a tree branch, a bird singing love songs in the afternoon . . . all as if Baba was personally saying, "did you notice that . . . ?" with a wink and a caress, His hand gracing the exact place and time where we happened to be.

Tonight, for instance, I was in a hotel in Los Angeles, a roadside chain near LAX. After a day's work, I was on the treadmill, wondering how it was that my physical life was getting its play by running on a belt and staring at a wall. It doesn't get more unholy than a hotel gym by the Los Angeles airport. I was listening to my iPod like a good young professional and playing it on "shuffle," so as not to have to make one more decision that day. Plus, I like the randomness of a machine flipping through 4000 songs I at some point chose and liked: Jurassic Five next to Louis Armstrong. The Gypsy Kings opening for Sam Cooke. Right (and I mean to the second) as I hit mile 2.25 on the treadmill--a point, you might have guessed, that I always look forward to on these runs--my personalized radio show of hip-hop and old soul suddenly switched gears and out came the hearty strum of Jaime Newell's guitar and his voice singing of the New Life. And I felt Baba--that wink, that utterly transcendent smile--on the treadmill beside me, saying "Yep, L.A. Aren't these machines funny? Come on, let's see how fast we can go!"

This relationship with 225 is, of course, simply one of the ways I try to remember Him. It keeps me at the ready to be graced by His company any old place in the everydayness of life, like a game of peek-a-boo. But remembering Him amidst my daily life is something I'm continually trying to work on and it is always changing. Sometimes feeling Baba's company takes so little effort I feel like I should whisper to Him that He can stop babying me--His face in the grain of the kitchen table, Begin the Beguine playing in my morning coffee haunt, someone seeing His picture in my office and asking about Him, church bells chiming me awake just when the afternoon slump sets in. And then there are the days when the train comes late, my socks don't match, my work piles up too high, I disappoint a friend or feel disappointed and realize I haven't thought of Him, not once, not even when I woke up in the morning, not even at 2:25 in the afternoon. In those moments, when it feels like He's disappeared behind the curtain of the world, I want to whisper, "come back, come play, I need help living this day." Lately, instead of waiting for Him to peek His smiling face back out at me, I've been thinking about what I can do to make this game more of a conversation, to court His company, to do more than wait for Him to surprise me.

My old answer might have been: look at a photo of Him, talk to a Baba lover, say the Beloved God prayer, repeat His name, read poetry. All good fixes to be sure. But my search for His presence keeps pulling me past the sweetness of His photograph or the company of His name--to unexpected places, like I'm trying to find where He hides. Lately I've felt pushed to recognize and know Him in the things that feel least "holy"--a mother slapping her child, a man left to sleep out in the cold, miles of strip malls and SUVs and tired eyes in hotel bars. What I am trying to learn is to look for my Beloved not only in the presence of great beauty or pain, but in places where God feels absent, places I have mistakenly excluded from my vision of what He is. At the same time, I know that, at the deepest level, I am trying to find Him not only in the parts of my heart that leap and long but the parts that sink and freeze. Maybe that 225 practice, my invented game of hide-and-seek where He always found me first, has made me want to discover Him in places I forget to look. Baba loves us without dividing our lives into good and bad, holy and not. I would like to learn to look into those dark corners of the world, of myself, and see His shine.

The Treasure Within

Amartithi has just passed and, as happens every year, I relived the day when we heard the news that Beloved Baba had dropped His physical form. Many years would go by before I realized just how significant that day was for me. It was the day when, unbeknownst to me, Baba turned me around to face Him from a different direction--He turned me inward, away from His form towards Him within. I'd like to give you a glimpse of my experience on that unforgettable day.

It was a Saturday morning. I remember well because I was at home making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for Happy Club, something I did every Saturday. Happy Club was a weekly program held at the Center for children from the Myrtle Beach black community. In an unusual "twist of fate," my mother happened to be away in Atlanta with my brother, Charles, directing a play at Emory University. My brother, John, was away in boot camp and his (then) wife, Margaret, had offered to stay with me until mother returned.

Suddenly, the phone rang and it was Kitty to tell me that Elizabeth wanted to see me. I said I would come by and continued what I was doing, taking my time. About five minutes later, the phone rang again and, again, it was Kitty. In a very serious, firm voice she said, "I thought I told you, Elizabeth wants to see you." "Oh," I said, "I'm sorry, Kitty, I thought you meant just before Happy Club." (Elizabeth and I would always leave from Dilruba around 11:00 a.m. and drive downtown to pick up the children; I was seventeen and didn't have a driver's license at the time). Kitty paused and said, "There won't be Happy Club today." In that instant, I'm not sure how or why, I knew immediately that Baba had dropped His body. With a pounding heart, I ran over to Dilruba.

Kitty met me at the door. I took one look at her face and saw that it was true. I went into Elizabeth's room and found her sitting up in bed; there were two tears rolling down her face. She looked up at me and in her calm, dignified manner said, "I awoke this morning at 4:00 a.m. and said aloud, 'I know that my Redeemer liveth.' And I knew Beloved Baba had dropped His form." At 8:00 a.m., Western Union called and the man said, "Mrs. Patterson, in all the years I have delivered telegrams to you, this is one I don't want to give you." Elizabeth told him it was all right, she already knew what it said.

As the day went on, my feelings of sadness and confusion deepened. I didn't have a clue what would happen next or what to do next. All through the years, since meeting Him in 1958, our lives revolved around Baba in the physical body. I pictured Him in Myrtle Beach wearing His pink coat, enfolding me in an embrace that seemed to go on forever. I would see Him in the car leaving from Bund Gardens and me running up to the window hoping for a last glance. I remembered Him at the East West Gathering when He swayed happily back and forth to the quavali music He so loved. In between, our days were marked by the cables we received from Baba and letters from Mani, often containing messages from Baba or Mehera. And I remember the day our greatest prayer was answered when Baba called His lovers to India to be with Him once again in the spring of '69. That Saturday I could not grasp the unfathomable--that we would not see Him again. I had no blueprint for what life would be or could be without the Beloved's beautiful form, the only Baba I had known and loved.

I remember watching Elizabeth and Kitty that Saturday as they immediately began attending to urgent details, the first being to contact as many people as possible in the nearby community with the news. I remember being struck, in the midst of my sadness, by their poise. They didn't let their grief stop them, even for a moment, from doing what had to be done. They seemed to know exactly what He expected from them and what would please Him.

It was years before I realized Baba had given me my first clue that day about what I was to do next. He had shown me, through the examples of Elizabeth and Kitty, that He hadn't gone anywhere, that He was directing their every action. I have often recalled something that happened during one of our morning sessions with Baba in 1962. We were listening to music, when Baba suddenly stopped everything and very deliberately pointed to Himself, gesturing, "I am not this form that you see. It is only a cloak I put on in which I come to visit you." He pointed to our hearts, saying, "Look within and see me as I really am. I am none other than the Highest within you." It wasn't until Baba shed that Divine Cloak, that I began to search for Him within.

Not having had the years of training with the Beloved these extraordinary women did, my journey to an inner awareness of Baba was just beginning and I would later recognize that this journey is the development of an inner relationship with Him.

I am still on that journey, continually discovering what it means to love and please Baba. My memories of being with Baba physically are treasures that are forever etched in my heart. But not a day goes by that I don't thank Him for giving me the opportunity to find the real treasure within.