Coming Dnto the Country of9od Sky Wiseman, Meherabad October 2005, my late wife Shar and I traveled to Meherabad, India for a one-month stay, a month where we would celebrate our tenth wedding anni versary in the company of Avatar Meher Baba and His close ones. I had just retired from my position after twen ty-seven years, and we hoped this would be the first of many extended stays in India, perhaps a prelude to establishing a part-time residence on the back side of Meherabad Hill where the land basks in His luminous grace. I was looking forward to working less outwardly and more inwardly less “Show” and more Substance. We departed our woodland home, Meher Brindaban in Virginia on October 14, leaving behind our dogs, Hafiz, Niki, and Mehera; our cat Poona; and our turtles Darshan, Darshana and Bob Brown, in the hands of our Baba associates Ken and Dhonna. It was an overcast day and the woods were misty and fragrant, poised for the autumn symphony. We ascended into the evening skywith great anticipation, and I was not able to come to frill grasp of the idea that this was a different sort oftrip, less ofa vacation than a change oflife. I tried to
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fathom the idea but my mindwas incapable of doing so. So I settled back for the ride and drank a glass of French red wine. We arrived to the lush smells ofBombay after midnight on October 16, the day Avatar Meher Baba started out on the great phase of His life known as the New Life, the life ofHelplessness and Hopelessness. We ate some luscious prawns and a garden burger in the Leela coffee shop before heading out on the road. As usual the rickshaws lined the quiet dreary streets in anticipation ofthe first rooster crows. A few dogs prowled in the trash, their heads barely visible between the mud puddles. We headed up and over the ghats, high mountains of tropical forest mist, in the early morning darkness. Everything was lush and pure and a ftill scale waterfall shot its power and freshness from across the deep valley.
October 21, 2005 I got up early this morning, about 4:30 and did some work on the computer looking at water and sanitation interven tions in Darftir, Sudan some lingering obligations that I had promised to complete. This is the first time I’ve been to India where I am not on a relatively short pilgrimage, but —
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instead we’re trying to see about staying in Meherabad for ionger periods, and build a little house on the heights behind the Hill. So I’m going through some interesting and difficult transitions this week. Yesterday I got locked out ofthe house for several hours the lock had clicked behind us when we went out and there was no way to open it. That lock isn’t even supposed to come into play as we’re using a big padlock on the outside and our key fits it. We don’t even have a key to the lock that clicked. So I spent a couple ofhours trying to get a key, and finally ended up breaking in the back screen door, doing relatively little damage to the slide locks at the tops ofthe doors. Easily repaired. I went to the Darbar and bought a coke in the midst of the key search, as it was very hot and I was walking back and forth through Mehera bad trying to reach various people for help. When I returned to the house, right before I finally broke in, Sangheeta, who helps here at the house, told me to sit down in the comfortable chair on the veranda. My pacing back and forth was undoubtedly bugging her. So I woke up today feeling the thrill of a new day in God’s Country. All the years we lived in Montana people always called it God’s country, but no, this is the Real God’s Country I left the house near dawn and walked beside the newly formed ponds along the road, the product of an intense four and a halfinch downpour with violent thunder and lightning that met us on our first night here. Earlier that day, just after we arrived from Mumbai by car a throng ofBabalov ers came marching along the Alimednagar Meherabad road, celebrating the New Life Trail, singing and chanting Meher’s Name as theywalked. Shar and I could hear them in the distance as they approached Meherabad, and then we went out to the —