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INFINITE INTELLIGENCE, IN GOD'S HAND, GOD SPEAKS & THE NOTHING AND THE EVERYTHING – THE AWESOME FOUR AND THE GREAT CHURN UP By Professor J.S.Rathore, Meherabad November 4th, 2005, was a historic day at Meherabad, Ahmednagar, India. This was the day when about two thousand Baba lovers, from all parts of India and abroad, assembled at Meherabad to participate in a unique Sahvas programme held to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the 1955 Sahvas and the publication of that great book – God Speaks. The book was published by the reputed publishing house Dodd Mead in November 1955 and Beloved Avatar Meher Baba – at the series of Sahvas for four language groups in India in that year – emphasized the unique nature of God Speaks in the following words: "You will find God Speaks a very unique book. Never before have such things been disclosed by me. You will understand through your mind the why and wherefore of your being." No wonder God Speaks – translated in many languages – dominated the entire spiritual scene throughout the 20th century. The significance of God Speaks cannot be understood integrally by isolating it from what one can call as its `mother', and two `sisters'. Together they stand out as THE AWASOME FOUR: INFINITE INTELLIGENCE, IN GOD'S HAND, GOD SPEAKS & THE NOTHING AND THE EVETRYTHING. Awesome they indeed are because they inspire reverential wonder and fear. Reverence, because they are given by the Avatar of the Age – Meher Baba. And wonder, because of their spiritual depth, intellectual clarity and an amazingly vast canvas which they together `cover' and `paint' beautifully, validating the mystic core of all major religions of the world. They however 1 also inspire fear in a strange way. This fear is not related to the complexities of the themes explained by them, but is born out of our own intellectual limitations camouflaged by our arrogance that may eventually alienate us from them. This became obvious when God Speaks was sent to leading luminaries for review. Their response was predictably seeped with intellectual arrogance. Professor Pitirim A. Sorokin of Harvard University blasted the whole thing. Dorothy Thompson, the famous writer, replied that she did not understand the book and she thought no body would. Arnold J. Toynbee, the historian, was too busy to read it. Aldous Huxley, the famous writer who had a deep interest in Vedanta philosophy, said that he had to spare his eyesight for his own writing. Fred Hoyle, the famous astronomer, did not even have the curtsey to acknowledge receiving the book. However, there were important exceptions in Dr.C.V.Raman – Noble Laureate in Physics – who presided over a Baba meeting in Bangalore in 1939, and, Dr. S. Radhakrishnan, the eminent philosopher. CHRONOLOGY AND THE CHRONOLOGY PARADOX These Awesome four stand out as significant milestones of Meher Baba's unique mystic Silence. From 10 July 1925 onwards, Meher Baba abandoned the use of the spoken word. But this was the beginning of the silence of the spoken word only, because from 13 July 1925, he started writing what is widely known as his `Big Book' or `The Book‘. He also wrote the thirty-nine pages on a coherent spiritual theme during this period that were later published by Beloved Archives in 2000 under the title – In God's Hand. Thus during 1925 and 1926, Meher Baba was ”talking' through the written word and completed the writing of his `Big Book'. On August 7, 1927, Baba said about his `Big Book': "The big book I have written will be the future Bible, Koran, Avesta and Veda, as it will be universally accepted by all castes and creeds." The Big Book was kept secure in bank lockers for a long period of time following which, the whereabouts of the book became unknown. 2 Meher Baba abandoned the use of the written word and intensified his mystic Silence that encompassed the spoken and the written word. He then started `talking' through the medium of an alphabet board and continued the use of this medium until the mid 1950s. In August 1953 in Dehradun, India, Meher Baba began `dictating' God Speaks to Eruch Jessawalla, one of his closest mandali. The work on God Speaks was completed by July 1954. The final organization of the material and typing the manuscript took some time and in September 1954 it was passed on to Ivy Duce and Don Stevens – Baba's close disciples – who were chosen as the editors. From the 7th of October 1954, Meher Baba further intensified his Silence by abandoning the use of the alphabet board as a medium of communication. He then started `talking' through hand gestures in his own unique manner. In May 1967 while at Guru Prasad in Pune, India, Baba, said the following to one of his closest mandali, Bhau Kalchuri: —You have to write one book titled The Nothing and The Everything. The Everything and The Nothing is already written and you made the translation interesting and expanded it with songs and a commentary. Now you will write The Nothing and The Everything. This is an important book. I will give you ten percent of the Book I wrote in 1925 and 1926." Baba started dictating the points of this book from May onwards at Meherazad. The dictation of points continued for five months until November 1967. Baba instructed Bhau to write down the points as a whole, fit them together and finish the description by the following morning. Everyday Bhau would read back to Baba the sections based on the points dictated the previous day. It was for this book that Baba gave the stories of —The Mischievous Chicken," and the "The Two Kings." Once Bhau wondered whether Baba was actually giving him ten percent of his ”Big 3 Book‘ or was he merely passing time to ease the strain of his inner work. Reading Bhau's thoughts, Baba remarked: "What is the matter with you? You have been with me for so many years - have no doubt about what you are doing. Remember that I am giving you ten percent of my own Book. This work is not just writing! It is not a pastime. My Book is the most important Book in the world." Earlier, during his interview with Ivy Duce and Francis Brabazon in 1952 at Myrtle Beach, Baba had talked about his would be book - God Speaks -in terms identical of his Big Book: "This book will be the Koran, Bible, Avesta of Baba. Unique." In September 1967 Baba disclosed to Bhau Kalchuri that he had already given ninety percent of the book that he had written in 1925-26 in God Speaks. That his 90% and 10% statements were not made casually, Baba would have Eruch repeat this in the mandali hall before the other men several times. `The Nothing and the Everything' was published in 1981 by Manifestation, Inc., and bears the name of Bhau Kalchuri as the author. Infinite Intelligence is a manuscript, filling a total of about 250 pages that was found shortly after Baba dropped his body in 1969. During that year, Bal Natu was on one of his visits to Meherazad and Eruch engaged him to scan a Meherazad store room for possible manuscript material. Bal came out with a set of manuscripts. These were (a) the manuscript of `Infinite Intelligence', (b) a bound and typed collection of forty-six talks called the "Tiffin Lectures" from the period 1926-27 and (c) a further loose-leaf and typed collection of talks, probably given by Baba to the boys of the Meher Ashram, from December 1927 and January 1928. For reasons unknown, these manuscripts were left unattended for a very long period of time. It was only in 1998 that a major editorial project on the`Infinite Intelligence' manuscript was launched by the Trust. Bhau Kalchuri devoted almost a year to the editing work of this manuscript. A surprising discovery was that much 4 of the content of A*n God's Hand' had been transcribed or paraphrased in the last section of the `Infinite Intelligence' manuscript. In fact, the appearance of the material of `In God's Hand', which occupies seven of the 250 pages of the `Infinite Intelligence' manuscript, begins quite abruptly and breaks off in similar fashion. The Infinite Intelligence manuscript is a collection of two handwritten notebooks written by some unidentified scribe, and not Meher Baba. The neat handwriting and absence of any corrections suggest that it is a —fair copy" of some original manuscript. `Infinite Intelligence' was marked for publication in the distant future. The phasing of the publication of these four books is what one can call as the chronology paradox. The 1925-26 pair - `Infinite Intelligence' and `In God's Hand' - did not make its published appearance during the physical lifetime of Meher Baba. This was not due to any paucity of funds or for want of suitable publishers. On the contrary there flowed an unbroken stream of significant books by Meher Baba and on Meher Baba during his physical life-time. The first five-volume edition of `Discourses' made its appearance in India between 1939 and 1943. `God to Man and Man to God', discourses of Meher Baba edited by C.B.Purdom and published by the reputed Victor Gollancz came out in 1955. `Listen Humanity' published by Sufism Reoriented Inc., came out in 1957 and `The Everything and the Nothing', published by Meher House Publications Australia, appeared in 1963. The biographical classics, `The Perfect Master‘ by C.B.Purdom (London: Williams and Norgate), `Avatar' by Jean Adriel (Santa Barbara, Calif: J.F.Rowney Press) and `The God-Man' by C.B.

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