On Sacred Ground

The Calendar

Jesus said, “I will come again and receive you unto myself.”
– John 14:3

Shortly after Meher Baba had dropped His body, Meheru and Dr. Goher had an appointment at the dentist’s office. While waiting for their turn, they noticed a Christian calendar on the wall, with the above quotation. Knowing Mehera would like the message, they asked the doctor if they could have the calendar. From the dentist’s office, this simple calendar found its way to God’s home.

Mehera loved the message so much that she had the calendar put up on the wall, just inside the entrance to Baba’s house, where it has remained ever since. She felt it was a testimony to the Avatar’s coming time and again as the God-Man, collecting His near and dear ones from around the globe.

“See,” Mehera would tell us all as we sat listening to her recount stories from her life with Baba, “His words are always true. Jesus said He would come again and He has come, this time as Baba. His beautiful love has drawn you here.”

For Mehera, that prophesy was fulfilled each 31st January when she witnessed His lovers from all over the world converging on Meherabad Hill to keep their date with the Eternal Beloved. And, as the years after 1969 rolled by, she found sweet solace in meeting those young lovers who heard His silent Love-call and came on pilgrimage to Meherabad and Meherazad.

In those early years when Mehera lived on the very edge of her unfathomable grief at Baba’s passing, she would often close her eyes as she spoke to us, reliving her life with Him. Then, in one graceful movement, she would rise from her seat and disappear into the house, returning a moment later with the worn calendar, enclosed in plastic for protection, and read its message to the pilgrims seated on her verandah. In that simple gesture, in Mehera’s absolute and wholehearted faith and love for the One who is Love Personified, we glimpsed what Baba meant when He said, “Mehera loves Me as I should be loved.”

In return, Baba gave Mehera the joy of seeing His words realized in the shining eyes of His lovers, thirsting to hear her stories and to bask in the warmth of the pure love emanating from her being. For Mehera wanted the whole world to come to Baba. She wanted us all to love Him as He should be loved, as only she loved Him.

Sometimes, Baba’s sister Mani, with a twinkle in her eye, would tell us that she had beseeched Mehera, “Please, Mehera, don’t pray for the whole world to come. Not yet, not now; let the world wait till after we are gone.”

—Davana Brown for Avatar Meher Baba Trust, 30 April 2015