have that Darshan—seeing Me as I should be seen.” Baba distinguished Real Darshan from the famous scene in the Bhagavad Gita, chapter 11, where Lord Krishna grants Arjuna the sight of His Universal Body. Arjuna pleaded for this cosmic vision, but the resulting form—with its myriad faces, innumerable eyes and limbs, and terrible jaws swallowing up armies of men and entire worlds—frightened him so much that he begged Krishna to withdraw it and restore His familiar merciful appearance. Meher Baba explained that this cosmic vision was not Real Darshan; in the latter there is only “ever-renewing bliss,” not fear. “The onlyway to have such Darshan lies through love,” Baba said. An especially delightful form ofdarshan occurs when one beholds the Beloved’s image in natural forms or other objects. The mind ofcourse projects imagery onto things that we look at, so that patterns of foliage, the markings on rocks, or cloud formations may suggest the familiar face ofBaba onwhichwe have focused so much attention. (I am reminded here ofa painting by Roger Stephens, showing Baba’s face appearing repeatedly in the clouds.) Aside from these more commonplace yet nonetheless heart-warming occurrences, there are a few truly exceptional events, most notably the distinctive image of Baba’s face that appeared on a tree trunk outside Mehera’s bedroom window in 1969 after Baba had dropped His body.
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Meherabad 1938 Photo by Elizabeth Patterson, used with permission of Buz and Wendy Connor
The Many Faces and Forms ofthe Avatar It is one ofthe remarkable things about the current Avataric advent that images of Him are so widely available in photographs and films and on the Internet, so that even after His passing, one can have darshan of His image. With none ofthe other Avatars identi fled by Meher Baba—Zoroaster, Rama, Krishna, Buddha, Jesus, and Muham mad—can we know for certain what they looked like. Rama and Krishna lived so far in the past that their images are thoroughly mythologized, with features such as blue skin. In the case of Muhammad, little iconography exists, since most branches of Islam forbid images of the Prophet’s unveiled face. The taboo against portraying images of living things comes not from the Qur’an but from the Hadith, the extra-Qir’anic sayings attributed to Muhammad. (Judaism has a similar
prohibition, against making any picture, image, or statue of God, as commanded in the Torah.) Despite this iconoclasm, a beautiful tradition of figurative painting developed in Iran, the land of Meher Baba’s heritage. Meher Baba has remarked that each time the Avatar comes, He has certain features in common:
Upasni Maharaj, Narayan Maharajandsuch p resent Perfect Masters have one personal defect or another. Upasni Maharafc stature is too big—like agiant. Narayan Maharaj is too small, short in stature—like a dwarf But this physical djfference between the Avatar and Sadgurus makes no real dffèrence in theirspiritualstatus, which is always divine. (Lord Meher 4. 1259)
the Avatar is always perfect in all respects, spiritually as wellas materially, and in particulai physically. TheAvatar always has a charmingpersonality with a beautjful, symmetricalface and body, while the Perfect Masters are generally ofodd size and shape physically, with certain defrcts sometimes so abhorrent that one does not even like to look at them. Christ, Muhammad, Zarathustra, Buddha, Ram and Krishna were Avatars and hence hadcharmingpersonalities. So is mine.
David Fenster reports in Mehera-Meher that Mani believed that the Avatar looks the same each time He comes, with a characteristic arch and long length of the eyebrow, slim legs, aquiline nose, and moderate height. But Mehera did not agree with this. She strongly felt the uniqueness of Baba: “Everything about Baba was perfect. His way oftalking, his singing, his gestures, his movements, his face. That’s why I tell Baba that every Avatar comes, but I want to be withMeher Baba, with our
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