Civilizations are based on the loves that they cherish; and in the minds and hearts of the
people of a civilization, these loves are upheld through the art of praise. In truth, all praise belongs to God. When people praise God through the forms of art that their lives cultivate, God guides them on the road to felicity and blesses them with their own highest good.
Among Meher Baba’s disciples, no one played a greater role of articulating this understanding of the role of art in civilization than His great Australian disciple and poet Franics Brabajon. Stay with God (1959), which Meher Baba characterized as second only to God Speaks, stands as his most developed statement on this subject. But many other works of his bring the “art of praise” into practice. His songs and ghazals, many of then composed during the years of Francis’s residence in Meherazad as one of Meher Baba’s mandali, developed the art of praise-and-complaint- between lover and Beloved as it has not been known before in the Western world, though the East has long traditions in this regard. But in other major works, such as The East-West Gathering (1963) and The Word at World’s End (1971), Francis brought the poetic art to interpretive cultural commentary and historical narrative in ways that will exert immense influence in the years to come.
In this study program we will delve into Francis Brabazon’s poetic legacy, not so much as a personal accomplishment on Francis’s part but as an act of foundation-laying for the new world civilization that will arise in the aftermath of the new Avataric Advent. During Meher Baba’s physical lifetime, but particularly since He dropped His body in 1969, art in various forms—poetry, plays, songs and musical compositions, paintings, films and video, architecture—have played a pivotal role in helping to formulate our collective vision of Who He is and in providing channels for the expression of our love for Him. “The Art of Praise” in our 2025 study program will view the body of Francis’s poetic work as a beacon and signpost for how art could be used as a Divine Path in the years to come.
