PART THREE
Reminiscences of the City of Lost Angels
By Filis Frederick
It is July, 1956.
PART FIVE
"We remained in Pasadena at that location for four happy years. In the summer of 1973 we moved into a new building. What prompted the move was that one of our volunteer workers had her purse stolen. We took it as a sign from Baba that it was time to move to a nicer neighborhood. We moved to an area in the business district, 393 East Green Street (another one-way street!) We obtained a more spacious building that had been used for decades as a real estate agency. There was a private office, meditation room, children's room, men's and women's bathrooms, a nice bookstore area, and a separate meeting room with a lovely high ceiling.
"We were less "hippyish" by that time so there were no longer flowers on the windows! We flourished, the community of Baba's lovers grew and was nourished, and we stayed until July of 1977. Our very last meeting was with Adi K. Irani who was our special guest at that summer's 3rd annual Sahavas.
"While we were at our Green Street address, in 1974, we made the legal change into a nonprofit corporation. We then became officially and legally, the "Avatar Meher Baba Center of Southern California." For the 5 years that we had been the Meher Baba Bookstore we had been run by a "steering committee" which was made up of anyone who wanted to be on it. We usually met once a month. However, when we became a corporation we changed our format to a 9-member board of directors, chosen from among the Baba community in an annual democratic election.
"Our area of town came under the aegis of a new city redevelopment plan and we had to vacate. It wasn't for another three months that we reopened - this time in the city of Los Angeles. We had a wonderful 8½ year stay in Pasadena!"
One day in the 60's, the phone rang and someone asked to speak to Meher Baba. I said, "He's silent, and He's in India." It was the producer of the Joe Pyne show. He said, "Will He come and break His silence on our show?" I said, "I don't think so." Anyway, they invited me as a guest on their half-hour TV show. I consented to be introduced as "the woman who says she met God in human form." I had a trial run on their radio show where I teased Pyne about reincarnation. I said I knew him long ago in China. "In the Teahouse of the August Moon?" he quipped. I said "Maybe, and you were a skeptic then, too!" I think my sense of humor convinced him I was OK for a TV interview. On TV, for the first 10 minutes he was more or less polite, then he became abrasive. He didn’t really care, or listen for your answers. He just wanted to upset you — as he had done to the previous interviewee who I had watched. He had brought to tears a housewife who had written an innocuous book about her visit to Russia; I vowed silently he wouldn't upset me. So when he thrust my Awakener magazine up to the camera, sneering, "Is this the face of God?" I remained calm. In the breaks for commercials, he got his audience tittering by telling dirty jokes. Then he used the derisive tittering as background for his questions. It hit me on an ancient nerve — laughter at the Godman. I was back in the streets of Jerusalem on the way to Calvary. I glanced over at Mr. Pyne and saw "psychically" blood was pouring out of his chest. It's a curious fact that two or three weeks later he died of a lung hemorrhage. Because of this, my half hour interview on Baba was played over and over again, about seven times, with a million viewers each time. It was also shown nationwide. Even years later, people recognize Baba’s face from that brief appearance on his show. So old Joe Pyne did his bit for the Avatar, although in reverse gear.
It was 2 a.m. February 1, 1969, when Ivy Duce phoned me that Baba had dropped His body. Don Stevens had called from London, hearing the news from Baba's brother, Adi. Jr. I waited a while, in a state of shock, then phoned Margaret Craske in New York — 5:30 a.m. her time, and asked her to call the Myrtle Beach Center. Fred Winterfeldt didn't believe the news and cabled India. Yes, the Master had left us, physically. But only a few garbled lines appeared in the L.A. Times (UP) that a silent holy man, Meher Baba, had died in a cave in North India! They would not print a retraction. But Elliott Mintz on radio announced Baba's death beautifully. The underground papers reported it with photo and vita. The Cosmic Star published Rick Chapman's long account. But how was I to tell all those dear young people who had never met Him? Especially those that had signed up for the '69 Last Darshan trip to meet Him in April? Two chartered planes were reserved. Fortunately, two stalwarts, Jack Small and Susan Herr, took over. Quickly, the young lovers gathered at my home. The love and devotion in their hearts for Baba held up under this blow to their hopes, and were an inspiration to me. As one said, "We never saw Baba in the body, so we will not miss it but we will feel His Love."
Some did drop away from the chartered plane flight (set for April 9 in combination with the Sufis up north). In the end, only one planeload left. I had a hectic time reorganizing the group flight — "hippies" were notoriously careless about details like messages, addresses, payments, passports, etc. Several took off independently to hitch-hike there, going overland! Bill Files, a teenager was one; he made it, but got very sick. Every Monday night at the Venice bookstore, we all lined up for our travel shots, given to us free by the concerned parents (a doctor and a nurse) of one 16 year old girl. We sang, we chanted Baba’s name, we gazed lovingly at His photos, we clung even closer together in our peculiar combination of grief and joy. It was a "passages" point for us all. I got the Asian flu and had to drop out of this first flight with my dear "Angelenos." I missed the second flight also and went on the third, in early June, leaving from New York, with the "Society for Avatar Meher Baba." Most were from New Jersey. Coincidence: Just two weeks before I left, Mattel held a shotgun at my head: they were transferring me to Plainfield, N.J.!
Our special "Last Darshan" issue, Volume 13, No. 1-2 describes in detail these three flights of Westerners to the abode of the Beloved in Guruprasad, Poona, so I won't go into them here. How these young lovers dared to go halfway round the world loving the Avatar "Not in the flesh but in the spirit," as St. John says, is an amazing story, and even made the pages of the New Yorker magazine (under "Jai Baba"). Two prophesies of Baba were fulfilled — He gave darshan lying down, and His new young "jewels" came for this darshan out of the West as He had told the mandali. And they still go on pilgrimage, now to Meherazad and Meherabad . . . the pilgrimage of the heart, a wonderful generation! They are still the core of Baba groups everywhere.
It was very heart-breaking for me to have to pack up and leave L.A. in August, 1969 to the wilds of New Jersey, leaving behind this circle of young Baba lovers. I was glad I had encouraged them to be self-directive and this they were. The Venice bookstore and the Pasadena bookstore survived. Finally, when I returned in 1971, meetings were being held mostly in Pasadena on Union St. They had successfully kept a real bookstore going and had entertained guests from India like Rano Gayley, Meherji Karkaria, and Adi K. Irani.
What about my almost-two-years in New Jersey? A most interesting hiatus for me, useless as far as my career went — I was constantly given more money and less work, a typical Mattel gaff. But Plainfield was near Rutgers University and I started a small Monday night group there. The University was happy to give us a room, and soon the group grew in size. We even held big meetings on campus, inviting Allan Cohen and Rick Chapman to speak. I fondly recall our first poster, "Stoned on God? Allan Cohen talks on Higher Consciousness," a sort of tongue-in-cheek invite to the drug generation. Also, in New York City, my old home town, I was instrumental in getting Baba House started, in the Village. For several years the young people there had wanted to open a Center, but were not encouraged by the old timers. I said, "Do it!" and we rented a place on 4th St off Sheridan Square. With the help of Henry Kashouty, we formed our first non-profit Baba corporation, by-laws and all, which later became a model for our group here in L.A. and also for the Meher Baba League (now Lovers) in Northern California. Other groups have also taken to the democratic form which I feel carries out Baba's guide-lines given to me in the 50's.
I also contacted many people informally in my New Jersey home. Mattel had kindly also transferred Peter Justin to the same plant so I had at least one Baba lover to help me to get around. I'll never forget the long drive to New York on that rotten New Jersey turnpike: ice, snow, sleet, rain, big trucks! Billy Files had moved specially from California to help "taxi" me around — so sweet of him.
Our founding of Baba House created some conflicts with the Society which felt it was the only legitimate Baba group in town — rather odd, since the original Monday night group was about fifteen years older. We did our best to get along with them, but this lack of unity in the Baba family at times was very discouraging. And Dr. Kenmore, their leader, had first heard of Baba through Adele Wolkin, and I had been his first Baba patient, whom he used to question for hours about Baba! Such is the lot of a "Baba worker" — brickbats follow bouquets in case you get a swelled head!
Back to L.A. (I returned in 1971). Our Pasadena bookstore on Green St. was on the street level and very spacious. We decorated it with Baba's seven-colored rainbow in felt and built our own bookshelves. We already had a fine counter left by previous owners. We even had a children's playroom and a small office/meditation room. But later, the building was condemned by the city which paid us a lump sum to move out. It took us one year to find our present quarters at 10808 Santa Monica Boulevard. By the time we moved, we were a "legal entity" with a duly-elected Board of Directors, committees of various kinds and especially the Sahavas Committee.
It was in 1974 that a small group of us were invited to Chris Pearson's cabin in the San Bernardino Mountains for a camping weekend. On the way (we drove at night to escape the heat) we stopped at a fork in the road to look at the stars and stretch our legs. Suddenly I saw Baba on the road. I didn't tell anyone, but later we decided, because we had had so much fun together, to find a bigger place to camp. We finally found Loch Laven Camp, which was reached from that very fork in the road! We had our first Sahavas in 1974, about one hundred people; Henry Kashouty was our first guest. So I believe it was all in the Avatar's plan from the beginning! Next year we celebrate our 13th Annual Sahavas, and now other groups around the world have taken up the idea.
We've had many distinguished guests at our Sahavas, including, in 1977, Adi K. Irani, and, in 1985, both Bhau Kalchuri and Kitty Davy. We still keep inviting the women mandali from India! Pilgrim Pines is now "our" camp; we've been there 7 years. Sahavas is "the give and take of love" — don't we all need it!
Baba has "appeared" to me at the Center several times and to some others. His presence is felt strongly there by many. One of my favorites: We were rehearsing a play at the Center on a long hot afternoon. Suddenly, I saw Baba and I heard Him say, "I like rehearsals. My whole Creation is a rehearsal — for God-Realization." We also have Baba's chair at the Center — the chair He sat in, at Mrs. Fuch's house in Hollywood, 1956. Clive Adams rescued it at the last moment from a sale of her belongings after she died. And we have Baba’s daaman, or garment, given to our group by the mandali. But best of all, we keep a loving family feeling going at the Center. We've had some very interesting caretakers: Rick Peikoff, Dana Field, Larry Fletcher, Ken and Kathleen Havens, and now Greg Dunn. The house at the back has been for quite a few years a "Baba bunker" with assorted bachelor Baba lovers domiciled there. This has made it easier to give parties and barbecues and other get-togethers. Our efforts to reach out to the public have been continuous: ads in the local "counter culture" press (it's hopeless in the L.A. Times!), public meetings when we hire a larger hall, appearances on local TV shows (Damian Simpson, Group W cable, etc.). Our bookstore, devoted extensively to works by and about Meher Baba, is actually now the only "open" Baba bookstore (outside of the book room at Sheriar Press) in the Western world.
We've had a few tense moments: one girl threatened to shoot me if I didn't tell her beau to marry her; one fellow claiming to be the reincarnation of Meher Baba arrived ready to make trouble; a few drunks and stoned passersby — but, again it's all in a day’s work for the Avatar. At present, we’re looking for some kind of "Permanent Site" to settle in as our very own, and I believe we will, as Baba predicted one of His 5 Centers in the West would be in a great city. Los Angeles is now the largest city in the U.S. And the Angel Moroni on the Mormon Temple points gleamingly towards the Avatar Meher Baba Center of Los Angeles.
PART ONE THROUGH PART FIVE WHOLE STORY
