Meeting Meher Baba
Francis Brabazon’s first meeting with Meher Baba at Myrtle Beach in 1952

Meher Baba arrived in America in April 1952 and almost immediately travelled to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina where a centre had been established for him by some of his followers. Meanwhile, on 24th April 1952 while in New York, Murshida Duce initiated Brabazon into the higher teaching position of Khalif, just one step removed from her office of Murshida. Possibly this was a move on her part to reaffirm his leadership position within Australia, or perhaps to give him some extra standing in the Sufi movement generally, particularly before meeting Meher Baba.
On 7th May a small party of Sufis, including Murshida Duce, Brabazon and Sparkie Lukas, drove down from New York to meet Baba at His Myrtle Beach residence. The party reached their destination the next day and stayed the night in a local motel. Early the next morning Brabazon dressed himself in Australian colours, a newly purchased green sports jacket and a yellow shirt, and left with the others on the final part of their journey.

On their arrival at the centre, a five hundred acre property of virgin forest, they were directed to a small wooden cabin. Here they were asked to read a short message entitled “Meher Baba explains” . Then Murshida Duce was invited inside the cabin to see Meher Baba. Soon Brabazon got his long awaited opportunity. It was now eight o’clock. Murshida Duce who remained present during Brabazon’s first meeting recorded something of what happened: “When He [Meher Baba] called in Brabazon, Baba said, of course via the board, “I’ve seen you before but you don ’t remember it, do you?” Francis admitted he did not remember. He perched on the edge of his chair until Baba put him at ease by saying, “Sit back, be comfortable, you must know that I am within you, so if you feel like coughing, cough, for it means that I want to cough!”

Meher Baba with Murshida Ivy Duce. On April 24, 1952 while in New York, Murshida Duce initiated Francis Brabazon into the higher teaching position of Khalif, just one step removed from her office of Murshida.

Brabazon presumed that Meher Baba ’s comment on past remembrance was referring to past lives, but he did not wish to ask any questions and so distract his focused attention. According to Brabazon, at this first meeting, he was instantly convinced of Meher Baba’s spiritual stature:

“. . . He looked as I had imagined a Sadguru would look — a man who is nothing and everything, a man who is dead and alive, a man who has gone through everything. He is quite small, short and slight. His eyes are the most remarkable thing about Him; very large eyes, and they are constantly moving. In an ordinary person we would call it restlessness, but not Him. He did not convey that at all, but conveyed activity. He was kind enough to sign to His three disciples around Him His pleasure in me and that I had come. Then I went out. Soon afterwards Murshida and I went in again.”

This time Meher Baba talked with Murshida Duce and Brabazon for three and a half hours on Sufism and its future direction; during this session Brabazon felt his mind was drawn to a razor-keenness; but firstly Baba obtained from them a measure of their personal commitment: “He asked us what we were prepared to do. AND THAT WAS THE REAL MOMENT. When He asked us a question the atmosphere of the room seemed to become highly charged, and even His men seemed to — what you might say —become more alerted. And I told Him I would do anything He ordered me to do. He said,“Will you do anything I ask you?” And I said,“Yes.” He said,“Even if it costs you your life?” And I said,“Yes.”

It is difficult to imagine the depth of longing and gladness which was released with each “yes ”that Brabazon spoke. It was a response which his heart had yearned to give, across all the years of his searching and now it came from his lips without force or reserve: “Yes, ” “yes ”. Although they were spontaneously spoken,they were no less full of conviction. Brabazon was not a person to take words lightly nor to submit to any authority unless deserving. His gladness was magnified by the realization that in his affirmative answers was also the guarantee that Meher Baba would be his spiritual guide; a realization which, more than anything else, gave him great peace. After this commitment was made, Meher Baba declared that He wanted Murshida Duce to give the Australian Sufi work totally to Brabazon, that Brabazon would be directly under Meher Baba’s supervision, and that both he and Murshida Duce would need to become spiritually illumined Murshids if they were to head a Sufi Order.

The idea of becoming an illumined Murshid left Brabazon totally perplexed, for he knew fully well that to be an illumined Murshid was nothing less than having the spiritual consciousness of a saint, something which he knew was beyond even his wildest imaginings. Following these pronouncements, Meher Baba then went on to stress the importance of honesty and stated: “Unless we experience what we preach and teach, we are not honest, not only to Sufism but to life itself. To be an atheist, not to believe in God, to be bad even, is better than to be a hypocrite. So we must work on that basis . . . Truth is hidden; unless one has attained fana and acquired baqa, one cannot lead others to perfection, so when we ourselves do not experience that state, and when we ask others to follow us, it means we are insulting Sufism, and all over the East and West it is being done, and by God’s will, I intend to change the whole affair, overhaul the whole thing, because I love Sufism with all my heart. Listen very carefully, because for the first time, I am taking a personal interest in Sufism.I am very serious about the reoriented Sufism, and we must be so honest as to have its results appearing all over the world. There are three things that always hinder Truth. First is temptation — very, very few persons can overcome temptations; temptations of money, fame, power, lust, leadership are disastrous, very binding and very few escape it. Second,vagueness about things, and third, dishonesty.”

Towards the end of this session Meher Baba gave both Murshida Duce and Brabazon a certain spiritual practice to be performed from 11:30 pm to 12:30 am for nine months and told Brabazon he was to return almost immediately to Australia so he could be there for the beginning of Baba’s “Full Free Life” phase of His work which was to commence on the 10th of July 1952.

To be in Australia at this time, Brabazon had to move swiftly. On 13th May, he caught the all- night bus to New York; then, with little time to spare, he caught the train to New Orleans which arrived just in time for him to catch the last ship to reach Australia before the July date. Soon after he left Myrtle Beach, Brabazon started to record his feelings and thoughts in verse and discovered that his writing flowed more easily in a new, more lyrical style. Significantly, he later described this moment as the beginning of his “true creativity, ”and the first poem to come out of this new creativity was “Dawn through to Sunrise ”. This poem started out as a single couplet of seventeen syllables which Brabazon wrote between dawn and sunrise after travelling through the night from Myrtle Beach to New York. On the train to New Orleans he started to explore the poetic possibilities offered by the couplet. And then, on 29th of May, while traveling on ship through the Caribbean Sea, Brabazon completed the work in its present form, over four hundred lines, the longest poem he had ever written.

Edited excerpt from the book Francis Brabazon: Poet of the Silent Word – A Modern Hafiz by Ross Keating.