MEHER BABA CENTER OF NO. CALIF INC.
2131 UNIVERSITY AVE., RM. 235
BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA 94704
VOL. 26
WINTER 1996 •
Tex Hightower Meets
It*" ^ e
know anything about that kind of love. I don't know that there is preparation for /|,*W ^jgSjTff S-' wi!\ s~that kind of love, but I certainly didn't Meher Baba \T 1 have it, and I can't tell you what kind of love that is, because it is such an entity Tex Hightower, a dancer who met Meher Baba i / \ p unto itself, that there's nothing you can say through Margaret Craske, spoke toourgroup in •n to desctibe it. Words just don't touch that. the spring of1990. .. This excerptfromhis talk, Twenty-five years later, I understood some edited considerably tofitinthis newsletter, begins thing that 1 realized at that moment, that had gone into just ashe was tomeet Baba, in 1952. my subconscious for 25 years, when I was looking into Baba's eyes. I had the full realization that absolutely ev I had this tension of guilt or anxiety ... I just wasn't sure. erything in the world is exactly the way it ought to be. 1 didn't think 1 loved Him at all, I didn't think I had any It is exactly what it should be. I mean, I don't retain that feeling for Him at all, and I felt, "What the hell am I doing feeling, but I had it, and it was in my subconscious for 25 here? What's going to happen?" I did have a feeling that years, and then it came out as clear as a bell. I'll never it was very important, that you shouldn't be flippant or forget it. He absolutely bowled me over, and then He said, insincere about it. The tension built up. _3fiH|
Ha rfwHteijH
i.
li
"I'm happy." He was happy. That knocked me over.
Then we had gone through all the business of not getting there on time (our plane had, been delayed in a severe
storm), but Baba left a message that saidHe'd see us at 7:30 the next morning. 1 watched three women go in to see Baba, people that 1 knew very well, and they came out in absolute shambles after seeing Baba. So when Delia came
to get me, to take me to Baba, I tripped over the pebbles in the path. When we turned up that little path to go to the Lagoon Cabin, Isaw something whitebehind the screen door, which was like a scrim, a theatrical scrim. I dropped
my eyes. It was almost a physical impossibility for me to lift my head, and I sort of stumbled up the steps. I knew that Baba was standing there. 1could have seen His feet, but I made sure that I didn't. Eventually I did lift my eyes to
Baba, and when I did, He opened His arms. A strange thing happened. It was not a psychic experience, do not misun derstand. It was like a physical sensation, as if I were in some kind of case, like a mummy case, and it cracked. It started cracking right up the middle and down the back, and it fell away, and when it fell away, I could step forward and I looked into Baba's eyes. I never had and never will see anything that beautiful. Indescribably beautiful. His eyes were... I have some perception of infinity, very small, but it's only because of Baba's eyes. Baba's eyes went on
'forever. They were a beautiful brown. I stepped into His arms, and He embraced me. That's the only thing of im portance that ever happened in my life, or ever will. I was overwhelmed with the love that He gave. 1 didn't
When I met Baba, as Miss Craske put it, He knocked me right off myperch. I had to get back, I was deep in rehears al, but I was just absolutely overwhelmed by Baba and I couldn't think of anything but Baba. 1was making a bum
job of rehearsals. I would write His name all day long. So I said to Miss Craske, "What am I going to do?" She said,
"Why don't you make Him something?" So I thought, "What shall I make Him? What great gift of the world am
I going to make Him?" I mean, I'm not Faberge. So I decided, well, I'll make Him a coat. I made Him a very beautiful white wool flannel coat. I thought about Baba all the time I wasmaking that coat. I'd come from rehears al at night, and I'd make that silly coat. 1 had no idea if I'd ever be able to give it to Him. Then He had the accident, and we were given another chance to see Him,
in Ivy Duce's apartment, on a terrible hot day. And that's the second time I saw Him. I was all piped up. I had been on cloud nine for those two months, which isn't entirely
pleasant, by the way, except it's good enough that you don't want to get off. So I was prepared to go up higher. I walked into the room, and there was this man in a cast.
His complexion was gray, He was obviously in pain, and He looked ill. I won't say He looked just like a man, but He did look like God the first time I saw Him. I went
crashing to the basement when I saw Him like that and He was rather impersonal to me that time. He took my hand, pressed it very, very hard against His chest, but He
©1996