Friday, March 9, 2012
Thursday, March 8, 2012
The writers
Probably one of the least known of these was Hy Kraft, (1899-1975) who was convinced by Gabriel Pascal to write a treatment for one version of Baba's 'reincarnation film,' a film that was never made.
Hy Kraft was mostly a Broadway writer, and generally wrote comedies.
He is notable as one of those who were put on the Hollywood Blacklist in the 1950's by the Un-American Activities Committee.
Kraft wrote an autobiography, On My Way to the Theater, Macmillan, 1971. In it, of interest is a humorous reference to Karl Vollmöller, one of the other very famous writers that worked on Baba's movie script -- an entirely different version of it. He said that in Broadway and New York circles Vollmöller was referred to as "Norina's Matchabelli's husband," giving some idea of her notability. But it also seems to have been a teasing joke especially since Norina divorced Vollmöller in 1916 when Kraft was only 17 years old. ((:
Kraft's most famous play was the 1951 Broadway musical comedy, Top Bananas.
Saturday, March 3, 2012
The Black Panther
In the 1930's Meher Baba attracted numerous movie dignitaries, but none so enthusiastically as Gabriel Pascal, who heard of Baba through Norina Matchabelli. Both had studied theatre in Vienna in the same era. Baba formed a company with Pascal, who was assigned to be the director of a film on Baba's theme of reincarnation and the planes. The company was called Circle Productions, Inc. (after Baba's circle of mandali, much as his cinema was named Circle Cinema) and Pascal was assigned 50% of the royalties. Another large share was to go to the planned writer, Karl Vollmöller, and the remainder to Baba to be distributed as he liked. Shares were actually sold in this venture, which was incorporated with Baba as president. Baba later dropped the project, but said it would be made at some time in the future, and had to be made.
Above is a 1945 March of Times Newsreel from the making of Caesar and Cleopatra, featuring Gabriel Pascal at the helm directing. Pascal was an affirmed mystic and in this film it is interesting and makes one wonder when one notices (unless my eyes deceive me) that he directs with his eyes closed. The words he is calling out, hard to hear in his deep Hungarian accent, are "Tess, Tess, come to the eagle (a statue apparently of an eagle)."
You often hear that Pascal was Romanian (as in this Newsreel) as well as Hungarian. The confusion arises over the frequently changing borders and identity of the area in which he was born, Transylvania. At the time of Pascal's birth (1894) this region was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and Pascal and his wife (best friends with the Gabors, Zsa Zsa and her husband) identified themselves as definitely Hungarian.
Pascal liberated his wife Valerie from behind the iron curtain after his success, and she later wrote his biography, The Disciple and His Devil (Pascal, Valerie, The Disciple and His Devil. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1970). It is an exciting tale, worth the read, now in paperback from iUniverse, and mentions previously unpublished accounts (and still unpublished besides her books) of Pascal's life with Baba, as well as mention of the Rudds and other Baba lovers. She herself was not a Baba lover, and essentially disliked them. To my knowledge Valerie is still alive and lives in Palm Beach, Florida with an unlisted number, and does not seem to want to be bothered. Her reprinting of her biography of Pascal through iUniverse in 2004 was the last clue of her still being alive.
"Black Panther" was one of the two nicknames Baba had for Pascal, the other being his Phoenix. Baba never said why, but said his connection with Pascal was ancient.
Plato's Cave
The Analogy of the Cave is a metaphor on seeing and reality by the Greek philosopher Plato.
For more about Plato's cave analogy and how it pertains to Baba's teaching see this page from my website about the intelligence notebooks.
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Seeking Baba In Your Heart
In early 1987 I made a film that lost a lot of money for our family and friends, and by the end of 1987 this was obvious, leaving both my parents (Lyn and Phyllis Ott) feeling a bit down.
In 1988 my father, who had grown increasingly forlorn due to having no clear direction in his life since his painting career came to an abrupt end due to blindness in 1976, and more so due to his disappointment over my own fiasco in which our family had invested much hope and resources, was looking for something to take his mind off of his troubles. He increasingly asked himself, “Where is Baba now?” Coincidental with this downturn in my father’s life it just so happened that he received an invitation to come to New York where a group was claiming that one of its members was receiving new “messages” from Meher Baba via channeling. It was said that the woman receiving the messages reported that she was told by this voice that Lyn Ott of Myrtle Beach should be asked to come to New York to hear the messages at one of their meetings.
Lyn was understandably excited, and immediately went to New York at his own expense to sit in on a meeting in which the messages were transmitted as the group sat. The voice had messages particularly for Lyn. At once Lyn got out of his depression and became reinvigorated, believing it to be Baba at last making contact with him personally. Lyn began to rush back and forth from Myrtle Beach to New York to attend these meetings, and return refreshed and enthusiastic about what he had heard.
Lyn told me at the time, on his returns, what some of these messages were, and I told him at once I thought they sounded absurd, nothing like Baba, and in fact that the whole thing sounded absurd and felt he ought to stop. Worried for my father’s sanity and common sense, not that any of us are perfect, I did not know what to do. So I told many people about this in private, hoping to learn of any clue what I could say to my father to get him to let this go, and continue on with his life and deep inner connection with Baba, which incidentally prior to this and afterward was always very strong.
During this time I happened to visit Irwin Luck (a long-standing Baba lover, still alive today in Myrtle Beach, who met Baba in the 1960s), concerning some other issue, but brought up my concern of for my dear father. When I told Irwin my concern he instantly showed an expression of understanding, and in his inimitably humorous way, in stages meant to heighten the drama of what he was leading up to, he informed me that this was all very interesting to him. Because, Irwin began to dramatically unravel, as if he were building to a punch line worth waiting for, this had happened once before. It turned out that once long ago, when he and his brother had been members of the Miami Beach Florida Baba group, one of their own members had also made this claim to be receiving channeled messages from Baba. And the group had gotten very excited about it. He and his brother were, like me, interested but concerned. But luckily, Irwin allowing my expectation of what he was going to say to increase, enjoying my anticipation, Baba was still in the body. For this event happened to be in 1962.
All of these events I recently confirmed and went over with a telephone call to Irwin, and the letter I am about to describe and quote he still has in Myrtle Beach for anyone to examine.
His brother and he wrote a letter to Baba asking him about the channeled messages, and what to make of them. And they got a reply. Irwin then proceeded to bring down from his files this very letter that he still has, and here I quote the relevant passage:
The reply from Baba came on August 24, 1962. It was written by Eruch Jessawala from dictation directly from Baba.
When I read the letter to my father, he was not moved. He sought ways to work around the wording, seeking nearly any rationalization that this could not apply to his connection via this channeling medium. And he proceeded to ignore the letter and continue to make these trips to New York to hear further messages.
Now on one of these trips to New York, during one of these channeling messages, Lyn got a message “from Baba” (through the channel) that he must go to India to talk to Bhau and tell him about the group, for Bhau too (according to the channel) had been seen moving about in the room.
Lyn of course obeyed and flew at his own expense to India to talk with Bhau as instructed by the message. When Lyn approached Bhau in India, Bhau told him the following, and I quote very precisely for my father was very irritated by what Bhau told him:
“Baba doesn’t work that way”
and that this vision was not of Bhau.
Feeling disappointed by Bhau’s definitively negative reaction, Lyn turned to Eruch Jessawala, Baba’s closest male disciple, and asked to have a word with him privately. They met privately and Lyn divulged to Eruch all I have told here. While I cannot recall all that Eruch said, which was fiercely negative about the whole affair, I can report verbatim what my father said in general, for it stung my father very deeply and caused him to let it go. He said to me, upon his return, “Eruch talked to me like I was a teenager on drugs.” I swear these are the exact words my father said to me in regard to Eruch’s response, for it left quite an impression on both of us.
This pained Lyn greatly, for he had grown very attached in his heart to this group and these messages, and after thinking for some time, confided in me that he would listen to Eruch and let the group go, though he said he could not let them go in his heart, but only in practice.
There is one other part of this story that is of importance, confided in me by my mother (Phyllis Ott) long ago but told here for the first time with her permission. During the time that Lyn was engaged in this channeling group, Phyllis went to India herself, bringing with her a cassette tape recording of one of these channeled messages during one of these secret meetings, which she had never attended, but had somehow attained. She too was very upset by the whole affair. She brought this tape to Eruch and asked him to listen to it, wanting him to know too what was going on. When she showed Eruch the tape he told her to throw it away, and refused to listen to it.
Phyllis also told me that before Eruch died, she asked him where Baba was, and Eruch said, “I ate him,” by which she said he went on to explain Baba was in all of us. He is not in some “Divine Palace” as some Theosophists like to declare their ascended masters reside after they "ascend alive," from which they go on “working" on the affairs of illusion.
I conclude this post with the telegram prepared by Adi Sr., Eruch Jessawala and Francis Brabazon upon Baba's dropping his body on January 31, 1969:
AVATAR MEHER BABA DROPPED HIS PHYSICAL BODY AT TWELVE NOON 31ST JANUARY AT MEHERAZAD TO LIVE ETERNALLY IN THE HEARTS OF HIS LOVERS." (LM 6717)
That is where Meher Baba always was and eternally IS! In the hearts of His lovers. Look for Him there, and in the hearts of others.
I need to add one aside. In late 1969, when I was just ten years old, a Baba lover passing through Myrtle Beach gave me an ink-stamp that when you pressed with ink on paper read, “Meher Baba is alive in the hearts of his lovers.” I was so intrigued by this gift (I enjoyed stamping all kind of things with it) that I designed with it a Baba card, simply by putting a picture of Baba on the back of an index card and then pressing my stamp beneath it as carefully as I could to be its slogan. I then asked my parents if they could have it printed up for me to hand out, yet, to my utter irritation, they thought it might be a good idea if Elizabeth Patterson approved of it first. To my chagrin, we loaded into the station wagon and headed over to Elizabeth’s house (Dilruba on the Meher Spiritual Center) and showed it to her. She said that it seemed fine to her, but that it needed one correction. She said that it should be changed to read, “Meher Baba is alive eternally in the hearts of his lovers.” I was so irritated, since I did not know how to make a new stamp, that I gave the whole project up, thinking Elizabeth quite daft.
But now I finally think I do understand what she meant. She said to me, “If you say Baba is alive, some people will not read further (something I thought irrational of her at the time, but now get), but they will simply think that Baba is alive somewhere." But if I added “eternally,” she said, they will know what I mean.
Today, people are starting to want to put Baba everywhere but in their heart. They put him in Heaven, in Shangri-La with the ascended masters, in the “Divine Palace,” not grasping at all that Baba is “in” the state of nirvakalpa samadhi, which is the state where Self is experienced and illusion (shadow, Maya, the Nothing, the universe, duality) is not. In this state (which is by the way the true meaning of Shambala according to Baba, not an astral place - see below) God experiences his infinite power, knowledge, and bliss, but does not use them. (For this fact see nirvakalpa samadhi, GS p. 166, online version, which is the same as the 1997 current printed version)
Garrett Fort: Is there really the place known as Shambala, the Astral centre where the Masters dwell in disembodied form?
Baba: It is presumed that you already know that planes are not places. The state and stage connoting Shambala exists. There is difference of terminology only. This is also known as Vidnyan. (The Answer, ed. Naosherwan Anzar, pp. 26-28, also Treasures from the Meher Baba Journals, ed. Patterson/Haynes pp. 195-197)
PS. My father never again spoke of ascended masters. Before he went into a coma on April 18, 1998 he wrapped himself in the shawl that Meher Baba himself had given him during his meeting in 1965, and lay down on his couch. A few days later my sister Leslie held his hand as went to his beloved.
Update 3/3/12:
In the original version of this post I had an error in the final paragraph, now corrected, due to not being present and having some misconceptions about the passing of my father. Perhaps it is fortuitous that this happened as I now have been fully brought up to speed. I had said in the original post that Chris Grey was in the hospital room alone with my father when he passed away. It was actually my sister Leslie Walsh and Judy Gregory, along with the attending nurse, that were in the room at the moment of Lyn’s passing. I apologize for this error, based on putting events together from accounts as I thought I understood them (I was not present). My sister Leslie, who was in fact present at the moment of my father’s death (not Chris Grey, though Chris was there briefly during this period of his dying but not at the exact moments, which is explained by my sister in her appended letter), has at my request provided the exact sequence of the events of our father’s passing, which I have posted here. Once again, I apologize to my sister Leslie especially, whom I love, for getting my facts wrong and hurting her feelings. It was certainly unintentional.
 |
| Lyn Ott, about 1988 |
Lyn was understandably excited, and immediately went to New York at his own expense to sit in on a meeting in which the messages were transmitted as the group sat. The voice had messages particularly for Lyn. At once Lyn got out of his depression and became reinvigorated, believing it to be Baba at last making contact with him personally. Lyn began to rush back and forth from Myrtle Beach to New York to attend these meetings, and return refreshed and enthusiastic about what he had heard.
Lyn told me at the time, on his returns, what some of these messages were, and I told him at once I thought they sounded absurd, nothing like Baba, and in fact that the whole thing sounded absurd and felt he ought to stop. Worried for my father’s sanity and common sense, not that any of us are perfect, I did not know what to do. So I told many people about this in private, hoping to learn of any clue what I could say to my father to get him to let this go, and continue on with his life and deep inner connection with Baba, which incidentally prior to this and afterward was always very strong.
During this time I happened to visit Irwin Luck (a long-standing Baba lover, still alive today in Myrtle Beach, who met Baba in the 1960s), concerning some other issue, but brought up my concern of for my dear father. When I told Irwin my concern he instantly showed an expression of understanding, and in his inimitably humorous way, in stages meant to heighten the drama of what he was leading up to, he informed me that this was all very interesting to him. Because, Irwin began to dramatically unravel, as if he were building to a punch line worth waiting for, this had happened once before. It turned out that once long ago, when he and his brother had been members of the Miami Beach Florida Baba group, one of their own members had also made this claim to be receiving channeled messages from Baba. And the group had gotten very excited about it. He and his brother were, like me, interested but concerned. But luckily, Irwin allowing my expectation of what he was going to say to increase, enjoying my anticipation, Baba was still in the body. For this event happened to be in 1962.
All of these events I recently confirmed and went over with a telephone call to Irwin, and the letter I am about to describe and quote he still has in Myrtle Beach for anyone to examine.
His brother and he wrote a letter to Baba asking him about the channeled messages, and what to make of them. And they got a reply. Irwin then proceeded to bring down from his files this very letter that he still has, and here I quote the relevant passage:
The reply from Baba came on August 24, 1962. It was written by Eruch Jessawala from dictation directly from Baba.
"Baba has only one message to you, and this is love God. So do not seek various messages through various mediums or channels, nor be deceived into thinking that Baba is sending his messages through any of you. This seeking of so-called messages leads a sincere aspirant astray, and grossly endangers his spiritual progress. Baba is telling you all this because he loves you both and because you and the group are dear to him. Baba wants you to read this out to the group, or send copies of this letter to those that are away." (Meher Baba, letter to Ed and Irwin Luck in Miami, 1962).Irwin made a copy for me there and then to read to Lyn and I was very excited to receive it and take it to him, feeling I at last had proof from Baba himself that this was not what Lyn thought it was.
When I read the letter to my father, he was not moved. He sought ways to work around the wording, seeking nearly any rationalization that this could not apply to his connection via this channeling medium. And he proceeded to ignore the letter and continue to make these trips to New York to hear further messages.
Now on one of these trips to New York, during one of these channeling messages, Lyn got a message “from Baba” (through the channel) that he must go to India to talk to Bhau and tell him about the group, for Bhau too (according to the channel) had been seen moving about in the room.
Lyn of course obeyed and flew at his own expense to India to talk with Bhau as instructed by the message. When Lyn approached Bhau in India, Bhau told him the following, and I quote very precisely for my father was very irritated by what Bhau told him:
“Baba doesn’t work that way”
and that this vision was not of Bhau.
 |
| Eruch Jessawala |
This pained Lyn greatly, for he had grown very attached in his heart to this group and these messages, and after thinking for some time, confided in me that he would listen to Eruch and let the group go, though he said he could not let them go in his heart, but only in practice.
There is one other part of this story that is of importance, confided in me by my mother (Phyllis Ott) long ago but told here for the first time with her permission. During the time that Lyn was engaged in this channeling group, Phyllis went to India herself, bringing with her a cassette tape recording of one of these channeled messages during one of these secret meetings, which she had never attended, but had somehow attained. She too was very upset by the whole affair. She brought this tape to Eruch and asked him to listen to it, wanting him to know too what was going on. When she showed Eruch the tape he told her to throw it away, and refused to listen to it.
Phyllis also told me that before Eruch died, she asked him where Baba was, and Eruch said, “I ate him,” by which she said he went on to explain Baba was in all of us. He is not in some “Divine Palace” as some Theosophists like to declare their ascended masters reside after they "ascend alive," from which they go on “working" on the affairs of illusion.
I conclude this post with the telegram prepared by Adi Sr., Eruch Jessawala and Francis Brabazon upon Baba's dropping his body on January 31, 1969:
AVATAR MEHER BABA DROPPED HIS PHYSICAL BODY AT TWELVE NOON 31ST JANUARY AT MEHERAZAD TO LIVE ETERNALLY IN THE HEARTS OF HIS LOVERS." (LM 6717)
That is where Meher Baba always was and eternally IS! In the hearts of His lovers. Look for Him there, and in the hearts of others.
 |
| Elizabeth Patterson |
But now I finally think I do understand what she meant. She said to me, “If you say Baba is alive, some people will not read further (something I thought irrational of her at the time, but now get), but they will simply think that Baba is alive somewhere." But if I added “eternally,” she said, they will know what I mean.
Today, people are starting to want to put Baba everywhere but in their heart. They put him in Heaven, in Shangri-La with the ascended masters, in the “Divine Palace,” not grasping at all that Baba is “in” the state of nirvakalpa samadhi, which is the state where Self is experienced and illusion (shadow, Maya, the Nothing, the universe, duality) is not. In this state (which is by the way the true meaning of Shambala according to Baba, not an astral place - see below) God experiences his infinite power, knowledge, and bliss, but does not use them. (For this fact see nirvakalpa samadhi, GS p. 166, online version, which is the same as the 1997 current printed version)
Garrett Fort: Is there really the place known as Shambala, the Astral centre where the Masters dwell in disembodied form?
Baba: It is presumed that you already know that planes are not places. The state and stage connoting Shambala exists. There is difference of terminology only. This is also known as Vidnyan. (The Answer, ed. Naosherwan Anzar, pp. 26-28, also Treasures from the Meher Baba Journals, ed. Patterson/Haynes pp. 195-197)
“This State VIII of God is of the highest divine consciousness, which is the ahadiyat (halat-e-Muhammadi) or the vidnyan. All God-realized beings—the Majzoob-e-Kamil (Brahmi Bhoot), Majzoob-Salik (Paramhansa), Azad-e-Mutlaq (Jivanmukta), Qutub (Sadguru), and Rasool (Avatar)—retire to this state B of God in the Beyond after disembodiment.” (GS 184, online version, which is the same as the 1997 current printed version)Vidnyan is the “resting place of the Masters.” (GS p. 226, online version, which is the same as the 1997 current printed version)
PS. My father never again spoke of ascended masters. Before he went into a coma on April 18, 1998 he wrapped himself in the shawl that Meher Baba himself had given him during his meeting in 1965, and lay down on his couch. A few days later my sister Leslie held his hand as went to his beloved.
Update 3/3/12:
In the original version of this post I had an error in the final paragraph, now corrected, due to not being present and having some misconceptions about the passing of my father. Perhaps it is fortuitous that this happened as I now have been fully brought up to speed. I had said in the original post that Chris Grey was in the hospital room alone with my father when he passed away. It was actually my sister Leslie Walsh and Judy Gregory, along with the attending nurse, that were in the room at the moment of Lyn’s passing. I apologize for this error, based on putting events together from accounts as I thought I understood them (I was not present). My sister Leslie, who was in fact present at the moment of my father’s death (not Chris Grey, though Chris was there briefly during this period of his dying but not at the exact moments, which is explained by my sister in her appended letter), has at my request provided the exact sequence of the events of our father’s passing, which I have posted here. Once again, I apologize to my sister Leslie especially, whom I love, for getting my facts wrong and hurting her feelings. It was certainly unintentional.
Saturday, February 25, 2012
Meher Baba on Dreams
Elizabeth: "What are dreams?"
Baba: "Dreams are subconscious experiences which are always linked with your gross experience of the past. Sometimes, in your dreams, you see persons you never saw in this life. This link is from the past. It is all based on illusion and imagination."
Elizabeth: "Then how was it that when I was twelve years old I dreamt of you three different times, and when I first met you I recognized you as the one I had known in the dream? That was not illusion."
Baba: "What I mean," replied Baba, "is everything except your being infinite, is illusion. I am very ancient. Very, very old and always young." (LM 2086)
Dreams were also brought up by Ella Winterfeldt with Baba, in particular because she had had a dream of Baba the night before. On this page Baba speaks to Ella in response to her sharing with him that she dreamed of him the previous night, and Baba uses this opportunity to tell her a story. Baba takes the chance of the subject of dreaming to explain to Ella how the Avatar comes into this dream of life to tell us we are dreaming. But he uses the analogy of an ordinary dream. He is not saying he has come to her during the night in her dream. Here is exactly what Baba said to Ella, from Lord Meher pages 4964, 4965.
More interviews followed. At 4 P.M., Baba called Ella Winterfeldt in to ask how many were left. Ella had dreamt of Baba, and he told her, "Ella my dear, all the world is an illusion; it is a dream and only God is real."
Baba called all those waiting in the other room – over one hundred – and when they had assembled, he asked Ivy Duce to repeat what he had just told Ella. She, however, did not have her tape recorder running, so she began from memory, but not too exactly, for Baba interrupted her, gesturing, "You speak as if you were in a dream!" After the laughter that followed, Baba himself narrated:Have I had dreams of Baba. Yes. A few. They are very reassuring to have, though I would not say of anyone who had never had one that he or she had any less relationship with Baba, or conscious connection with him, or past lives with him, than me. It means nothing, though it is a lovely and, as mildly assuring thing that tells me that perhaps he is on my mind, or in my subconscious. But nothing of significance was ever shared with me by any such dream. And if one wants to take directions or discourses from one who claims that Baba is directing or revealing to him in his own, one takes their own gamble. I personally would never do such a thing. I have already one master, and he has left me more than I can digest in one life, and left this earth saying he had completed his work.
Baba told Ella that all this is nothing but a dream. Only God is real. And God is in everything, in you and in me. When Ella goes to sleep and sees the dream in her sleep, her body is on the bed. Yet she goes about, engrossed in the body; she enjoys a good dinner, eats well, feels happy. Then, sometimes she feels very sad, she suffers. Both pleasure and pain are there in the dream, yet the body is there on the bed. It does not go anywhere; it does not do anything; yet it enjoys.
Baba comes there in the dream while she is enjoying or while she is suffering an illusion, and Baba tells her, "Ella, don't worry; this will all disappear. It is nothing but a dream."
But she answers, "Baba, how is that? I suffer. How can I help it, Baba? I see you, I see others. Some are troubling me. Some are giving me pleasure. How can I believe it is nothing but a dream? How can it be so real?"
But as soon as she wakes up in the morning, she realizes that she saw only a dream, that Baba had come in her dream and explained that it was nothing but a dream, that she should not suffer, she should not weep. But she did not listen to Baba, so she starts weeping as she works, remembering the dream at night. Then Baba tells her: "Ella, that was a dream when you slept. But now I say this is another dream; while you are living and working, while you are sitting here near me, all that you see here, this New York City, and my lovers here, and Baba himself sitting here, it is nothing but illusion; it is a dream."
Then Ella says: "Baba, this is too much! I cannot believe that because I see them, I hear them. I see you here, sitting near me, explaining to me." Still, Baba insists, saying to Ella, it is nothing but a dream. Then after years, after Baba's grace descends, Ella suddenly wakes up from this vacant dream, and what does she find? She finds only God is real and infinite. When she experiences that bliss, that infinite bliss, unlimited, continuous, then she realizes what Baba said was true.
I have also been asked what I would do if Baba appeared to him. I would laugh it off as an illusion, for God is formless and needs no miracles. As it is said, if you see the Buddha (in meditation) kill him, for he is not the Buddha. See this article for what I think is a fairly good clarification of this idea.
Elizabeth Patterson: "Where do we go when we go to sleep?"God is not in a Divine Palace. God is everywhere.
Baba: "Everywhere! You are always everywhere. Even now, though fully conscious, you are not conscious that you are everywhere, because the mind always has the natural tendency of losing its identity. Is that clear?" (LM 2086)
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