Usually, in our private channeling, I tell Steve to "just start typing." That means that he has to build up momentum so that my thoughts can take over his train of associations, and he has to start somewhere. In these public journals, however, we try to "hit the ground running." That doesn't always work so well. He's likely to think he has my thoughts, but there I am tapping my fingers, waiting for him to get it out of his system.

Yesterday, Steve ran across an old photograph online of his son, Charles, from his lifetime as Matthew. And he didn't recognize him. Not at first, anyway. The photo reminded him of Dick Smothers with a very large mustache. He seemed to have Matthew's nose, and not too much else from him, in terms of features. He looked sad, and hurt, to Steve. And then Steve seemed to remember a little--how he was a funny kid, how his mother, Matthew's second wife, Jane, talked him over to her side (as she tried to do with all three kids); how Matthew had to let him go his own way. How Matthew wished he had been in a position to help him more (this much is clearly portrayed in a letter we have, which is quoted in our first book).

Still, it's disturbing not to recognize your own son.* I told Steve, in our private channeling, that his strong feelings about this are left over from his feelings at the time. In other words, now he feels guilty for not recognizing him--then, he felt guilty for not having been able to help him more. It's the same guilt, carried over. Charlie, the funny one...

Feelings from past lives don't just dissipate into thin air. They remain in their full and complete potency until the opportunity for their expression arises again in some future life. This is the secret that Meher Baba has revealed in his writings; and this is also what past-life therapy is discovering.

Today, January 31st, is the anniversary of Meher Baba's passing, except that since leaving his body was under his voluntary control, it is called "dropping the body." This group calls it "Amartithi," which means, the "eternal date." Eternal because Meher Baba was in that state which transcends time.

Now, I have my own reasons for wanting to build an audience. But, like Steve, I am, and always was, a strongly independent spirit. Steve jokes that when we first met each other, as Matthew and Abby, we were like two dogs being walked in the park. There are lots of people around doing whatever they do, but no dogs. Suddenly, we see each other--"It's a dog!!! It's another dog!!!" :-)**

Steve is still just as funny as Matthew ever was. He tells me that a previous girlfriend (and what an idiot for letting him go!--and how I waited for her to get her claws off him!), used to tell him, "Your jokes aren't funny." Steve thought that was pretty humorous, in and of itself. Can you imagine, some bimbo telling one of the nation's beloved humorists, reincarnated, that his jokes aren't funny? Just another indication that she didn't deserve him.

I don't mean to be harsh, but you don't know what it has been like watching Steve be treated roughly by this series of women he tried to replace me with--now, and in the 1800's, after I died. Children playing marbles with a diamond, and the jeweler, unable to get it away from them, is wincing with every hit. Like that.

But all that is past, now. It won't happen again. Steve has pledged to be with me from now on, until we merge in the Truth, in the Light if you prefer. We are what some have called "twin flames."

Twin flame relationships are no piece of cake! Everybody tries to tear you apart, including and sometimes especially your own family, who inevitably have other ideas and think they own you. This is a story as old as time. Every sour-faced person on the planet can't stand two people being that happy together! And the entire planet seems to conspire to keep you apart, for lifetimes and lifetimes. But when you come together, world watch out. Because these two people are going to shake things up a bit.

So if the world can't keep them apart by force--because these pesky creatures keep on reincarnating and finding each other, despite its best efforts--then it (the world) begins to resort to trickery. They can be fooled. Fooled into thinking one of them has betrayed the other, for example. Fooled into thinking that the other person wants them to "move on" after one of them dies. Fooled into taking a substitute, and another, and another, until memory of the original beloved is only an inarticulate ache that won't ever let you alone.***

Does that ring a bell?

Now, Meher Baba, as has been pointed out to Steve, never talked about soul mates or twin flames. He did, however, give some of his disciples who were twin-flame couples joint names, like "FredElla." One such couple he called his "archangels." So he said it, he just didn't say it. Perhaps he knew it would cause too many complications at this time in history. I don't know his mind. His mind was the Universal Mind. Once a mind-reader tried to read his mind, and came up blank, and complained about it to Baba. Baba replied, "That's because I have no mind in the usual sense. I have only the Universal Mind, which to read, requires a Universal Mind."

That means his consciousness is everywhere at once and operating on everything at once. You can't fathom it--neither can I. One thought, one action, and a million carefully timed reactions. No wonder many of his actions seemed symbolic.

But do you know how he hides himself? He used to go incognito, when he visited Western countries. He still does. He hides himself under a poster.

That's right, a poster. Not literally, but the poster says, "Don't Worry, Be Happy." And then he got Bobby McFerrin to write that song. So, let's see--we have the Great Maha-Somebody-or-Other over here, who puts on a great show of his spiritual credentials as though he were running for political office (which he sort of is) on this side, and then we have that smiling Italian chef Meher Baba with the big nose and the big mustache, who says "Don't Worry, Be Happy" like McFerrin's happy-go-lucky song. Which one would you take seriously?

Well, in 1964, Meher Baba approved a pamphlet to be given out in an out-of-the-way booth in the 1964 World's Fair in New York. Steve was at that fair when he was 10 years old. But the photo Baba picked. You know, Meher Baba was divinely, intoxicatingly handsome as a young man. But the photo he chose to introduce himself to the Western world with, was one in which he was older. He had been crippled in two car accidents, especially the second one, which were part of his work of vicariously taking on the suffering of humanity. His beautiful nose had been flattened, and he hadn't had it repaired. He was overweight from being mostly chair-bound. His health was poor, for the same reasons. And yet in that photo, his eyes shine with the knowledge of Infinity, and the compassion that passes all understanding, because it, too, is Infinite. Those who can see, let them see.

So, this is what I wanted to talk about today, "Amartithi." Normally Steve rarely talks about Meher Baba on this website. He wrote an article about him, which he lets people find if it's their fate to find it. But I am Meher Baba's lover too, now, and I choose to commemorate the date. After all, this is my "blog" now.

Love and best wishes to each and all,
Abby

*From my studies, it would appear that past-life emotional memory is brutally honest. One recognizes those people one was truly close to. If, in actual fact, you weren't close to your son, you won't recognize him. The exception, in my experience, seems to be if there was an emotional block, which initially registers as no recognition and then "creeps up on you."--SS

**Or if you prefer a less camp example, it was like the Fourth of July fair in "A River Runs Through It," where Norman sees his future wife Jessie for the first time, and asks his friend, "Who is that?"--SS

***"And I forget the one who was so close to me, that he was me, and I was he, and he was me...long, and innocently."--"Quartet No. 6 in D Minor," The Free Design