Rick Chapman on Robert Dreyfuss What the excerpt from LORD MEHER (about Robert coming to Baba) does not capture is the unbelievable thrill and sense of adventure that came from discovering the Avatar of the Age. Robert and I had encountered the information at Allan’s office together, and when, less than an hour later, we were in Harvard’s Widener Library checking out THE GOD-MAN, we felt sure that we were on the trail of something amazing. A few hours later, the first pages of that biography revealed what it was: we had found God; or more accurately, we had found God in human form, alive on earth! In the months that followed, we came to Baba together, we planned to attend the December, 1965, Sahavas, and eventually, upon his return to Boston at year’s end, we reveled in tears and ecstasy in Robert’s most remarkable and
Sebastian Baker, Rick Chapman, Robert Dreyfuss
unexpected meeting with Baba. Baba had sent messages through Robert to both Allan and myself, and before long, really before we knew it, we were the “Boston Baba boys,” dubbed so by Beloved Baba Himself as He directed us to spread His Message about drugs to the youth of America. Those times were so heady that there is no capturing the feeling: us aware of the Avatar of the Age, and Him aware of us, sending messages to us! What followed, of course, is not just a book but a library of books: Robert eventually returned to Pakistan with Mik and Uschi Hamilton in a quixotic and ultimately vain attempt to be the first persons to see Baba again once His seclusion ended; Allan afire with Baba’s charge to tell others about His drug message, landing article after article in major magazines and newspapers, talking to audiences about Baba everywhere throughout America and England; and I having the opportunity to go to India, courtesy of a Fulbright Grant, and shortly thereafter having the most precious chance to meet Baba in seclusion myself in August, 1966. And within a little more than a year, all of us back together again, this time in Berkeley, once more attending to work as directed by Beloved Baba. Those were the days, yes, indeed! And as Cole Porter wrote so poignantly in “Begin the Beguine,” “to live it again is past all endeavor.” Through the years to follow, Robert and Allan and I went separate ways —sometimes dramatically separate ways—but to the end we have remained united in a special relationship like no other: we were and will ever remain “Guru-bhais,” brothers in the love of our Master, and our Master just happened to be the Master of all Masters! A fond loving farewell to our very dear Robert, my Guru-bhai and fellow “Boston Baba boy”--we shall meet again no doubt, by His Grace at His Lotus Feet! AVATAR MEHER BABA KI JAI!!! Rick Chapman 15