The Silent One
Meher Baba
1894 – 1969
Forty-four years of silence, and still the words arrive like water finding a lower place.
Merwan Sheriar Irani kept silence from 1925 until he dropped the body.
He did not come to found a religion.
He said he came to awaken.
The Discourses were given through an alphabet board and later by hand-gestures, gathered by those who walked near him, and they remain one of the clearest maps of the inner path ever set in English — love, ego, maya, the seven planes, the God-Man who stays to help.
Ram Dass carried his photograph in Be Here Now.
The phrase the world later sang as “don’t worry, be happy” was his.
In this grove he is the still trunk the rest of the herd leans toward.
On the shelf
In the library
Meher Baba
The fish and the water
All persons have to pass through the state of bondage, but this period of bondage is not to be looked upon as a meaningless episode in the evolution of life. One has to experience being caged if one is to appreciate freedom. If in the entire span of its life a fish has not come out of the water even once, it has no chance of appreciating the value of water. From its birth till its death it has lived only in water, and it is not in a position to understand what water really means to its being. But if it is taken out of water even for a moment, it longs for water and becomes qualified by that experience to appreciate the importance of water. In the same way, if life were constantly free and manifested no bondage, man would miss the real significance of freedom. To experience spiritual bondage and know intense desire to be free from it are both a preparation for the full enjoyment of the freedom that is to come.
Discourses — The Stages of the Path
Meher Baba
The tunnel and the streak of light
The longing to go back to the source is present in each being from the very time that it is separated from the source by the veil of ignorance; but the being is unconscious of the longing till it, as an aspirant, enters the spiritual path. One can in a sense become accustomed to ignorance, just as a person in a train may get accustomed to the darkness of a tunnel when the train has been passing through it for some time. Even then there is a definite discomfort and a vague and undefinable sense of restlessness owing to the feeling that something is missing. When one’s experience of this world is sufficiently mature, the repeated disillusionments in life set one on the right track to discover what is missing. From that moment the individual seeks a reality that is deeper than changing forms. This moment might aptly be described as the first initiation of the aspirant. Just as the person in the tunnel longs for light all the more intensely after he sees a streak of light coming from the other end, the person who has had a glimpse of the goal longs to hasten toward it with all the speed he can command.
Discourses — The Stages of the Path
Meher Baba
The veil of manifold imagination
On the spiritual path there are six stations, the seventh station being the terminus, or the goal. Each intermediate station is, in its own way, a kind of imaginative anticipation of the goal. The veil that separates man from God consists of false imagination, and this veil has many folds. Traversing the spiritual path consists in undoing the results of the false working of imagination, or dropping several folds of the veil, which has created a sense of unassailable separateness and irredeemable isolation. The more he communes with Reality, the thinner becomes the veil of ignorance. What changes is not the Self but its idea of what it is. Suppose in a daydream or fantasy you imagine yourself to be in China while your body is actually in India. When the fantasy comes to an end, you realize that your body is actually not in China but in India. In the same way, gradual nonidentification with the body and progressive identification with the Oversoul is comparable to the actual traversing of the path, though in fact the different intermediate stages on the path are all equally creations of the play of imagination.
Discourses — The Stages of the Path
Meher Baba
Six fanas, and then Fana-Fillah
Six intermediate planes and their states of consciousness have to be experienced before reaching the seventh plane, which is the end of the journey. After entering a new plane of consciousness, a person usually takes some time before he can freely function on that plane. As there is a radical change in the total conditions of mental life, the person experiences a sort of paralysis of mental activity known as samadhi. A person is totally unconscious in sleep; whereas in samadhi he is conscious of bliss or light or power, although he is unconscious of his body and surroundings. The fourth plane is one of the most difficult and dangerous to cross: the pilgrim not only feels infinite power but has occasion for its expression, and a definite inclination to express it. On the sixth plane the pilgrim sees God as directly and as clearly as an ordinary person sees the different things of this world — and yet does not become one with God. If the pilgrim ascends to the seventh plane, he experiences Fana-Fillah, the final annihilation of the self in God. He has now reached the opposite shore of the vast ocean of imagination. It is the only real awakening.
Discourses — The Stages of the Path
Meher Baba
The happiness that merely IS
Only when it attains God-realization on the seventh plane can the soul fully control its joy. The unlimited happiness that is eternally his does not in any way unbalance the person because he is now permanently established in the poise of nonduality. The happiness of the God-realized person is unconditional and self-sustained. It is therefore eternally the same, without ebb and flow. He has arrived at unqualified finality and unassailable equanimity. The happiness of the aspirants is born of their increasing proximity and closer intimacy with the divine Beloved — who, however, remains externalized as the Other. Whereas the happiness of the God-realized is an inalienable aspect of the God state, in which there is no duality. The happiness of the aspirants is derivative, but the happiness of the God-realized is Self-grounded. The happiness of the aspirants comes from increasing bounty of divine grace, but the happiness of the God-realized merely IS.
Discourses — The Man-God
Meher Baba
Better to become God
Of all the subjects of human study, God is the most meaningful. But purely theoretical study of God does not take the aspirant very far toward the real purpose of human life, though it is always better to study God than to be completely ignorant of His existence. To seek God intellectually is infinitely better than to be merely a skeptic or an agnostic. And it is decidedly better to feel God than to study Him through the intellect, though even feeling for God is less important than the actual experience of God. However, even the experience of God does not yield the true nature of divinity because God, as the object of experience, remains different from and external to the aspirant. The true nature of God is known to the aspirant only when he attains unity with God, by losing himself in His Being. Thus, it is better to study God than to be ignorant of Him; it is better to feel God than to study Him; it is better to experience God than to feel God; and it is better to become God than to experience Him.
Discourses — The Man-God
Meher Baba
Those who stay
After God-realization, most souls drop all their bodies and remain eternally immersed in God-consciousness. For them, God is the only Reality, and the entire universe is a zero. A rare few God-realized souls not only possess God-consciousness but are also conscious of creation and their own bodies. They take active interest in the souls who are in bondage; and they use their own bodies consciously to work in creation, in order to help other souls in their Godward march. Such a God-realized soul is called Man-God, Perfect Master, Sadguru, Qutub. When man becomes God and retains creation-consciousness, he is called a Man-God; but when God becomes man, He is called the God-Man, or the Avatar. The God-Man and the Man-God never lose their God-consciousness even for an instant, although they may be engaged in all sorts of activities in relation to creation.
Discourses — The Man-God
Meher Baba
Meditation cuts its own path
Meditation may be described as a path that the individual cuts for himself while trying to get beyond the limitations of the mind. If a person caught in the tangles of a thick forest tries to get out into the open, his efforts to break through the encircling impediments will leave behind the marks of his journey. The movements of one who comes out of the forest are different in principle from those of a railway engine, which moves along rails already laid. The individual is not following a ready-made path; the path becomes imprinted after he has traversed it. In the same way, the person who finds himself drawn into deep meditation is really grappling with the spiritual problems he faces and not merely trying to follow a rigid course that already exists in his mental makeup.
Discourses — The Types of Meditation
Meher Baba
Intelligent meditation
Meditation has often been misunderstood as a mechanical process of forcing the mind upon some idea or object. Any purely mechanical handling of the mind is not only irksome but is bound ultimately to be unsuccessful. The mind can be controlled and directed in meditation only according to laws inherent in the makeup of the mind itself. Meditation is often easy and spontaneous when the mind is dwelling upon an object that it is interested in and that it increasingly understands. The spiritual tragedy about ordinary trains of thought is that they are not directed toward things that really matter. The object of real meditation has to be spiritually important; it has to be some divine form or object, or some spiritually significant theme or truth. Such intelligent meditation is a natural process of the mind; and since it avoids the monotonous rigidity of mechanical meditation, it becomes not only spontaneous and inspiring but easy and successful.
Discourses — The Types of Meditation
Meher Baba
A picnic on the higher planes
Meditation should not be approached with a heavy heart, as if one were taking castor oil. One has to be serious about meditation but not grave or melancholy. Humor and cheerfulness not only do not interfere with the progress of meditation but actually contribute to it. The aspirant should freely allow himself the natural joy that is attendant upon successful meditation, without getting addicted to it. Meditation should be something like a picnic on the higher planes. Like excursions into new and beautiful natural surroundings, meditation brings with it a sense of enthusiasm, adventure, peace, and exhilaration. All thoughts of depression, fear, or worry have to be cut out completely if there is to be really successful meditation.
Discourses — The Types of Meditation
Meher Baba
Let the disturbance die of neglect
When the mind sets itself to systematic meditation, there is inevitably a reactionary tendency for irrelevant and contrary thoughts to emerge. This is the law of the mind, and the aspirant should not be upset by the appearance of many contrary and unwholesome thoughts that had hitherto never made their appearance. Meditation involves bringing the subconscious contents of the mind to the forefront of consciousness. It is useless to waste energy by trying to combat and repress disturbing thoughts directly. Any such attempt involves giving further attention to them; and they feed upon the very attention given for the purpose of repressing them. It is best to ignore them and turn to the object of meditation as early as possible. By recognizing the irrelevance of disturbing thoughts and the relative importance of the object of meditation, it becomes possible to let the disturbing thoughts die through sheer neglect.
Discourses — The Types of Meditation
Meher Baba
Turn toward the sun
Dissociative meditation may be illustrated by the formula “I am not my desires.” Associative meditation may be illustrated by the formula “I am infinite.” Dissociative meditation is a preliminary to associative meditation. It comes first and has its own value, but it is meant merely to pave the way. If a person is surrounded by shadows, it does not help very much to be continuously upset about them. If his only interest is being cross with the shadows, there will be no end to his worries. But if, instead of fretting and fuming about the engulfing shadows, he sets himself to the more important task of bringing himself under the full blaze of the sun, he will discover that all the shadows have disappeared. What really matters is not aimless discontent with existing limitations but directive effort toward the established ideal.
Discourses — The Types of Meditation
Meher Baba
Not to teach but to awaken
I have come not to teach but to awaken. Understand therefore that I lay down no precepts. Throughout eternity I have laid down principles and precepts, but mankind has ignored them. No amount of rite, no amount of ceremony, can lead you to the path of spirituality. I repeat, I lay down no precepts. When I release the tide of Truth which I have come to give, men’s daily lives will be the living precept. The words I have not spoken will come to life in them.
Messages
Meher Baba
What is Love?
What is Love? To give and never to ask. What leads to this Love? Grace. What leads to this Grace? Grace is not cheaply bought. It is gained by being always ready to serve and reluctant to be served. Never backbiting. Tolerance supreme. Trying not to worry. Trying not to worry is almost impossible — so try. If you do one of these things perfectly, the rest must follow. Then Grace descends. Have Love — and when you have Love, the union with the Beloved is certain. True love is unconquerable and irresistible. It goes on gathering power and spreading until eventually it transforms everyone it touches.
Messages
Meher Baba
Don’t worry, be happy
Don’t worry, be happy. I will help you. There is nothing to be worried about, nothing to be disheartened about. Don’t worry. My love will give you that strength and conviction which makes you feel that you belong to God. Seek Truth with all your heart, and Baba will help you. God and love are identical, and one who has divine love already has God. Divine love is the solution to all our difficulties and problems.
Messages