Meher Baba Manifesting

MUSEUM

Meher Baba Center Northern California
Ursula Van Buskirk 1987

Whenever I remember Filis, I remember Meher Baba because Baba instructed me to meet her. Filis was a very special Baba contact because of that fact, but she was also a confidante and special buddy. She always had time to listen, even to the smallest nothing; she was never judgmental and she was a special friend to many, many people because of those qualities.

After I settled in Santa Barbara in 1966, Meher Baba instructed me, by letter, to meet Fills. I called and made arrangements to attend one of the weekly meetings in her home. My first impression was that she was unique she was the first 50-year-old "hippie" I had ever met. The people at the meeting were all much older. I was 21 at the time and to me they were a strange assortment of astrologer-occult types, the type of people I had not encountered before. Prominent among this group was a former Mr. America who claimed he was a "Breatharian" and upon seeing a chart of the Ten States of God from God Speaks, informed the group that he was so advanced that he was "off the chart." This was before the wave of younger seekers began coming to Baba, and while I liked Filis very much and was intrigued by her, 1 didn't spend much time at her meetings.

I left Santa Barbara in 1967 and Filis moved to New Jersey shortly thereafter. I didn't meet her again until 1971 when I was invited to give a talk to the Los Angeles group about my meeting with Baba. The group was entirely different by that time, mostly comprised of new, young followers of Baba, and Filis was the group's "Godmother."

From 1971 onward a very close friendship evolved and I began to know the person behind the sweet exterior, a very sensitive, intellectual type of person who was totally focused on her Beloved Baba through the many ups and downs of her life.

Filis was very psychic from the time she was a child and this faculty had caused her much suffering until Baba "toned down" her psychic abilities and made it much more bearable for her. While she was still very and saw auras at all times, she psychic and saw auras at all times, she was very matter of fact about it. Filis helped many other people with similar faculties put their abilities into a proper spiritual perspective was very matter of fact about it.

In 1971 she innocently told me there was a "boy soul" hanging around me all the time. I had no intention ofever having children, so I never gave it much thought, but surprisingly I became pregnant in 1983. I had an amniocentesis because of my age and it revealed I was carrying a boy. I can still hear Filis' innocent voice after I told her, saying, "I could have told you that."

Filis spent ten years from 1942 through 1952 living with, and in close connection to, Norina Matchabelli, Elizabeth Patterson, Nadine Tolstoy, Margaret Craske and others of Baba's early Western disciples. She endured many hardships and much suffering to maintain her relationship with this group. They were her connection and her hope ofone day meeting her Beloved Baba. Apparently she was severely tested during these years and she was a virtual treasurehouse of stories about Baba and His work in America through these great disciples. She seemingly had a photographic memory about all of these things and over the years we spent many hours, often until two or three o'clock in the morning, absolutely lost in the magic of these times.

When questioned about the source of her quotes or stories, her stock reply would be, "It's in the Awakener." And it always was, whenever I checked. She had a large archive of materials for the Awakener , a quarterlypublication she so lovingly tended over thirty years, often with no help and usually with financial strain. A lot of the material was given to her directly by Baba and much of it remains unpublished. Probably because of the Awakener was she allowed continual mail access to Baba, even during periods while Baba was in seclusion when most othets were forbidden to write.

In 1979, Filis invited me to accompany her to India both as a companion and to help her through the rigors of the journey. Naturally the friction that Baba stirs up ensued as soon as we arrived. It took the form of Filis' constant snoring and my almost total lack of sleep. This drove me to the limits of my patience, but her sweetness won out as she would innocently insist, "But I can't hear myself snoring," and I just couldn't stay mad. The trip was very special and I felt privileged to share in and witness herjoy at being there, especially at the Samadhi and when she would visit with Mehera.

I remember so many other stories and times with Filis, including our 1981 trip to Australia where she was the guest speaker at the anniversary celebration at Avatars Abode. She was particularly happy to be with Frances Brabazon, whom she deeply adnrired, as she was a talented poet in her own right. It was during this visit that she inadvertently stirred up a controversy among the Australian Baba lovers. Fills was a feminist and a liberared woman long before it was in vogue, and her talks to the Australian women naturally reflected her ideas about how they could be more involved in the affairs of the group there. This was quite at odds with the ideas of the Australian men as to the role of women, and some were very upset. I don't think she realized how deep were the sensibilities that she offended.

My favorite memory of Filis is when in 1977 a group of us took Adi K . Irani to San Francisco on BART, our local subway, and we went to a revolving restaurant on top of a large hotel. The drink of the day on the menu was a Banana Nirvana and we felt this was a nice little Baba touch to the occasion. Later as we toured the huge atrium lobby of the hotel, there was a band serenading the patrons ofone of the lobby restaurants. We requested Begin the Beguine and when they played it, Filis and Jack Small spontaneously began to waltz around the lobby even though there was no dance floor. Somehow that incident has always stuck with me as a reminder of the innocence and spontaneity she expressed in her love for her Beloved.

Filis had many times intimated that she remembered being my mother in past lives and somehow this seemed naturally right to me as it explained the closeness we felt with one another. A few days before she died I visited her in the hospital. This was an unexpected visit for her and she started crying when she saw me and her lips just said, "Surprise." This was obviously a goodbye visit and we held hands and shed tears; she was in great discomfort and seemingly too weak to talk. I was immersed in the overwhelming feeling of peace and of Baba's presence in that hospital room. After awhile, I became restless with the silence and somehow blurted out, "Maybe you'll be my mother again." Abruptly she sat up and with a suddenly found vigor said rather sternly, "I just want Baba." Most of all, that is how_I'll remember Fills.

Responsive Image Gallery

Resize the browser window to see the effect.