Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Keyboarding

This is not a very original thought I have next. I have heard it pointed out by many people. But I thought it would be fun to put into pictures.

From 1925 until 1954 Meher Baba communicated silently using an alphabet board, pointing to the letters on it.

There are lots of good pictures of Baba communicating through his alphabet board. In the image below he is giving his famous message to the West using his alphabet board on a London park bench from a 1932 Paramount Newsreel.

Meher Baba, London, 1932, communicating by
alphabet board though translator Charles Purdom.
Paramount Newsreel

It is an interesting coincidence many have noticed that have wondered about him doing so, that today more and more people around the world communicate at least at some point silently, using a keyboard that does not look all that different.


In fact the use of keyboarding, and now texting, in which people communicate without speaking, is becoming increasingly present in everyday life.





CRANDALL ~ New Model Made By The
Crandall Machine Company, Croton, N.Y. 1886
Keyboards are not especially new. The typewriter was actually invented in 1868. Here is a nice Crandal "New Model" from 1886.

What is new is the use of keys for communication, the use of pointing to letters on a board to talk while remaining silent.

Prior to all this keyboarding, people did communicate without speaking, though. It was of course called writing, and of course before that there was painting, mime, and dance.

Sumerian inscription, c. 26th century BC
Baba's book is of course titled "God Speaks." It was transmitted in silence (on an alphabet board), typed in silence, typeset in silence, and it is read mostly in silence. Silent communication.

Pablo Picasso communicating a fish silently
Charlie Chaplin communicating depth in the climactic final
moment of City Lights, 1931

Things that are real are given and received in silence. — Meher Baba

What is left to say after that?

______________________________
Update 6/6/12

The following was a post that is so interesting I add it here as well as an addendum to this post.

The Alphabet Board – Precursor of Laptop Cyber Language
A year and a half after entering silence, on January 1st 1927, Meher Baba stopped writing reading, and for some decades not even signing his name.Vishnu now ingeniously devised a thin plywood laptop alphabet board pasted with English letters and numbers – so simple. A digital space-age version of it is on my lap now as I type, telling you of it. Through this board, Baba silently began speaking once again.At first he used his 4th right hand finger and later his index finger, moving musically and speedily. With no breaks in his conversation, he spelt out, “The world is dancing every moment to the signs of my fingers.” Thus in 1927, the age of “texting” was quietly ushered in. The world caught on to this with their own devices 75 years later. www.lordmeher.org.p.896, How a Master Works, P.119(Although it is my own theory, history may interpret Baba’s alphabet board in the exact same way. It is significant that the world’s first multiple-site computer network, created in 1969, uttered its first word: “lo, as in “lo and behold. This was the year Baba finished his work on earth and dropped his physical form. When I mentioned this to Bhau Kalchuri, he thought for a moment and said, “Yes, you’re right; there is something to that.”)What made it difficult was his dictating in Gujarati, Marathi and English, at times switching between all three. I actually see this as Meher Baba’s pre-figuring and ushering in the age of digital typing, laptop computer, cyber language, internet and cell-phone texting – the biggest jumps in the history of communications the world has ever seen, by simply inaugurating a crude laptop alphabet board to text all his messages. This is how God works.It’s not coincidence or stretching the imagination that countless millions of peopleare daily using little alphabet boards to instantly communicate with each other anywhere in the world? One must remember that when the Avatar does some action on what appears to be a small, individual scale – like using a simple alphabet board to point to letters – he is actually working universally, and the results are eventually felt and manifest on a worldwide, planetary scale. Baba himself in 1930 openly pointed to this when he dictated:
Haven’t you noticed how all nations have been brought into instant communication with each other during this modern epoch? Railways, steamships, telephone, telegraph, radio, newspapers [motion pictures, TV and now the internet] have caused the whole world to become a closely woven unit . . . . There’s a special reason why all these developments are taking place. The time is soon coming to give mankind a universal spiritual belief which will serve . . . people in every country . . . . The way is being prepared to enable me to deliver a worldwide message to humanity.www.lordmeher.org p.134 — Ed Flanagan
Second Update 6/6/12

This second update is simply to add some novel interest to this blog. Prior to Baba's life if someone mentioned an "alphabet board," they may have easily meant a "hornbook." The following is from Wikipedia on hornbooks.

"A hornbook is a book that serves as primer for study. The hornbook originated in England in 1450 . . . The term has been applied to a few different study materials in different fields. In children's education, in the years before modern education materials were used, it referred to a leaf or page containing the alphabet, religious materials, etc., covered with a sheet of transparent horn (or mica) and fixed in a frame with a handle."


One of Meher Baba's alphabet boards is shown below, now framed. Click to enlarge. Image is from
http://www.pbase.com/junglegeorge/merabadphotos



For a couple newly added pictures on this subject, go here.

3 comments:

  1. Six years ago in 2006, I wrote this in my book:
    The Alphabet Board – Precursor of Laptop Cyber Language A year and a half after entering silence, on January 1st 1927, Meher Baba stopped writing reading, and for some decades not even signing his name.Vishnu now ingeniously devised a thin plywood laptop alphabet board pasted with English letters and numbers – so simple. A digital space-age version of it is on my lap now as I type, telling you of it. Through this board, Baba silently began speaking once again.
    At first he used his 4th right hand finger and later his index finger, moving musically and speedily. With no breaks in his conversation, he spelt out, “The world is dancing every moment to the signs of my fingers.” Thus in 1927, the age of “texting” was quietly ushered in. The world caught on to this with their own devices 75 years later. www.lordmeher.org.p.896, How a Master Works, P.119
    (Although it is my own theory, history may interpret Baba’s alphabet board in the exact same way. It is significant that the world’s first multiple-site computer network, created in 1969, uttered its first word: “lo, as in “lo and behold. This was the year Baba finished his work on earth and dropped his physical form. When I mentioned this to Bhau Kalchuri, he thought for a moment and said, “Yes, you’re right; there is something to that.”)
    What made it difficult was his dictating in Gujarati, Marathi and English, at times switching between all three. I actually see this as Meher Baba’s pre-figuring and ushering in the age of digital typing, laptop computer, cyber language, internet and cell-phone texting – the biggest jumps in the history of communications the world has ever seen, by simply inaugurating a crude laptop alphabet board to text all his messages. This is how God works.
    It’s not coincidence or stretching the imagination that countless millions of peopleare daily using little alphabet boards to instantly communicate with each other anywhere in the world? One must remember that when the Avatar does some action on what appears to be a small, individual scale – like using a simple alphabet board to point to letters – he is actually working universally, and the results are eventually felt and manifest on a worldwide, planetary scale. Baba himself in 1930 openly pointed to this when he dictated:

    Haven’t you noticed how all nations have been brought into instant communication with each other during this modern epoch? Railways, steamships, telephone, telegraph, radio, newspapers [motion pictures, TV and now the internet] have caused the whole world to become a closely woven unit . . . . There’s a special reason why all these developments are taking place. The time is soon coming to give mankind a universal spiritual belief which will serve . . . people in every country . . . . The way is being prepared to enable me to deliver a worldwide message to humanity. www.lordmeher.org p.134
    Ed Flanagan: babaelf@roadrunner.com

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  2. Avataric Twitter:

    It is absolutely impossible for an ordinary man to understand my work. With my universal mind, I work on an unlimited scale for the universe; to understand what I do is not within the bounds of human intellect. I always work for the universe and not for myself. Why would I need to work for myself? I do my work through various mediums. With that object in mind, I visit places, see different sights, or go to plays, films, and do a hundred and one other things. But I don't enjoy movies or plays as you do, I make them the medium of my inner spiritual work. My every breath does this work constantly, while outwardly you find me doing nothing special. You cannot grasp the internal mystery.

    I have to do great work for the welfare of humanity – it is my universal duty. Times are critical and due to certain crises, my responsibility has increased in proportion to the circumstances and prevailing conditions. I am the Emperor of the spiritual kingdom and every second receive inner reports and messages from my agents in every corner of the world. Because of the troublesome times we are facing, I am inwardly receiving only distressing reports, such as the conflict between China and Japan. Such news pours in every moment from various parts of the world and I have to issue inner instructions to my agents.

    You cannot see this outwardly, as I simultaneously manage an infinite number of things inwardly unknown to anyone. However, the effect of my work does appear outwardly. For example, you may find me suddenly and quite abruptly in a bad mood. One moment I may look happy in a jolly mood; the very next, you may find me serious, irritable and morose. All this depends on the reports I receive, and I have to plan my work according to them. Or suppose I am quite happily having tea, and at that moment I am inwardly informed that someone in India is passing through a great crisis. At that time, I send out a message in reply on how to cope with or remedy the situation. And while doing that, my mood will change so that I will appear absent from my present surroundings.

    You will have a thousand and one thoughts at this sudden change in me; but it is your ignorance which prevents you from either understanding the nature of my work or the cause of the change in my mood. You will be pained at my behavior and pondering it, thousands of thoughts will pass through your mind in a second. But all this is beyond intellect and you will never be able to follow it with the help of an inquisitive or arguing mind.

    http://www.lordmeher.org/index.jsp?pageBase=page.jsp&nextPage=1458

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  3. Love your blog, just found it! To me the most interesting part of the alphabet board/keyboard connection (which I thoroughly believe he set up and designed) is the fact that he eventually threw away the board altogether (as we will, also part of the design; the only interesting question is: how will this happen? a huge sun flare/coronal mass ejection that takes out electronics, or more likely, a windfall sentiment that sweeps the minds and hearts of all) and opted for a beautifully concise, symbolic language that is much more direct, unequivocal and succinct than words and the letters that make them up. His communication post-alphabet board is a thing of beauty, and a model I'm sure we will move into at whatever time He has ordained. There is little room for misunderstanding, as in our current word world, and the specific, descriptive, concept based language requires intuition, presence and a unity/connection of mind to understand. Eruch and just a few others could "get it". Sooner (?or later) we will all "speak" in that unerring way, but we will need to be much closer in every way.

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