The Necessity of Style

Kitty Davy who first met Meher Baba in London in 1931 and spent the following twenty years in his company, some of the time in Europe and for a long period in India, made this memorable remark summing up her time living with her Master: “All Baba asked from each was a happy face and work done cheerfully. To Baba, this cheerfulness was a goal most worth striving for, a goal of paramount importance. Baba told us, ‘If you don’t want to be old before you really ought to be old, be cheerful in thought, word, deed and appearance – most of all in appearance . . . It is a divine art to always look cheerful. It is a divine quality. It helps others’.”

This is a remarkable statement considering the “paramount importance” Baba is giving to what is just an appearance, an aesthetic surface. Couldn’t this be seen as legitimising a kind of phoney pretence? Is Baba actually asking people to be like the cashier who smilingly says “have a great day,” after you make your payment? I think so. But saying it with all the wholehearted cheerfulness you can muster. In a sense, what I think Baba is saying is that being cheerful in this manner has more reality, and is truer to our nature than what we consider to be real about ourselves. It is as Baba states “a divine quality,” which is there to be awakened and experienced in us as part of our spiritual inheritance.

To call the cultivation of cheerfulness a kind of spiritual practice is to burden it with a lot of preconceived ideas. What I think works, if we just focus on the appearance of cheerfulness, which Baba himself lays stress upon, is to see it more in terms of style.

Meher Baba himself was distinctively stylish in his dress. You can see that he took great care with his appearance and not only managed to dress to suit the occasion but also to suit the company he kept. In the West in the thirties, for instance, Baba obviously made clear choices in what he wore from fine tailored or what looks likes soft linen suits, often patent leather shoes, and sometimes he donned a felt hat or a beret. George Bernard Shaw once remarked “I would willingly exchange every single painting of Christ for one snapshot.” I wonder what he would think if he saw a photograph of Meher Baba in the West looking suave and debonair?

I think cheerfulness in appearance, as with the finding of one’s own style of dress, begins with feeling comfortable and relaxed in what you wear. It is the opposite of glamour or dressing for affect. I would say that the test of true style is that it appears effortless and makes the wearer feel unselfconscious. This occurs when the clothes reflect the true nature of a person. And here, as in deeply moving art, the aesthetic qualities are like a thin gauze through which an underlying spiritual reality passes and permeates the surface to such an extent that the two can’t be distinguished.

I would even go so far as to say that any real style is essentially cheerful. And it is not much of a step to see how, like love itself, it is contagious in its effect and “helps others” – for it uplifts everyone’s spirit. It reminds us that we are spiritual beings and, as Meher Baba says, on this level, we are all one.

I think it was the writer Paul Goodman who coined the phrase “dignified poverty” and I think this also applies to style; there is a “dignified style” which is not luxurious or money-dependent. In India, you only have to look at village women in their saris to get a real sense of “dignified style” with all the charm, elegance, and cheerfulness that goes with any true style.

To have no style; to lack care with how you look reflects a certain sadness of the soul. It is to be locked in a world of self-imposed conformity. Meher Baba said that “life is worth living,” it is not something simply to be endured until death or until you obtain some kind of spiritual liberation. And in one of his typically uplifting messages he states: “It is infinitely better to hope for the best than to fear the worst.” To appear cheerful is to live out these words in a very simple and direct manner.

Jesus said, “No one lights a lamp and covers it with a jar or puts it under a bed. Instead, he sets it on a stand, so those who enter can see the light.” I think a cheerful appearance is a lit lamp and helps others see the light. To lack a cheerful style is to hide away from the world and be lost in the darkness of self-absorption.

And here Meher Baba’s advice to an actor having trouble performing, equally applies to the art of cultivating a cheerful appearance, the art which he reminds us is a “a divine art”: “Art is one of the means through which the soul expresses itself, and inspires others. But to do that thoroughly (the artist) must have his inner emotions aroused thoroughly. If you feel that something checks you from expressing yourself, then you have to do one thing, that is, adjust your mental attitude thus: just before you do anything think 'I can and will express it thoroughly,' and every time you act you will find you are more convinced. It is the mind that is closed. There are many actors, who, either through inferiority or through nervousness or dryness, feel that they cannot express their parts, and this negative feeling of the mind checks expression. While acting, think you are one of the greatest actors of the world and try to express yourself thoroughly. I will help you spiritually. Just think you are the greatest actor. Where's the harm in thinking that? If it is not for ‘pride,’ but for bringing the best out of you that you do it, then there is nothing wrong.”

Instead of trying to find some nebulous inner identity by plunging into ourselves in an act of self-centred introspection, we can actually become ourselves through acting our part in life cheerfully. As Meher Baba says, the truth “is in everything and can be expressed in everything.”