I have been hanging out with Meher Baba for over 50 years now. Mostly in spirit I guess, as he passed away before I heard his name. And this is one of my favorite photos of him, taken in Cannes, France in 1937, while he was visiting there from India.  

https://www.mehermount.org/story-blog/2015/10/2810/tthankful-for-suffering

I think a person can meet a great teacher in a dream, and get a whole bunch from them. A truly life changing experience it can be. I feel that very much happened to me with both Hafiz and Meher Baba, via a couple extraordinary dreams-visions. One of Hafiz, I tell in part, in my most popular book: The Gift. 

I feel certain I would not have gotten a single poem published in any of my 7 books with Penguin without those dreams— those deep, so essential-to-me experiences. So I am honoring a Root here to all of my literary work— with this photo. 

And I don't think we really know what Hafiz looked like when he was alive. I once saw him as Magnificent Divine Light. I really saw him as one with God (which I feel we are all—and everything—destined to become); or, you might say: Fully Awake again. 

Yes, I once saw Hafiz as God, who came to me, and asked me in the most profoundly intimate way to: “Give a message to My (God’s) artists and seekers." And then gave me the means to do that via a mystical transmission. So that is what I have been trying to do the best I can for over 30 years. 

All my books are an attempt at that, and my now some maybe 12,000 still unpublished poems, and a play titled: Michelangelo the Teacher, and some so many other book projects-ideas... I really can't see how to possibly now ever finish myself. 

Some might like and finding interesting the text conversation that one can read connected to this photo. The woman mentioned there, Jean Adriel, had quite a life, and helped found an interesting spiritual retreat place in Ojai, California, called Meher Mount; worth visiting if ever near. And she wrote a famous book that was published in 1947, titled: Avatar; that I highly recommend.

And to make that Divine Mandate, any kind of an aside here, well, that is just kind of my style at times. But I truly value my books more than my own life. And I seem to just be able to keep writing and writing, and will until I can no longer. And my own teacher, Eruch Byramshaw Jessawala, whom I have spoken of many times in my blogs... was a fantastic help to my work; a fantastic vital help.

And that was Eruch whom I was speaking about, though not named there, at the end of that blog titled: Bending The Branch Less Than A Sparrow. 

That blog title came from one of my hundreds of private early morning walks I took with him in India, as his invited guest (off and on over a 12-year stretch before he died) at a very special place he lived, called Meherazad. He too, is really a Root in all I have or ever will write. He made that so very clear to me.

Eruch was an astoundingly humble man. He was the personification of being able to low-key the sublime. He lived that deeply, and most always appeared and acted perfectly normal. But he was also the human being who was closest to Meher Baba and Meher Baba's life, therein exposed to really an unimaginable world, or worlds. But again, could low-key the sublime. And few, I feel, Eruch let see into his Great Awareness and Great Ability. I feel he gave me a glimpse of that. 

Maybe to ground all this (as I often seem to do with whatever I write, that is give it a wide range as all of my books have) I will say: Eruch was so close to God, or maybe even one with God, that he could give anyone he wanted a pinch on their fanny from Buddha (though Eruch would never talk like that; and his moral standards and behavior were impeccable). And then one's creativity could rock-n-roll into heaven. Your whole life, or at least your pen— could then become like… a haiku jumping over the moon. 

A Haiku Jumped Over the Moon and The Sweet Adventures of Buddha & Mother Mary On A Harley Saving The World Just In The Nick Of Time. Those are of two of many books and series, I may never finish myself. There are a couple others now that have elbowed those behind them. 

Gosh, Buddha pinched my fanny and turned my pen into a wild golden rocket. Seems that really happened, that now sprinkles angel dust on this world for God's artists & seekers. And maybe just in the nick of time. 

I am trying the best I can, o yeah! Many writers and artists are trying to get our heart's wares to the market, within one's ken, to help feed; to help us dance; and see more of the miraculousness of our own hand, and that all in existence really is. 

A big hug and thanks for your time.