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READERS’ COMMENTS about Mehera-Meher: A Divine Romance

RECENTLY RECEIVED COMMENTS:

Marc Flayton

When reading Volume Three of Mehera-Meher, one will actually be helped with one's own suffering. By reading through [the narratives of] Mehera, Mani, Meheru and Goher in Volume Three, about the day-to-day experience of living with Baba and taking care of him when he had his accidents, and of how he began to go downhill physically, only then can one find the support necessary to endure one's own suffering. You actually can feel what Baba went through.

I read Volume Three and then read The New Life by Bhau Kalchuri -- and then went through the most trying mental and physical suffering I've ever been through. If I hadn't read Mehera-Meher I would have felt all alone.

Bree Rael

I just finished reading Mehera-Meher. I was very deeply touched by the books and I wanted to thank you for such a labor of Love. One can't say enough good things about these priceless volumes. You have given us an invaluable glimpse into the intimacy of life with our Beloved Baba, as lived and experienced by his closest mandali. This is something those of us who never met Baba in the body, treasure. I know it must have consumed many years of your life, but what a meditation! Having never met Baba in the body, these volumes have helped me to come closer to Baba and Mehera in my heart. It is a blessing beyond words. I wept tears to know the depth of their love for each other. I cannot thank you enough. Your expression of love for Mehera and Meher Baba through these books has touched me deeply, as they have many others, I'm sure. What a gift for posterity!

Wallis Meadows

Since January I have been immersed in the three-volume set by David Fenster, Mehera-Meher. I am enchanted by it and recommend it whole-heartedly. It is wonderful to read the DETAILS of life in the ashram(s), all the things they did and said and thought. I had no idea Baba was so full of mischief, or that he was so human in his interactions with the women. Just the idea that he was a "sloppy eater" tickled my funnybone. I can just see those scenes when Mehera would get out a bib, and clean up the floor and the table.
Mehera's recounting of details I have never heard of before, like what Baba liked to eat, how he preferred to spend his time, the details about his appearance, the questions the women asked Baba, none of these things have I seen addressed before.
I encourage anyone who is interested in the details of Baba's life as it was lived with the women to read them. We are accustomed to Lord Meher, and I was astonished, and still am, about how Baba trained the women for his Universal purposes as revealed in these three books.
Reading these books has been like a meditation. And I find that when I am not reading them I am thinking about them. It is my meditation reading each night.
There are so many surprises in Mehera-Meher that it would take a book to list them all. The subtitle of the books is "A Divine Romance." And it really is.
You have given us a spectacular document. It is fully apparent that Baba is God, hiding it well in most instances, but he is fully human, and fully adorable. But when he slips in a hint that he IS God, he makes them reel!
I will be reading these volumes over and over. I cannot imagine that they have not sold out! Perhaps people just do not know what such different experiences the men mandali had from the women, and the difference between those experiences sheds previously undreamed-of light on Baba's glory and compassion and power.
I am grateful to David Fenster for his wonderful accounting of the story of the Beloved from a viewpoint I had not seen before. You will be really happy to read these books. I know I am.

More from Wallis Meadows

I have just finished Volume 3. What an achievement to have presented the story of Mehera and Baba in the masterful way you have! I never met Mehera, having come to Baba in 1995, and I could never understand why she was seemingly so important. Now, having read the story of their lives together, I have whole new perspective. It seems that the pieces of the puzzle have fallen together for me. For Mehera to have represented Creation bodes well for the world and the universe in general, don't you think? Her one-pointed devotion which you have shown so clearly is a constant reminder to me, and to those with whom I have discussed the books, that we can and should think of Baba in our every second. You have given us a gift beyond words, the gift of understanding, for now and future generations to come. What a treasure!

ORIGINAL COMMENTS:

Meheru (Mehera’s niece and one of Meher Baba’s women mandali from the Introduction to Mehera-Meher)

Mehera-Meher will be read with great interest and appreciation by Baba lovers, who want to know as much as they can about Avatar Meher Baba, in whose life Mehera played such a vital role ... Hearing Mehera speak of her life with Baba to pilgrims over the years, the author was so touched by her love for Baba that he was prompted to write what he could of her story, using what he had heard directly from her and what he had gathered from others’ recounting of events ... The wide collection of photos that the author has included enrich the book with the visual presence of Baba and Mehera, and bring to life the quality of their relationship in a way words could never do ... [T]he result of his many years of sincere effort will be welcomed by the Baba-world.

Janet Judson (editor of Mehera and longtime Meherabad resident)

David has dedicated much of his life to the creation of this work about Mehera. Mehera herself gave him many, many hours of private time with her, sharing her life with Baba, to enable David to begin a picture of her life and of the Beloved himself from his beloved’s eyes. David tracked down others around the world who were blessed witnesses to this great Love Story, and added their stories and perceptions. Many of these stories would have been lost were it not for David’s focus and effort.

Julia Ross (Instructor of English, Coastal Carolina University, and principal editor of Mehera-Meher)

A revolutionary book ... not just the story of Mehera and the women mandali, but the story of Baba’s personal life – everything that was not included in Lord Meher, which is more the story of Baba’s public life and statements, and the way he acted towards the men mandali. Mehera-Meher is the story of Baba as a man, shown in his relationship with the women. This story, and the story of Mehera and the women, has never been told before in the recorded works we have of past advents. It made me see Baba in a way I never had before and could not have without this story. It has meant more to me than all the other Baba books I have ever read.

Steve Klein (author of Praise In Complaint and O Beloved; editor of Letters From the Mandali and Glimpses of the God-Man series)

Mehera-Meher is a great book. I can’t recommend it highly enough. It is jam-packed with information and anecdotes which, I think for most of us, will be totally new. This is obviously going to be the definitive book on Mehera for some time to come. And yet, that is not why I am urging everyone to read it. What I found completely fascinating was the incredibly vivid picture it painted of what life was like, not just for Mehera, but for all the women mandali. It made the complex interpersonal dynamics of the women come alive in a way which, for the first time, gave me a real feel for what it must have been like to live that life. And, in so doing, it made the intimate relationship each of the women had with Meher Baba palpable. Suddenly the stories became more than just anecdotes, they became the interplay of love itself. I gained more than an intellectual insight into ashram life, I felt the emotional significance of that life. And, in this context, Mehera’s life and the special role Baba developed for her, made sense in a way I could never understand or appreciate before. I found myself in tears as I read the last few chapters. What else can I say? Buy this book.

Ed Legum (designer of Mehera-Meher)

Through David Fenster’s 30-year labor of love, you may now have some idea of what it was like to meet Meher Baba and fall madly in love with him. You can now imagine what it was like to hear young Meher Baba’s sweet voice sing in the night, to feed Baba, to wait anxiously for him to visit, to comb his hair, to wash his clothes, to fly across an ocean with him, to travel dusty roads with him, to watch a Bob Hope movie with him, to walk beside him in the woods, to bleed with him in a ditch, to receive a teaspoon of orange juice by his hand, to place your cheek against his, to kiss him, to inhale the fragrance of Meher Baba, to live to please him. I never met Mehera, but through Mehera-Meher I have met her a thousand times, and she has confided in me the secrets of her divine romance with Meher Baba.

Tim Garvin

I thought I might take a moment to write you about your book. What can I say, David? It is really and truly the complement to Lord Meher. So thorough, and so deeply and wonderfully human. And the writing! Self-effaced, economical, clear, forceful, honest and compelling. All the details we have all longed for are there, the confusions of daily life, the arguments, the irritations, longings, the preferences of the various personalities. And perhaps above all, your unerring selection of conversation and detail to advance the story.

It seems Baba planted you on earth for this task, and you delivered, for all of us now and for posterity. Your book will be cherished for ages, and I cherish it now.

Cynthia Drake

It is splendid to have Mehera's own story - told so expertly and thoroughly and artfully.

Jon Adelsman

I want to thank you for the great gift you have birthed and passed on to us all in Mehera-Meher. Though I was fortunate to have met Mehera several times, until I read Mehera-Meher, very little of the breadth and depth of their daily relationship was available to me. Your work opened the door and invites all of us to come close and witness so many details of their love expressed for each other.

For me the cumulative effect of all this was overwhelming. I had to stop and dry my eyes, and after too many expressions of “Oh my God, Baba, unbelievable!” my wife asked me to read silently. I was also so touched with the volumes and difficulty of the tests Baba gave to all his women. Your work brings out how unique and sometimes surprisingly down-to-earth many of them were.

I’m sure most -- if not all -- will never know all the work or the many mayavic challenges you faced in completing this difficult assignment from Baba. And only he could ever know how this great gift will impact the lives of countless for generations to come.

Nick Principe

Thank you for the exquisite work you have done. I really cannot describe how I feel. I am grateful beyond words. I feel this work will be historically among the great works of all time.

Annie Bell

I just had to write you to say how very beautiful and compelling and intimately endearing your Mehera-Meher books are. What a gift you have given to all of us! What an extraordinary amount of work you have done. Reading the stories every detail has given me sustenance and made me feel so close to Beloved Baba and Mehera. Thank you for this masterpiece given with his love.

Jenny Keating

I wanted to say again how much I'm enjoying Mehera-Meher. Everyone who has read it is extremely enthusiastic also. It is an amazing work with so much detail and the way you have brought it all together is truly remarkable. But more than that, you have captured the unique beauty and sweetness of Mehera and Baba's relationship. It has meant more to me than I can say.

Duncan Knowles

Each morning, I've been reading a few pages of Mehera-Meher and it is absolutely superb. It is unbelievable how much work you've put into this book. One of the things I'm so struck by is the immediacy of it all. You've been able to capture so much detail and feelings and character of these people that you make me feel like I'm actually there. This is not a book with a few sentences or a paragraph about a time and place. This takes you there and keeps you there for many pages. And what that does is let me settle in emotionally to that time and place and live there with Mehera and her family. That is so special. And what a bonus to get stories and first-hand accounts of Babajan and Upasni Maharaj.

I know you put 20 years into this project, but to this reader, none of that time was wasted. You've blessed us all. I have no question that this is the definitive book that will ever be written about Mehera and Baba ...

You have worked very hard to let the reader know all the subtle relationships, both family and personal, between the lead characters, and reading slowly and carefully pulls me into the web of connections. I am just amazed at the level of detail and recollections you have gathered together about the early years. Your descriptions of the attitudes and prejudices of Zoroastrians and Parsis in the early days helps paint the tone of the times. I am at the point now where Mehera is living at Meherabad but is shy and easily embarrassed. She doesn't know yet that she is the beloved of the Beloved. I think this must be sort of a spiritual boot camp for her. You've done a very nice job of presenting her feelings and attitudes almost in the present tense, so the reader vicariously experiences this time with her.

I find that I'm happy and sad. Happy that I have had such an extraordinary reading experience that drew me so close to Beloved Baba, and happy that there are two more volumes to go. But sad that there are only two more volumes. When I first heard of this book, I thought it was about Mehera. And now I know that, yes, it is about her, but it is about so much more. Charmian used to describe Mehera as "the moon to Baba's sun." This book is that to both of them -- it mirrors Mehera's beautiful moonlight reflecting Baba's radiant sunlight. There is no book written that gives such an intimate personal account of life with Baba.

More from Duncan Knowles

You have made so many good decisions in creating this book -- the decision at the outset to do it thoroughly, the breadth of people you included who enhance the narrative, the many photos previously unseen, the structure of the page with notes at the side, the inclusion of family trees, the organization into three volumes, the beautiful photos on the covers, and on and on. These all enrich the reader's experience. Your inclusion of the lists of songs, music, movies, plays, and books that Baba heard and saw is worth a volume by itself for the pleasure it will give people in the future. All of us are inclined to want to read what Baba read, listen to what Baba heard, and see what Baba saw. In the past we've learned about a few of those titles; but now, thanks to your labors, we have a very full and tantalizing list.

I worked for 30 years in areas of communications, and my life has put me around the written word quite a lot. The art and craft of writing that you have employed is brilliant. I've done many recorded interviews with people and I have some inkling of the work you have had to do to weave together a narrative that tells the story, but doesn't call attention to itself. You have beautifully balanced real quotes from Baba, Mehera, Mani, and the women mandali with narrative summaries of the information and descriptions they provided. The reader will never know the amount of thought and work that has gone into those choices and the endless hours of writing and refining it has taken. The reader only experiences being carried along on a silky smooth ride.

Whenever I mention the book to someone who has been reading it, in that moment their world armor vanishes and you see into their being, that vulnerable place where their heart is and where their deepest feelings dwell. That is the place where they are living while they are reading Mehera-Meher.

When I told Connie Cushing I was reading Mehera-Meher, that same look came over her face. She said, "It's so beautiful, I don't want to finish it." I talked to Richard Cormier who has been reading Mehera-Meher. He said, "I think it's the finest Baba book I have ever read."

David, beyond a doubt this is one of the great literary achievements of this age. Though it is known only to a handful of us who follow Baba now, in the future Mehera-Meher will become a beloved companion to everyone in the world.

Everywhere I go these days, I see copies of Mehera-Meher lying about. People speak of it in such reverential tones. How extraordinary these volumes are. Now that you've written this book, it has come into focus for me that this book had to be written. It is the only book in this Age that takes the reader into the inner sanctum of living with Baba. I'm sure that Baba wanted this book, and how blessed you are to be the one compelled to write it.

Hurry and finish Sheela's book so I have something to read when I finish this last volume!

Charlie Gard'ner

Just wanted to quickly express my thanks for the incredibly wonderful book that you were honored to produce for Baba and Mehera. It is so very well written, and vital. Just wanted to thank you for all the hard work of research and writing that must have gone into it. It is very appreciated!!!

Terry Hassen Hogan

What an incredibly beautiful book you have offered. It sings of your love and devotion to Meher Baba. All of us are the lucky recipients of your bountiful work! You have put such a great attention to every detail of this gift for all of us blessed to know and adore the Avatar and His Mehera. What a lovely, lovely treasure!

I would like to share with you a little anecdote. My father is Aneece Hassen, a photographer who was, for years, privileged to work with archival images of Beloved Baba and the mandali. My dad is an avid reader, especially of Baba books, so I loaned him my copy of your three-volume series. I thought he would finish it in record time, as he finishes nearly everything I loan him. Weeks went by and I was selfishly missing my books. I wanted to resume reading too, so I phoned and asked if he would just return each volume as he finishes it so that I could continue reading.

My dad said, "Terry, I sit down and read this beautiful book three and four times every day, and then I go back and re-read and re-read sections. There is so much about the women's lives that I never knew, and this book includes photographs I have never seen before. I don't think I will finish any time soon. I need to buy my own set."

I gave my set to my father as an early Christmas present, and I will get to Searchlight to buy another set for myself. Still, I wanted you to get a sense of how deeply my father loves your book.

Aneece Hassen

I want you to know that I read almost all of the books about and by Meher Baba. I don't know of any of them that moved me more than Mehera-Meher, and I just could not put them down, re-reading a page or paragraph many, many times. This is such a beautiful set and the only ones I can remember about the women and what they went through and felt. I won't make this a long drawn-out note, but I've wanted to write you for months now and kept putting it off. I'm glad you're writing other books, David, you have an enviable skill in research, writing, and editing that are truly from Him. You write so beautifully I hope you'll never stop!!!!

Beth Rigor McKee

I am so grateful for your writing, and want to let you know how wonderful my life has been this past week, since beginning Mehera-Meher.

Beloved Baba must be so, so pleased by your extraordinary effort and care. Every paragraph of what I've read so far has another delightful tidbit of life with Beloved Baba. Lisa Sanford said that she often reads until dawn, completely losing herself in your writing. Her take on why we've been so naturally concentrating on Baba since beginning the reading is that you've placed us directly in the present moment of the women mandali's life with Him. Each moment bears that accuracy and love. Both of us have known hundreds if not thousands of facts concerning the various phases of Baba's work, including that with the women, but somehow you've penetrated into the essence -- releasing the being and significance of those.

And how wonderfully the volumes are written. Your style serves the subject matter precisely. That's difficult to achieve, and happens so rarely.

I finished the third volume a few days ago. At the end, I was reading a paragraph at a time, working to extend that wonderful experience, hoping it might not have to end at all.

Thank you so, so much for writing these books. I feel that they've changed the tenor and quality of my life. Your work is extraordinarily rooted in the active present-tense of God's work on this earth. I feel that so strongly.

Nancy Merwan

I finally finished the trio of your extraordinary books recently and want to tell you what a joy it was reading them. I loved every moment. I had no idea that I knew so little until I read them -- what an enriching education!

“3-B” Dianne Cobb

For months I’ve been delightedly pouring over the volumes of Mehera-Meher. What a real, unique, and wonderful contribution these books are to all of Baba literature. It is such a brand-new angle on things! It really shows what Baba’s daily life was; it shows the human side of those blessed to be near him; and the constant battle with one’s own nature that was the price of being there. Most of all, it shows Mehera unfolding as Baba’s most dear One of all.

I love these books. They really give a context now to all the years of letters she sent me. I now have some picture of all the years of self-sacrifice in Mehera that I was writing to, each time I licked that stamp.

What your books made so clear is that Mehera – and those with Baba – had to struggle every minute against their personal inclinations, for the privilege of being with him, or just being closely connected to him. It never got to be exactly easy.

Betty Grant

How can I express myself telling you what a service you have done? What a wonder these books are. You have done a most beautiful job. To learn about Baba’s time with the women was so wonderful. Another way of getting an inside look at the Beloved. When I finished Lord Meher, I wanted to cry. I wanted more; then came Mehera-Meher. What a smile came in my heart. There are no words I can use to let you know how much I appreciate your beautiful books.

Maraiya Potter

Every night we have been reading Mehera-Meher. I am kind of stalling as I didn’t want it to end. As I am reading this divine romance, I cannot help but see how it affects our lives as a couple. Baba and Mehera being the example of Real Love shared keeps on inspiring me in doing my best in our relationship. What can I say of my heart when it reads Beloved Baba and Mehera’s words? Tears of joy and longing blend into one as a beautiful song never ending.

Annie Barnhart

I finally finished your Mehera-Meher volumes and I just wanted to share with you what a treasure they were. The detailed accounts of Mehera's schedule each day in her last 20 years showed the perfection of her meditation on Meher Baba and really helped me understand her love for Baba was 100%. Very inspiring!

Eric Teperman

Mehera means (and has meant) so much to me over these years. I feel and know that we are tied up with her, intrinsically ... While my attention is always on Baba, I know somewhere deep in my heart that we, all of humanity, not just those of us who already love Baba, were with her while she loved him; and that her loving him as she did, and of course even more so how he loved her, allows and helps us to love Baba more and more. I think that this is why people have come to worship those who have been in her role in the past, although unknowingly.

I just wanted to let you know how much reading these books is meaning to me. The detail of all the little incidents and thoughts and descriptions make it so very easy for me to close my eyes after reading a passage and picture the scene unfold in my mind's eye for my heart to see as it comes very much to life. I am just thankful that Baba has helped you to save all these things and put it all down so simply. This account will be a Godsend, a real gift of love from Baba himself about intimate life with him, for whoever picks them up in years to come.

These books are beyond wonderful. For those of us (who were not there) who just want more and more of a taste (and more than a taste!) of what it is like to be with Baba in the same room, on the same road, anywhere at all in the same life with him with us, we get it from these books. No one but Baba could allow a book to do this, and I am endlessly grateful that they were written.

What I told you about those books is really only the tip of it all, since I get so much from Baba in them and most of it is not easily said in words, if at all. I hate to talk about "posterity," but all I can say is that true lovers of Baba down through the years will be grateful for these books, and we are all grateful to Baba that he has helped them come into being.

Victor Seckeler

I got a set yesterday and already my structured life has fallen apart -- work has taken a back seat for the second day as I can't help myself from entering into and being enthralled with the day-to-day, compelling, so, so sweet, intimate details of life with Beloved Baba as recounted by His beloved Mehera.

What a fine work! ...

I did not plan to read the books at all when I first got them. However, one morning I opened Volume Three and involuntarily disappeared inside. Many, many hours later, the sun now was setting, I felt I had better put it aside and regretfully extricated myself from it. Rather than read it cover to cover though, I had wandered contentedly here and there. The next day I opened Volume One and the same thing happened -- though here I had more restraint and only disappeared into it for half a day.

I enjoyed reading how Baba came to wear his first pink coat! Otherwise, I was savoring all. Certainly intimate aspects of the women's life and Mehera's perspective are new to me. But truly, I have enjoyed all I read, so spending a day and half took me to many enjoyable places.

Kebi Boose

I have been reading a bit of Mehera-Meher each morning and I wanted to tell you how wonderful it feels. I am enjoying the book so very much and get up each morning with thoughts of excitement to read more. Thanks for taking all those years to put together something so wonderful!

I am finding EVERYTHING interesting and there is so much that I didn't know about Mehera's life. From the reading, I feel like I am putting together millions of puzzle pieces that were there in my mind and now they are converging together.

Bill Bodman

There is so much in Mehera-Meher that is new. What is so exciting to me is the ability to think about the Avatar's daily life from a new perspective, that of Mehera and the women. Before your books, this was impossible. It seems to me that you were given and have fulfilled a destined role, that of assembling and sharing information that without someone assuming the role would have been lost forever. If the work of this spiritual age is to try to divinize our daily lives, how fascinating it is to be able to consider the Avatar's daily life, so much of which was spent with the women. From this perspective all the details are important.

Mischa Rutenberg

I am savoring each wonderful story. It is wonderful to get such an in depth insight into the nature of Mehera's relationship with Baba. This is naturally alluded to in other works, but your book provides the type of description that allows one to understand with the heart. It is completely humbling and inspiring at the same time. I know what a labor of love this was and how much effort it took. As I talk about it with friends, I find that it is having tremendous impact. It is a unique work that honors, amplifies, and reveals so much about the beautiful life of Meher Baba.

Laura Arasmo

Wow! I can't begin to tell you how much I appreciate and value this book. I enjoyed all of it. I would never have read it every night for weeks had I not. The book reads much like a novel. A very good novel. I was transported to that wonderful time and didn't want to leave. There is an immediacy about your narrative.

Many of the stories were familiar, but the details were not. Despite years of reading books about Baba, I never understood or appreciated the extent of Mehera's role. As a result, I never, until now, appreciated Mehera. I couldn't understand it, so I just walled it off. I didn't appreciate having met her to the extent that this good fortune deserved. I do now.

Your book gave me the opportunity to fall in love with God, again. The little details of life with Baba, from the perspective of the women surrounding him were so wonderful.

Baba wrote that book through you. He's a wonderful writer. What you did, through him, is magnificent. I am not minimizing your tremendous effort over the years. It is a monumental work and to do it as well as you did took tremendous perseverance and patience. And much love. And that love shines through every page.

Ira Deitrick

I'm glad to have the opportunity to congratulate on the marvelous job you did with Mehera-Meher. It's a classic and a wonderful contribution.

Heidi McGovern

I couldn't put off writing you any longer to let you know how enjoyable it is to read Mehera-Meher. It is such a treat 'discovering' Mehera in her blessed life with Meher Baba. It feels as if a window to fresh, pure air has opened. Thanks for your part in this treasure of treasures.

Michael Le Page

David - you have done a truly remarkable job with your biography of Mehera. I think that it is a stunning piece of work - I found it fascinating from the first page to the last. It seems to me that it is a extraordinary historical document - I assume that it is the most detailed account ever written of the Consort of the Avatar. I appreciated how you kept yourself out of the story, except for your very interesting speculations which I found very thought-provoking. I also appreciated your gentle humor - which I felt really added to the story. I thought that the production was excellent - the choice of paper, font, the photos, and especially the covers and the box were exquisite. You have given me many, many hours of reading pleasure - thank you so very much.

Congratulations again on such a marvelous creation.

Craig Ruff

I finished the great work you have done and will miss reading it. Maybe I will start over?!

I think the book is outstanding from the beginning through the early days of Meherabad and then once again from the Satara days until the end. In both cases an intimacy with Mehera is given and especially in the 60’s where you get even a greater sense of intimacy between her and Baba. It is more than I ever knew. And by reading it I had a much greater sense of their relationship and why he called her His beloved.

Steven Goodman

I Just finished (next time I will read it slower) my favorite account of life with Baba. For me, this was truly the first Intimate Love-Story of the One who came for intimacy. I thank you and our Beloved for this treasure that tells the most wonderful story of our lifetime, till He comes again

Thanks for the opportunity to spend the day (inwardly) thinking about Mehera-Meher and reliving the precious time passed with our Beloved Companion. It is a delight and joy.

The most painful surprise was from Satara onward, when Baba seemed to intensify his work and his concomitant suffering appeared greater and greater. I never witnessed Baba's intense suffering as depicted in the Meherazad years, or witnessed his compassion with such poignancy.

But for me, the most charming and endearing are the sweet and simple stories of love between our Beloved and his dearest Mehera.

Farhad Shafa

I was fascinated by dear Mehera's early childhood, which was mostly new to me. Also, her first meeting with the Beloved, as well as all the confusion about Rustom's wedding and Upasni Maharaj's role was very interesting to me. I am reading it very slowly.

Dennis McCabe

This is just a quick note to let you know we read from your book Mehera-Meher at our Amartithi [Meher Center] barn program. I selected a section of the events of January 30 and January 31,1969. Many people were very moved by this extraordinary account. You really did a great job on these books. I can almost hear the mandali speaking as I read it.

Cherie Plumlee

Normally I'm a fast reader, but with these books I want to savor every story and photo and so it takes me longer, reading an hour or so just before sleep. It's nice floating into unconsciousness with the pictures the stories conjure in my mind and feeling Baba so close. What I found particularly interesting is the "atmosphere" that has been created as well as little vignettes between the women, and between them and Baba, that I hadn't read before. This intimacy is not a part of Lord Meher so much as I feel it deals mostly with facts — interwoven with adventures of course — but it doesn't hold the "magic" that Mehera-Meher does for me. I haven't patience with facts unless they are combined with a description or written reenactment of an event itself on a heart level — the little details, sweet moments, that were a part of everyday life.

I have heard told that in general women are the best writers when it comes to detail and setting intimate atmospheres, but you have proven that you do just as well, if not better than any of the women writers I have read and I wonder if that isn't because you spent so much time with the women and their "living love" for their Beloved. I could imagine that it could do nothing but increase the feeling of love in anything you would write about them and him.

Lord Meher is a mixture of head and heart. Mehera-Meher is all heart and I love it!

Anne Haug

I extend to you my heartfelt gratitude for your beautiful labor of love. I felt a parallel between it and Lord Meher as an interweaving of opposites. Reading your books engrained more deeply in me the quiet, inner, feminine path of returning to God and I feel it changing my own life in the most subtle and refined way. I feel Mehera as I do my simple homemaking chores I have consciously followed the path of a homemaker as my spiritual devotion before coming to Baba, and now more than ever! But Mehera-Meher takes it to a deeper level for me. Reading the stories that embody this pure, simple love etch it ever deeper into my being and I thank you from the bottom of my heart for your faithful, patient, loving documentation of these beautiful lives. It is completely different from the hectic fast-paced civilization in which I live -- even in rural Montana and it reinforces for me the great value of simplicity.

Cathy Riley

A fabulous work, so replete with Mehera’s fragrance … I am really loving the books … There is so much “gold there."

Mehdi Ghaffari

What is really miraculous about Mehera-Meher is that while one is reading it, the Beloved is felt so near one almost touches him. These books are amongst the few Baba books that bring the reader to his feet and may be even drowning some in his ocean.

Ellen Kimball

The books are so beautiful. We have been soaking up every word. Truly a labor of love.

Ken Lux
I had the books by my bedside, and I would read a few pages every night. I found it hard to just read a few, and it was always a challenge to restrict it at that and turn out the light. But I’ve finally finished. (It took me about two years at that pace.)
All along, I loved the way you wove in commentary from Mehera’s own words, along with Mani, Meheru, Goher, Mansari and the others, so that it all was a complete tapestry of those times and that epochal life, each person’s statements illuminating another angle of the pageant. Also, your marginal commentary was priceless, and so often gave that marvelous touch of historical or event background of what was happening in the world at that time.
So, David, in this book you have performed a monumental service for us, and for the rest of the world in its time to come, and the deepest thanks are to you and for your prodigious efforts.

Martha Williams
Mehera-Meher is a masterpiece! It is beautifully designed. And Mehera’s presence is so clear and strong - preserved for all time in this treasure that we can always have of her. In these volumes, she is still with us.

Richard Deane
Let me take this opportunity to express to you, dear David, my immense admiration for your most excellent contribution to the intimate and very precious literature about the Beloved. Mehera-Meher is a fantastically beautiful book, most excellent by all standards of scholarship, very beautifully written with a very special narrative gift that makes Mehera's story so beautiful and so interesting, something by no means easy to do, and with wonderful notes and an especially helpful index. It is obvious that you have put great care into the creation of this treasure with its beautiful pictures. These are marvelous features that enhance this sublime and unique story that has no peer in spiritual literary history. It is absolutely packed with the fragrant treasure of the Beloved's love, and I never fail to be profoundly moved whenever I read it.
To tell the truth, I often turn to these beautiful pages again and again, and feel myself transported once again into dearest Baba's and Mehera's divine presence, and through her love, experience his Ocean of Divine Love so intensely.
I am so very grateful that you have preserved for us and for posterity Mehera's incomparable memories and experiences of the Beloved in such a beautiful and well-done book. It is clear that so beautiful an offering of love could only have the Avatar as its Source and Inspiration.