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The other night I phoned an old friend of mine. I had not spoken to Christopher Ott for several years. He used to be a roommate of mine in Los Angeles back in the early 1980s. He’s become a philosopher and the author of a very expensive book I’m now reading. You can find it at Amazon and it is entitled The Evolution of Perception and the Cosmology of Substance. It’s a mind-blowing book, In fact, it is so brilliant that I felt intimidated calling him. I thought I would come off as illiterate. But what the hell. He’s an old friend.

Much to my surprise, he didn’t discuss his book in our conversation. Instead he asked me if I knew the plot of a certain screenplay written in the 1930s that was never made into a movie. I confessed my ignorance and what he said surprised me: “I can’t believe it. I know something that Greg Butler doesn’t. I’ve always thought of you as one of the smartest people in the world.”

He then switched the focus to the screenwriter, Garrett Fort, the man who wrote the screenplay “Frankenstein.”

Chris asked me what I knew about Garrett Fort. (Chris wrote the Wikipedia entry on Garrett Fort.) I told him that I knew he was a screenwriter who had spent some time in India with Meher Baba in the 1930s and that he committed suicide in 1945. I also shared with him that he smoked Chesterfields.

Chris, despite all of his research on Garrett Fort, told me that he didn’t know he smoked Chesterfields nor did he know what Fort looked like. He had never seen a photograph of him and he needed one for his Wikipedia entry. I told him I had seen photographs of him in a Meher Baba biography. So, while we were on the phone, I thumbed through the book and found the photo and told Chris that I would scan it and email it to him. But while I was looking for the photo I came across a letter from Meher Baba to Garrett Fort, written in October of 1937, that sent shock waves through me. Powerful message. It made it hard for me to sleep that night. After you read it below, maybe you’ll have the same experience.

A little background. The letter was written to Fort at a time in his career when he couldn’t find any work. Money had become very tight for him. He had been in India for several months with Meher Baba and decided that he wanted to go back to Hollywood ostensibly to make a bunch of money to fund a new ashram for Baba. It’s like the old joke on how to make God laugh — you tell him your plans.

Here is the letter, reprinted from Bhau Kalchuri’s Lord Meher, page 2141:

Now you know that your earning power, like all your talents, is a grace from me, given or withheld as I deem best for your spiritual evolution.

You said in your letter that you have surrendered your life to me, that you have no ambition but to serve me, that you are a soldier ready for the call. But apparently you do not like the call that has been given you. You want the war to be conducted according to your ideas, not mine.

Try to remember, dear Garrett, that you are doing my work, which is as ancient as I am. In surrendering your life to me you must be prepared to follow my instructions implicitly, without caring for the results, which are in my hands and depend upon my will. My promises are always kept, but in my own way and at my own time.

I am not a writer, so I do not always express myself as well as you might wish. I am not a pedagogue, so I do not tell you in advance what the lesson for tomorrow will be. I am God, the Supreme Liberator, and if you knew what strides you have been making toward liberation by the trials through which you have been going since you left me, you would be overcome with gratitude, instead of filled with discontent.

It is true, I use the circumstances of everyday life to liberate my devotees, but I use them in a way that is beyond the comprehension of the intellect. So you must not expect me to provide you with blueprints of my plans, either individual or universal. Have faith in me, supreme faith. I am always with you, directing you as my own vehicle, my own son. Whatever is accomplished in all that you do or do not do is always my will!

You are an instrument in my divine orchestra, an instrument which I need, but which must be perfected. I shall never fail you, nor will you fail me. You must continue to be brave as you have been.

As someone who takes Meher Baba to be who he says he is, this letter puts everything for me about personal development into a different perspective. Can it be true that talents and earning power can be withheld for spiritual purposes? When I fail is it really my failure or am I just going through some kind of divine workshop? Am I really making strides toward liberation going through the trials of my life? And why should I care for the results if I am supposed to fail sometimes? For in that failure am I not being tuned to His vibration like an instrument in a orchestra which must be perfected?

The answers I get to those questions are an emphatic yes. And that feels good since it means I haven’t wasted my life. There is a purpose to it. There is movement

And I guess there was a purpose for Chris Ott failing to have a photograph of Garrett Fort, despite the fact that he is such an authority on him. Because if he had one, I would not have stumbled upon that letter which made such a big impression on me; and you would not be reading this post.