9902 Sulphur Mountain Road
Ojai, CA 93023-9375
Phone: 805-640-0000
Email: info@mehermount.org
Wednesday-Sunday: Noon to 5:00 p.m.
Monday & Tuesday: Closed
Buzz & Ginger Glasky
Sam Ervin, Preident
Ron Holsey, Vice President
Ursula Reinhart, Treasurer
Jim Whitson, Director
Richard Mannis, Director
Margaret Magnus, Secretary
Anecdotes, activities and stories about Meher Mount - past, present and future.
Filtering by Category: History
The following article along with four photographs of Meher Baba were published in the Los Angeles Times on Wednesday, August 1, 1956. Meher Baba, who was staying at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, met with the press on July 31st to answer questions. The article appeared at the top of the front page of the local news section of the Times.
Read MoreAgnes Baron’s only trip to India was in September 1982 to talk to Meher Baba’s mandali (close disciples) about the future of Meher Mount.
“What I didn’t realize at the time,” Bill Le Page said, “there was no resolution in her mind regarding the future ownership of Meher Mount.”
Read MoreAll through Agnes Baron’s time at Meher Mount, various groups wanted to use Meher Mount for their own purposes.
Read MoreWhen Agnes Baron, co-founder, lifetime caretaker, and one-time owner of Meher Mount, first met Avatar Meher Baba in 1952, He said,
“’First of all, I want Agni to know that only Agni, God and Baba know what she has gone through in these six years to hold Meher Mount for me.’”
Agnes looked at Him in surprise and said, “’It was no trouble, Baba, no trouble at all.’” She had completely forgotten all her problems in His presence.
Read MoreMeher Baba’s nickname for Agnes Baron was Agni – a name meaning fire in Sanskrit and a fire-god in Hinduism. With its capacity to destroy and cleanse, fire is a thread running through Agnes’ life.
“Fire proves a disaster for Upper Ojai homes” read the headline in the Ojai Valley News.
On October 14, 1985, the Ferndale Fire, whipped by Santa Ana winds, came up the southwest ridge of Sulphur Mountain. By 9 p.m. on that Monday night Meher Mount, an Avatar Meher Baba Center and the home of co-founder and lifetime caretaker Agnes Baron, was ablaze.
Read MoreOne afternoon, Jean Adriel approached Agnes Baron, who was renting a cottage at the New Life Center at the time, and said, “We are going out for a drive this afternoon, looking for a place, would you like to come?”
In 1944, Jean Adriel and Alexander Markey had established the 500-acre New Life Center in La Crescenta, CA, which was dedicated to Avatar Meher Baba.
Then sometime in 1946, Jean received word from Meher Baba that He wished for them to relocate to a place farther from the Los Angeles area, somewhere one or two hours outside a big city.
Read MoreFor $42,500 – or about $608,250 in today’s prices – the New Life Foundation acquired the Sulphur Mountain property, now known as Meher Mount, on July 31, 1946.
At least two of the area newspapers carried news of the purchase:
“Shri Meher Baba to Establish Center in Upper Ojai Valley” (The Ojai, August 9, 1946) and
“Baba Will Start New Foundation” (Santa Paula Chronicle, August 13, 1946).
The Ojai article began, “Of interest to the numerous valley residents who follow the history and development of the numerous religious groups that are prominent in the world today… is the news that Shri Meher Baba will come to Ojai from Europe within a few weeks to establish a center of his New Life Foundation up on Sulphur Mountain.”
Read MoreAgnes Baron, who later became a co-founder and lifetime caretaker of Meher Mount, was staying at the New Life Center in La Crescenta, CA, in 1946.
When she arrived at this Center dedicated to Avatar Meher Baba, Agnes knew nothing about Him.
One day during her stay, one of the founders of the New Life Center, Jean Adriel, said to Agnes, “We are going out for a drive this afternoon looking for a place, would you like to come?”
“Well, it was a hot day so I thought I would go with them. I just went for the ride,” Agnes remembered.
“It seems they were planning to sell the New Life Center and buy another place. I didn’t know what the details were, and I didn’t particularly care. I just went for the ride.
“Every time they’d see a lovely place they’d say, ‘Oh there’s Baba’s place.’”
Read MoreThe founding of Meher Mount starts about 70 miles southeast of Ojai, CA, with the creation of the New Life Center in La Crescenta, an unincorporated area in Los Angeles County, CA.
In the mid-1940s, Alexander Markey and Jean Adriel formed The New Life Foundation, Inc. to spread Avatar Meher Baba’s messages and establish a center in California in Meher Baba’s name.
Read MoreThirty-five years ago, in September 1982, Meher Mount co-founder and lifetime caretaker Agnes Baron took her first and only trip to India to meet with Meher Baba’s mandali (close disciples) regarding the future of Meher Mount.
She wanted the mandali’s advice on what to do with Meher Mount. At the time of her trip, Meher Mount was in her name, and she was wrestling with what to do with the property in the future. She had told Meher Baba in 1952 that she would keep Meher Mount for Him through “hell, fire and damnation.”
Read More“To the living Christ whose beauty the very heavens cannot contain, but whose presence may be found in every humble, living heart," wrote Jean Adriel in her Dedication for the biography, Avatar: The Life Story of the Perfect Master Meher Baba, 1947
"Besides telling the life story of Baba, the author relates her personal experiences with him, along with those of many other of his close followers. This account of Baba’s life describes many events from ‘behind the scenes’ - it captures the gamut of emotions involved as people struggled variously to comprehend Baba’s unusual ways, to carry out his demanding instructions, to test him, and to love him.” - Back Cover, Avatar
Read More"…the personal disaster, for some years foretold by me, took place in the form of an automobile accident while crossing the American continent… It was necessary that it should happen in America. God willed it so." - Avatar Meher Baba
Read MoreIn 1956, Avatar Meher Baba circled the globe in 30 days and flew 30,000 miles crossing five continents. This journey included a three-day stop in Southern California with a visit to Meher Mount on August 2, 1956.
Because 1956 is such a significant year in the history of Meher Mount, there is a “1956” board on Pinterest to identify other memorable events around the world that year.
The following are photos of some of the 1956 events that intersected with Avatar Meher Baba.
Read MoreIn 1949, Avatar Meher Baba asked His mandali (close disciples) in Meherazad, Ahmednagar and Meherabad, India, as well as His close lovers and followers everywhere in the world to keep silence for the entire month of July. Meher Baba had been silent since July 10, 1925.
One of Meher Baba’s followers in the West, Marguerite Poley wrote about observing that month of silence at Meher Mount. The following is her account reprinted with permission from “Meher Mount Memories: The Month of Silence, July 1949,” by Marguerite Poley, Love Street Lamp Post, January 2006 (1st Quarter 2006), pp. 43-44. ©Avatar Meher Baba Center of Southern California.
Read MoreAgnes Baron (1907-1994) is remembered because of her dedication to Avatar Meher Baba, for her role as a founder and lifetime caretaker of Meher Mount, for her fiery nature and no-holds barred approach to life, for her selfless service, and for the many lives she touched.
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