Thanking Meher Baba - Perspectives from His Close Disciples
Avatar Meher Baba by Charles Mills. (Mills Studios)
Why Doesn’t Meher Baba Want Our Thanks?
Bif Soper, a long-time resident volunteer in Meherabad, India, the home of Meher Baba's Tomb Shrine, shared the following perspective on thanking Meher Baba based on personal conversations with Meherwan Jessawala (1930-2016). Meherwan and his entire family were deeply devoted to Meher Baba starting in the mid-1920s.
By Bif Soper
I remember having tea with Meherwan Jessawala on a work day at Meherazad [Meher Baba's last home].
During our conversation, Meherwan made the statement, "He (Meher Baba) does not want our thanks."
Several of us were perplexed by this assertion, because we were in the habit of thanking Baba for many situations that would happen in our lives.
At another tea with Meherwan, I asked him why he had said that Baba doesn’t want our thanks.
Merherwan replied that in his life with Baba, he and his family never thanked Baba because in their experience of Him being their Father, things happened naturally as you would expect a father to look after his children.
Even after Meherwan said this, I continued to ponder on his statement. Eventually what came to me is that when you thank someone you are balancing the books so that neither one is in debt to the other one.
But this is not what Meher Baba wants from us. What He wants us to do is to strive to love Him more and more and still yet more.
Even today, I ‘slip up’ by thanking Him and I have to remind myself to instead ask His help to love Him more.
"Just love Me and remember Me."
After reading Bif's story, Wayne Myers, one of Meher Mount's communications editors, sent this passage from Lord Meher online (pg. 4184) regarding an exchange between Meher Baba and Hoshang Bharucha in 1957.
"While leaving Meherazad after one visit, Hoshang thanked Baba for calling him to see Him. 'If you start thanking me for all that I do for you,' Baba replied, 'you will be doing nothing but saying 'Thank-you, thank-you' all 24 hours of the day! Instead just love Me and remember Me."
It’s All Right for You to Thank Him
Sam Ervin, a long-time volunteer for Meher Mount, sent the following based on an interchange involving Mani S. Irani (1918-1996), Meher Baba’s sister. When she was 13-years-old, Mani went to live with the women disciples in Meher Baba’s ashram.
By Sam Ervin
In the early 1990s, Mani was in Mandali Hall at Meherazad, [India], sharing stories of her life with Meher Baba and interacting with the pilgrims.
A woman told a personal story that ended with a good outcome for her. I don’t remember her story, but I’ll never forget what happened at the end of it. She said to Mani, "I thank Baba for that."
Mani quickly said, "Oh, Baba told us never to thank Him. You see, that implies that we are separate from Him."
Then she looked thoughtful for just a moment, and added, "But…it’s all right for you to thank Him."
I took this brief interchange as a sort of 'slip of the veil' between us and Meher Baba's mandali [close disciples]. I took it as Mani saying that Meher Baba wanted the mandali to not see themselves as separate from Him.
And at the same time Mani was recognizing that it is a very high bar for most of us, and that anything we do to remember Him and keep Him close, even thanking Him, is helping us to draw closer to Him.
Background: Early in November, Meher Mount asked for help in finding quotes or stories about gratitude and Meher Baba in conjunction with celebrating the American Thanksgiving this month.
Many joined in the search. Thank you. It turns out that there were almost no direct quotes from Meher Baba about expressing gratitude that we could find. (See “Two Spiritual Secrets” for an exception.)
Several people shared personal stories related to expressing gratitude to Meher Baba as seen through the eyes of His close disciples.