Meher Baba has talked about God descending in man (Avatar, Rasool, Christ) and man rising to be God (The Perfect Master, Sadguru, Qutub, Teerthankara). Would you please talk to us about the same.
God is. He neither ascends nor descends. Where can he ascend to and where can he descend to? God is all. There is nothing in to which God can ascend or descend. There is nobody else other than God. All that is, is divine. So the first thing: there is no ascendence, no descendence.
But when Meher Baba says it, there must be some meaning in it. The meaning is something quite different. Let me explain it to you.
God is, remember. God is a pure isness, pure existence, and there is nowhere for God to go or come. The whole is full of him. He fills his existence, one thing. Second thing: but Meher Baba must be true. Then there must be some other meaning to it—not God descending and ascending. What can be the meaning? The meaning is there are two ways of man approaching God.
What do I mean by “man” when God is the only reality? Man is the God who has forgotten that he is God; man is a God who has forgotten himself.
Man can remember his godliness in two ways. One way is that of surrender, devotion, love, prayer; another way is that of will, effort, meditation, yoga. If a man tries to work his way through will, then he will feel he is ascending towards God or he is reaching towards God through his will. Hence Jainas call the man who attains to godliness a Teerthankara.
Teerthankara means consciousness has reached the peak; man has arrived by ascending, as if there has been a ladder, the ladder of the will, the ladder of effort and yoga. So is the concept of the Buddhas; that too is the path of will. Avatar means God descending; that is another approach, when a man surrenders. He cannot ascend. He simply opens his heart and waits, prays and waits, and suddenly he starts feeling a stirring in his heart. Certainly he will see “God has descended in me.” Avatar means descendence, God coming down.
Mahavir went up. For Meera, God came down.
But God never comes down, never goes up. God is where he is. But your experience will be different. If you try hard to achieve God, you will go higher and higher and higher; naturally you will feel the God hidden inside you is arising, rising up, reaching to the zenith.
But if you surrender, nothing is arising in you. You are where you are, you simply wait in deep prayer, in deep love, in deep trust, and one day you find God is descending in you, coming from above. These are the experiences of two types of seekers. It has nothing to do with God. It has something to do with the seeker and his way: will or surrender, effort or prayer, yoga or Bhakti.
So the religions which believe in Bhakti, in devotion … Christianity says Christ comes from God. That is the meaning of saying that he is God’s son — he comes from above, he has been sent. And that is the meaning of Mohammed — he is a prophet, a messenger, Paigambar. Paigambar means a messenger who comes from above, brings the message. He does not belong to this world; he comes like a ray of light into the darkness. And so is the concept of the Hindus’ avatar—Krishna, Ram — they come, they come into the world.
The Buddhist, the Jaina concept is just the reverse. They say there is no God to come, and God is not a father and he cannot have a son. These are all very childish concepts for them. And if you look through their eyes they are; these concepts are childish, very anthropomorphic, man-centered. You create God in your own image, as if God also has a family. He has a family — the Trinity: God the Father, Christ the Son, and the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost must be a woman; otherwise the family will not be exactly as it should be.
But why don’t Christians call the Holy Ghost a woman? Male chauvinism. They cannot make a woman also part of the Trinity; it is difficult for them, very difficult for them. So to what have they reduced their God? It seems to be a homosexual family: all men, not a single woman there. It looks ugly. But my feeling is that the Holy Ghost must be a woman. We create God in our own image.
Jainas and Buddhists say that there is no God and there is no God’s family and nobody comes from there. Then what has one to do? One has to arise. God is in you like a seed, as a tree arises from the earth and goes higher and higher. God is not like rain falling, but a tree arising. Man has the seed. Man is potentially God. So when you work hard, you start growing.
These are the two concepts. That’s why Meher Baba says, “… God descending in man (Avatar, Rasool, Christ) and man rising to be God (the Perfect Master, Sadguru, Qutub, Teerthankara).” But it has nothing to do with God.
-Osho
From The First Principle, Discourse #4
Copyright© OSHO International Foundation
An MP3 audio file of this discourse can be downloaded from Osho.com or you can read the entire book online at the Osho Library.
Many of Osho’s books are available in the U.S. online from Amazon.com and Viha Osho Book Distributors. In India they are available from Amazon.in and Oshoworld.com.
In answering the above question, I feel an unbelievably poignant truth became overly complex. I hope the one who asked the question sees this on Avatar Meher Baba:
Avatar is a Sanskrit word for the total descent of Personal God into human form on earth as the eternal living Perfect Master; the direct descent of Reality into illusion; the Savior, the Highest of the High, the Ancient One, also called the God-Man, the Messiah, the Buddha, the Christ, the Rasool and the Saheb-e- -Zaman. Or we can say, abstract God appearing on earth in 3D. He descends every 700-1400 years that you as an individual soul after the annihilation of false mind can ascend to your Divine Origin as Infinite Consciousness.
I suspect that the one who asked the question of Osho, was more interested in hearing Osho answer than any scriptural definition.
And his answer, “how can the whole ascend or descend to where and from where” was much more illuminating than any repetition of the traditional meaning.
Sorry, I thought the question was asked of you, not Osho,so long ago….the answer, by the way is not from Scripture but actually from Meher Baba’s book, Infinite Intelligence. babaelf
No worries. But I think the questioner was interested in what Osho would say concerning the apparent difference of ascending and rising.
Cheers!
p.s. I wonder if you have seen the book “In God’s Hand?” The only book actually written by Baba and which preceeded “Infinite Intelligence.” No mention of Avatar in there. It has been said that Baba began using the terminology because his main audience was Hindus. Interesting.
The ‘Avatar’ reference in Infinite Intelligence is part of its Glossary of Terms. Baba may have decided to use the Avatar word to describe himself for the sake of Hindus, but why would he use the term in a 1956 WNBT [local NYC NBC] television interview with Dave Garroway which was intended, though never was broadcast on National NBC TV, publicly declaring himself for the first time in the West as the Avatar of this age? He obviously wanted the West to be familiar with the term. And, yes, I’m fully aware of In God’s Hand, but do not subscribe to the small rant that Infinite Intelligence is not totally drawn Baba’s painstaking words. Nobody else in the history of this planet could talk like that! I’m a former Catholic priest from the ’60s who just spent the last 6 years writing a 3 volume biography-explanation of the Avatar’s life for future Christians who will come in droves once Baba’s public Manifestation occurs and just may need some kind of like-minded anchor to help them grab onto his damaan……
I just went through “Infinite Intelligence”, he used the term Avatar in it but not in reference to himself and did not distinguish between the Avatar and Sadguru.
It is interesting that it was many years before he started referring to himself as Avatar.
In any case, he is a beautiful and unique Master. He took me to Osho and it was amazing when I discovered that, while visiting the Osho Ashram for the first time, I was staying next door to Guru Prasad, where Baba held his East-West Gathering. Hari Om!
You definitely must have read God Speaks by Avatar Meher Baba and Discourses by Avatar Meher Baba….
I hope that it is clear to all that the original post are words from Osho. It is taken from a discourse in which he is answering questions.
The comments down below by premG are mine.
Namaste