Updates

I'm continuing my habit of sharing my thoughts at random, as well as providing updates on the "In Another Life" project. Lately I've been alternating between what is these days called a "blog," and actual updates. The previous entry will tell you more about my current marketing efforts.

Some of you may know (especially if you've spent some time on this website) that I'm a follower of Avatar Meher Baba. The term "Avatar" (when it is not watered down in popular usage to mean any sort of saint, or worse yet, an online pictorial icon) means Christ, Buddha, Messiah. Of course, we all know that he couldn't possibly have been what he claimed, right? There are so many who claim that title, and conventional wisdom would say that merely claiming such a thing takes him out of the running. Really-speaking, he said it; other people say he claimed it. What he, himself, said about it is that he knew he was the Avatar, in the same way that we know that we are a man or woman, and not a dog. If he were, in fact, the Avatar, what else would you expect him to say?*

Anyway, at 4:00 a.m. this morning the ideas for this Update, or blog, if you prefer, began coalescing in my mind, and I'm going to try to set them down.

Last night I had the whim to do an internet search on "Ways to Attain the Supreme Reality," a book of poetry penned by one of Meher Baba's close disciples, Malcolm Schloss. Malcolm, and his wife, Jean Adriel, according to the history, ran a metaphysical bookstore back in the 1930's in New York called the North Node. That was, of course, way before I was incarnate in this life, but I remember that sometime around 1975 in the early days of my following Baba, I saw signed copies of this book for sale at about $8.00/each, at Sheriar Press (the business in Myrtle Beach which, along with being a public printing firm, also prints the Meher Baba literature). The copies were just sitting there ignored, I suppose, because there was so much material directly by and about Meher Baba. In any case, I was so tight for cash that I wasn't sure I could afford the $8.00.

So, recently, some 30 years later, I had the honor to film and edit a video that will be used to introduce new visitors to the Meher Spiritual Center, in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, when they first arrive, or when they pop in to inquire about the place. When I was there recently to finalize it, the governing board surprised me by sending word for me to come into the room where they were meeting and had just viewed the film (on the pretext of the director wanting to see me) whereupon they surprised me by applauding and taking turns giving me hugs!

Now, as a filmmaker, what more could I possibly want? I mentioned in correspondence to Bruce Joel Rubin, writer of "Ghost," that I had done this video for the Center, and although he is a spiritual aspirant and respectful of Meher Baba, I could see by his polite response that it didn't mean anything in particular to him. I have a standing agreement with Bruce that when I find good reincarnation stories, especially love stories, I'll run them by him as possible grist for future screenplays. Of all the filmmakers, he has been the most successful in portraying the paranormal accurately, with both head and heart, to the general public, so I am hoping he may choose to do something on a reincarnation theme someday. So far in a couple years of trying, I haven't run across anything that's interested him. (If you have a true reincarnation love story, let me know and I may bring it to his attention.)

The point is, as a filmmaker, I'm happy, even if from the worldly standpoint I'm a total flop and have no worldly recognition whatsoever.

But back to Malcolm Schloss and "Ways to Attain the Supreme Reality." During this visit to the Meher Center, I was given a copy of a CD by the same name, in which singer and songwriter Jim Meyer has put the book to music, and I listened to the CD on the 7-hour drive back to Atlanta.

Here is where I can't convey anything to anyone who can't hear what I'm saying. This is the paradox--the paradox I've struggled with in producing my documentary, and in maintaining this website. It's the paradox I've addressed in earlier "Updates," and also in my comments on some of the musicians whose music graces these website pages (including this one). If you can't hear it, I can't make you hear it; if you can hear it, just a brief mention of it will be enough. As they say, "A word to the wise is sufficient."

So here's the thing about this album (and I'll put a link to it at the bottom so as not to distract here)--"sublime" is the only word I can think of that's appropriate. I mean, sublime as in transporting, enrapturing, transformative...as one writer in the Meher Baba literature put it, "words break their backs" trying to describe it.

So, realizing my stupidity in not purchasing a signed copy of this book when I had the chance, I had the whim last night to Google the title, first for signed copies (to see if I could rectify my mistake at this late date), and then the title only. (There actually was a signed copy within the memory of the internet, but it was long gone.)

What was initially disturbing, and then, fascinating, was this review panning the book. I'll reproduce it here in its entirety, rather than link to it, because I don't know how long the link will last.

This is the ABSOLUTE WORST poetry I've ever read. It's so bad it's really special. I can't bring myself to just give this book a wild release, because I'm afraid it would get thrown away! This either needs to go to someone who's genuinely interested in either of the authors, or someone who posesses a perverse enjoyment of the bad things in life, kinda like the girls from Ghost World.

It's a collection of 'interpretive' poems written by Malcom Schloss... who was aparently a disciple of Meher Baba... who was apparently a religious/spiritual guru... the book was published by some outfit called "Sufism Reoriented" in San Francisco. It was first printed in 1952, and this is from the second printing in 1972, so you could consider it the 20th anniversary edition, I guess. Although the fact that nobody found it to be worth printing in that span of 20 years probably says something.

Perhaps it's just my lack of personal experience with ecstatic religious experience... but it all sounds a bit homoerotic to me.

This is one of an odd collection of books I found in a box at the reusable area of one of the local dump stations yesterday... I figured any I liked, I'd keep and read. Any that didn't "grab me" would just be registered and released more-or-less immediately.

Now, one could simply chalk this up to differences in taste and opinion. For every rave review, one will always be able to find a negative one, for everything from music to restaurants. But there is much more going on here than a preference for Mexican food over Chinese, or a preference for rock music over ballads. This is more like someone who has never seen a radio and doesn't have electricity, throwing it off a cliff because he's decided it's a useless box. The writer does, however, address the real issue in his third paragraph, "Perhaps it's just my lack of personal experience with ecstatic religious experience."

Which is okay. This game of spirituality doesn't work the way I thought it did when I first began exploring it in the early 1970's, when I was in my late teens. It's not about experience, at least not in the sense of "experiences," and it's not about being "spiritual," in the sense of being pious, exactly, either. It's about karma beating the ignorance out of you, experience after experience, situation after situation, for so many lifetimes that you get exhausted. And on the other side, it's about CONTACT--contact with genuine spiritual masters, which can come directly, or it can come through their followers. Most often, I think, it happens unawares, like your reading this Update or just happening upon this website. And no, Meher Baba is not the only carrier of real spirituality you might run into and have a contact with--though it is true that the genuine ones are extremely rare. Still, even in running across the imitators, you might see something they borrowed from the genuine ones, and get a contact that way. Years ago I ran across a book by Paul Twitchell, and recognized an entire paragraph he lifted from Meher Baba's writings! I didn't mention it to anybody--who would believe me? Then only recently I read a biography of Twitchell, in which the author confirmed that he (Twitchell) did, in fact, have a habit of plagarizing. I feel, and felt at the time, outraged about it--but, could that paragraph have, in effect, provided an inner contact with a genuine spiritual master, i.e. Meher Baba, for people who could not abide Meher Baba outwardly? The genuine masters play a game of hide-and-seek that apparently includes even the false teachers. The imitators imagine that they are "playing" the master; but the master is actually "playing" them, not for any selfish gain, but for the greater spiritual good.** It is beyond us to understand it. I tried to give a small flavor of it in my article about Baba, found on my articles page (about 3/4 of the way down the page, where I figure serious seekers will find it, without arousing other people's ire for proscelytizing).

So, back to this fellow who panned "Ways to Attain the Supreme Reality." I look at things from an energy flow perspective. If you look at it this way, there is 98% resistance to spirituality in that review--but there is also 2% honesty. That tiny bit of honesty is the point at which the master has grabbed this person, inwardly, in his innermost being. This is the 2% contact point. He could not have come across this book if there were not something in his karmic past, some bright spot of spirituality, long buried but still alive, like a seed waiting to germinate. With this contact, that 2% will eventually become the 98%. I know, it happened to me. I was once the most cynical atheist you could imagine. Now, what used to be the 98%, for me, is the annoying 2% I'm trying to get rid of. I mean, not that I am enlightened or anything like that. I'm speaking of my response to God and to the master. What used to be 98% resistance with 2% responsiveness, is now 98% dedication with 2% annoying residue.

We have no idea. And I can't convey it to anyone who isn't receptive. But if you have that 2% within you, and you've gotten this far, you don't know it but you're a goner. Love will get you. As Jamie Newell, another of the magnificent musicians in the Meher Baba community, sings, "maybe early in the morning...maybe late on an evening..."***

Ah, what a treasure-house I wish I could share with people, in this most recent advent of the Avatar.

*Throughout history, it appears that some of the Avatars were more forthcoming about their spiritual office than others, depending on the culture and the people they were addressing. Krishna was quite clear about it, as was Buddha (if one equates the term "Avatar" with the term "Buddha"); Mohammed presented himself as a prophet (which was also not wrong, just not the whole story); and Jesus mentioned it at times, as when saying "I and my Father are One" (which got him crucified). One must go in depth into this mystery of what an Avatar is, before one assumes one understands it and dismisses it out of hand. Meher Baba said that each one of us is an Avatar, in a particular sense, because each of us is God, unconsciously; but that he was conscious of it, as each of us must and will be someday.

**My thought is that, like a judo expert, the master is simply taking the energy that the false teacher puts out at him, and, stepping aside, uses that energy for the spiritual benefit of mankind.

***If this offends you, you're probably taking it that I want you to adopt some ideology or other, or convert to some religion or other, and you're not getting my meaning.

Music opening this page: "High Landrons," Eric Johnson (Ah Via Musicom album)
All I can say is, if you have a chance to see Eric in concert, don't pass it up...
sell the car and hitch to the concert if you have to.