Someone recently sent me a picture of my teacher, Eruch Byramshaw Jessawala, who went by the simple name of Eruch. I have spoken about him several times in my blogs over the last few weeks. Eruch, as I said in my last blog, I felt was the person closest to Meher Baba— who may well come to be accepted by millions for being as he said he was: the Buddha, the Christ come again, the Avatar. It can and should take a mind and heart, and the world, a while to get its arms around such an astounding claim— to get its arms around just a tiny part of the Sun or even just an Ocean. 

To me, Eruch always looked so grounded in real life and in photographs. Westerners would bring him funky t-shirts like this and he might wear them a couple times and then usually give them to the poor. You can see he also has a front tooth missing. I think he would have liked to have kept it that way, to appear, and be, even more humble, but some close to him kept after him to get that fixed, so after some years he finally did.

Eruch would pose for pictures with so many from around the world who came to visit him in Meherazad, India, where he lived, even though he once told me: if it was up to him he would never come out of where he lived. That is: just existence and his mere apparent being (or, profound not being) was all the miracle, was all the God, he ever needed or could want. And that also, if it was really up to him— he would never speak. But he did speak, and he did come out of his room “to serve God,” he said. "To serve the God in all things, to help all things awake." Or, you might say mature, reach their potential, ripen. Eruch loved to garden when he was growing up.

Some Rainer Maria Rilke words comes to mind. One of my very favorite mystical lines of poetry, being (and maybe just a tad rendered by me):

"All beginnings needed us, our looking ripens things."

I love those words. And a saint is really like a sun, a holy sun that can walk upon the earth and benefit all the creatures the saint's heart gazes upon, or whose sounds enter a body, or that the sun's arms touch. Yes, our sounds enter the being of others beings; so why not fill our miraculous mouths, notes from our mouth-lutes, with as much nourishment as we can? 

And speaking about gardening we got: "Plant so that your own heart will grow." That is Hafiz on our side, ever trying to aid.   

As I have said before: I feel and have experienced, that there is a kind of golden connecting root (a live wire) between Eruch's heart and all my published and unpublished poems, still now after he has passed on, and when I write new ones, or write anything like this blog. He has let me imbibe him the best I could. He seems such a pure deep well I can always draw— rather than water—a superb wine from. I pray all the time to Buddha, God, the Super Duper Giant It .... to kick my ass in the right direction, to help all us munchkins.

Beneath the surface of any real illumined person, I think he or she is some kind of holy tree in the sky (besides a sun too) with beautiful wonders hanging from their limbs they want to share with every type of hungry bird, fuzzy squirrel, and furry koala that can reach them. 

This picture reminded me of a short playful Hafiz poem-rendering of mine Eruch helped me with. It’s titled: “You’re It.” 

                         You’re It

God disguised as a myriad things and playing

a game of tag has kissed you and said,

                         Your It!

      I mean ... you are REALLY IT.

Now it does not matter what you believe or feel

cause something wonderful, major league 

wonderful is someday surely gonna happen. 

— Hafiz rendering from The Gift

There was, in that photo, a “koala” getting tagged by someone I thought was a real and true saint, even though he is wearing a Magic Bus Bookshop t-shirt. 

Undercover saints! Think they are out there in the world—sprinkling angel dust wherever they go. That is, that “koala” was a lovely woman Eruch had his arm around, “tagging” her, as it were. It was a sweet picture.

I think there is just one womb from which all came. And passing through that Holy Place, having had an umbilical cord attached to God, makes us all destined to sit someday on the Throne that governs creation. And moreover, the soul realizes it is all in creation. We are heirs to the King, to the Mother, to the Universe that gave us birth. That is just the simple physics of things. Our genes are sacred; our DNA sublime.

And I think we always have an umbilical cord attached to the divine, otherwise we would not know life in any form or way. No doubt, look how some of the babies can get so wild and so crazy, and so sad at times. But all is evolving into some perfect luminous sanity— a perfect luminous knowing.

God could be likened to a parent so in love with their child, they want the child to have all they have ever known of value and worth. In a way, isn't that that just love 101? And should not be hard to believe. 

Then keeping things down to earth, swinging back and forth as I do in all my books, and expounding now in a way about that phrase in the poem: 

                                        'God disguised as a myriad things'

Yeah, to me that can mean: all is really God incognito, and playing a game. 

Leela is a nice Sanskrit word meaning: play or divine sport— which is really all sound, movement, thought, feeling, and forms. A divine game we are a part of. 

The other day I wrote a little haiku that I thought was worthy of a bumper sticker, or a small plaque that might fit into some mountain bar, maybe with a Buddhist monastery nearby, whose habitants frequented it on occasion. It went: 

buddha 

  is a beer

     in drag   

or

a beer

   is buddha

      in drag

Now what good zen student doesn't know that, one way or the other?

So that would be an easy way to get tagged—just drink a beer, or let a horse's or dog's wet nose smooch ya. Bottom line being: everything is pitching in to help you know that: 

YOU’RE REALLY IT ....

And something marvelous is someday gonna happen! 

And speaking of photos. If you have not seen it, there is one at the end of my last blog of Meher Baba I like. 

Also, wanted to toss in this little haiku that I think really says so much. I mentioned scratching out some probably 7,000 of these in the last ten years. And did some also in the 90s, like this one. Rarely do I use punctuation in them or capital letters, but this one goes:  

asked Her favorite song,

    God replied,

         'the one you most love'

I recited that one day walking with Eruch, walking with him in the very early morning in India, as I had done with him alone hundreds of times. He heard me but remained silent for a while, us still walking. Then he spoke from what seemed a deep tender place of wisdom in his heart these three words:

"Sing it dears."   

***

Your favorite song. Can you sing it without becoming more centered, more quiet and content, or happy? Or it causing a sweet tear on your cheek, or at least a smile? And your beautiful eyes, your beautiful eyes becoming more bright and clear, and reflecting something of heaven for us? 

Sooooo… 

Sing it dears. Sing it dears. Dance! 

I feel it is a great privilege to write about Meher Baba and Eruch. And us koalas climbing the tree to the Sky. Thanks, thanks and thanks to that Super Duper Giant It for so helping my pen. 

And if you want to see a picture of Eruch, you can watch this video. He’s wearing a more moderate t-shirt here, I think, about a marathon race or jogging. Yeah, and he really ran the Marathon, the big one, that everyone who is living is involved with.