INFINITE INTELLIGENCE, IN GOD'S HAND, & 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, , 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 – 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 . 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 , 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 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 `In 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. Purdom (George Allen & Unwin Ltd.) made their appearance in 1937, 1947 and 1964 respectively. And there were many others. Out of the Awesome Four, `God Speaks' appeared first (1955) and made some sort of rapid publication history as its dictation started in 1953, was completed in 1954, and the book made its appearance in November, 1955. A book that was to deliver 90% of the 1925-26 ”Big Book' of Baba was made to wait for three decades. Why? And

5 why the frantic deadline of its appearance in 1955? 1953-54 were the years chosen by Meher Baba for the public declaration of His being the Avatar of the Age. His three declarations -`Highest of the High,' declaration of Himself as the Avatar at Meherestana and `Baba's Call' at Wadia Park, Ahmednagar were made between Septembers of 1953 and 1954. A compact, comprehensive and profound statement by the Avatar on the spiritual cosmology, dynamics and hierarchy – suitable for the modern science obsessed world – was a must and Baba did just that by releasing `God Speaks'. This was the time that science was undergoing a metamorphosis, searching a new form and identity. That Pandora's Box of modern physics -the Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen's (EPR) thought experiment published in 1935 - was shaking the very foundation of Newtonian physics, and, Biology was entering the DNA-RNA phase, the era of informational molecules. The nucleic acids DNA-RNA were found to be the repositories of genetic information - the biological structure and function materializing sanskaric pool. Those were the early days of the advent of modern science and that is why a Fred Hoyle did not react to God Speaks of Meher Baba. Communicated through hand gestures in 1967-68, The Nothing and the Everything appeared after 13 years. And the direct written word was made to wait 75 years when it made its public appearance in 2000 A.D. – the dawn of the new millennium – in the form of In God's Hand. Why? This was not a case of lost or misplaced or untraceable manuscript. As late as September 1967, Baba was talking about his ”Big Book‘ only in terms of giving 90% of it in God Speaks and 10% in The Nothing and the Everything. He did not show any interest in the publication of his ”Big Book‘ itself and the 39 pages written in his own handwriting. Later the manuscript of In God's Hand came in the possession of Mani, Baba's sister, for safe custody and she too didn‘t care for its publication. `Infinite Intelligence' was destined for 2005. All this phased manifestation of his written word was a part of the Divine Plan of the Avatar of the Age. Thus, the most spectacular and unprecedented event at the very onset of the new millennium was the

6 breaking of the silence of Meher Baba's written word. It took the world 75 years to reach an intellectual climax-plateau and prepare itself to receive the direct word of God incarnate with reverence, dedication and commitment. By the end of 20th century modern science was still engaged in the search of its real identity, only this time it was gathering courage to cross its own fence. No surprise in seeing the famous David Bohm, Professor of Theoretical Physics at Birkbeck College, London University (author of Causality & Chance in Modern Physics, Quantum Theory and The Special Theory of Relativity) interacting with philosophers like Jiddu Krishnamurti, exploring the nature of Intelligence and agreeing on: `Thought is of the order of time; Intelligence is of a different order, different quality' and `God is perhaps a metaphor for Intelligence.' It was indeed an echo of the hoary Upanishads:

"All-making, all-knowing, source of self, Who is knower, time-maker, possessor of the strands, all wise, Lord of primal matter and of the conscious mind, ruler of strands, Cause of samsara and mokhsa1, stability and bondage." (Svetasvatara Upanishad. 6.19)

`Prajnanum Brahman,' one of the four mahavakyas or great statements of the Upanishads, equates Brahman, the ultimate Reality, with Infinite Intelligence. Buddha's Prajna-paramita Sutra has Sunyata or emptiness as its centre - the emptiness of all conceptual designations and at the same time the recognition of a higher, incommensurable and indefinable reality – Pure Mind – which can be experienced only in the state of perfect enlightenment. Avatar's comprehensive statement on Infinite Intelligence, for the modern world, could not wait any longer. The 21st century's intellectual and spiritual panorama would indeed be dominated by these core books of Avatar Meher Baba's that together constitute what one can

1 Samsara – Universe, World , Moksha - Liberation 7 call as the Divine Corpus of Divine Metaphysics.

INTERRELATION

We have five such books in a row: The ”Big Book‘ that Baba wrote in 1925-26, Infinite Intelligence, In God's Hand, God Speaks and The Nothing and the Everything. Are they really five, or, four different forms of one, the ”Big Book‘? Or Infinite Intelligence is the ”Big Book‘ and In God's Hand, God Speaks and The Nothing and the Everything are its three avatars? If God Speaks has 90% and The Nothing and the Everything 10% of the ”Big Book‘, then what is the status of In God's Hand? If 90% of the ”Big Book‘ has been published in the form of God Speaks and 10% as The Nothing and the Everything, could we say that the ”Big Book‘ has now become redundant? How to relate God Speaks, – —...the Koran, Bible, Avesta of Baba" – with the ”Big Book‘ – "... the future Bible, Koran, Avesta and Veda, ..." ? What is precisely the status of The Nothing and the Everything, the book given by Baba through gestures and used by Bhau Kalchuri as a standard to judge the equality of Infinite Intelligence with the ”Big Book‘? Any endeavour that attempts to explore the interrelation of these five in order to have a holistic overview, cannot sidestep these questions.

THE BIG BOOK VS INFINITE INTELLIGENCE

There are two perceptions of the relationship of Infinite Intelligence with The ”Big Book‘, also known as `The Book'.

First: That the two handwritten volumes comprising the manuscript of Infinite Intelligence are a true "fair copy" of Baba's ”Big Book‘. Meher Baba was perfection personified and he took extra care for the preservation of his direct written word. One should not forget that Baba stopped writing after

8 writing his ”Big Book‘. The neat handwriting and absence of any corrections in the manuscript fits very well with this perception. This proposition finds further unquestionable support from the efforts of Bhau Kalchuri, that he made to ascertain the equality of Infinite Intelligence with the ”Big Book‘ (Interview with Bhau, Glow, Aug 2004). Baba took great care of his ”Big Book‘ and carried the manuscript in a box. In one of his visits to the West, he gave that book to Elizabeth to put in a bank. In 1937, he went to London from where he sent a message to Elizabeth to send the Book to London through someone, which she did. She also had a chart drawn according to Baba's instructions which was also sent. Baba brought the box containing the manuscript and kept it in a bank in Bombay under three names - Ramjoo Abdullah, Sarosh Irani, and Kaka Baria. In 1957, Baba was in Bombay and asked Ramjoo, who was staying in Dina Talati's house, to collect the Book from the bank and bring it to him. Subsequent to this, nobody knew where Baba or Ramjoo kept that manuscript. In 1998 Merwan Jessawala, while searching the cupboard in the grain store, rediscovered the manuscript of Infinite Intelligence. He asked Eruch about it. Eruch did not recognize the manuscript since it was not in Baba's handwriting. Bhau was in San Francisco at the time and on his return got busy comparing the manuscript with his The Nothing and the Everything and felt that it was probably a ”copy‘ of the Book Baba wrote in 1925. Infinite Intelligence manuscript revealed an interesting relationship to Bhau Kalchuri's ”The Nothing and the Everything‘, which was based upon points dictated by Baba to Bhau in 1967-68 during a period of intense seclusion. Infinite Intelligence contained a full explanation of the points given by Baba to Bhau.

Second:

Infinite Intelligence is a `fair copy' of the notes of Chanji, one of Baba's mandali, that he took when Baba was discoursing on "deep, divine subjects" to the mandali during the very period that he was writing the ”Big Book‘.

9 During this period Baba was discoursing to the mandali, writing with chalk on slate. Since Baba was totally occupied with the writing of the ”Big Book‘, he perhaps explained the themes of his Book to the mandali in this manner.

IN GOD'S HAND

Supreme Consciousness is infinite intelligence shining with its own refulgence. God is the ultimate source of Mind and Energy. In God's Hand Meher Baba has stated:

"Where only Self - i.e. Light - is, only Nothingness - i.e. Natural Darkness œ is (IGH p.58)", and, —Real Darkness, which means Stopped Mind, sees the Real Light every second. And when that Real Darkness (Existence) is functioning, then the false darkness (mind) sees the false light every moment. Because your existence just now is in the state of [working] mind, it sees the body and the world. This same mind of yours, when it stops or becomes the Existence, that very second it sees the Light, because as we have stated above, the Existence sees the Light every second. How can the Light by itself experience itself -the Light? (IGH - p.95)."

This statement finds its echo in Veda and Srimad Bhagvadgita:

"He knows the Light amid blinding darkness." (Rigveda 1/100/8).

"I have known this Mighty Being refulgent as the sun beyond darkness; By knowing Him alone one transcends death, there is no other way to go." (Yajurveda 31/18). "A steady Light, swifter than thought, is stationed among moving things to show the way;

10 All the Shining Ones, being of one mind and like wisdom, proceed reverently towards the One Intelligence." (Rigveda. 6/9/5)

"The Light even of lights, It is said to be beyond darkness; Knowledge, and the One Thing to be known, the Goal of Knowledge, Dwelling in the hearts of all." (Bhagvadgita XIII.17)

”In God's Hand‘ reveals the divine refulgence aspect of Supreme Consciousness and takes a seeker within to discover God within himself or herself. Among the principal Upanishads only the great Mandukya Upanishad comes closer to ”In God's Hand,' but ”In God's Hand‘ excels and presents Self-Knowledge with unmatched clarity supplemented by diagrams drawn by God himself. It is related to ”Infinite Intelligence‘ in the same manner as an Upanishad is related to the rest of Veda. The Vedas are four in number - the Rig Veda, the Sama Veda, the Yajur Veda and the Atharveda. Each has Veda has its own associated Samhitas, Brahmanas, Aranyakas and Upanishads, to create a formal structure of four Vedas each in four parts, each part being linked to one of the four stages (asram) of a Brahman or Supreme Reality seeker's life. As a young student he or she would study the Samhita; as a householder would carry out the rituals of the Brahmanas; as an elder would retire to the forest and meditate on the inner meanings of the rituals through the Arayakas and at the end of his life would renounce the worldly things and seek for the supreme reality through the Upanishads. All these, together with the principal Upanishads, are regarded as ”sruti‘ – that which is heard, revelation – as distinct from ”smriti‘ – that which is remembered – epics, legends, etc. Since in this avataric period Avatar Meher Baba has burnt the `rituals and ceremonies aspects of world religions' in his Divine Dhuni, the ”Big Book‘ is the new Veda, given as the direct word of God by God himself, that reveals the nature of Infinite

11 Intelligence and its multiple manifestations. In God's Hand is the new Upanishad.

GOD SPEAKS

God Speaks presents in its own unique way, 90% of the ”Big Book‘. It is structured and expressed in a different manner. It is related with the Big Book in the same manner as Srimad Bhagvadgita is related to Veda. In `Meditation', a prefix of Srimad Bhagvadgita, it is stated:

"All the Upanishads are the cows, the Son of the cowherd is the milker, Partha is the calf, men of purified intellect are the drinkers and the supreme nectar Gita is the milk."

The `Son of the cowherd' refers to Lord Krishna and Partha is Arjuna. In this advent, Avatar Meher Baba, as a milker, has milked his own ”Big Book‘ and the nectar so collected in the form of God Speaks, He has given to humanity. Hindus treat Srimad Bhagwadgita as the fifth Veda. No wonder that Baba spoke about ”God Speaks‘ in the same manner as he did for his ”Big Book‘.

”God Speaks‘, in many ways, presents new insights and more detailed explanations when compared to Srimad Bhagvadgita. Both present an overview of spiritual cosmos, the expanse of Illusion as macro and microcosm, spiritual hierarchy, the status of Avatar, and ways and means to transcend illusion and achieve the supreme goal of life – to realize the Reality – and attain the "I am God" state in human form. ”God Speaks‘ presents the master key that unlocks the door to supreme integral spiritual understanding. This key reveals the ultimate common experiential substratum in which God and the man become one: "The sound sleep state of God in the man state not only resembles the divine sound sleep state of God but is literally the same original divine sound sleep state of God in the

12 Beyond the Beyond state of God-Is where unbounded, absolute vacuum prevails." (GS p.94). This indeed is a most profound revelation. Sustained meditation on this prepares us to take a quantum jump from the intellect to intuition and further. It silences our `intellectual convulsions', an expression used by Baba in God Speaks, by revealing that the spiritual journey is experiential, and goes beyond a mere mental comprehension of the words of the Avatar.

THE NOTHING AND THE EVERYTHING

It was from 21 July 1967 that Baba started dictating to Bhau ”The Nothing and the Everything‘ in Meherazad mandali hall – sending rest of the mandali out. After his dictation work with Bhau was done for the day, Baba would call the mandali back inside. That ”The Nothing and the Everything‘ belongs to the Divine Corpus of Divine Metaphysics, Baba would emphasize in his own unique way. During this period Baba would instruct Eruch to read out loud from ”God Speaks‘ from the first page. Baba would gesture to mark a certain passage. Francis would jot down the page and line numbers on a separate sheet. It was during this period that Baba would remain alone for about 20 minutes and forcefully beat his chest and thighs indicating that he is busy on a different plane and (by beating his chest and thigh) holding on to his link with the gross world.

From August 1967, Baba started dictating during the night also. This routine of dictating ”The Nothing and the Everything‘ and the reading of ”God Speak‘s‘ were discontinued from September 10th onwards. Though the regular sessions of dictating points to Bhau in the hall stopped, Baba would occasionally during the night watch, give Bhau additional points. It was during this period that points on `Apaar Vidya' - Infinite Intelligence œ (for Nothing and Everything) were given. It is worth mentioning that mysteriously, Bhau Kalchuri's original handwritten notes (of points taken

13 from Baba) were stolen from Bhau's room in Meherazad after 1975. By then however, Bhau had already finished the preliminary draft of the book expanding the dictated points. Those notebooks were not recovered. This was also the period when Baba had dictated several unusual and mystic points about his work and manifestation to Bhau.

In November 1926, Baba told Chanji, who was typing discourses:

"You find these discourses of mine very interesting, but they are nothing compared to what I have written in my book at Meherabad. Its three hundred pages cover only short points, and when they are fully amplified and rewritten, the points will comprise several large volumes. It is full of secrets which no previous saint, Prophet or Avatar has ever divulged."

”The Nothing and the Everything‘ stands out as a supplement to Baba's big book. Most of the points dictated by Baba in 1967-68 were made crystal clear by Baba to Bhau, after Baba dropped his body in 1969, through a mystic process akin to `sruti‘ (that which is heard) mode of Veda.

MATERIAL Vs SPIRITUAL APPROACH

What should be our approach to these Awesome four, the Divine Corpus of Divine Metaphysics?

The question is relevant in view of the materialistic intellectual backdrop of the 21st century coloured boldly by the popular perception of modern science and technology. Equality –`we are second to none syndrome' – and the so-called intellectual freedom, condition our responses. Gross world‘s linear rationality, based on local causes, guides us and shapes our way of thinking. With bloated egos we refuse to seek and learn with humility and commit ourselves to self-imposed roles of critics standing on a high

14 judgemental pedestal. Approaching sacred books with this attitude and frame of mind will always be disastrous.

The spiritual approach is based upon our acceptance of a spiritual cosmos, of which only one fourth comes within the range of our normal sensory perception. This is the domain of the spiritual network rationality that is not linear. Its roots are in progressively higher regions or spheres. Krishna says in Srimad Bhagavadgita:

"They speak of an eternal Asvattha rooted above and branching below whose leaves are the Vedas; he who knows it, is a Veda-knower. (Gita XV.1)."

There is a spiritual hierarchy characterized by Avatars, Sadgurus, majzoobs, pilgrims of the subtle and mental planes, and ordinary humans of the gross world. One of the requisites of the spiritual approach to sacred books is that of `Shraddha', the reverential faith, and the attitude of a humble seeker of Truth. In the words of Krishna: "The man with Shraddha, the devoted, the master of one's senses, attains (this) Knowledge. Having attained Knowledge one goes at once to the Supreme Peace. (Gita IV.39)."

Quite often Meher Baba would show displeasure over the casual attitude of his mandali towards things given by him to them as prasad. Once he gave chunks of ice-cream to his mandali and someone diluted it with water and drank. On this he said: "I sit with you, I joke with you, I give you, and instead you show no respect for what I do for you. To my prasad, you add water. ... This attitude is not good. But I forgive you this time and you can continue to stay." The Divine Corpus of Divine Metaphysics is his prasad to humanity. But, Shraddha is not blind belief that obstructs the freedom of action. Having delivered the spiritual wisdom and the super-sensory vision of his Universal Form to Arjuna by giving supersensuous sight, Krishna says:

15 "Thus has wisdom, more profound than all profundities, been declared to thee by Me; reflecting over it fully, act as thou likest."(Gita XVIII 63) Surprisingly it is the modern science and technology that helps us in understanding the difference between the linear local cause based rationality and the cosmic network rationality. An innocent viewer of a TV program would conclude, on the basis of linear local cause logic, that the programs being shown on the TV set are reaching the set through the electrical power wire (visible physical connection from the TV set) . It is only the network logic that would present before him the possibility of their coming from some other external source and mode (like through the air through an antenna). How these two approaches condition our response to these sacred books of the Avatar can best be understood by going through the following contra-perceptions made by Meher Baba lovers.

In response to an earlier article by the author and commenting about ”In God's Hand‘, one of the editors of Neti observed:

"The Professor rightly points out that the Neti team ignored many Baba sources in their classification of Baba material and most importantly that we did not consider the most authentic and undiluted source of Baba's words – In God's Hand. It is a major omission, but then how should Baba lovers treat this new find? Despite its obvious beauty and lack of any external interpretation I differ in my view to the Professor in that I did not find there to be any staggering new revelations within it. To me it reads as an early formulation of ideas that Baba later developed, clarified and simplified for us, as well as elaborating into much greater detail. I confess I am not overly keen on terms such as Unnatural Light (same for Dark) as I don't understand them, so they seem to be allegorical. They may have very deep spiritual meaning but if they do, I am afraid it has passed by me. "There are two considerations that need to be carefully weighed when comparing In God's Hand with other Baba material:- What was Baba's

16 intention in creating the work and who was the target audience. The order in which things were created by Baba, that can allow even for the Avatar himself to supersede earlier writings with later works." (Personal communication from Neti Editor)

How should one classify such responses (materialistic vs. spiritualistic) to the much awaited direct written words of Meher Baba? The visible target audience of Krishna's Gita was the lone Arjuna but Srimad Bhagvadagita survived many centuries and inspired and enlightened a vast multitude of humanity. Is it not truly unfair to reject the direct written word of the Avatar - In God's Hand - for inclusion with God Speaks, Listen Humanity and Discourses - arbitrarily labelled as the only classic sources of Baba's words?

A spiritual response to In God's Hand comes from the editors, Meherwan B.Jessawala, Ward Parks, Eric Nadel and Heather Nadel:

"The manuscript that this book brings to publication represents a unique and remarkable event. The 39 handwritten pages which comprise its main text are an exposition on ultimate Reality in the handwriting of the very personification of that Reality – the Avatar of the age, Meher Baba.

Words that proceed from the source of truth carry an impact that words of the intellect never can: revelations of the Avatar are unlike the inspired pronouncements of philosophers and poets. So these 39 pages in the Avatar's hand do more than record words and ideas. They register a process in which God, who is beyond understanding, brings forth an image of the unfathomable Truth for the limited human mind. We can never grasp the true significance of the Author of creation writing as human author, or the universal work that He accomplishes in doing so. Much of the beauty of this manuscript lies in its handwritten expression, which brings a sense of closeness to Him as a man, and through this, to His immediate, direct

17 experience of what He is writing about. Man amidst human limitations, Meher Baba writes as the One who knows." About his ”Big Book‘ Baba had said that it is full of secrets which no previous saint, Prophet or Avatar has ever divulged. But if they are never before divulged secrets, how could one know what they really are? We, guided by our limited human mind, would search for those ”secrets' which we think should really be the ”secrets'. Failing to find such ”secrets', we may feel utterly crestfallen. With reference to Meher Baba's ”Infinite Intelligence‘, Ward Parks observes:

—The content of Infinite Intelligence will probably surprise much of the Baba world, since in the main part it addresses questions and problems that few of us would even have conceived of. It is not a book of `secrets' - esoterica about the path or the inner worlds or the Masters or other interesting details or titbits. Rather, it pursues a line of thinking about the nature of Infinite Intelligence manifesting variously through minds and bodies of different types in varying degrees of finitude or infinitude."

Ward Parks, further notes:

"Cultivating the ear for the particular rhythm and rhyme of this discourse takes some time. The language diverges from what the Discourses and God Speaks have accustomed us to; moreover, Baba keeps retracing the same points over and over again, probably in the course of making his meaning clear to the early Meherabad mandali to whom (in all likelihood) he was dictating these explanations. Yet from this odd presentation arises a strange power. Despite the abstraction of the ideas and language, to speak personally, my own encounters with this book has given birth in me to a very vivid understanding - indeed, more than an understanding, almost a way of seeing -the abstruse themes and difficult significance that Baba appears to be tying drive home."

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Words of God need sustained deep meditation and sincere prayer so as to reveal their real meaning. A discourse designated `The Greatness of the Gita' in Varaha Purana points out:

"He who constantly meditates on the meaning of the Gita, even though he performs Karma incessantly, he is to be regarded as a Jivanmukta; and after the destruction of his body he attains to the highest plane of knowledge. (Sri Gitamahatmyam.19)."

All Upanishads begin with a prayer. About his words, Baba would quite often insist that they need be read again and again so that from the realm of mind one gets transported to the realm of heart. To Phyllis, wife of Lyn Ott, Baba said: "Read God Speaks three or four times. Your eyes will weep and weep and weep. Your heart will burn and burn and burn, and be consumed. And you will experience the Real."

Later Phyllis recounted – "The impact of these words came into my consciousness like a bomb. All the petty issues of my life collapsed like a congested slum, into rubble and dust." To Robert Neil Dreyfuss, Baba said – "Read God Speaks again and again, until you feel it dancing in your veins, singing in your veins!"

THE GREAT CHURN UP

A story from Hindu mythology tells us about Devas and Asuras who once started to churn the ocean to bring up the golden urn containing Amrit or nectar. But before the urn containing Amrit could come out, first came was an urn containing poison and Shiva had to drink it in order to save the others. But why should a search for nectar first bring poison?

19 Duality is innately structured in the worlds of Illusion created by Maya. In the words of Baba:

"How does the false world of finite things come into existence? Why does it exist? It is created by Maya, or the principle of ignorance. Maya is not illusion; it is the creator of Illusion. Maya is not false; it is that which gives false impressions. Maya is not unreal; it is that which makes the real appear unreal and the unreal appear real. Maya is not duality; it is that which causes duality."

And:

"The manifold evolving universe arises from the mixing of the one Reality and Nothing."

Maya is the veiling, obscuring force of God, displaying the universal consciousness as duality. A samskara2 is an illusory pair of negative and positive thought impressions. Activated samskara is to and fro thought movements in consciousness from negative to positive, and vice versa. Samsara or the world is the flow of samskaras. Baba dedicated his ”God Speaks‘ - "To the Universe - the Illusion that sustains Reality." Illusion and I-am-God state are the two terminals which are sustained by a never ending movement of souls, entrapped in Illusion, towards the ultimate Reality, God. The starting point is the awareness of illusion and its transitory nature; and, the end is the conscious realization of `I am God' state.

Avatars and Sadgurus use Maya to take the seeker out of Maya. About Maya Baba has said:

"But Maya is powerless to go against my work – for Maya itself is the means

2 Impression 20 by which I bring about the results of my Work. The Avatar's action on the gross plane is like the throwing of a main switch in an electric power-house, which immediately and simultaneously releases an immense force through many circuits. Similar to negatively charged electrons and positively charged protons which are the carriers of electricity, Avatars and Sadgurus quite often activate opposite thought-polarities to generate desired movements in consciousness. And in order to break the rock like conditionings of the intellect, they deliberately activate and stir the pool of negative thoughts in order to start a strong positive movement. This process is similar to the movement of negatively charged electrons, which are the principal carriers of electricity in solids.“

If needed, gross physical catalysts are used to stir and churn up. In 1930, Meher Baba gave a distorted vision of his beautiful physical form to an English journalist, Paul Brunton. Brunton describes this in his account of the `so-called Messiah' in his book A Search in Secret India in these words – "his forehead ...is so low as to appear less than average height, and it is so receding as to make me wonder" – which makes one wonder too, if he was describing the right man.

Meher Baba's Samadhi3 at Meherabad was built in 1938. One year later, in 1939, Baba got constructed a replica of his Meherabad Samadhi at Dev Dhara in Mandla, a small town on the bank of the holy river Narmada in central India. The entire site was later abandoned by Baba and his replicate Samadhi was innocently occupied by a tribal couple, Narayan and Draupadi. Narayan means God in human form. But this God in human form was unconscious of his I -am- God status and this samadhi was to remain derelict and unattended.

The breaking of the silence of Meher Baba's written word in 2000 A.D.

3 Tomb Shrine 21 usher's us into a new phase of his Avataric manifestation. The humanity part of Baba is gradually receding and the divinity part of Baba is manifesting in many ways. The Awesome four – the Divine Corpus of Divine Metaphysics – books by Baba and on Baba, are on the centre stage. The intellectual world has got to move towards them, study and meditate upon the divine words given by Meher Baba. And, Baba has activated the mighty intellectual power-house in his own unique way by stirring the negative polarity of samskaras in order to melt our frozen conditionings.

The great churn up has just begun. One is not, therefore, surprised to see some Baba lovers becoming suddenly aware that Baba's words are often wrongly quoted and interpreted. In the recent past we have had a spate of articles and interviews on `who did what' and `whose contribution was relatively more significant' in the publication of ”Baba classics‘, probably overlooking the big picture and forgetting that spiritual life is a life of self-effacement. We are also witnessing a scholarly but hair-splitting debate on `natural, unnatural, non-natural' samskaras and on the issue of `three-quarters of the world being destroyed' - again ignoring the historical fact that it was intellectual polemics on Upanishadic terminologies that finally split Hinduism into many cults - Advaita, Vishishtadvaita, Dvaitadvaita, Tantra, Samkhya, Bhakti and what not. It is indeed a great churn up but with a silver lining. The focus is now on Baba's words and the spiritual knowledge given by him. The `poison' phase will soon fade away and the `nectar' phase will take over.

There is indeed a touch of pathos in how and when Baba gave us this gift or prasad of his divine words. When he wrote his ”Big Book‘, which he would continue writing even if he suffered with high fever. He wrote it with great passion and ignored even whatever little comfort his busy life offered. Then he started communicating with the help of an alphabet board – not an easy and comfortable way to interact. The Nothing and the Everything was given

22 through gestures and 1967-68 was the period when his physical health took a turn for the worse. Did he take these pains to deliver this precious prasad of his divine words only to be monopolized by a select few? Are we really supposed to search for the so-called `authorized' custodians and interpreters of his words before commencing our study of his words? Are the gates of this great treasure closed for the ordinary people like Ram, Rahim, John, Sarah and others living in remote places with no access to the so-called unpolluted key books of Baba? Why can't they get the feel of Baba's words from the affordable translations available in their own language? Why X cannot explain In God's Hand or God Speaks to Y or vice versa?

Avatar's words are for all - the so called elites and the masses. They are to be read, meditated, understood and talked about with sincerity, honesty and humility. We all are on different locations on the spiritual path, and these words would sprout differently in each one of us giving us our own handy kit of a working philosophy. No matter if after a gap of few years, we may laugh on ourselves realizing our errors of understanding that we made earlier. This is inevitable because we are not static. We are on the move, and coming closer and closer to Beloved Baba. Beloved Baba says:

"Do read God Speaks. I would like every one of you to possess a copy. If you cannot buy it, borrow it and read it. If you cannot read, get the book explained to you by someone. In that book, I have disclosed some spiritual truths never before revealed. It deals with the seven planes, this world, God and myself. Try to have translations of it in as many Indian languages as possible. It's version in several European tongues has been arranged by the Westerners. After reading the book you will feel as if you have seen me. It will give great comfort to your mind. Really, I should not have said this. To see me is totally different from reading any book (LM XIII. p.4698)."

23 Krishna also talked in the same way: "He who with supreme devotion to Me will teach this deeply profound philosophy to My devotees, shall doubtless come to Me alone. (Gita 18.63)." He did not say that only Arjuna is authorized to do so. And opening the gates of Spiritual Knowledge to all, he says:

"And he who will study this sacred dialogue of ours, by him shall I have been worshipped by the Yajna of knowledge; such is my conviction. (Gita 18.70)".

And:

"And even that man who hears this, full of Shraddha and free from malice, he too, liberated, shall attain to the happy worlds of those of righteous deeds. (Gita 18.71)"

Upanishads warn:

"Living in the midst of ignorance, Wise in their own view, thinking themselves learned - The foolish rush about, Like blind men led by one who is blind." (Kathopanishad.II.5)

Avatar Meher Baba Ki Jai

24 Literature Referred

1. Lord Meher (LM) œ http://www.lordmeher.org 2. God Speaks (GS), Dodd, Mead & Company, New York, 1955; 2nd edition, 1973. 3. In God's Hand (IGS), Beloved Archives Inc, 2000. 4. The Nothing and the Everything, Manifestation Inc. 1981. 5. Discourses œ Sheriar Press, 1987 http://www.discoursesbymeherbaba.org 6. The Everything and the Nothing, Beguine Library, Meher Baba Information, 1971. 7. Circular by Shri V.S.Kalchuri on the history of Mandla property, 30 March 2005. 8. The Meher News Exchange - Dreyfuss talks of visit to Meher Baba. June, 1976. 9. Glow International issues February 2004, August 2004 and August 2005. 10. Srimad Bhagvada Gita translation by Swami Swarupananda, Advaita Ashram, Calcutta. 11. The Upanishads translation by Valarie Roebuck. Penguin, 2000. 12. The Call of the Vedas by Abinash Chandra Bose. Bhartiya Vidya Bhavan. Mumbai, 1951. 13. Creative Meditation and Multi- Dimensional Consciousness by Lama Anagarika Govinda 14. The Awakening of Intelligence: J.Krishnamurti. Eds. George and Cornelia Wingfield Digby. Discus-Avon, 1973. 15. Divine Humanity of Meher Baba. Ed. Bill Le Page. 16. Shore to Shoreless. A Voyage across the ocean of Existence with Meher Baba by Prof.J.S.Rathore. 17. Baba's Words: To be Etched on Stone or Etched on Hearts? By Prof.J.S.Rathore- http://meherbhopal.tripod.com/babaswords.html

Communications about this article can be sent to Professor J.S. Rathore at [email protected] . As Professor Rathore is not directly on email, mails addressed to him will be passed on to him.

Published on 31st January 2006 on Bhopal Centre Website : http://meherbhopal.tripod.com

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