Footless and Headless

After seeing only part of the movie, The Man Who Never Was, in a city cinema, Meher Baba returned with a small group of His lovers to Beacon Hill on the outskirts of Sydney where He was staying in a stone house built by Francis Brabazon. This took place seventy years ago on the last night of Baba’s first visit to Australia in 1956.

After an early evening meal, everyone assembled in what is known as “The Big Room.” Here Baba gave His last discourse. He said, “He was not for the great crowds of people that bow down to Him and garland Him. He was for that one standing silently, unnoticed in the crowd, who was prepared to lay down their life at a sign or signal from Him.”¹

Baba then asked Francis to bring a book of Hafiz’s poetry and got him to read a poem at random.² Baba said it was not a good translation and periodically interrupted Francis’s reading. At one point, Baba gave His own commentary on the poem, “As soon as the Master says drown, do not hesitate … Don’t worry about what the world will think of you. The world will call you mad, but you should not hesitate. Even if one hair of yours is dipped in the ocean of love, you become wet eternally… From head to foot you become God, if you in this path become footless and headless. How to become footless and headless? Do what I tell you to do. Do not use your mind. When the will of the Beloved becomes your will, then you are footless and headless. Yet all this is impossible…”³

Later in 1960 at Guruprasad, this same theme came up, and Baba pretty much gave the same response, “Obey the Master implicitly. As far as His orders are concerned, don’t use your mind or your head. Do what the Master commands you to do. Let your foot move as per His instructions… This is as good as becoming footless and headless.” ⁴ And Francis used this same idea in the last couplet of one of his ghazals that he read to Baba: “I tell you, dream not of a white-sheeted scented bed: / In the dust of Lover’s Lane must roll the poet’s head.”⁵

This is obviously not a new idea, Hafiz was writing 600 hundred or so years ago, yet what makes it relevant for our mentality, for our age, is the fact that Baba has resurrected it for our benefit. He has put this pearl of wisdom into our consciousness in a new setting of His own design.

In 1956 in Sydney, Baba said to become headless and footless for the Beloved “is impossible.” But from my reading of what Baba does, He often leaves the door slightly ajar to make things, that at first seem impossible, possible. I think we do have moments – not a continuous experience – when we are headless and footless in our striving to be His. And these moments play a central role in our lives.

For instance, when we first see something in a new light, or experience an intuition, an insight, an epiphany, a moment of inspiration, then we are momentarily footless and headless, in the sense that we become inwardly still (footless) and lose our self-consciousness (headless). And the strong implication here is that our ensuing actions will be right and natural. I would even go so far as to say that it is in these moments that Baba is somehow “caught” in the act of guiding us.

Part of becoming an adult is in finding our own self-identity, our own voice; to know our own minds, so we’re not prone to be manipulated by others. This is all good and necessary for a healthy, psychological wellbeing. But once this is achieved, I think Baba wants us to live for something greater than ourselves, to live for Him as our Beloved. This living could be seen as a steady movement towards becoming more and more footless and headless. Baba has said His only yoga is “you go.”⁶

But this shouldn’t be seen as a kind of death sentence (it is really the opposite) for momentarily being footless and headless is a kind of liberation, a sense of real freedom unhampered by imprisoning desires. It is a joyful way of being in the world. Who doesn’t want to be free from their mind constantly pulling them this way and that. Although, as Baba makes clear elsewhere, this doesn’t mean that we give up on our responsibilities.

Being a headless phenomenon, this is not something you can plan to happen, nor can it be cultivated. You simply have to be awake and respond in the moment and not conceptualise what’s happening. If anything, it is like an invitation from Baba, a gift, that can only be accepted without question. But normally we are too self-absorbed or distracted by other things and miss this opportunity.

I think you can see Baba offering this kind of invitation to Bill Le Page during his 1967 stay at Meherazad. At one point during this period, Bill felt totally inadequate and broke down in front of Baba. “Baba,” he pleaded, “I have tried to spread your message [in Australia], but to no avail! I don’t feel myself to be the man required for the job.”⁷ I think this is a significant moment which we all have to reach at some point in our lives, in which Baba makes us feel our inherent hopelessness without His help. Then according to Bill, Baba made the gesture with His hand, “I will turn the key.” This gesture also contained Baba’s message that “I alone do My work.” In other words, be footless and headless in what you do for Me. Later on, when Bill reflected on his very active life dedicated to Baba, he said that his big mistake was when he “got ahead of Baba and rushed forward too quickly with what he thought Baba wanted him to do.” He lost being footless and headless.

1. Practical Spirituality with Meher Baba, John A Grant, p. 56.
2. Selections from the Rubaiyat & Odes of Hafiz, by Hafiz, trans by a member of the Persian Society of London, pp. 93-94.
3. Grant, p. 57.
4. Intimate Times with Meher Baba: Glimpses of the God-Man at Guru Prasad, by Bal Natu, p. 249
5. In Dust I Sing, By Francis Brabazon, p. 12.
6.  Lord Meher Online, by Bhau Kalchuri, p. 4537.
7.  This full account is to be found in“Cables of Grace: Meher Baba and Australia 1967 – 1969” by Ross Keating, printed in 50th Anniversary of Guru Prasad: The Darshan April – June 1969 (2019) Library Committee A.M.B.P.P.C Trust: Pune.