Ever since Baba’s father Sheriarji came down from Persia to Poona, the poetry of Hafiz and
other great Persian poets has had a special place in Avatar Meher Baba’s world. Which is why,
when casting about for a subject for Baba’s Birthday play, we thought of doing the life of
Jalaluddin Rumi. But we wondered, did Baba have a special liking for Rumi, as He did for
Hafiz?
Then someone remembered a story Padri used to tell from the 1920s at Meherabad. In those
days, the old dharmshala was a gathering place for Baba and His early mandali. Baba had just
had His bath, and was sitting there in a chair with the mandali sitting around Him on the
floor. His hands and feet were outstretched, and one of the mandali was trimming His
fingernails and another His toenails. Padri was standing nearby, looking at Baba. Buasaheb
was reading aloud to Baba in Persian from Rumi’s Divan. Padri said that Baba was so moved by
the poetry that His head and eyelids drooped, His chest and throat flushed a copperish red,
and the whites of His eyes had turned red too, “while gazing at His own beauty.” Padri
maintained it was the only time in all his years with Him that he saw Baba truly intoxicated.
Needless to say, we did choose Rumi’s life story for the play. Then in mid-January a group of
young musicians from Iran arrived for Amartithi, bringing with them a wonderful music from
Rumi’s world, a music that, as Meheru said, conjured up “caravans, and desert fires under
night skies…” The dervish wanderings of Sheriarji too, because the musicians had brought with
them three dervish drums called “daaft”. Shaped like large tambourines, they have little
rings lining the inside, which, when the drums are tossed in the hand and hit, give a
whooshing background to the strong beat. At a special concert for the mandali in Meherazad,
the young men sang Persian ghazals accompanied by the daaft drums, and one could easily
imagine Beloved Baba drumming His beautiful fingers on the arms of His chair in time to the
intricate rhythms. The mandali were delighted.
At Amartithi, as the Beloved would in His younger days, lovers sat up all night savoring
love-music, and savoring too the special atmosphere of His presence that Amartithi evokes
every year. The daaft was played everywhere then, and at all hours: near the eating tent,
under trees and on verandahs, on the big stage… And at dawn on the 31st itself, on the small
stage opposite the Samadhi before Baba’s gaadi-divan, amid a close cluster of singers and
pilgrims from all over the world. That setting was particularly magical, with its moving
backdrop of Baba-lovers standing in line for darshan at Baba’s Tomb. The music’s haunting
quality was perfect for the mood, a doorway to the longing and yearning for the ineffable
Beloved that is so tangible at Amartithi.
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Perhaps the most touching song the daaft sang was at the Meherabad cremation ground
in honor of the Irani group’s “leader”, an old-time, much beloved Baba-lover from Iran,
Khodabakhsh Mehraeen, who passed away right before Amartithi, in an Ahmednagar hospital, of a
heart attack. His death while on pilgrimage to Baba’s home had a special meaning for those
from Iran. They knew how he had been persecuted and driven out from his own city because of
his fearless proclamations of Baba’s Divinity. Years ago, the Zoroastrian elders had
proclaimed him outcast, and told him he would not be allowed into their burial place when he
died. Khodabakhsh had replied, “Then I will go to the house of my Father.” And so it turned
out: his Divine Father arranged Khodabakhsh’s last farewell in His own house.
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Although most of the Iranis will not be here, the taped rhythms of the daaft will sing again
in His birthday play. In another amazing “coincidence” from Baba, both an Irani dervish and a
Turkish Sufi whirler were among the Baba-lovers visiting Meherabad recently, and they taught
the cast some elementary “dervish whirling”. (Such whirling originated with Rumi, who would
whirl around a pillar in ecstasy when reciting his glorious love poems to Shamsi-Tabriz).
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Meheru commented about Amartithi that it was a time when “we truly feel His presence in
everyone we meet, as if the Awakener has been awakened by their love.” Which brings to mind a
quote from Rumi that seems specially apt for this Amartithi-Birthday season. He was speaking
of the Prophet, our own Beloved, who comes and goes, but as Eruch always reminded us,“lives
eternally in the hearts of His lovers.”
“The Prophet said that Truth has declared:
‘I am not hidden in
What is high or low.
Nor in the earth nor skies nor throne.
This is certainty, O beloved:
I am hidden in the heart of the faithful.
If you seek Me, seek
In these hearts.’”
-- (Rumi)
JAI BABA!
-Heather Nadel
10 Feb. 2002
for Tavern Talk
