"And what is needed for this awakening is love for whatever God one likes.” ~Avatar Meher Baba
Meher Mount
Your Friday photo recognizes the 250th anniversary on July 4th of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence by the 13 American colonies…
Avatar Meher Baba (1894-1969) visited the United States six times between 1931 and 1958.
In 1952, He was at the Meher Spiritual Center in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, when the following conversation about America’s great spiritual potential took place.
This photograph of Meher Baba in Washington, DC on July 30, 1956, was taken just before He traveled to Southern California and Meher Mount.
“America now leads the material side of the universe and has such infinite possibilities that it can lead the world spiritually, if awakened.
And what is needed for this awakening is love for whatever God one likes.”
During His 1952 stay at the Meher Center, Meher Baba conducted a number of interviews, including one with Toni Roothbert, a well-known fashion and commercial photographer. She was a social activist and benefactress who had a house in Myrtle Beach.
When Ms. Roothbert saw Meher Baba, she told Him, "I think, as you well know, you will do extraordinary work in the United States."
Meher Baba replied:
"America now leads the material side of the universe and has such infinite possibilities that it can lead the world spiritually, if awakened."
Toni said, "Under the surface and unknown, there is great longing for spirituality."
Meher Baba responded:
"And what is needed for this awakening is love for whatever God one likes. In the form of Jesus crucified, or another. God will do it. He can do it. And now the time is near, very near, when this spiritual upliftment has to take place. Yes, absolutely. It has to be and will be."
Sources
Meher Prabhu: Lord Meher, The Biography of the Avatar of the Age, Meher Baba, by Bhau Kalchuri, "Manifestation, Inc.", 1986, pg. 13823. Copyright ©Avatar Meher Baba Perpetual Public Trust, Ahilyanagar, India.
Photograph: Avatar Meher Baba, July 30, 1956, at the home of Ivy Duce in Washington, DC. Photographer Harold Cash Davis. Courtesy of Meher Nazar Publications, Ahilyanagar, India.