“Every grain of sand here…is so full of Baba”

Meher Akshay Bundellu was in no hurry to visit the Meher Spiritual Center when he moved from India to Cleveland to get a masters in computer science in January of 2021.

A fourth generation Baba lover from Pune, his great-grandparents1 and grandparents2 were members of the Poona Bhajan Mandali in the 1950s and 1960s. Baba visited their home3 and Meher’s father was laid in Baba’s lap as an infant.

Meher was raised in an atmosphere rich in devotional activities. His life was full of singing, dancing, performing, acting, and directing programs for Baba. When he came to the US to study and start a career, he felt “cut-off” not having a thriving Baba community nearby. He decided to dedicate himself whole heartedly to study and work.

“I had a ton of financial responsibilities to manage, not just my day-to-day activities – food, shelter, clothing – I also had to repay my student loans,” he said. “What Baba has said is that you have to first take care of your responsibilities.”

Meher had friends who had also moved from India to the US to study and work. Over the years they’d encouraged him to visit not just the Center, but to attend other Baba events like the Northeast Gathering or the LA Sahavas. Meher always demurred, though, putting his responsibilities first.

But there was also something deeper going on. Meher had a sense that he wouldn’t feel Baba the same way that he did at the Samadhi in Meherabad or the Meher Baba Pune Center. Having been raised in such a deeply devotional atmosphere, he wasn’t sure what to expect once he got to Myrtle Beach.

“What’s going to be there? Probably just like log houses or something of that kind, you know, these structures.” he said. “I was a little prejudiced. I’m really sorry for that now.”

In 2023, Baba began slowly laying the groundwork for Meher’s first trip to the Center. He got a job in New Jersey and connected with the Baba community there through the Beloved Archives. He went to the Northeast Gathering and started to volunteer on its organizing committee. Later, he heard about the Heartland Center and started volunteering there as well. And throughout, he kept meeting people and hearing more and more about Baba’s home in the West.

He started to think there might actually be “something there” and so he decided to give it a try.

As the end of 2025 rolled around, Meher started looking for something to do on New Year’s Eve. He’d already done the ball drop in Times Square and been to a club. He didn’t want to do either again. Then he saw that New Year’s Eve was on a Wednesday, which meant that he’d also have the following two days and the weekend off – five full days. It seemed like an opportune time to finally visit the Center, especially because there was also a special program that included dancing. He started to get excited about the trip.

He called the Gateway only to find the Center was full over New Year’s, the holiday drawing for cabins having been completed the September before. His heart sank, but someone at the Gateway suggested that he see if there was a place he could stay nearby. He started calling around. A few days later, he got another call from the Gateway. Turns out, a shared room had become available. He snapped it up and then found out his roommate would be a friend of his from New Jersey. A few days later, another call came and Meher was told he had a room to himself.

He booked his flight and started feeling very excited, so much so that he even left several hours ahead of time to be sure he wouldn’t miss the flight. But then, in Baba’s mischievous ways, the airline attendant put the wrong gate on his boarding pass. After a wait of several hours, Meher suddenly heard his name on the loudspeaker. By the time he got to the right gate, the door was already closed.

“I was crying, and I was like, ‘Please do something!’ I was almost like a crazy person. People looked at me and were thinking ‘What kind of a lunatic is this?’” he says. “[The gate attendant] just looked at me. And then he’s like, ‘Just wait over there.’”

Minutes passed and then the gate attendant told Meher he was very lucky. Due to an unusual technical glitch, they had to reopen the door to give the captain a form. And when he did, he also let Meher board.

It was late when he got to Myrtle Beach and had to stay the first night in a hotel. But as soon as the Center opened at 11 a.m., Meher was in a cab with a feeling that “something amazing is going to be there.”

And he wasn’t disappointed. After settling into his room, he was taken to the Original Kitchen. The moment he walked in he looked out the window and he saw the lake, the stairs that lead down to the bridge and the boat house. He started to cry. “I have seen photos of them since childhood,” he says. “We have seen Baba walk and stand on that bridge… You know that to us, that is the Center.”

And that was also just the beginning of Meher’s transformative trip. At the Lagoon Cabin, he says, “I could not stop crying. I could actually feel and sense a very significant presence of His power. And, trust me, I didn’t want to leave.”

At the Barn, Meher experienced “completely another feeling of Baba.” And at Baba’s House, he says, there was “such a heavy divine presence and absolute presence of Baba. And when I went to his bedroom, I sat there on the chair and then something pulled me closer to the bed… I couldn’t leave that spot. So divine, so precious, so full of Baba.”

Baba prepared Meher’s trip in other perfect ways. Not only were some of his friends from New Jersey there, but so were some cousins from India he didn’t expect to see. He then kept meeting new people, some of whom he felt like he’d always known. And on New Year’s Eve, after the formal program, he danced into the night, and not just to Baba music but to Rock ’n Roll as well.

“It was like, we do have Baba but at the same time, we are okay with letting people be themselves, just let loose and be, enjoy the latest trends,” he says. “So I felt really good. And I was dancing ’til the end.”

Meher now says he feels that “every grain of sand” on the Center is full of Baba’s divine presence. At one point, he called his parents and told them they had to come to Myrtle Beach. “This is the place Baba lovers have to come at least once in their lifetimes – save up every day, even if it means just to stand on that piece of land just for a fraction of a second, do that,” he says.

Meher also says the trip to the Center has changed him fundamentally. Over the past few years, he had unknowingly gotten caught up in the “rat race” for material gain and professional success. At the Center, he realized deep in his heart that it was illusory and that “Meher Baba is the only reality… and the only truth.” The trip also showed him there are many ways to love the Beloved.

“I’ve known love towards Baba, devotion for Baba in a certain way, which is through the entertainment perspective that my family has been doing for generations,” he says. “This is a different perspective and it has its own beauty. It’s not necessary to do anything on the outside, it has to be on the inside. And it was necessary for me to understand this, to grow as a person, to grow as a Baba lover – to understand Him and love Him even better and even deeper. It has brought about a balance in me of both the worlds.”

1. Mr. Yellappa Ramaia Bundellu and Mrs. Laxmibai Y. R. Bundellu
2. Mr. Krishna Swamy Bundellu and Mrs. Kalavati Bundellu
3. A note from Meher: “It was in our house in Central Pune in a neighborhood called Bhavani Peth where Ms. Subhadra Bundellu (my grand-father’s sister) and the others used to sing and they all collectively started the Poona Bhajan Mandali. Mr. Madhusudan Pund, a very popular poet who has given us a plethora of Baba bhajans met Subhadra there and they both were eventually married by Baba Himself. But in this way the Poona Bhajan mandali began and I have stayed in that same house for more than 18 years of my life and have fond memories. Baba visited that place when He was in His physical body and today at this age we realize how fortunate we were to have lived in a house that the Avatar Himself visited.”