IT IS AS I WANTED IT

C. B. Purdom

Though he had good attention at Satara [after Dec 2nd accident], Baba listened to the doctors' plans and was taken to Poona where there were better medical facilities. The healing of the fracture seemed to progress satisfactorily, but he continued to be in great pain.

At one point in his illness, the Hungarian uprising being in progress, Baba made one of his extremely rare comments on political affairs, saying, 'The Hungarians are suffering much in their present struggle. Many lie wounded and helpless on the roads, away from their loved ones and from care and relief from pain. At least, I am lying on a bed, with the care of good doctors, and the love of all my lovers, present and absent.'

He continually said, 'I am happy. It is as I wanted it.'

THE GOD-MAN, p. 289
1971 © Meher Spiritual Center Inc.

An excerpt from The Path of Love; Mind Must Go p 39.

The real goal of life is not the death of the ego but the death of the mind. So when Mohammed or Zoroaster or Jesus talked of being born once, or dying once, they meant the death of the mind. Mind is born from the very beginning--even before the stone age. This birth takes place only once and the death of mind also takes place only once. When the mind dies, the false ego is transformed into Reality. Real ego is never born and it never dies. Ego is always real, but due to the mind, the ego feels and acts as the limited and false "I".

"If you succeed in mastering these four great 'issues of ignorance -lust, greed, anger and egoism- then alone can you see Paramatma or Truth. Although winning mastery over them is a task supremely difficult, you should not despair. Strive on and on! Paramatma is near you, with you, within you, ever ready to help you in your honest endeavour to find truth." - Meher Baba, 'Tiffin Lectures', page 293.

"When the tongue is silent the mind speaks, when the mind is silent the heart sings!" - M.B. - 'Pukar's Diary.'

Can I just hashtag this? This is a constant theme in me right now, and for some months. This is all just part of Baba's Wild Ride. This is just getting going. He is totally in control. Baba, I accept anything you bring, because it's all part of Your Master Show. Your Peak Manifestation. Expressing His divinity in the most powerful and amazing ways. This is just part of Baba's Wild Ride.

BabasWildRide

Avatar Meher Baba Ki Jai!

We are in year 51 of His manifestation, and God bless Himself, indeed He was right, it seems we may beginning a roller coaster ride! Baba said year 50-70 after his dropping the body would be the height of His Manifestation! I am thinking we are just at the beginning of a 20 year Baba's Wild Ride.

Anyone else interested in starting to count the days with a Baba Calendar? I should write another post about this... But we are in year 51 :)

Avatar Meher Baba Ki Jai!
Let His Work go out to All Corners!

TWELVE WAYS OF REALIZING ME

Meher Baba

1. LONGING ... If you experience that same longing and thirst for Union with Me as one who has been lying for days in the hot sun of the Sahara experiences the longing for water, then you will realize Me.

2. PEACE OF MIND ... If you have the peace of a frozen lake, then too, you will realize Me.

3. HUMILITY ... If you have the humility of the earth which can be molded into any shape, then you will know Me.

4. DESPERATION ... If you experience the desperation that causes a man to commit suicide and you feel that you cannot live without seeing Me, then you will see Me.

5. FAITH ... If you have the complete faith that Kalyan had for his Master, in believing it was night, although it was day, because his Master said so, then you will know Me.

6. FIDELITY ... If you have the fidelity that the breath has in giving you company, even without your constantly feeling it, till the end of your life, that both in happiness and in suffering gives you company and never turns against you, then you will know Me.

7. CONTROL THROUGH LOVE ... When your love for Me drives away your lust for the things of the senses, then you realize Me.

8. SELFLESS SERVICE ... If you have the quality of selfless service unaffected by results, similar to that of the sun which serves the world by shining on all creation, on the grass in the field, on the birds in the air, on the beasts in the forest, on all mankind with its sinner and its saint, its rich and its poor, unconscious of their attitude towards it, then you will win Me.

9. RENUNCIATION ... If you renounce for Me everything physical, mental and spiritual, then you have Me.

10. OBEDIENCE ... If your obedience is spontaneous, complete and natural as the light is to the eye or smell is to the nose, then you come to Me.

11. SURRENDER ... If your surrender to Me is as wholehearted as that of one, who, suffering from insomnia, surrenders to sudden sleep without fear of being lost, then you have Me.

12. LOVE ... If you have that love for Me that St. Francis had for Jesus, then not only will you realize Me, but you will please Me.

THE PATH OF LOVE, pp. 95-96
1986 © Avatar Meher Baba Perpetual Public Charitable Trust

Avatar Meher Baba Ki Jai!

On the sidebar, the OM Point is defined as:

OM Point: That most-finite point within the infinite, boundless Reality of God from which creation came forth; the point at which the axes of thinking and imagination cross. Also called the atom point, Creation point, Maheshwar Point, Ahur Bindu, and Omkar Bindu.

While reading Joseph Campbell's 1949 book, The Hero with a Thousand Face, I found a particular section which briefly described the OM Point:

The philosophical formula illustrated by the cosmogonic cycle is that of the circulation of consciousness through the three planes of being. The first plane is that of waking experience: cognitive of the hard, gross facts of an outer universe, illuminated by the light of the sun, and common to all. The second plane is that of dream experience: cognitive of the fluid, subtle forms of a private interior world, self-luminous and of one substance with the dreamer. The third plane is that of deep sleep: dreamless, profoundly blissful. In the first are encountered the instructive experiences of life; in the second these are digested, assimilated to the inner forces of the dreamer; while in the third all is enjoyed and known unconsciously, in the "space within the heart," the room of the inner controller, the source and end of all.¹

The cosmogonic cycle pulses forth into manifestation and back into nonmanifestation amidst a silence of the unknown. The Hindus represent this mystery in the holy syllable AUM. Here the sound A represents waking consciousness, U dream consciousness, M deep sleep. The silence surrounding the syllable is the unknown: it is called simply "The Fourth."*² The syllable itself is God as creator-preserver-destroyer, but the silence is God Eternal, absolutely uninvolved in all the opening-and-closing of the round.

It is unseen, unrelated, inconceivable,

uninferable, unimaginable, indescribable.

It is the essence of the one self-cognition

common to all states of consciousness.

All phenomena cease in it.

*It is peace, it is bliss, it is nonduality.*³

(Campbell 227-8)

* Since the Sanskrit A and U coalesce in O, the sacred syllable is pronounced and often written "OM."

1. See Māṇḍūkya Upaniṣad, 3-6

2. Māṇḍūkya Upaniṣad, 8-12.

3. Māṇḍūkya Upaniṣad, 7.

Campbell, Joseph. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. 3rd ed. Novato: New World Library, 1949. Print.

I WAS STUNNED
Arnavaz N. Dadachanji
Sometimes Baba surprised us by saying something unimaginable. One day He was sitting with a group around Him, when a black ant crawled onto His hand and then onto the sleeve of His white sadra.
Everyone sitting nearby noticed the ant, and Eruch got up to flick it off, but Baba stopped him. Pausing, He gestured, "This ant will take human birth."
For me this was a time of seeing Baba as Creator, the One holding infinite power -- not just to alter the length of a single human life, but to allow an ant to bypass millions of life forms and be born as a human. I was stunned.
GIFT OF GOD, pp. 168-169
Copyright 1996 Meherazad Trust for Avatar Meher Baba

BABA CONSOLED ME THROUGH A VISION

                                S. Suryanarayana

In 1969, I was living at Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh, but that January I had been traveling up north. From Benares, I went to Calcutta where A.C.S. Chari told me that Baba had passed away on the 31st of January and showed me a telegram to that effect sent to him by Adi K. Irani. This was completely unexpected news, and I could not bear the shock. I left Calcutta immediately for my home.

When I reached Visakhapatnam, I learned that earlier about 15 Baba lovers had hired three taxis and left for Meherabad [711 miles away], to have Baba's darshan before His body was interred. As soon as I realized that I had missed my chance to go to Meherabad I became very upset. I couldn't help brooding over my lost opportunity, and I was restless and weeping all the time.

On the afternoon of the 13th February, I was sitting in a chair outside my home when I heard the sound of a car approaching. My house was situated in a garden of about two and a half acres, surrounded by shrubs, bushes and trees, and isolated from the town itself. It was not common for cars to come this way and, as it was late afternoon, it was past the time when most people would visit. I assumed that it must be a relative of mine, who had a car, coming to invite me to some festive occasion. But it was not my relative's car which came up to my gate and stopped. To my astonishment, I saw Baba open the door and walk quickly to the verandah, where I was sitting.

There was a vacant chair beside me and Baba sat on it and looked at me. Being the Silent Master, Baba did not say a word or gesture to me. I was so amazed to see Baba that I could not speak a word myself. I was dumbfounded and I think I must have been in a sort of trance at the time. After a couple of minutes, Baba walked back to His car and drove away.

Soon after, I came to myself and began to weep that I had missed this opportunity to embrace Baba, to speak to Him or to express my happiness at His visiting me. Still weeping, I went to my bedroom and, like a child, threw myself down on my cot, sobbing out my heart.

My crying must have been truly from my heart; for after ten minutes or so, Baba appeared again. He came inside my house and lifted my grandson who was around six or seven months old and blessed him. Then He came to my cot and sat by my side while I was still lying there.

This time I didn't want to miss the opportunity to offer my respects. I called out to my wife that Baba had come and she should bring the camphor and other necessities to perform arti to Baba. Baba gestured to me not to worry about such things and then instructed me that I should go to Poona for the darshan program He had scheduled there on May 13, 1969. Baba told me that all would go well for me and then left, before my wife arrived.

When she did come, we performed arti to Baba's photo. After that I recovered my composure and was no longer so depressed. I am of the opinion that Beloved Baba was kind enough to give me His darshan in order to console me and to relieve me of the agony which His passing away caused me. Since then my heart and soul are entirely dedicated to Him, the Eternal One.

THE MASTER'S PRAYER

                                Meher Baba

O Parvardigar, the Preserver and Protector of All, You are without Beginning and without End, Non-dual, beyond comparison, and none can measure You.

You are without colour, without expression, without form and without attributes.

You are unlimited and unfathomable, beyond imagination and conception, eternal and imperishable.

You are indivisible, and none can see You but with eyes Divine.

You always were, You always are, and You always will be.

You are everywhere; You are in everything; and You are also beyond everywhere and beyond everything.

You are in the firmament and in the depths.

You are manifest and unmanifest on all planes and beyond all planes; You are in the three worlds and also beyond the three worlds.

You are imperceptible and independent.

You are the Creator, the Lord of Lords, the Knower of all minds and hearts; You are Omnipotent and Omnipresent.

You are Knowledge Infinite, Power Infinite and Bliss Infinite.

You are the Ocean of Knowledge, All-knowing, Infinitely-knowing, the Knower of the past, the present, and the future; and You are Knowledge itself.

You are All-merciful and eternally benevolent.

You are the Soul of souls, the One with infinite attributes.

You are the Trinity of Truth, Knowledge and Bliss; You are the Source of Truth, the Ocean of Love.

You are the Ancient One, the Highest of the High; You are Prabhu and Parameshwar; You are the Beyond-God and the Beyond-Beyond-God also; You are Parabrahma, Allah, Elahi, Yezdan, Ahuramazda, and God the Beloved.

You are named Ezad: the only One worthy of worship.

THE GOD-MAN, p. 209, C. B. Purdom Copyright 1971 Meher Spiritual Center, Inc.

THE ONE WHO IS ALWAYS LISTENING!

                                Heather Nadel

In April of 1971, I fell headlong into Meher Baba's net at His center in Myrtle Beach, S.C.; in June I was in California, full of happiness and joy at starting a "new life" with Him. My home at the time was a converted barn on a hillside overlooking Palo Alto; I shared the upper floor with several friends, and the first floor was home to several horses, and lots of hay and straw.

On one fateful day in mid-June, a month and a half after I had come to Baba, I spent my morning preparing a "Father's Day" card for my dad, who lived a few miles away. This year I wanted the card to be really unusual -- I was making a batik and I had just finished it and hung it out to dry, when I suddenly decided it needed one more color. Batik work requires melted wax and in the rush to finish it quickly, I did not reheat the cooled wax over warm water, as one is supposed to, but put the wax vessel directly on high heat and then ran out of the kitchen for a moment.

When I returned, imagine my horror to see that the wax had exploded into flame! In a moment I calculated the immense danger -- the pot was on the stove next to a window; if the curtains caught fire, flames would shoot up to the low ceiling, the wooden barn would ignite like a matchstick, and the animals below, the straw, our belongings, the barn, the whole dry hillside would be set on fire! In spite of my panic I remembered that you cannot put out a wax fire with water. So I grabbed the pot handle and swung the pot away from the curtains. The force of the swing propelled the flaming wax out of the pot and straight into my face.

What a moment before had been an emergency was suddenly a nightmare -- I was on fire! I ripped off my glasses (covered with cooled wax) and turned to see the flaming pot fall into a heap of newspapers in front of the doorway to the stairs down -- the only exit was blocked. I turned and raced across the room to the huge plate glass window opposite. The wax, cooled on my skin, was sealing in intense heat, my hair was on fire, and I was in a complete panic -- I banged on the window for dear life.

One floor below me, sunbathing in the mild morning sun was a friend of a housemate; I had just met him that morning and we were the only two at home. As I banged on the window I began screaming his name, "Fred! Fred!" It seemed incredible that while I had a full view of Fred leisurely enjoying his sunbath, he could not even hear me. I glanced at the house above our lot -- perhaps someone there? -- no, too far away -- I tried to smash the window so I could jump out and escape the burning barn -- the plate glass was too strong.

Suddenly, in the midst of my calling, "Fred! Fred!" a humorous thought flashed across my mind: "I'm going to die with Fred's name on my lips." I stopped calling out and saw myself as if from a great distance in a charred heap in the corner of the ravaged barn. In that moment I realized that nothing in this world could save me -- no one heard my cries, no one could hear -- every avenue of escape was blocked. At last I turned with all my heart to the only One who might be listening and cried out, "Baba! Baba! Help me!"

In an instant, I felt as thought a bucket of shocking cold water had been dumped over me from head to toe. I felt completely cool, strangely calm, and realized that my hair had suddenly stopped burning. I stood perfectly still, and heard a voice inside my mind commanding, "Turn around and go out the door." This was such an unexpected thought that for a moment I couldn't comprehend it, until the voice repeated "Turn around and go out the door." I instantly turned and went towards what I thought would be an inferno. What I found was that the pot had landed upright and was flaming away in the middle of the pile of newspapers and books without having ignited any of them. I rushed past it and went out the door.

As I raced down the stairs, I met Fred rushing up, calling "What's wrong?" He was not surprised to see my burned face and hair, but rushed past me into the upper room. The newspapers must have caught fire the moment I left, for Fred found a fire there that was now seriously threatening the house. He was hard pressed, but he put it out with calm and courage and then came to take me to the hospital. On the way there, he said that while he had been sunning outside, he had been suddenly prompted to get up and rush inside the house -- he couldn't understand why, but he just felt that something was very wrong inside!

It was a morning for inner promptings; I had been putting on my contact lenses when I first got up that day, and for some inexplicable reason felt compelled to put on my glasses instead. I tried to ignore the feeling -- I always wore contacts in those days so my glasses were buried away in a trunk -- but the feeling persisted so I had worn glasses. At the hospital the doctors classified the burns on my forehead, arms and legs as second degree, and said that I would have to have skin grafts on my nose and under my eyes. They went on to say that if I had not been wearing glasses at the time, I would have been permanently blinded as the full force of the wax fell on my eyes. Unfortunately, in addition to the skin grafts, I would also have permanent scars all over my face.

It was, as I said, a morning for inner promptings. At the same time, a thousand miles away in Oklahoma, my closest friend, and husband to be, Erico, intuitively felt that something serious had just happened to me and he flew to California by the first plane. It was he who made me apply Vitamin E to my burns (a then unknown therapy) after my daily treatments at the hospital. Three months later, the doctors looking at my face, called mine a miracle cure -- no skin grafts were required and I do not have a single scar from that accident. I was given strong painkillers for the first week, but I never took one as I never had any pain.

The moral of the story? Well, I suppose one can say Beloved Baba gives us trials by fire. But the rain of His grace and His help is like no other on earth -- when in trouble, call on the One who is always listening! He never fails to respond.

OUR CONSTANT COMPANION, pp. 35-37, ed. Bal Natu Copyright 1983 Bal Natu

WHAT SHOULD WE DO?

                                  Eruch Jessawala

You want to know how you can know what you should do? It's simple, haven't I told you all before, just do what Baba would want you to do? I know, I know, you say, "But what does Baba want us to do?" Or you say, "That's easy for you to say, you were with Baba, Baba would tell you what to do." So many times I've tried to explain to you all that our life with Baba was something quite different. Yes, Baba told us to do certain things, but these were day-to-day orders concerning our work. Baba might tell someone to write a letter, another would have to go to town to buy something, another would be told to mop a floor or clean the latrine. These are the sort of orders Baba gave us.

Baba assigned specific tasks to each of us, but how we were to do them, and how we were to behave when we weren't doing them, that was up to our own judgment. And today, do you mean to say that Baba is telling me what I should be doing and He is not telling you? Brother, how many times do I have to say it, we are all in the same boat. We are no different from you. Our life with Baba, yes, I concede that that was different, but not in the way all of you imagine. There was something about Baba's presence, about being in His presence which words cannot describe. That was there. It fell to our lot to have the blessed good fortune to spend time in His company and that, I agree, was something unique, I should say. But do you mean to say that when Baba dropped His body we suddenly had no idea what to do?

No, we went on doing what we felt would please Baba because Baba had trained us not to follow specific orders, but to anticipate His wants, to learn to be sensitive to His moods, in short, to dance to His tune. People often tell me that to live with Baba you have to be this or you have to be that, but I always say the only thing you have to be is a good dancer, you have to learn to dance to His tune. And you learn how to do this by following the inner voice which we all have been blessed with. Baba once said that this inner voice is His voice. So, you see, you too have the opportunity to obey Baba's direct orders if you simply listen to this voice.

Sometimes when I say to someone, "Why do you do that? Is that the way to behave?" they will reply, "It was easy for you. If I were with Baba I could obey Him too, but it's not knowing what to do now that's so difficult." But I tell you there's no difference. We had the same temptations, the same difficulties you have. Do you think that because we were with Baba that we suddenly became blind and deaf to the world? Haven't I told you all about the time I became attracted to a woman in Baba's presence? Here I was, standing here, introducing people to Baba, when a beautiful woman came into the hall. I was struck by her beauty. I was captivated by it, you may say.

And Baba knew what was happening to me. Not because He could read my mind, but because I was so preoccupied with the woman's beauty that I lost my concentration on Baba's gestures. You see, I had to concentrate very hard to make sure that I could interpret correctly for Baba. It wasn't just a case of reading Baba's gestures, but I had to look at Baba's face at the same time to see what sort of expression He had. I had to know what sort of intonation to use to speak out Baba's words. It wasn't enough to merely throw out the words, I had to put the emphasis that Baba wanted. And this would be indicated by the expression on Baba's face, whether He was smiling, or looking stern, or serious or whatever.

So it took tremendous concentration to do this properly. I had to put my whole mind into it. That is why I often tell people when they ask me about Baba's physical appearance that I never had the opportunity to look at Baba. I saw Him so many times, it is true, but I was never free to simply gaze at Baba, I was always too preoccupied with looking at His hands, looking at the board, and reading the expression on Baba's face to ever be able just to look at Baba to adore Him.

So when my mind got distracted by this woman's beauty, there was an interruption in the interpretation of Baba's gestures. Not a big one, but Baba could tell that something had happened to me. There's always a human explanation for Baba's behavior. It wasn't that Baba was reading our minds, it was that Baba was extraordinarily sensitive and perceptive. He was God. He is God, I should say, but His knowledge was always based on His perfect humanity, not His omniscience.

So Baba, seeing that something was wrong with me, quickly put two and two together. He could see that this young woman was exceedingly beautiful and He guessed what must have gone through my mind. The woman had had her chance to be introduced to Baba and was about to pass by when Baba reached out and took her face in His hands. He held her chin and turned her head slightly and gestured to me, "She's very beautiful, isn't she?" "Yes, Baba," I said, "she is." The woman got very embarrassed. She blushed at being held up to public scrutiny in this fashion, but Baba continued praising her beauty.

"But where will that beauty be in fifty years? She will be old and wrinkled then. The luster will have gone from her skin. Her back will be bent and she will walk with a shuffle. She won't have any teeth and her glossy black hair will be white and dull. Nobody will stop to give her a second glance. What you think of as beauty is just a matter of muscle and bone and flesh, and that will all change with time.

"Why get so enamored of something which is so transitory? It will fade, the greatest beauty in the world will fade like a flower, it has no permanence. But does this mean we shouldn't appreciate the beauty when we see it? No, we should. But we should remember that it was the Creator who created this beauty. We should not get attracted to the beauty for its own sake, but should be reminded of the One who created such beauty." Baba was saying this to everyone; my temptation provided Baba with the excuse to give everyone there this discourse. But what I am trying to bring home to you is that, right there, in Baba's presence, I was dazzled by this woman's beauty. Being in Baba's presence did not automatically make us immune to such things. Wherever you go, it is the same mind and the same heart. And as long as we have the same mind and the same heart, we will all have the same temptations, the same difficulties in obeying Baba.

To be honest, in this particular instance, Baba made it easy for me by bringing home to me, and to everyone else there, how fleeting this beauty is. Baba gave us the guideline that we don't have to turn our face away from worldly beauty. We have eyes, we should notice such beauty and we should appreciate it, but it should make us glorify Him and not the one who has been blessed with such beauty. But now, you too have the benefit of Baba's words. And even without them, you know this. We all know this. Who is there in this room who doesn't know that beauty fades with age? It is axiomatic. What saved me, what saved all of us with Baba, was not so much these explanations, or discourses, or any orders Baba gave, but our determination to be His.

That's all it is. We are no different from you. We had the same problems, the same difficulties, the same temptations and frustrations and desires, but we had one desire which, fortunately for us, was stronger than all other desires, and that was the desire, the determination to be His. Once you have this, you will be safe, and without it, even with Baba giving you direct orders, you will be lost.

Let me give you another example from my own life with Baba. Baba had retired to His room at night and was going to lie down. This happened here, at Meherazad. Baba was staying in what is now Pendu's room, and I was sitting outside under the tree that used to stand there. Baba told me not to disturb Him for any reason, not to enter His room unless He clapped and then I was supposed to enter immediately to see what He wanted. That was straightforward and there was no confusion in my mind about what I should or should not do. I stayed outside the room and waited for Baba's clap. But as I was sitting there, I felt something crawl over my leg. It was a snake and it was heading towards Baba's room.

I rushed forward and, with my flashlight I managed to pin the snakes tail just as it was disappearing in the crack under the door. Only the tail was left outside of Baba's room, but I held it down with my flashlight so it couldn't get completely inside. I knew that Baba's bed was just inside the door to the right, so that the snake was only inches from Baba's bed, so I couldn't let go of the snake. But in pinning the snake, I must have made some noise, because Baba clapped. Now what to do? Baba's order was that when He clapped I was to drop everything and rush into His room. Baba had not said, "When I clap, drop everything, unless you are holding a snake in your hands." You see, Baba had given me an order. A very specific order, yet even so, I felt that my first responsibility was to kill the snake.

Now what happens if you hold a snake by its tail? It curls around to attack whatever is holding it. I knew this. So I just stood there with my flashlight on its tail and it wriggled its body round and slithered back out the door. Mind you, the whole time this is happening, Baba is clapping. But I waited until the snake was outside Baba's room and then I took my chappal and beat it to death. Only then did I finally heed Baba's clap and go inside.

"Where have you been?" Baba demanded. "Didn't you hear me clap?" I explained to Baba what had happened. "You should have come. You should have let the snake go and come immediately. That was my order to you and you should have obeyed."

I did what I felt was right. I did what I felt I should do to protect Baba's body, even though this contradicted an order Baba had given me. And Baba told me I did the wrong thing. But if it were to happen again, I would do the same thing. The point I am trying to make is that even when we had direct orders, we still had to use our best judgment, we still had to examine our conscience and try to figure out what would please Baba. We were not always right, we made mistakes, but it was no different then than it is now.

You have to do your best. It is difficult, I know, but there is this consolation. Baba one time told us that although we would not necessarily know what would please Him, we would always know what would displease Him. So we have this built-in compass that points the way.

Baba stressed selfless service. And I've noticed that many Baba lovers are involved in service of some sort. But is this selfless service? Even in Baba's time people would come and tell Baba about the selfless service they were doing. But as soon as you are aware of having served another, then you haven't served them. I don't say don't do good deeds, but it is better not to do them than to dwell upon having done them and thereby tighten the bonds of attachment you have for those deeds.

Some people come here and they say they feel guilty because they are earning so much money. Why feel guilty if you are earning it? If you are not cheating anyone and are coming by it all honestly, why feel guilty? Did Baba say we should all be poor? There is nothing wrong with having money, as long as you know how to use it. Baba has said, "Really rich is he who knows how to spend his wealth well." But, on the other hand, it is not good to earn more and more money, to become preoccupied with earning money, with the idea that you are doing this only so that you will be able to do "Baba work" all the more. It is presumptuous on our part to think of ourselves doing "Baba work." It only feeds our ego.

Again and again it comes back to the same truth: live a normal life. All these questions, what is good, what is bad, should I do this, should I refrain from doing this, will it feed my ego if I do it, but if I don't, isn't that simply being selfish? And so on, ad infinitum. There is no end to questions, and there is no end to answers to these questions. Don't get involved in trying to figure it out. Meher Baba wants us to lead an ordinary, normal life, in accordance with how you are guided inwardly. Do what you feel intuitively prompted to do, but all the time this should be based on the solid foundation of being His.

Whatever you do, whatever you undertake, dedicate it to Him. Don't even think is it right, is it wrong, is it good or bad, is it a strength or a weakness. Just dedicate everything to Him. Gradually dishonesty will fade. Gradually other things will fade, and more and more unadulterated love and honesty will grow.

You cannot begin with a clean slate, as it were. You must begin from where you are. We all have weaknesses. But analyzing and dissecting our motives, trying to understand whether we are being prompted by selfishness or unselfishness will not eliminate our weaknesses. It will only drive us crazy and make it impossible for us to do anything. The only way to get rid of our selfishness is to go ahead and do something, but dedicate it to Him.

For example, say you decide to pick up junk from the street so that the streets will be kept clean and tidy. This is a "good," a "worthwhile" enterprise. So you start to do it. But you notice very quickly that there is a strong desire in you to have others notice you doing this. You find yourself thinking, "What a good example I am setting. I am not doing this for money. I am doing this for everyone's welfare, and people should be grateful to me." Perhaps, after a while, you even want to call attention to yourself, or you get angry when others don't notice what you are doing. You may even become resentful that you are not being properly appreciated. Or then again, your ego might fasten itself upon the fact that others are not noticing you. "See how spiritual I am, that I am doing this even though no one is noticing or praising me for it." In short, the ego is very much present.

But so what? The ego is always present. It is the nature of the ego to seize upon whatever we do and use it to strengthen itself. So what is the solution? The solution is to simply keep on doing what you are doing. After a while that initial zeal may be gone, you may lose your enthusiasm, but if you continue, even if it is mechanical on your part, the selfish aspects of your behavior, with time, will fade. Eventually you will completely forget about all those other considerations and you will find yourself picking up the junk from habit, solely from the desire to keep the streets clean. It honestly won't matter to you whether others notice you doing it or not. You won't expect them to praise you. And it won't bother you if they condemn you. The action, by being dedicated to Him, becomes purified.

THAT'S HOW IT WAS, pp. 250-257 Copyright 1995 AMBPPCT

SECOND COMING OF THE BUDDHA AS MAITREYA

                              Irene Conybeare

The idea of a New Spiritual Dispensation or Second Advent has never been peculiar to Christian thought. All the great world religions contain the same expectancy that their Founders will return. In world history there are always landmarks where the great spiritual teacher have appeared from time to time, each with his own individual mission to perform, in accordance with the days in which he lived.

Today the Buddhists are gathering together in expectation of the return of the Buddha; for did not Gautama say: "There have been Buddhas before Me and there will be Buddhas after Me."

He also predicted that the Greatest of All would bear the name of Maitreya. He also stated, "Two thousand and five hundred years after Me, my Law will have known its end. Another Buddha, the greatest of them all, will come into the world. He will regenerate it and establish the New Law."

It is important to note that the word "Maitreya" means "friend," because Baba's prevailing characteristic is his friendliness. People are made to feel that he is their friend, and that his divinity is no bar to camaraderie and ordinary social intercourse; he will joke and laugh with us as if we were his equals. In fact the word "friend" suits and describes the Master perfectly.

In speaking of the Buddha, we are reminded how Baba once, when speaking of his childhood, remarked, "Yet, one day, when a friend gave Me a small booklet on the Buddha, I opened the book at the place that told about the Second Coming of the Buddha as Maitreya. Then I realised all of a sudden, 'I am that! Actually!' And I felt it deep within Me ... Then I forgot about it, and years passed by."

CIVILIZATION OR CHAOS, p. 161 Copyright 1959 Chetana Ltd.

ACCORDING TO HIS OR HER SANSKARAS

                              Meher Baba

With me, no one can live what the world considers a moral life. Here, we are concerned with spirituality, not morals. A spiritual life is not ruled nor bound by any principles. The sanskaras of each one are different, and so the behavior and temperament of everyone are different.

In a virtuous life, evil is suppressed and good surfaces; but the evil is still there. The bad sanskaras remain and have to be worked out, if not in this life then in the next or the one after. In the spiritual life, both good and bad sanskaras express themselves, and both get nullified.

A spiritual life leads one toward naturalness, whereas a virtuous life, in the guise of humility, inflates the ego and perpetuates it! A spiritual life, though, is only led under the guidance and orders of the Avatar or Perfect Master, who knows the pulse of everyone and treats everyone according to his particular malady.

You do not like Aloba's behavior, but his behavior was quite natural and necessary for him. How can you understand that?

People of the world act according to moral standards and socially acceptable behavior, but the Avatar or Perfect Master deals with everyone according to his or her sanskaras. Thus spiritual life is totally different and cannot be judged on the basis of morality, ethics or any principle.

LORD MEHER, 1st USA ed, vol. 13 & 14, p. 4591, Bhau Kalchuri Copyright 1998 AMBPPCT

From Silent Teachings of Meher Baba p 65.

God either exists or does not exist. If He exists, search for Him is amply justified; and even if He does not exist, there is nothing to lose by seeking Him. However, man's search for God is usually not a voluntary and joyous enterprise. As a rule, he has to be driven to it by disillusionment over worldly things that allure him and to which his mind is slave.

When a man puts his heart into an intelligent and purposeful exploration of his own life, an increasingly deeper comprehension of the true meaning of all life comes to him, until finally he discovers that while undergoing complete transformation of his own psychic being, he has at the same time also achieved a clearer perception of the true significance of life itself. With this unclouded, mature vision of the ultimate nature and worth of life, the simultaneous realization comes to man that God, whom he has so desperately sought, is no stranger, no hidden or foreign entity. He becomes aware that God is Reality itself and not a mere hypothesis: the Reality that includes all and excludes nothing; the very Reality of which man himself is a part and in which he has his entire being; the God-Reality with which in fact man is identical.

Thus, although in his search for God man begins by seeking something apart from himself something utterly new, what he actually attains is a new understanding of the ancient truth. The spiritual journey does not consist in arriving at a new destination, gaining possession of something that man never had before; nor becoming something that he had never been. It consists in uprooting his ignorance concerning himself and life. Finding God is arriving at one's own self.