Just to Serve Him

Karyl Tych has been a tour guide on Center for decades. Her tours have always been warm, welcoming and informative while being efficient and articulate. Over all the years, she has had the ability to connect and engage with any tour participant ranging from young children to reporters from local news outlets. It has always been obvious to us and to anyone who took her tour that she absolutely loves her job. After years of serving the Center and Beloved Baba, Karyl recently retired from this volunteer role. To honor her dedicated years of service, we sat down to talk, both of us knowing too well the fallacy of our attempt. Service and talking about it are antithetical to each other. And yet, despite the might of words, we tried to capture something that is beyond words.

Karyl has seen tours from their early conception to where they are today. In the old days, she was just called when there was a need for a tour – every once in a while. Now, tours are a different creature. There are daily tours of the Center to accommodate the growing numbers each year. Tour guides participate in brief training, read a manual and have meetings to learn from each other. How have things changed? “They haven’t,” says Karyl. “I remember my first tour; and the tours today are very similar. I have always thought they were and continue to be an effective way for people to learn about the Center. Kids and adults participate right away on a tour. Tours are not restrictive,” she says.

Giving a tour is such a balance between welcoming new guests, getting to know them, providing information about the Center (its history, programming and navigational information about getting around this large property) and about Baba. How does a guide balance all these elements? “It comes quite naturally. There is no formula to it. And I think the setting provides the tools to balance everything that the Center has to offer.”

The naturalness of meeting and greeting guests on Center finds its foundation in Elizabeth Patterson and Kitty Davy’s mentorship and the direction they gave to many who were touched by them. For Karyl, Kitty Davy was a great influence in her life with Baba. “Elizabeth was very admirable and Kitty very lovable. While Elizabeth was more formal, Kitty was a friend to so many of us. I always listened to every word she said because she was quick to share stories. She created a foundation for sharing stories which we continue even today.”

From Kitty, Karyl learned the importance of being natural with Baba. “She would give me advice in a light and natural way. No pressure there. I didn’t feel like I had to do what she said but I wanted to because I was so in love with her.”

When Karyl first came across a Baba book at a bookstore in Colorado, she spoke out loud, “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” Just like many of her generation, she had been sincerely seeking for something beyond the world. Something that gives meaning to the world. “I was hungry, so hungry,” she says. So, what has happened to that hunger? Has it been satiated? She reflects for some time, “You know I still love coming to the Center, meeting new people, being helpful, so I think the hunger is still there.”

Her hunger finds a natural respite in her role as a host at Meher Abode which she loves dearly. “Just when you walk in, the living room is so welcoming and so homey. Everything in the house is done so thoughtfully, there is never a ho hum moment for me. I always feel that it’s an honor to be here now.”

As we sit in the sitting room at the Gateway, incidentally, it is a space that Karyl and her husband Michael helped design. The attention to detail that was used by Elizabeth and Norina for the Center is also reflected here. The style is elegant, subtle, yet beautiful while highlighting paintings of Baba and pictures of the western women mandali. It keeps with the signature style of the buildings on Center. Since she has a deep connection to the buildings, especially through her husband Michael who worked as an architect professionally and also for the Center (under Elizabeth, Kitty and Jane), I wonder what is Karyl’s favorite building? “I love the Original Kitchen. It is such a natural draw on my tours. I always tell my participants about how Baba visited there each morning when He was here. He greeted people there, embraced them and inquired about them. It is such an intimate space!” With that vivid image, she captures the simple gist of being and serving here – the ever present, timeless and unfailing presence of the Beloved.