The recent and ongoing fracas concerning rogue members of Meher Baba Center of No. Cal. and certain trustees of Avatar Meher Baba Perpetual Public Charitable Trust giving Sufism Reoriented of Walnut Creek a wink and a nod to usurp the integrity of MBCNC is shocking.
MBCNC has had a long history supporting the “Bell of Warning” rung by Eruch Jessawala in 1980. This bell still rings loudly in the ears of many Baba lovers here in California. We take seriously Baba’s admonition to his lovers, and which also applies to SR, to not adopt a spiritual intermediary. Baba has said that for 100 years after the Avatar “drops his body”, it is as if he is still physically among us. This 100 year period is at this time only half over. For a Baba lover to adopt a spiritual intermediary- real or assumed, during this time period, is to insult one’s commitment and obedience to the Master of Masters. It is like a married man taking up with a harlot.
The problem is not simply forgetting what happened decades ago, but inattention to what is happening now. SR is presently breaking historical agreements mandated by Baba and engaging in “spiritual fascism”.
Baba mandated that SR not encroach upon Meher Center in Myrtle Beach, SC., but this is exactly what has happened. SR has no business establishing a presence in Myrtle Beach.
SR has expressed through remarks by Carol Conner, the murshida of SR, a frontal assault on historical fact regarding Avatar’s Abode in Australia. She has brashly declared that Francis Brabazon did not establish SR in Australia because of a “lack of resources”, and that SR is prepared to remedy this.
The taboo subject that throws tremendous light on this gnarly ugliness is the enabling of the late “Jai Ho” chairman of AMBPPCT, Bhau Kalchuri. Bhau in his last years played the guru in a most spectacular manner dressing in white gowns, spouting Jai Ho, wearing and demanding that others wear the “Three Rings” symbolizing the trinity of Brahma, Vishnu and Mahesh, and more besides.
Bhau rehabilitated SR in the decades after Eruch’s Bell of Warning. After Eruch and the other mandali had passed away- all of whom were strongly opposed to the occultism of Jim Mackei, Bhau ingratiated SR for reasons of fundraising. Baba lovers began to forget the “Bell of Warning”, thinking it no longer applied because the “Jai Ho” guru Chairman of the Trust so flamboyantly indicated that it was passé.
Bhau initiated the Baba world into the era of fundraising to support the all important projects that would validate the objectives of the Trust. And no group was more important than SR for the money that it could regularly contribute toward this end.
And this is the same course that the present chairman, Shridhar Kelkar, and Merwan Dubash, have chartered.
