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Articles
Ordinary Life
– Juniper Downs
Baba Loved Us Too
– Wendy Connor
Feeling His Love
– Steve Klein
He is both Father and Mother
– Juniper Downs
A Leap of Faith
– Wendy Connor
Becoming His
– Steve Klein
Don't Worry, Be Happy
– Juniper Downs
A Life Worth Living
– Wendy Connor
Love The One You're With
– Steve Klein
What a Mighty Beloved our Beloved is
– Wendy Connor
To thine own self be true?
– Steve Klein
The Sweets of His Love
– Wendy Connor
Sickness and Health
– Juniper Downs
Giving Advice
– Steve Klein
"Garlic-Faced"
– Wendy Connor
To Love and Be Loved
– Juniper Downs
Talking About The Truth
– Steve Klein
The Script was Written Long Ago
– Wendy Connor
Excuse Me, Which Way to God?
– Steve Klein
Letting Go
– Juniper Downs
The Mosquitoes are Bad Today
– Wendy Connor
What If A Teaching Moment Never Comes?
– Steve Klein
Beads On One String
– Juniper Downs
Youth Sahavas '07
– Wendy Connor
Stop, You're Both Right!
– Steve Klein
God, Please Give me a Job
– Juniper Downs
"It Just Passes More Quickly"
– Wendy Connor
Multiple Meher Babas
– Steve Klein
The Treasure Within
– Wendy Connor
Winking Back
– Juniper Downs
Holding On, But Losing One's Grip
– Steve Klein
1969
– Ann Conlon
Obedience
– Ann Conlon
Meher Center – The Way It Was
– Ann Conlon
Armageddon, Anyone?
– Ann Conlon
What Does Baba Want Me to Do?
– Ann Conlon
Baba's 'Things'
– Ann Conlon
The Way It Was – Meherabad
– Ann Conlon
What Does THAT Mean?
– Ann Conlon
Doing "Baba Work"
– Ann Conlon
Broken Heads
– Ann Conlon
On Being Ill
– Ann Conlon
Enid
– Ann Conlon
To Each His Own
– Ann Conlon
Meherjee
– Ann Conlon
Youth Sahavas
– Ann Conlon
Kitty
– Ann Conlon
The Lonely Path
– Ann Conlon
Isn't He Enough?
– Ann Conlon
Goher
– Ann Conlon
He Said What?
– Ann Conlon
Seeking Suffering
– Ann Conlon
Taking a Dare
– Ann Conlon
Dreams
– Ann Conlon
Amartithi
– Ann Conlon
Margaret
– Ann Conlon
"The Disciple"
– Ann Conlon
I Wonder ...
– Ann Conlon
Backbiting, etc.
– Ann Conlon
Rites, Rituals and Ceremonies
– Ann Conlon
Hearing His Name
– Ann Conlon
"Baba's Group"
– Ann Conlon
His Promise
– Ann Conlon
Then and Now
– Ann Conlon
Middlemen Revisited
– Ann Conlon
Padri
– Ann Conlon
Gateway Days
– Ann Conlon
The New Life
– Ann Conlon
Books, Books and More Books
– Ann Conlon
His "Last Warning"
– Ann Conlon
Elizabeth Patterson
– Ann Conlon
Detachment
– Ann Conlon
Is That A Religion Coming?
– Ann Conlon
Manifestation: Did He Or Didn't He?
– Ann Conlon
A Country of Our Own?
– Ann Conlon
Remembering Mohammed
– Ann Conlon
Advice (Sort-Of) for Newcomers
– Ann Conlon
You're a Baba Lover If...
– Ann Conlon
Real Happiness
– Ann Conlon
Baba Lover, Baba Follower or Both?
– Ann Conlon
Meherazad – The Way It Was
– Ann Conlon
The Strongest Memories
– Ann Conlon
Obedience
It's been a very long time since I've heard anyone mention the word "obedience" in connection with Meher Baba. When I first learned of Meher Baba, it was a word spoken and discussed often in relation to his orders, general and personal.
Why isn't that so anymore? I'm not sure, but maybe it's partly due to cultural changes, some subtle and some not so subtle. The idea of "following" a spiritual master was popular thirty or forty years ago, and following meant obeying. Not true anymore. Also, once Meher Baba announced he was the Avatar, the phrase "perfect master" was seldom applied to him. Cultural changes included, I think, the growth of a much stronger sense of independence, particularly by women, who began to feel they weren't about to "follow" anyone. And it has included rejection of one traditional authority figure after another.
Ignoring the part of a spiritual commitment that demands obedience isn't easy, either. You're giving over part of yourself to another being. But, in the end, that is exactly what Meher Baba demands. "Obedience is greater than love," he said. Sometimes he asked his followers if they "were willing" to obey him, as when the invitation went out for the 1958 Sahavas in Myrtle Beach.
I expect this is one of those things that one comes to over time, possibly over many lifetimes. I think that you would have to come to such a state of complete love for him that the only thought in your mind would be to please him, and you simply could not help doing so. Not a "sometimes" thing, at all.
Certainly, there are examples of that kind of obedience to Meher Baba. The mandali, of course. One of my favorite examples of it is Nonnie Gayley, who never once so much as asked Baba "why" when he told her to do something. She simply said, "Yes, Baba," and immediately went off to do what he asked.
I suppose the rest of us are just going to have to get over our resistance to authority, even to Meher Baba's authority. We'll have to stop arguing over whether something is "an order." And we'll have to quit putting off obedience by spending years trying to interpret those orders, or requests, or wishes. Wouldn't it be much easier to just give in and get on with the work of really following him?