'God Speaks' becomes complex with intellectual limitations, not with inner conviction

By M Rama Rao, India Editor, Asian Tribune

Wednes day, Feb 25 is the Birth Day of Meher Baba. The day begins quite early for his followers, around 4 in the morning and by the stroke of 5, prayers are said, and 'arati' is given. Silence is observed then for a while, to quote a long time disciple, to be a part of the 'Maha Maun' – (great silence) of Meher Baba. He began his silence on July 10, 1925. He had promised to break his silence from time to time but he had kept postponing the date though none of his close disciples had imagined that it would continue for long. Silence reins supreme at the Samadhi atop Meherabad hill. As you are about to enter the tomb with a silent prayer on your lips, a plaque catches your attention. It reads: 'Things that are real are given and taken in silence'. By M Rama Rao, India Editor, Asian Tribune

Meher Baba Speaks – 8

New Delhi, 23 February (asiantribune.com): Wednes day, Feb 25 Feb 25 is the Birth Day of Meher Baba. The day begins quite early for his followers, around 4 in the morning and by the stroke of 5, prayers are said, and 'arati' is given. Silence is observed then for a while, to quote a long time disciple, to be a part of the 'Maha Maun' – (great silence) of Meher Baba. He began his silence on July 10, 1925. He had promised to break his silence from time to time but he had kept postponing the date though none of his close disciples had imagined that it would continue for long.

Silence reins supreme at the Samadhi atop Meherabad hill. As you are about to enter the tomb with a silent prayer on your lips, a plaque catches your attention. It reads: 'Things that are real are given and taken in silence'.

There is a mystery about Meher Baba's silence. It is a divine mystery, not an ordinary one, says Abdul Ghani Munsif, one of his early disciples, who believes silence and suffering are inseparable in the case of Meher Baba. Silence is penance for seekers of truth but for Meher Baba, silence is his crucifixion, he remarks.

Meher Baba elaborated the theme, saying 'I carry the universal burden and I suffer physically, mentally and spiritually. My physical suffering is seen by those around me. My mental suffering is intense infinite. As for my spiritual suffering, it is ad infinitum'.

Historical evidence shows Jesus Christ was crucified only once. And eye witness accounts of the present Avatar shows he was crucified 'every moment'. Particularly in the days before he dropped his body on Jan 31 of 1969. Baba suffered severs spasms which came as if in waves at regular intervals. Several persons had to attend on him all day and night. And hold his legs tightly as spasms shook his body. Doctors were baffled. Every time a doctor visited he appeared to be improving but once the doctor left his room, spasms would strike again. Baba told one of his Australian disciples, who was also a doctor by profession, 'this (the spasms) is my crucifixion'.

Why should Meher Baba suffer 'untold agony every second', as he himself had stated
(on Feb 25, 1964)? This question baffles the uninitiated. Even the faithful too. If he is god, as he says he is, why should he suffer like this, they appear to ask.

Bhau Kalchuri, who was alone by Baba's bed side, on the night of Jan 30, 1969, vividly remembers their conversation. 'Remember this, I am not this body', Baba told me. Not once but thrice at 10 pm, 11 pm and midnight, and asked me to 'Yad Rakh' (remember). He also advised me 'Don't worry'.

The biographer recalls what Baba had said some time earlier. '… Familiarity often makes you forget that I am God. Whatever happens doesn't happen without my will. Knowingly, I allow things to happen in their natural course….' Once Meher Baba described his body as the coat he wears when 'I visit you'. And added: 'I draw you ever closer to me by giving you frequent occasions of my companionship. I am not this body that you see'.

The stage is getting ready for Meher Baba's glorification, believes Mohsen Khatami, a noted Iranian broadcast journalist, who did his Masters in mass media at the State University of New York (Buffalo). When I met him at Arangaon (near Meherabad), where he resides these day, I asked him, 'Why in this Internet Age, the name of Meher Baba is familiar only to millions. Why billions and billions are ignorant of his avatar-hood? Google presents in less than 30 seconds some 3330,000 references for Osho. But it gives only 1, 41,000 results for 'the silent' Avatar?'

'There could be many reasons', Mohsen remarked and said, 'Let me just storm my brain for possible reasons'. A few days later sent me a two –page long e-mail giving 'five valid' reasons for the question that is 'baffling' me.

One Baffling Question - Five Valid Reasons

Firstly, Mohsen said, there is this divine reason – 'His will. Is it not 'enough' of a Reason?'

Secondly, Baba maintained an extremely low profile even after he declared 'I am the Avatar'.

Thirdly there is this factual reason. Meher Baba was busy laying down the cables that will meet and merge in future. He made sure that by the advance of technology and the refinement of souls 'yet to be born' the focus will eventually be on the Avatar of the Age, no matter how little he was famous in the sixties.

Fourthly Existential reasons. The name of Meher Baba was familiar to us in Iran during the Sixties but his name was not seen or heard much in Pune (his place of birth) where I lived for five years from 2001. I think his name spreads 'by word of mouth' not through mass media. …this method is definitely useful to bring the right/ripe souls to Baba.

Finally, Material/economic reasons. When Baba lovers and Baba centres become more affluent economically and devotionally, there would surely be more Baba works and words on the net as well as the earth itself.

'Remember. All this is according to a plan, the divine plan…..," Mohsen pointed out. And concluded: 'I think the above reasons show some answer. Since the present time is a time of crisis, the force of suffering itself could be a means to bring people to God. A very real example out of many similar cases is of a sister who told me last month, 'Though I had lost my business due to recent crisis in the Stock Market, I have found spirituality. So, stay happy. Be healthy'.

While writing the column I read Mohsen's mail again. I found some thing which I failed to notice in my first reading a few days back. It is the reference to Rajneesh, Osho as he was known. 'Many Osho sanyasins including this writer are drawn and attracted towards Baba because of Osho's very respectful recount and approach to Baba'. God Speaks is one of Osho's 'favourite' books.

Interestingly, evolutionary biologists – if not all, at least some of them, have strong reservations about God Speaks. The soul's journey God Speaks describes doesn't fit into the current understanding of the sequence of evolution of various species.

'To my mind their criticism misses the point by quite a bit', Keith Gunn, the scientist-baba lover from his US perch, observes.

Says he, 'God Speaks describes the path an evolving soul is currently taking on its way to the human form. It doesn't describe how the soul may have progressed at another, unthinkably ancient, time when different species with different experiences were present on the earth. So this criticism doesn't, to my mind, have any bearing on the state of creation today, which is all what God Speaks seems to me to be describing. Meher Baba once said that in the age of the dinosaurs there was a three-headed beast of huge size, but it isn't there now.

Keith turns to Bhau and his "The Nothing and the Everything", to make an observation that is bound to startle many a thinker. "Earth may not have been the location of Avataric advents in some (sufficiently ancient) time. A given planet is used by God as the place to host the Avatar and to let souls there gain their advancement and ultimately God Realization. But when that planet is no more, or exceeds some threshold of pollution or self destruction (as, for example, the end of a Kali Yuga) another planet takes its place and God incarnates there, and we all flock there to work on our spiritual progress. So, it follows that the Earth wasn't used as the host of the Avatar until a certain point in its evolution, which might have been quite a bit after the evolution of the species had completed in more or less the current form".

Gita Is Simple, So Is Godspeaks

From the Keith observation, it is tempting to conclude, God Speaks is indeed very complex, and it is designed to be complex as if there is a divine plan to shake off people who are inconsequential in God's scheme of things? Because many of Meher Baba discourses are in simple English and are very easy to understand.

'It is not so, my dear', says Bhau. 'He (Baba) does not make any simple thing complicated. Actually, to know the divine language is really very, very difficult. Even to understand, it is difficult. You just see Gita (Bhagvad Gita). It is very simple language, but it is complicated to understand. Our mind deals with complicated things. It makes the simple thing complicated.

Patiently, he goes on to explain; "Language is simple, but how many of us can understand the language? To understand the language and to know the language, are two different things, but understanding cannot reach the knowing stage. You will become mast (God intoxicated soul), if you start knowing. Then what language the mast speaks? They speak something, but it becomes meaningless for us. No book is written about the language of the masts…. My language is the language of understanding. Baba's language is the language of Knowing. There is a world of difference.

Intellectual conviction is not Baba's language. He is above any conviction because He is All-Knowing. Avatar has no conviction. He Knows. He is All-Knowing".

"God Speaks or Discourses", Bhau says, "have become really complex because we use our intellect to understand it, and it is also necessary, because intellect has its limit, to just try, and try and try (to understand)…..then understanding becomes inner conviction; it reaches the path of Truth". And adds that Meher Baba had observed silence for his universal work.

What is universal work? Did Meher Baba complete it? Did he break his silence as promised before or after he dropped his body? These questions also are no less complex. Answers next week

--Asian Tribune-