Coming Closer to God (Page 1 of 4)

Naosherwan Anzar in conversation with Murshida Carol Weyland Conner

NAOSHERWAN:
Fifty years of Sufism Reoriented. Murshida Conner, could you look back and reminisce, but before you do that, could you let the readers of Glow International know when you became a mureed and what brought you into Meher Baba’s fold?
MURSHIDA:
I believe I have always been aware of Meher Baba’s presence in the world, but it was not until I was 35 years old that I was to know his name and see his face in photographs. From my early childhood, I sensed a quality of light, like a presence, infusing all of life, especially nature. I also had the impression that people — all people — were sacred and that somehow God was in the midst of all human situations.

Did you grow up in a traditional Christian home?
Yes, I did. My family were Lutherans, a strict Protestant denomination. Many of my family were ministers of that faith. However, I quickly recognized that within organized religion people were as lost as they were outside in the world. People knew very little about central meanings of life, even within the fold of religions. So throughout my teens and college years you might say that I was on a quest, but I didn’t know the word quest and much less words like Perfect Master, Avatar, planes of consciousness, etc. Then when I was 35 years old, a close friend, Dr. James MacKie, introduced me to Meher Baba. I recognized him instantly as the Christ, God the Beloved, The Only Being and became a devotee. Soon thereafter I met Murshida Duce and became one of Baba’s American Sufis.

Meher Baba with Murshida Ivy Duce in Woodside (outside San Francisco) in July 1956. Dr. Nilu is on the right.

Could you give our readers, unfamiliar with Sufism Reoriented a little background... And as a follow up, how do you see the organization positioned in spiritual terms in relation to other Sufi groups in the U.S.?
Prior to 1948 when Murshida Duce first met Baba, the Sufi Order in America had first been under the guidance of Hazrat Inayat Khan, then later Rabia Martin. Inayat Khan was sent to America from India by his own teacher, to spread Sufism in the West. Before he died in 1927, he appointed a Jewish woman from San Francisco, Murshida Martin, as his successor.
     When Princess Norina Matchabelli visited San Francisco in 1941, she gave one of her public talks about Meher Baba at an assembly hall in the city. Murshida Martin was in the audience. This is how she first learned that the Avatar was incarnate in the world. She immediately began to correspond with Baba, hoping to place her life and the Sufi Order in his hands. These are very touching letters sent to and from Murshida Martin and Baba. It was, however, not her destiny to meet Baba personally, as she succumbed quite soon thereafter to cancer. Before passing on, she appointed a gifted student, Ivy O. Duce, as her successor. Ivy Duce had also been in correspondence with Baba and also believed him to be the Avatar. So in 1948, Murshida Duce traveled to India to lay the Sufi Order in America at Baba’s feet.
     Murshida was immensely surprised when Meher Baba told her that though she was under the impression that she was seeking him out to have his guidance or patronage for this Order, he told her “I have drawn you to me.” He went on to tell her that it was her destiny to be a Sufi Murshid or guide and that he felt that the West was ready for a real Sufi Murshid. He wanted Sufism to spread and grow there. Now, Baba, in talks at one time or another, had been very explicit that he had great work to do in America that was to help galvanize his New Humanity so that it could spread all over the globe. He told people that he intended to spiritualize America. Of course, at that time America was not a very spiritual country and Baba was also explicit about that. He said people with pretty bad karma come and incarnate here. If they do well and earn good karma, they go to India and incarnate there. So, he was very clear about the spiritual status of America at the time he began his work. But he did say that he intended to spiritualize this country and said that America would one day lead the world spiritually. Strange as it may seem, those were his words.

Did Meher Baba actually say, that he wanted to establish a spiritual order in this country?
That’s correct. That he wanted Sufism — and I’ll talk a little bit more about what he meant by Sufism, since there is quite a lot of confusion about the term “Sufism.” He wanted Sufism to become established in America and to flourish there. Baba came to America six times in all, three times in the 1930s and three times in the 1950s. A critical visit was one he made in 1952, when he did four major things to consolidate his programme to transform or spiritualize America. One was to create an outline for the development of what he called his Universal Spiritual Center at Myrtle Beach. Another was to draft an entirely fresh charter of guidance for Sufism under his patronage. He spent a good bit of time in 1952 working on that. He met with Murshida Duce, her daughter Charmian (who had been a mureed of Murshida Martin, and had accompanied her mother to India to meet Baba in 1948), and Francis Brabazon, representing the Australian branch of this Sufi Order, in the Lagoon Cabin at Myrtle Beach for several hours each day for several days. He began these meetings almost immediately after arriving at the Myrtle Beach Center. It was an important order of business. Then as he recuperated in Elizabeth’s home at Myrtle Beach after his accident, he had Adi read the Charter to him a half an hour every day as he reviewed its provisions. Talks with Murshida continued later that year, when Baba was in New York. Of course, correspondence went back and forth between Murshida and Meher Baba about the Charter throughout the year. Then in fall, back in India, as he was resting up to start his Fiery Free Life and the Mass Darshan programme in Andhra State, he continued to work on the Charter diligently. He said he wanted to make it strong so that it would last 700 years until he came again.
     And then there was his wish to publish his great book in the English language in America. That was, as you know, put in the hands of Sufism and we put the book out in 1955.

Carol Conner about the time she was initiated as one of the mureeds.

God Speaks…
God Speaks, yes. So these were four ways in which Meher Baba crystallized outwardly the inner work he was doing to prepare America to take up a new role in a new age.
What Baba meant, by Sufism, was not Islamic Sufism. He always used the word Sufism in its universal sense, as seekers of God, those who wish to draw closer to God, to love him, praise him, and know him by actual experience. Meher Baba said that Sufis always come in the wake of the Avatar. So Baba said that the first Sufis were at the time of Zoroaster and there were Sufis surrounding every Avatar. The last one, of course, was Mohammed. He would say, “I am a Sufi. I am the great Sufi. I am the greatest Sufi.”
So he always used Sufism in this universal sense, not a sectarian sense. Well, he meant by “Sufi” people who want to draw closer to him, and live Divinity. So, his intent was to start a spiritual order in America that would be well established and could grow, presumably because America now was to become a spiritual country and would need a spiritual order, as there have been for ages throughout India, the Middle East, North Africa, etc.
According to the Sufi Charter, Meher Baba intended making Sufism Reoriented non-dogmatically universal. The way it exists today, it is essentially an American organization, functioning in North America by Americans and for Americans. Do you, as Murshida, plan to universalize it under your stewardship?

That question can only be answered by first clarifying what Baba meant when he speaks in the Charter of making it non-dogmatically universal. An important part of Baba’s work in this advent was to purify all of the great religions — Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, Islam, etc.— to revitalize them at their very core so that instead of experiencing dogmas and rituals, people could experience the light that initially gave birth to that religious stream.