Behind the Beauty

Meher Center’s whispering trees and and sun-grazed lakes have always felt sacred to me. But while many people look to nature for an experience of God, I don’t know of many times when Baba explicitly associated nature with spirituality. In fact, in 1937, He once chastised a Western lover for ending a pilgrimage early due to less-than-scenic surroundings: “God is not to be found only in peaceful atmospheres and among stones [mountains]. If He is to be found at all, He can be found in every atom of dust and dirt of cities and towns.”[I] At the East-West Gathering in 1962, He said, “If you want peace of mind…you can go for pleasant long walks in nature…But here is not the place to come for it, for if you come to me, remember that the spiritual path is full of hardships and sufferings.”[ii]

So why does nature on the Center still feel so special? I think it’s Baba’s presence permeating the beautiful outer forms. Even from the very beginning, when a group of Baba’s lovers first entered the virgin land to start planning the Center’s development, they felt Him with them. They roamed through the swamps and between the long-needle pines, calling His name.[iii]

Over the next eight years before Baba’s first visit, He gave His exquisite, exacting attention to the nature on Center. He requested that Darwin Shaw conduct a “Land Use Survey”[iv] and send Him a report detailing each section of the property. Before He ever set foot there, His eyes roved over descriptions of the sweet gum trees, the swampy ponds, the sand dunes, the cedar groves.

Baba finally visited in 1952, then again in 1956 and 1958. Of course, there is story after story about first meetings with Him in the Lagoon Cabin and discourses ringing through the Barn. But there were also the moments outside: Baba stopping to point out the glorious view over the trees to the Ocean; Baba hiking to Gator Lake, to the Beach, through the woods to His house; Baba giving a discourse or stealing someone’s hat to put on His own head, chatting and laughing and admonishing in the sunlight of those endless afternoons.

On a tour of the Center,[v] Darwin Shaw and his daughter Leatrice pointed out significant spots from Baba’s three trips. Many of them were trees. “We would notice that Baba liked to sit under trees and lean against them, have people gather around Him,” said Darwin. “Wherever we went with Baba, whether Brookgreen Gardens, Muir Woods [and Meher Mount] in California, and here too I recall Him sitting under trees…so this is one of those spots, made sacred by His presence,” said Darwin, gesturing to one of those luckiest of trees.

As part of the dedication of the Center in 1956, Baba stood outside the Barn with nearly 200 people gathered around Him. They could fit easily at that time; the area was open and sandy, the few oaks draped in Spanish moss. “Once again we had special time outdoors with Him,”[vi] recalled Leatrice about the ceremony, during which Baba planted a sapling, a holly tree.

Like everything in this fleeting mortal world, the holly tree died some years later. As I took from Baba’s words back in 1937, it doesn’t make sense to cling to the outer forms of nature as spiritual ends in themselves. But the Center is still magical, mystical, radiant. And it’s not solely the sunlight dappling the old oaks, the magnolias at full blossom on a birdsong-decked afternoon. The true beauty of nature at the Center is and always has been the touch of God.

[i] Lord Meher, Online Edition, by Bhau Kalchuri, p. 1805
[ii] Lord Meher, Online Edition, by Bhau Kalchuri, p. 4897
[iii] As Only God Can Love, by Darwin Shaw, p. 54
[iv] As Only God Can Love, by Darwin Shaw, p. 69
[v] “Meher Center Tour with Darwin Shaw and Daughters Leatrice and Renae,” video, Mehercenter.org
[vi] ibid.