“You don’t know how hard I had to work to prevent a catastrophe.” - Avatar Meher Baba
Agnes Baron
After Avatar Meher Baba’s visit to Meher Mount on August 2, 1956, He was scheduled to continue His around-the-world trip and go to San Francisco next with a group of His followers.
The following is the interchange during His visit – as told by Agnes – between her and Meher Baba about her intention to drive to San Francisco the following day.
AGNES BARON’S woody station wagon. She drove Avatar Meher Baba from and to the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel in this automobile on August 2, 1956. (Photo: Sam Ervin & Martha Aubin, 1970s)
By Agnes Baron
“Baba,” I said, “I am going to drive up in the station wagon. A lot of people have given me books to take.”
And Meherjee [Karkaria] bought a lot of ties and things that he couldn’t carry on the plane, so he asked me if I would put them in the station wagon.” I said, “Sure.”
“No!” Baba said, “You have to come with Me in the plane.”
I said, “Well, Baba, that’s silly. Why shouldn’t I drive? It’s necessary to help these people. Then when I come back, I have to have transportation.”
I thought I was being very reasonable, you know.
Meher Baba still kept saying “No.” Finally, He said, “All right, but you have to drive with somebody. You can’t drive alone.”
I said, “Okay.” So, I dashed around, and I found Adi [K. Irani]. “Hey, Adi, do you want to drive up to San Francisco with me tonight?”
ADI K. IRANI (right) was one of the men disciples traveling with Avatar Meher Baba (blue coat) on His 1956 around-the-world trip that included a day at Meher Mount on August 2, 1956. Agnes Baron, Meher Mount co-founder and lifetime caretaker, is on the left. (Photo: Darwin Shaw, (c) Meher Nazar Publications.)
And Adi said, “Yeah, yeah. That’s just fine.” But he said, “Wait a minute. Be careful how you ask Baba.” He gave this long, round-about dissertation on how we should go together. Adi said, “Because if you don’t do it that way, He’s going to say ‘No!’”
So, we both went into the Baba Room, and there was Meher Baba. By the time I got to Baba, I had forgotten about Adi’s instructions. And I blurted out, “Baba! Adi and I are going to drive up to San Francisco.”
Baba turned to Adi. “You traitor! You’re leaving Me?”
And Adi just collapsed. Adi got so embarrassed. His face got red, and he got very humble. And I said, “Baba, what’s wrong? What’s wrong?” And Baba was very annoyed, very indignant with me.
I said, “Well, I’ll try somebody else Baba.” I dashed out and I found Lud Dimpfl. I said, “Hey, Lud, do you want to drive with me to San Francisco?” He said, “Yeah, yeah. It will be great fun.”
LUD DIMPFL (front, grey suit) was a follower of Avatar Meher Baba (blue coat) and at Meher Mount on August 2, 1956. (Photo: Darwin Shaw, (c) Meher Nazar Publications)
I said to Baba, “I got somebody.”
Baba said, “Lud, you’re in charge of so and so and so and so aren’t you?”
And then Lud crumpled up. “Oh yeah, Baba, I forgot.”
I was determined by that time to find somebody. So, I rushed out and I saw Bea Dimpfl, Lud’s wife.
BEA DIMPFL with her children Bill (William) Dimpfl, Claudia Dimpfl O’Hanrahan, Joan Dimpfl Harland, and Diane Dimpfl Cobb (3B) at Meher Mount in November 1956, just months after Avatar Meher Baba’s visit on August 2, 1956. (Photo: Lud Dimpfl)
“Hey Bea, do you want to drive up to San Francisco with me?”
“Yeah, great,” she said. We go into Baba.
Baba said, “Bea are you feeling very well?”
“Well…uh….,” she said. She was perfectly all right until Baba asked her. Bea said, “Well, I have night blindness.”
Baba said, “You can’t go.”
So, I thought, I’ll just wait, and I went out of the room. Later, they called me back, “Baba wants to see you.”
He had someone there from Los Angeles and a person I wasn’t particularly fond of. And Baba said, “You’re going with him.”
Quick as flash, I said to him, “Do you have a driver’s license?”
“Well, I just got one.”
“Have you driven up to San Francisco?
“No.”
“Baba! Impossible! If we drive up to San Francisco, he’s going to lose the way.”
Baba had to agree. He knew that I knew that He knew.
FOLLOWERS of Avatar Meher Baba who joined Him at Meher Mount on August 2, 1956. (Photo: Darwin Shaw, (c) Meher Nazar Publications)
And I dashed out and was looking for somebody else, but I couldn’t find anyone, and Baba didn’t call me in again, so I just let it go at that. I was still going to drive up to San Francisco alone.
At the end of His visit, I drove Meher Baba back to Hollywood. He was sitting in the seat beside me. Baba kept putting His hand on my head, and saying, “Now promise to drive slowly.”
I was going, you know, 45 miles an hour. I was going slowly. I didn’t say anything. But, I thought, “Baba says drive slowly.”
And then when we got along the beach, I went down to about 30 or 25. I looked at Baba looking at the beautiful view, and again He said, “Promise to drive slowly.”
“Baba! I am already going slowly. I can’t go any slower. What are you talking about?”
And He sort of looked at me like as if, “You’re stupid.”
And then Adi said, “No Agnes, He means when you go to San Francisco.”
He was talking about the trip to San Francisco. “When you drive up, don’t go over 40 miles per hour.”
THE HOLLYWOOD ROOSEVELT Hotel in the 1960s.
When we got back to Los Angeles, it was late in the evening. Baba went to His room, and I was told, Baba wanted to see me.
And here was this young man whom I had known. He was engaged, and he came with his fiancée on the trip to Meher Mount.
I didn’t know what had happened, but at Meher Mount, Baba had broken the engagement of this young man.
He told the young man, “Your best friend is in love with your fiancée, and you must release her. They want to be married, and they don’t want to hurt your feelings. I ask you to release her.”
So, the poor lad, he was broken up and he was standing by Baba, very crestfallen. So, I said, “great” and I liked the man, the young fella.
All the way to San Francisco at 40 miles per hour. Imagine that. And Baba had told the young man, “Stop every hour for a cup of coffee.”
So, we started off on the drive to San Francisco, and then the boy started to talk. And he told me his whole story. That was Baba’s way of helping the lad get rid of his sorrow.
We’d stop every hour and have coffee. We had a wonderful time.
So, finally by the time we got to San Francisco, the young man said, “If it weren’t for Baba, I would be broken-hearted, but it’s all right. I’ve released her.”
But there was an incident earlier in the drive when we were getting close to San Francisco. We were going through a little town. It was midnight, and I was driving, and the young man was asleep. There were trucks, great big trucks always at night. Their headlights were shining right down in my rear-view mirror. I went off to the side, driving slowly, waiting for the truck driver to pass.
And as I crawled along at 10 miles per hour, there was this sound, “Whoo! Whoo! Whoo!” And the boy woke up and said, “My God. The cops are behind us.” I said, “What? I am crawling.” He said “You’d better stop. It’s the police.” It hadn’t been a truck at all.
This very angry policeman drove alongside and said, “If you hadn’t stopped, I was going to ram the car.”
I said, “How dare you! You’re a police officer, and you said you’ll ram my car. I’m going to have you fired! How dare you say that? I’m not speeding. What are you stopping me for?”
“Well,” he said, “I was asleep in the car when you drove through town, and I was bored. I thought I’d have fun and chase you a little bit and scare you.”
I said, “You’ve got a nerve!” I was furious. He pulled out his pad.
“Are you writing a ticket?”
“Yeah.”
“You wait. I’m going to take this to court!”
He wrote out a ticket and gave it to me. That was the end of that.
We got the hotel in San Francisco and had a night’s sleep.
A POSTCARD of the Holiday Lodge in San Francisco, where Avatar Meher Baba stayed in 1956.
Later when Baba’s plane arrived, they said “Baba wants to see both of you immediately.” They were still carrying His suitcases into the hotel.
We went into this big room where Baba was standing. He said, “How are you? How was your trip?”
I said “We’re all right, Baba, but You played a trick on me. You had me arrested in that town, didn’t you? Now, I have to pay a fine. You did that!” So, we joked about it for a little while.
Then suddenly, Baba got very serious, and He took each of us by the arm and Adi came along and we went way over to another corner. He got very solemn. I’ve never seen Him so serious. And even I shut up.
He said, “You don’t know how hard I had to work to prevent a catastrophe.”
So, either He had the policeman stop us because He saw something happening or way from the beginning when He said not to drive alone. The way He said it was so solemn. I was really shaken.
You see, that’s His beauty. Instead of telling you, “You stupid little idiot” or punishing you in some way, He went to all the trouble to prevent something from happening.
Sources
Agnes Baron, “Visit,” Mandali Hall Talks. Recorded in Mandali Hall, Meherazad, India, in September 1982. Accessed online on August 2, 2021.
Agnes Baron, “Agnes Baron Remembers Meher Baba’s 1956 Visit,” YouTube video, 14:56 minutes, by Irwin and Edwin Luck filmed at Meher Mount, Ojai, CA, in 1970. Starting at minute 10:42, accessed online on October 12, 2021.