Category: Meher Baba

Evolution of Consciousness – Meher Baba

When God identifies Himself with human beings, He is no longer semi-conscious; because at this stage in the divine dream state, as soon as God identifies Himself with a human form He gains full consciousness.

Full consciousness now having been gained, this consciousness ought to dispel all dreams and cause God to experience the real awake state, giving Him the realization that He is God. At this stage, although God identifies Himself with human beings and although God is now fully conscious, with a feeling of greatest awareness,* yet God has not realized His real, divine awake state because the full consciousness thus far gained is of the Nothingness of the Nothing which was latent and which is now manifested apparently as Everything through the projection of His own divine infinite sub-consciousness. This leads God to identify Himself with His projected creation rather than to become conscious of Himself as the real Everything and of His own identity as God.

* Before attaining human form there is consciousness but not awareness. In sound sleep there is neither consciousness nor awareness. Till the sixth plane there is awareness. In the seventh plane there is only consciousness.

In short, this is the stage at which God, while identifying Himself with human beings in full consciousness, still remains quite oblivious of His own real and original state of God-Is.

Even in this state of full consciousness God still continues to experience the world of His own creation, and with greatest awareness simultaneously continues to identify Himself with human beings, thus finding Himself sometimes as man and sometimes as woman according to the predominance of impressions which are opposite in nature. In other words, God in the man state, although fully conscious and completely aware, experiences Himself not as God in the God-Is state but as man in the human state, not as infinite but as finite.

The paradoxical irony is that God the Real now finds false creation as real, having lost His own reality in illusion and having made His own reality an obstacle to experiencing Reality.

In order that God-in-man should experience Himself as God-in-Reality, the projection of the full consciousness of God, which is now fixed on man, should be so drawn inward that the same full consciousness, which when projected outward identified God as man, should now identify Him as Himself. This is realization of the God state and this realization is the divine goal which alone brings about the end of the divine dream.

Attainment of the divine goal would mean that at this stage God-in-man, through the gradual process of involution of consciousness, should eventually experience the passing-away-in that original divine sound sleep state of absolute vacuum while retaining the legacy of the full consciousness which has been gained. Thus God would be able to realize His eternal “I am God” state consciously. Whereupon, attaining His original state consciously, God would experience His own divine eternal existence and His own divine nature which is the Everything—infinite and real; and so at last get the real answer to His First Word or question of “Who am I?” as “I am God.”

To make it clearer, to attain the divine goal with full consciousness evolved, the human-conscious God strives, through further experiences by the process of reincarnation, to withdraw inwards towards Himself the already projected full consciousness, which He gained as soon as He identified Himself with the first human-form in His divine dream (Creation).

As this stage of the beginning of the end of the divine dream approaches, the full consciousness of God which experiences the false awake state in the human form strives to the utmost through the process of involution to withdraw inwards, unto Himself, this fully evolved consciousness which is projecting outwards onto all things in the cosmic universe rather than unto Himself.

In order to describe the various stages by which the complete unconsciousness of God in His original sound sleep state gradually projected full consciousness through the process of evolution of consciousness, and how the projected consciousness was eventually withdrawn inwards through the process of involution of consciousness, after numerous reincarnations, before actually experiencing the real divine awake state of “I am God,” let the different stages be visualized step by step, comparing each stage of gradual gain in consciousness of God with the relative states of a normally conscious man who is at first in sound sleep and who subsequently gains consciousness enough to realize eventually his ordinary awake state every day.

First Stage

Visualize a man with eyes completely shut and in sound sleep. This man is completely unconscious and is oblivious of all that surrounds him. Now picture at the same time the original divine sound sleep state of God as He is in the original absolute vacuum of the God-Is state. In both cases, that is, both in God’s formless state and God’s state of human-form as man or woman, there is complete absence of consciousness, and in both cases absolute vacuum prevails. Simultaneously, also picture the total absence of consciousness in both cases as comparable to the completely shut eyes of a man in sound sleep.

Second Stage

Visualize the next state of the man as being still asleep but beginning to open his eyes very, very slightly, because he is just bestirred from his sound sleep state and the spell of absolute vacuum is shattered by the emergence of the dormant impressions now commencing to project through the sub-consciousness of the man which also lay latent in him in his sound sleep state. Because of the projection of the varied impressions through the sub-consciousness of this man, he now begins to experience dreams while still asleep, although no longer in the sound sleep state, because the absolute vacuum no longer prevails. For the man to commence experiencing dreams means that in his initial stage of the semi-conscious state he begins to experience through his sub-consciousness the dormant impressions of the Nothingness in sub-subtle forms. The man now is not only in the initial stage of the semi-conscious state and is not only beginning to experience dreams, but he is also starting to get involved in the dreams by beginning to associate with the creatures in sub-subtle forms of his own creation. Thus the projection of impressions, which lay dormant in the sub-consciousness of man, makes man play the role of the hero or the creator in the drama of his dreams. Because this man in this dream state has only just stirred from his sound sleep and has just attained the semi-conscious state, picture this man experiencing the dreams as one who is starting now to open his eyes very, very slightly. The beginning of the opening of the eyes resembles the advent of the first trace of consciousness as sub-consciousness manifested in man.

While visualizing this state of man, as a parallel, picture likewise that state of God in which He has just stirred from His original divine sound sleep state. God now only begins to experience the divine dream state, or the Creator state, as soon as the first most-finite impression of the Nothingness is projected through the divine sub-consciousness of God. Both of these—i.e., the Nothingness and the divine sub-consciousness of God—were latent as of Nothing in the original state of God as the Everything. God, now in the initial stage of the divine semi-conscious state, just begins to identify Himself with the creatures of His own Creation (i.e., His own divine dream) through the infinite divine sub-consciousness which just begins to project the Creation, that is, the impressions of the Nothingness.

Third Stage

Visualize the third state of the man as still asleep, but with half-open eyes, because a man in this state now completely experiences the semi-conscious state. In order to picture this complete semi-conscious state of the still-sleeping man, continue to visualize him with eyes very, very slightly open, representing the beginning of the semi-conscious state. In this state, as said above, he starts to experience dreams due to the false, illusory impressions of the Nothingness which were collected sub-consciously and are now ejected out through the projection of the sub-consciousness, giving rise to the beginning of the dream state of man. But, as the dreams continue, and as they gather momentum due to the intensity of the projection of multifarious and varied dormant impressions through the sub-consciousness of the man, he gets more and more involved sub-consciously. As a result he now firmly associates himself with the creatures of his own creation in the dreams and he is completely in the semi-conscious state. This semi-conscious state of the man represents that state which is neither the complete sound sleep state without consciousness nor the complete awake state with full consciousness. This state, so to speak, is the semi-awake state. Now visualize this third state of the man as the state of semi-consciousness represented by half-opened eyes experiencing the dreams more forcefully and much more intently.

While visualizing this state of the man, picture as a parallel that state of God in the divine dream state where God is experiencing a semi-conscious state. At this stage, God as the creator of Creation experiences the creator state through the infinite, divine semiconscious state. Here the infinite divine sub-consciousness, intensively projecting Creation into being, continually affirms God’s identification with the creatures of His own creation. This gives rise to infinite experiences of a more forceful nature in the divine dream of God, when God actually finds Himself as the creatures of His Creation.

Fourth Stage

Visualize the fourth state of the man as that in which he is still asleep but trying gradually to open wider his already half-opened eyes in accordance with the greater and greater intensity of the projection of more and more impressions through the sub-consciousness of the man still in his dream state. Here the man is not only in a semi-conscious state but is verging on being fully conscious, and is about to realize his awake state.

Now paralleling this, picture also that state of God in the fourth stage of His divine dream state. Compare the fourth state of the man in the semi-conscious state with a very critical stage in the divine dream state of God. Here the projection of infinite impressions, through the infinite divine sub-consciousness of God, is so intensified in the course of the cosmic evolution of the consciousness of God, that this projection is about to be so completely fixed, or so perfectly focused, onto the infinity of Nothingness as to identify God with His own most perfect image in His divine dream of Creation. Thus at this stage in the divine dream state, God the Creator is about to identify Himself with a human form after innumerable identifications with all and everything that is in His Creation including inanimate and animate objects. God, in the divine infinite semi-conscious state, is now nearing the verge of gaining full consciousness concurrently with His identification with human form.

Fifth Stage

Visualize the fifth state of the man as being still asleep but with eyes now almost open. The man in this state is still in the semiconscious or semi-awake state, experiencing the dreams at their height in their final stage, in which the impressions are projected through his sub-consciousness with the greatest intensity. The zenith is reached both by the intensified projection of the impressions in much less hazy forms, or in greater degree of realism, and by relevant dreams which are dreamt in a greater degree of clarity or in their ripe stage. This is the stage in dreams when the sub-subtle forms of Nothingness have reached their zenith and appear more clearly. The dreams at their height now must stop, because the zenith reached by the projections of impressions through the sub-consciousness of the man is at this point sufficient to excite and urge the emergence or manifestation of full consciousness at any moment. This state of the man almost fully conscious may therefore be pictured as a man with his eyes almost wide open, though still asleep. This is the stage reached a split second before the man has roused from his dream state to become wide awake. This is the completely matured semi-conscious state of sub-consciousness.

While visualizing the fifth state of the man, side by side with it picture that state of God in His divine dream state where God is experiencing the completely matured state of the divine, infinite semi-conscious state and is almost about to gain full consciousness. At its zenith the intensity of the projection of infinite impressions through the divine, infinite sub-consciousness of God has almost ceased to identify God semi-consciously with the last of the creatures in the cosmic evolution of Creation and forms. With divine, infinite sub-consciousness, God is in His divine, infinite semi-conscious state, which when almost matured identified God with infinite impressions of animal forms. But now in the fifth stage of the divine dream state where God is in the completely matured divine, infinite semi-conscious state, God can no longer be made to identify with impressions of animal forms even though they are intensively and infinitely projected through His divine, infinite sub-consciousness.

At this point a stage is reached in the divine dream state where in, with the projection to infinity of impressions projected infinitely through the divine, infinite sub-consciousness of God at its zenith, this infinite projection has almost identified God with a human form and God is almost fully conscious.

Sixth Stage

Visualize the sixth state of the man as having completely awakened from his sleep and as having his eyes completely wide open. In this state the man is no longer in the semi-conscious state, dreaming the dreams which were nothing but the hazy and faint projection of the dormant impressions of Nothingness which were stored in the sub-consciousness of the man, and realized through his sub-consciousness in sub-subtle forms of Nothingness. This is the stage in the state of the man where he has just awakened completely, but albeit he is fully conscious, he is not conscious of his “Self” as yet. The man is no longer in his sound sleep and semiconscious states and, with full consciousness gained, is pictured now with wide-open eyes. This means the end of the dream, or the end of the false state of man where he experienced the latent or dormant Nothing manifested in its raw state as Nothingness in the shape of hazy and faint sub-subtle forms. The man now in the awake state no longer experiences or sees the Nothingness as something hazy or faint as he used to see it in his dream state. With his eyes just opened wide and fully, he is dazed and stares vacantly at things that now confront his sight more realistically. The man now observes things that confront his sight as if he were seeing the ripe, the clear and the fully developed forms of the same Nothingness that he saw in his dream as raw, hazy and faint. In this state the man sees, as it were, yet another dream, but he sees it much more realistically than the dream from which he awakened a split second before.

This is the sixth stage in the state of man where the man, dazed, simply experiences the sight of things much more realistically but still as if it were just a vacant dream. That is, the man sees more forcefully and realistically but still vacantly the dream of his dream state, giving him the sense of yet another dream within the dream of his dream state.

This state corresponds to the few seconds immediately after a man has awakened and cannot help but see at first the objects that come within range of his vision rather than his own self. This is because, as soon as his eyes open after the sleep state, the spontaneous opening of the long-shut eyes creates in him a sort of dazed state and, although the man has awakened and is fully conscious, he is still unaware of his Self or of its position in relation to the objects surrounding his very self. He simply stares at the objects upon which his gaze falls.

While visualizing the sixth state of the man, make a parallel of it by picturing in the same way that state of God as of that instant when God has just identified Himself with a human form and has just gained full consciousness. At that moment God is no longer in the divine, infinite semi-conscious state, dreaming the original divine dream which was the projection of the latent Nothing re l e a s e d by the divine, infinite sub-consciousness as the Creation, or as completely evolved Nothingness.

In this sixth state, God is now out of His original, divine sound sleep and His divine, infinite semi-conscious states because He is now fully conscious. Here God is conscious not of His unlimited Self nor of His infinite, unbounded and unlimited trio-nature of infinite power, knowledge and bliss, but is just fully conscious. God is fully conscious now in the sense that God is consciously absorbed in the Nothingness which now manifests through His full consciousness as clear and well defined, realistic gross states apparently demonstrating their infinite aspects ad infinitum.

Seventh Stage

Visualize the seventh state of the man where he has his eyes wide open and is completely and fully awake in the sense that he now asserts his limited self or ego, and is conscious of his human form or the gross body, of his surroundings and of the gross world. Though this man is fully conscious and completely aware of the gross, and experiences the gross world in full, yet he is still unconscious of the limited energy and mind of which he indirectly makes unconscious use, being aware of their aspects through the limitations of his gross body alone. In this state the man is fully conscious, but gross-consciously, and is fully aware of his self as a man in the world of his surroundings.

The man is not only completely aware of the gross world, and of all things in the world which confront his view, but he also actually experiences them by involving his fully conscious and fully aware state of limited self in them. He now recognizes the objects of the gross world through his five predominant gross senses and differentiates them one from another, using them discriminately or indiscriminately, automatically and indirectly utilizing energy and mind which are now fully developed, in attaching to them their relative values as and when his limited self asserts in his awake state before he passes away once again in sound sleep.*

* In the awake state, it is the mind that sees through the gross eyes, hears through the gross ears, smells with the gross nose, eats through the gross mouth and acts through the gross limbs. In the dream state (sub-conscious state) it is the mind that sees through the sub-subtle eyes, hears through the sub-subtle ears, and so on. In the sound sleep state, it is the mind that is at peace and at rest.

While visualizing the seventh state of the man, picture likewise that state of God where God identifies Himself completely with the human form and gains full and complete consciousness. God now no longer dreams divinely the original divine dream but, with full consciousness now completely gained, He experiences falsely the complete awareness. This awareness makes God falsely aware of that original Nothing which was latent in His own state of infinitude, and which, with the present gain of full consciousness, makes God experience that Nothing realistically as the Everything, infinite and real. In other words, God, when He was in the divine, infinite semi-conscious state, was experiencing the latent Nothing manifested as the Nothingness as His divine dream. Now, when God is in a fully conscious state, He apparently experiences that Nothing, not as the divine dream of Nothingness, but He now actually experiences the awareness of this Nothing as the Everything.

In this stage with the advent of awareness, although God in the state of creator has stopped dreaming divinely the original divine dream, yet, because of His having gained full consciousness and complete awareness, God now becomes completely aware of the original divine dream not as a dream but as something realistic, not as illusion but as reality, not as the Nothing but as the Everything, preserving the Nothing that He created. Thus it is that, although God gained full consciousness and experienced complete awareness in the state of creator, this very awareness of God the Creator proves a deception and makes God now experience His own divine dream (or the Creation) of the Nothing as Reality while He identifies Himself with the human being.

In short, God the Creator as the God-in-man, though now fully conscious and completely aware and out of His original divine dream state, yet finds Himself not as God but as man with complete gross consciousness, experiencing the creation of His own original divine dream state as Reality. Here it is to be said that the God-in-man continues to experience in the awake state with the awareness of false reality the vacant divine dream as yet another dream of God within that original divine dream.

This is the most alluring stage in the state of God when, with full consciousness gained, God is led astray, by the false awareness attained, to identify Himself not with His unlimited and infinite Self, but with His most perfect image in the shape of the human being, while God continues to experience the vacant divine dream.

Although it appears as the most fantastic imagination, yet it is a fact that the very life of man is the veil that shrouds the reality of the eternal existence of God.

It is the irony of divine fate that God gets lost in man to find Himself, and the instant that man gets lost in God, God realizes His Reality as Existence, eternal and infinite.

In other words, infinite God becomes infinitely absorbed in His own infinitely perfect image intently seeking His infinity; and although God does gain full consciousness through it, He does not realize the reality of His own eternal, infinite existence in it. But, the instant the full consciousness thus gained ceases to identify God with the infinite reflection of His infinitely perfect image, this image vanishes from the consciousness of God, and God spontaneously and automatically and consciously realizes His own identity as God, the infinite Existence, and finds that He alone ever was, always is and eternally will remain the Only Reality.

Thus God in the man state, at first realizing Himself as man, asserted His limited aspects through the limited self or the limited ego, the limited mind, the limited energy and the finite gross body. Then eventually and ultimately realizing Himself as God, He manifests His unlimited, unbounded, infinite trio-nature of infinite knowledge, infinite power and infinite bliss through His divine unlimited Self.

While depicting, through the seven different primary stages, the process of unfoldment of the latent consciousness of God in His original, unconscious, divine sound sleep state, as compared with the seven different primary states of man gaining consciousness right from his unconscious sound sleep state to the state wherein he gains full consciousness and wakes up completely with wide-open eyes, it is found that this is the process of the evolution of consciousness of God which eventually identifies the fully conscious God with the fully conscious man, after identifying God with all and everything inanimate and animate in the drama of the divine dream of Creation.

Right from the unconscious state (compared to the divine sound sleep state) until full and complete consciousness is gained in the man state (compared to the wide-open eyes of man experiencing the gross world), God remains One, indivisible, infinite, formless and eternally all-pervading. But it is the all-pervading, infinite nature of God that expresses consciously and unconsciously His eternal divine existence, directly and indirectly, in one and all states and forms, through their expressions of their very being.

The whole process of evolution was an absolutely spontaneous outcome of the original, infinite whim surging in the unconscious God to become conscious of His eternal and infinite existence. And, paradoxical as it may seem, in the process of evolution the unconsciousness of God urged the gradual unfoldment of the latent consciousness of God, which consciousness grew greater and greater through a gradual, systematic and progressive process of gathering and experiencing varied and innumerable impressions through identifying God with varied and innumerable gross forms.

So it is that the evolving consciousness of God gives rise to the identification of God with forms and states of forms of higher and higher types. This identification of God in turn gives rise to an apparently unending chain of associations and dissociations, or the so-called births and deaths, of forms and beings which continue to form and assert and then dwindle away in the Nothingness, leaving behind the legacy of impressions which in turn again lead the evolving consciousness of God to identify Himself with yet another form moulded of the very impressions left behind by the form that dwindled away.

Through the process of evolution, the unconscious God did eventually gain full consciousness when the evolved consciousness of God eventually identified God with the human form. But this full consciousness gained was impressioned consciousness and therefore did not make God realize the original, infinite state of God. On the contrary, God realized that He is man. Thus God, after having the original whim of His First Word (“Who am I?”), at this stage finds Himself to be man and experiences the gross world, apparently living in it as man and quite oblivious of His infinite and eternal existence until He finds the real answer to His First Word of “Who am I?” to be “I am God.”

-Meher Baba

From God Speaks, Part 8

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From Meher Baba to Osho with Love

As the rickshaw pulled to a stop, I looked up and read the sign at the top of the gate – Shree Rajneesh Ashram. Quite a large fellow with a German accent (Haridas) greeted me and I heard myself say, “I’m not where I was going, but I’m sure I am in the right place.” At the Poona train station, I had told the rickshaw driver, “Sai Baba Ashram, not Rajneesh Ashram.” He responded, “Yes, yes, baba.” Mistakenly I had been told there was a Sai Baba Ashram as well as a Rajneesh Ashram in Poona and so I thought I would be able to visit both but had decided to start with the Sai Baba Ashram.

As soon as I stepped out of the rickshaw – I knew there had been no mistake. After only a day or so, I went to the front office and asked Arup for a Sannyas Darshan. In fact, I showed her I already had a mala; I just needed Bhagwan’s photo attached. I arrived wearing a Tibetan mala I had bought from Tibetan refugees in Pokhara, Nepal, and all green Indian clothes. Later I heard Osho say green was the color of the Sufis. I looked Arup straight in the eye and asked if she couldn’t see I was already a sannyasin. She was not impressed and so I was instructed to do the meditations.

My first exposure to meditation was through Meher Baba. Interestingly enough, in the book Dimensions Beyond the Known, Osho says Meher Baba and he had used the same meditation technique. It had been seven years earlier, while selling Kansas City Free Press newspapers on a street corner on the Country Club Plaza, that I had been introduced to Meher Baba. An older fellow named Charlie walked up to me and started telling me about him. We walked over to a coffee shop and I learned about this modern-day Master who was from Poona, India, and who had dropped his body six months earlier.

My connection to Meher Baba was totally a heart connection. I had tried to read his book God Speaks but was unable to take it in. I had totally forgotten Meher Baba was from Poona, but it was the connection to Meher Baba that took me to Poona, both for the Shree Rajneesh Ashram and looking for the Sai Baba Ashram. The interest in Sai Baba stemmed mostly from the fact one of Meher Baba’s Masters was Sai Baba of Shirdi and this current Sai Baba was proclaiming to be a reincarnation of him.

While staying at the Sunder Lodge, I met a beautiful German sannyasin named Gatha and we established a nice connection. After being in Poona for some time, she asked me how I was feeling. I remember telling her, “I’m more in love than I have ever been in my life.” I felt I was swimming in love. When I told her of my meeting with Arup, she suggested I go with her and see Laxmi who was a friend of hers and also Arup’s boss. Because Enlightenment Day was nearing, the soonest I could get an appointment for a Sannyas Darshan was March 28th, exactly one week after Osho’s Enlightenment Day celebration on March 21st.

On the day of the celebration of Osho’s Enlightenment I was aware of the anticipation of the unknown. I had only seen Osho in discourse and had not had a darshan (a face-to-face meeting with him with only a small group present) so I really did not know what to expect but could feel a heightened energy around. I also remember consciously taking myself inwards. I wanted to be as present as possible for that first meeting. I spent the entire day not meditating but “being” meditation. I was aware of all the emotions, thoughts, and even body sensations that were visiting but I stayed anchored in that heart space where one is just being.

I believe 1976 was the last year that Celebration Darshans were held in Chuang Tzu Auditorium before moving to the much larger space of Buddha Hall. In that time on Celebration Days, people filed into Chuang Tzu past Bhagwan for darshan. I remember standing in the queue which was long and stretched out towards the front gate. We began lining up in daylight but it was dark before I finally arrived at Osho’s chair. Music was playing during the entire time. As I  neared the entrance to Chuang Tzu, a beautiful female voice was singing Elton John’s “Love Song,” so appropriate as I was sinking deeper and deeper into heartfulness.

   “Love is the opening door
    Love is what we came here for
    No one could offer you more
    Do you know what I mean
    Have your eyes really seen.”

Just as my space in the line reached the entrance to Chuang Tzu, the music changed dramatically and became high energy drumming. This increased the excitement and anticipation tenfold. It still was not possible to actually see Osho because of the crowd in front.

Finally, I arrived and it was my turn to approach Osho. What followed I still see as if looking through a dream. It was as if some body memory took over. In front of him I bowed down and touched his feet, and then my body made motions as if it was pouring water from his feet to my head and this happened several times, then my hands folded in Namaste. When my hands touched, it was as if a circuit had been completed and I felt what can only be described as a powerful electric current circulating between my hara (area around the navel) and my hands clasped in front. My body then went limp but I did not lose consciousness and simply watched what unfolded. The same German sannyasin I had met at the gate on my arrival was there, Haridas. He slung me over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes (but very lovingly), carried me out of the auditorium and placed me outside the gate on the ground to gather myself. I had met my Master, a living Buddha.

My sannyas darshan was still one week away and as one could imagine I didn’t know what to expect. Would it be even more powerful? As it turned out it was rather anticlimactic. I followed two Americans who received the names Milarepa and Marpa. Then it was my turn – he told me my name, Swami Prem Purushottama, and asked if it would be easy to pronounce. He said, “Prem means love and Purushottama means God. So, love of God or God of love.” He then asked how long I would be staying and that was it.

To this day, I do not know what the “current” experience was, perhaps some of our Indian friends can explain, but to me it was my true initiation.

Hence, in some ways I have two sannyas birthdays. Somehow by keeping it to myself all these years, it has not been able to be what it is, just another naturally ordinary experience with the extraordinary. Now I set it free.

Thank you, Osho. Your Enlightenment that took place so many years ago made each of our own experiences possible. Your sannyasins are eternally grateful.

A few days after my sannyas darshan, I walked out of Sunder Lodge and made a right turn. Up to that time, I had always turned left. The first building I came to was a memorial to Meher Baba. All the while, I had been staying next door to the Guru Prasad Apartments which is the spot where Meher Baba held his East-West Gatherings. At that moment Meher Baba and Osho were One. Tears of gratitude flowed down my cheeks. Buddham Sharanam Gachchhami.

-purushottama

This is from the collection of stories, essays, poems and insights that is compiled to form the book From Lemurs to Lamas: Confessions of a Bodhisattva. Order the book Here.

 

 

Meher Baba’s Enlightenment-A Kiss From Babajan – Osho

With growing desirelessness, sometimes the person becomes outwardly inactive, is it lethargy and dullness? Why does it happen?

Many things are possible, and it will depend. Certainly many desires will drop and many actions also. Those actions which were just caused by desires will drop. If I was running for a particular desire, how can I run if the desire has dropped? My running will stop. At least the same running on the same route will stop. So when a person becomes desireless, at least for an interim period, for an interval – and how long it will be will depend on the individual – he will become inactive. The desires will have dropped – and all the actions that he had been doing were concerned with desires, so how can he continue? They will drop.

But by dropping desires and actions, energy will be accumulated – and now energy will begin to move. When it moves, how it moves will vary from individual to individual, but now it will move.

There will be a gap, an interim period, an interval. This I call a pregnancy period. The seed is born, but now it will gestate for at least nine months. And it may seem strange, but it happens. This nine months period is meaningful. Near about this, eight months or ten months, will be the interim period, and you will just become inactive. This inactivity will also vary. Someone may become so inactive that people may think that he has just gone into a coma. Everything stops.

For Meher Baba it happened like that. For one year he was just in a coma. He couldn’t even move his limbs. Action was far off, he couldn’t stand up because even the desire to stand had gone. He couldn’t eat; he had to be forced. He couldn’t do anything! For one year continuously he became just helpless – a helpless child. This was a pregnancy period, and then, suddenly, a different man was born. The man who became inactive was no more: a new energy – energy accumulated.

Lives and lives of dissipated energy create this gap – because you do not have enough energy.

When desire is not there to invoke. provoke, stimulate, you just drop. Your energy is not really energy, but just a pushing and pulling. Anyhow you go on running because the goal seems just nearby. A few moments’ endeavour more and you will reach! You pull yourself on; somehow you carry yourself and run. But when the goal is dropped, when there is no desire, you will drop. An inactivity will be there. If you can be patient in this inactivity period, after it you will be reborn. Then energy will begin to move without desires.

But I say it depends. It may happen suddenly as it happened for Meher Baba: that was a sudden case. It happened in Poona. It happened by a kiss from an old lady, Babajan. Meher Baba was just passing, coming back from his school. Babajan was an old Sufi mystic, an old lady who was just sitting under a tree for years and years and years. Meher Baba was just coming, and Babajan called him. He knew this old lady. She was sitting for years under the tree, and he had passed by that street daily on his way towards his school and towards his home. She called and he came near. She kissed him – and he dropped as if dead just there. Then he had to be carried home.

For one year continuously the kiss remained on him and he was in a coma. It may happen suddenly like this. Mm? This was a great transfer, and Babajan died afterwards because she had just been waiting for this moment to give someone the whole energy. This was her last life, and there was not enough time even to explain what she was giving. And also, she was not the type to have explained. She was a silent mystic. She had not touched anybody for years. She was a only waiting for this moment when she was to kiss someone and the whole energy was to be transferred in a single transfer. Before this she had not even touched anyone, so this touch was to be total.

And this child was simply unaware of what was going to happen. He was ready – otherwise this transfer would not have been possible – but he was not aware. He had worked through his past lives. He was just coming up. He might have become aware later on, but just now he was completely unaware. This happened so suddenly that he had to go again through a second pregnancy. For one year he was as if not. Many medicines were given; many, many doctors and physicians tried to help, but nothing could be done. And the woman who could do something, she disappeared, she died. After one year he was a different man – totally different.

If it happens so suddenly, then it will be a deep coma. If it happens through some exercises, then it will never be so deep a coma. If you are doing awareness exercises, meditation, then it will never happen so suddenly. It will come so gradually, so gradually, that you will never even become aware of when it has happened. By and by, inactivity will be there, activity will be there, and very gradually inside everything will have changed. And the desire will drop, the activity will drop, but no one will ever feel that you have been lethargic or that you have become inactive.

This is the gradual process. So those who follow yoga or any method will not feel the suddenness. There are also methods in which sudden happenings become possible, but one can be prepared. Babajan never prepared this boy; she never even asked his permission. It was a one-way affair. She just transferred the energy.

Zen monks also transfer, but before transferring they prepare the ground. A person can be made ready to receive the energy, then this reaction will not be there. He may feel lethargy for some days, for some months, but no one will feel outside that inside everything has become inactive. But that needs preparation, and that can happen only in schools. And when I say “school”, I mean a group working.

Babajan was alone; she never made anyone her disciple. There was no school, there was not a following in which she could have prepared anyone. And, also, she was not the type. She was not the teacher type; she couldn’t teach. But she had to give to someone, to whomsoever passed and she felt: “Now is the moment, and this one will be able to carry it,” so she could just deliver it.

So it depends. Inactivity is bound to be there – more or less, but it will be there, a period will be there. And only then can you be reborn, because the whole mechanism has to change completely. The mind drops, old roots drop, the old habits drop, the old association of consciousness and desires, consciousness and mind, drops – everything old drops and everything has to be new.

A waiting is needed, patience is needed. And if one is patient, one has not to do anything: just to wait is enough. The energy begins to move by itself. You just sow the seed and then wait! Don’t be in a hurry; don’t go every day to pull the seed out and see what is happening. Just put it inside and wait. The energy will take its own course. The seed will die, and the energy will sprout and will begin to move. But don’t be impatient. One has to wait.

And the greater the seed, and the greater the possibility, the potentiality of the tree that is going to be, the more will be the waiting. But it comes. It comes! The deeper the waiting, the sooner it comes.

-Osho

Taken from The Ultimate Alchemy, Vol. 1, Chapter 4

Copyright© OSHO International Foundation

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God-Realization – Meher Baba

To realize the Self is to realize God

To arrive at true Self-knowledge is to arrive at God-realization. God-realization is a unique state of consciousness. It is different from all the other states of consciousness because all the other states of consciousness are experienced through the medium of the individual mind; whereas the state of God-consciousness is in no way dependent upon the individual mind or any other medium. A medium is necessary for knowing something other than one’s own Self. For knowing one’s own Self no medium is necessary.

In fact, the association of consciousness with the mind is definitely a hindrance rather than a help for the attainment of Realization. The individual mind is the seat of the ego, or the consciousness of being isolated. It creates the limited individuality, which at once feeds on and is fed by the illusions of duality, time, and change. So, in order to know the Self as it is, consciousness has to be completely freed from the limitation of the individual mind. In other words, the individual mind has to disappear, but consciousness has to be retained.

Consciousness and mind intertwined

Throughout the past life history of the soul, its consciousness has grown with the individual mind; and all the workings of consciousness have proceeded against the background of the individual mind. Consciousness has therefore come to be firmly embedded in the individual mind and cannot be extricated from this setting into which it has been woven. The result is that if the mind is stilled, consciousness also disappears. The intertwining of the individual mind and consciousness is amply illustrated by the tendency to become unconscious when there is any effort to stop mental activity through meditation.

Explanation of sleep

The everyday phenomenon of going to sleep is not essentially different from the lull experienced during meditation, but it is slightly different in its origin. Since the individual mind is continuously confronted by the world of duality, it is involved in ceaseless conflict; and when it is wearied by its unrelieved struggle, it wants to lose its identity as a separate entity and go back to the Infinite. It then recedes from the world of its own creation and experiences a lull, and this lull is also invariably accompanied by the cessation of consciousness.

Resuming wakefulness

The quiescence of mental activity in sleep entails the complete submerging of consciousness; but this cessation of mental life and conscious functioning is only temporary because the impressions stored in the mind goad it to renewed activity. After a while the stimuli of the impressions result in stirring the mind and reviving the conscious functioning that is performed through its medium. So the period of sleep is followed by a period of wakefulness; and the period of wakefulness is followed by a period of sleep, according to the law of alternating activity and rest. As long as the latent impressions in the mind are not completely undone, however, there is no final annihilation of the individual mind or emancipation of consciousness. In sleep the mind temporarily forgets its identity, but it does not finally lose its individual existence. When the person awakens, he finds himself subject to his old limitations. There is a resurrection of consciousness, but it is still mind-ridden.

Obstacle of ego

The limited mind is the soil in which the ego is securely rooted, and this ego perpetuates ignorance through the many illusions in which it is caught. The ego prevents manifestation of infinite knowledge, which is already latent in the soul; it is the most formidable obstacle to the attainment of God. A Persian poem says truly, “It is extremely difficult to pierce through the veil of ignorance, for there is a rock on the fire.” Just as a flame cannot rise very high if a rock is placed upon it, a desire to know one’s own true nature cannot lead to the Truth as long as the burden of the ego is placed on consciousness.

Success in finding one’s Self is rendered impossible by the continuation of the ego, which persists throughout the journey of the soul. In old age, an aching tooth can give untold trouble because it is not easily uprooted, although loose within its socket. In the same way the ego, which might become feeble through love or penance, is yet difficult to eradicate. It persists till the very end. Though it becomes looser as the soul advances on the path, it remains till the last stage, which is the seventh plane of involution of consciousness.

Difficulty of overcoming ego

The ego is the center of all human activity. The attempts of the ego to secure its own extinction might be compared to the attempt of a person to stand on his own shoulders. Just as the eye cannot see itself, the ego is unable to end its own existence. All that it does to bring about self-annihilation only goes to add to its own existence. It flourishes on the very efforts directed against itself. Thus it is unable to vanish altogether through its own desperate activity, although it succeeds in transforming its own nature. The disappearance of the ego is conditioned by the melting away of the limited mind, which is its seat.

Parallel between sleep and God-realization

The problem of God-realization is the problem of emancipating consciousness from the limitations of the mind. When the individual mind is dissolved, the whole universe relative to the mind vanishes into nothingness; and consciousness is no longer tied to anything. Consciousness is now unlimited and unclouded by anything and serves the purpose of illumining the state of infinite Reality. While immersed in the bliss of Realization, the soul is completely oblivious of sights or sounds or objects in the universe. In this respect it is like sound sleep, but there is an infinite difference that distinguishes God-realization from sound sleep.

During sleep the illusion of the universe vanishes, since all consciousness is in abeyance; but there is no conscious experience of God, since this requires the complete dissolution of the ego and the turning of full consciousness toward the ultimate Reality. Occasionally, when the continuity of deep sleep is interrupted for brief intervals, one may have the experience of retaining consciousness without being conscious of anything in particular. There is consciousness, but this consciousness is not of the universe. It is consciousness of nothing. Such experiences parallel those of God-realization, in which consciousness is completely freed from the illusion of the universe and manifests the infinite knowledge that was hitherto hidden by the ego.

Difference between sleep and God-realization

In sleep, the individual mind continues to exist, although it has forgotten everything including itself; and the latent impressions in the mind create a veil between the submerged consciousness and infinite Reality. Thus during sleep, consciousness is submerged in the shell of the individual mind; but it has not yet been able to escape from that shell. Though the soul has forgotten its separateness from God and has actually attained unity with Him, it is unconscious of this unity. In God-realization, however, the mind does not merely forget itself but has (with all its impressions) actually lost its identity. The consciousness, which was hitherto associated with the individual mind, is now freed and untrammeled and brought into direct contact and unity with the ultimate Reality. Since there is now no veil between consciousness and the ultimate Reality, consciousness is fused with the Absolute and eternally abides in it as an inseparable aspect, promoting an unending state of infinite knowledge and unlimited bliss.

God-realization a personal attainment

The manifestation of infinite knowledge and unlimited bliss in consciousness is, however, strictly confined to the soul that has attained God-realization. The infinite Reality in the God-realized soul has explicit knowledge of its own infinity. Such explicit knowledge is not experienced by the unrealized soul, which is still subject to the illusion of the universe. Thus if God-realization were not a personal attainment of the soul, the entire universe would come to an end as soon as any one soul achieved God-realization. This does not happen because God-realization is a personal state of consciousness belonging to the soul that has transcended the domain of the mind. Other souls continue to remain in bondage, and they can only attain Realization by freeing their consciousness from the burden of the ego and the limitations of the individual mind. Hence the attainment of God-realization has direct significance only for the soul that has emerged out of the time process.

What was latent in Infinite becomes manifest

After the attainment of God-realization, the soul discovers that it has always been the infinite Reality that it now knows itself to be, and that its regarding itself as finite during the period of evolution and spiritual advancement was in fact an illusion. The soul also finds out that the infinite knowledge and bliss it now enjoys have also been latent in the infinite Reality from the very beginning of time, and that they merely became manifest at the moment of Realization. Thus the God-realized person does not actually become something different from what he was before Realization. He remains what he was; and the only difference Realization makes in him is that previously he did not consciously know his own true nature, and now he knows it. He knows that he has never been anything other than what he now knows himself to be, and that all he has been through was but the process of finding his Self.

Two types of advantages

The whole process of attaining God-realization is just a game in which the beginning and the end are identical. The attainment of Realization is nevertheless a distinct gain for the soul. In general there are two types of advantages: one consists in getting what one did not previously possess, the other in realizing fully what one really is. God-realization is of the second type. However, this creates an infinite difference between the soul that has attained God-realization and the soul that has not. Though the God-realized soul does not possess anything new, its explicit knowledge of all that it really is, has been, and will ever be, makes God-realization all important. The soul that is not God-realized experiences itself as being finite and is constantly troubled by the opposites of fleeting joys and sorrows. But the soul that has Realization is lifted out of them and experiences the infinite knowledge and the unlimited bliss of being God-conscious.

Value of God-realization

In God-realization the soul drops its separate consciousness and transcends duality in the abiding knowledge of its identity with the infinite Reality. The shackles of limited individuality are broken; the world of shadows is at an end; the curtain of Illusion is forever drawn. The feverishness and the agonizing distress of the pursuits of limited consciousness are replaced by the tranquility and bliss of Truth-consciousness. The restlessness and fury of temporal existence are swallowed up in the peace and stillness of Eternity.

-Meher Baba

Taken from Discourses   Discourses-Meher Baba

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The Stages of the Path – Meher Baba

All persons have to pass through the state of bondage, but this period of bondage is not to be looked upon as a meaningless episode in the evolution of life. One has to experience being caged if one is to appreciate freedom. If in the entire span of its life a fish has not come out of the water even once, it has no chance of appreciating the value of water. From its birth till its death it has lived only in water, and it is not in a position to understand what water really means to its being. But if it is taken out of water even for a moment, it longs for water and becomes qualified by that experience to appreciate the importance of water. In the same way, if life were constantly free and manifested no bondage, man would miss the real significance of freedom. To experience spiritual bondage and know intense desire to be free from it are both a preparation for the full enjoyment of the freedom that is to come.

As the fish that is taken out of the water longs to go back in the water, the aspirant who has perceived the goal longs to be united with God. In fact, the longing to go back to the source is present in each being from the very time that it is separated from the source by the veil of ignorance; but the being is unconscious of the longing till it, as an aspirant, enters the spiritual path. One can in a sense become accustomed to ignorance, just as a person in a train may get accustomed to the darkness of a tunnel when the train has been passing through it for some time. Even then there is a definite discomfort and a vague and undefinable sense of restlessness owing to the feeling that something is missing. This something is apprehended from the very beginning as being of tremendous significance. In the stages of dense ignorance, this something is often inadvertently identified with the variegated things of this mundane world.

When one’s experience of this world is sufficiently mature, however, the repeated disillusionments in life set one on the right track to discover what is missing. From that moment the individual seeks a reality that is deeper than changing forms. This moment might aptly be described as the first initiation of the aspirant. From the moment of initiation into the path, the longing to unite with the source from which he has been separated becomes articulate and intense. Just as the person in the tunnel longs for light all the more intensely after he sees a streak of light coming from the other end, the person who has had a glimpse of the goal longs to hasten toward it with all the speed he can command.

On the spiritual path there are six stations, the seventh station being the terminus, or the goal. Each intermediate station is, in its own way, a kind of imaginative anticipation of the goal. The veil that separates man from God consists of false imagination, and this veil has many folds. Before entering the path the person is shrouded in this veil of manifold imagination, with the result that he cannot even entertain the thought of being other than a separate, enclosed, finite individual. The ego-consciousness has crystallized out of the working of the manifold false imagination; and the conscious longing for union with God is the first shaking of the entire structure of the ego, which has been built during the period of the false working of imagination.

Traversing the spiritual path consists in undoing the results of the false working of imagination, or dropping several folds of the veil, which has created a sense of unassailable separateness and irredeemable isolation. Thus far, the person had clung firmly to the idea of his separate existence and secured it behind the formidable walls of thick ignorance, but from now on he enters into some kind of communication with the larger Reality. The more he communes with Reality, the thinner becomes the veil of ignorance. With the gradual wearing out of separateness and egoism, he gains an increasing sense of merging in the larger Reality.

The building up of a sense of separateness is a result of flights of imagination. Therefore the breaking through of the self-created sense of separateness and being united with Reality is secured through reversing the false working of imagination. The act of getting rid of imagination altogether may be compared with the act of awakening from deep sleep. The different stages in the process of ridding oneself of false imagination might be compared with the dreams that often serve as a bridge between deep sleep and full wakefulness. The process of getting rid of the manifold working of false imagination is gradual and has seven stages.

The shedding of one fold of the veil of imagination is decidedly an advance toward Light and Truth, but it does not amount to becoming one with Reality. It merely means renouncing the more false imagination in favor of the less false imagination. There are different degrees of falseness of imagination corresponding to the degrees of the sense of separateness constituted by ego-consciousness. Each stage in the process of ridding oneself of false imagination is a definite wearing out of the ego. But all intermediate stages on the path, until final realization of the Goal, consist in leaving one flight of imagination for another. They do not amount to cessation of imagination.

These flights of imagination do not bring about any real change in the true being of the Self as it is. What changes is not the Self but its idea of what it is. Suppose in a daydream or fantasy you imagine yourself to be in China while your body is actually in India. When the fantasy comes to an end, you realize that your body is actually not in China but in India. From the subjective point of view, this is like returning from China to India. In the same way, gradual non-identification with the body and progressive identification with the Oversoul is comparable to the actual traversing of the path, though in fact the different intermediate stages on the path are all equally creations of the play of imagination.

The six ascending stages are thus all within the domain of imagination. However at each stage, breaking down the sense of separateness and discovering a merging in the larger Reality are both so strong and clear that the person often has a pseudo sense of Realization. Just as when a person climbing a mountain comes upon a deep valley and is so fascinated by the sight of it that he forgets the real goal and believes for a time that he has arrived at his goal, the aspirant also mistakes the intermediate stages for the goal itself. But a person who is really in earnest about climbing the mountain realizes after a while that the valley has to be crossed, and the aspirant also realizes sooner or later that the intermediate stage has to be transcended. The pseudo sense of Realization that comes at the intermediate stages is like an individual dreaming that he has awakened from sleep although he is actually still asleep. After becoming awake he realizes that his first feeling of awakening was really a dream.

Each definite stage of advancement represents a state of consciousness, and advancement from one state of consciousness to another proceeds side by side with crossing the inner planes. Thus six intermediate planes and their states of consciousness have to be experienced before reaching the seventh plane, which is the end of the journey and where there is final realization of the God state. A plane is comparable to a railway station where a train halts for some time, and the state of consciousness is comparable to the movements of the passenger after getting down at the station.

After entering a new plane of consciousness, a person usually takes some time before he can freely function on that plane. As there is a radical change in the total conditions of mental life, the person experiences a sort of paralysis of mental activity known as samadhi. When the pilgrim enters a new plane, he merges into the plane before he can experience the state characteristic of that plane. Just as a pilgrim who is tired by the strain of a journey sometimes goes to sleep, consciousness-which has made the effort of ascending to a new plane-goes through a period of lowered mental activity comparable to sleep. However, samadhi is fundamentally different from sleep. A person is totally unconscious in sleep; whereas in samadhi he is conscious of bliss or light or power, although he is unconscious of his body and surroundings. After a period of comparative stillness, the mind begins to function on the new plane and experiences a state of consciousness that is utterly different from the state it has left behind.

When the aspirant enters a new plane, he is merged into it; and along with the slowing down of mental activity, he experiences a substantial diminution in the ego-life. This curtailment of the ego-life is different from the final annihilation of the ego, which takes place at the seventh plane. But like the final annihilation at the seventh plane, the different stages of the curtailment of the ego at the intermediate six planes deserve special mention owing to their relative importance. In the Sufi spiritual tradition, the final annihilation of the ego is described as Fana-Fillah. And the earlier samadhi of the six planes of duality have also been recognized as kinds of fana, since they also involve a partial annihilation of the ego.

Through all these fanas of ascending order there is a continuity of progression toward the final Fana-Fillah, and each has some special characteristic. When the pilgrim arrives at the first plane, he experiences his first fana, or minor annihilation of the ego. The pilgrim is temporarily lost to his limited individuality and experiences bliss. Many pilgrims thus merged think they have realized God and hence get stuck in the first plane. If the pilgrim keeps himself free from self-delusion or comes to realize that his attainment is really a transitional phase in his journey, he advances further on the spiritual path and arrives at the second plane.

The merging into the second plane is called fana-e-batili, or the annihilation of the false. The pilgrim is now absorbed in bliss and infinite light. Some think that they have attained the goal and get stranded in the second plane, but others who keep themselves free from self-delusion march onward and enter the third plane. The merging into the third plane is called fana-e-zahiri, or the annihilation of the apparent. Here the pilgrim loses all consciousness of his body and his world for days and experiences infinite power. Since he has no consciousness of the world, he has no occasion for the expression of this power. This is videh samadhi, or the state of divine coma. Consciousness is now completely withdrawn from the entire world.

If the pilgrim advances still further, he arrives at the fourth plane. The merging into the fourth plane is called fana-e-malakuti, or the annihilation leading toward freedom. The pilgrim experiences a peculiar state of consciousness at the fourth plane, since he now not only feels infinite power but also has plenty of occasion for the expression of that power. Further, he not only has occasion for the use of his powers but has a definite inclination to express them. If he falls prey to this temptation, he goes on expressing these powers and gets caught up in the alluring possibilities of the fourth plane. For this reason the fourth plane is one of the most difficult and dangerous to cross. The pilgrim is never spiritually safe, and his reversion is always possible until he has successfully crossed the fourth plane and arrived at the fifth.

The merging into the fifth plane is called fana-e-jabruti, or the annihilation of all desires. Here the incessant activity of the lower intellect comes to a standstill. The pilgrim does not think in the ordinary way, and yet he is indirectly a source of many inspiring thoughts. He sees, but not with the physical eyes. Mind speaks with mind, and there is neither worry nor doubt. He is now spiritually safe and beyond the possibility of a downfall; and yet many a pilgrim on this exalted plane finds it difficult to resist the delusion that he has attained Godhood. In his self-delusion he thinks and says, “I am God,” and believes himself to have arrived at the end of the spiritual path.

But if he moves on, he perceives his mistake and advances to the sixth plane. The merging into the sixth plane is called fana-e-mahabubi, or the annihilation of the self (lover) in the Beloved. Now the pilgrim sees God as directly and as clearly as an ordinary person sees the different things of this world. This continual perception and enjoyment of God does not suffer a break even for an instant. Yet the wayfarer does not become one with God, the Infinite.

If the pilgrim ascends to the seventh plane, he experiences the last merging, which is called Fana-Fillah, or the final annihilation of the self in God. Through this merging the pilgrim loses his separate existence and becomes permanently united with God. He is now one with God and experiences himself as being none other than God. This seventh plane Fana-Fillah is the terminus of the spiritual path, the goal of all search and endeavor. It is the Nirvikalpa state, which is characteristic of conscious Godhood. It is the only real awakening. The pilgrim has now reached the opposite shore of the vast ocean of imagination, and he realizes that this last Truth is the only Truth and that all the other stages on the path are entirely illusory. He has arrived at the final destination.

-Meher Baba

Taken from Discourses

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Arriving at Self-Knowledge – Meher Baba

When the time is ripe, the advancement of a person toward Self-knowledge comes about as naturally as the physical body of a child grows into full-fledged form. The growth of the physical body is worked out by the operation of natural laws, and the progress of the aspirant toward Self-knowledge is worked out by the operation of spiritual laws pertaining to the transformation and emancipation of consciousness. The physical body of a child grows very gradually and almost imperceptibly, and the same is true of the spiritual progress of a person once he has entered the path. The child does not know how its physical body grows; in the same way, the aspirant also is often oblivious of the law by which he makes headway toward the destination of his spiritual progress.

The aspirant is generally conscious of the manner in which he has been responding to the diverse situations in life but rarely conscious of the manner in which he makes progress toward Self-knowledge. Without consciously knowing it, the aspirant is gradually arriving at Self-knowledge by traversing the inner path-through his joys and sorrows, his happiness and  suffering, his successes and failures, his efforts and rest, and through his moments of clear perception and harmonized will as well as the moments of confusion and conflict. These are the manifestations of the diverse sanskaras that he has brought from the past; and the aspirant forges his way toward Self-knowledge through the tangles of these sanskaras like the traveler threading his way through a wild and thick forest.

Human consciousness might be compared to a flashlight that reveals the existence and the nature of things. The province illuminated by this flashlight is defined by the medium through which it works, just as a person confined to a boat can wander anywhere on the surface of the water but can have no access to remote places on land or in the air. The actual working of the flashlight of consciousness is determined by the accumulated sanskaras, just as the course of the rivulets flowing down a mountain is determined by the channels created by the natural contours of the mountain.

In the case of an average person, the sphere of life and the stage of action are restricted to the gross world because in him the flashlight of consciousness falls on the physical body and works through it. Being restricted to the medium of the gross body, he can be conscious of anything within the gross world but is unable to establish contact with subtle or mental realities. The gross sphere thus constitutes the arena of the average individual, and all his activities and thoughts have a tendency to be directed toward the gross objects that are accessible to him. During this time he remains unconscious of the subtle and the mental spheres of existence, since the flashlight of his consciousness cannot be focused through the medium of the subtle or the mental body.

At this stage the soul is conscious of the gross world but is completely ignorant of its own true nature. It identifies itself with the gross body on which the flashlight of consciousness falls, and this naturally becomes the base for all the activities within its range. The soul does not directly know itself through itself but by means of the physical body. And since all the knowledge it can gather through the physical body points to the physical body itself as the center of activities, it knows itself as being the physical body-which in fact is only its instrument. The soul therefore imagines itself to be man or woman, young or old, and takes upon itself the changes and limitations of the body.

After several rounds of lives in the setting given by the gross world, the impressions connected with the gross world become weak through the long duration of the experience of opposites, like great happiness and intense suffering. The weakening of the impressions is the beginning of spiritual awakening, which consists in the gradual withdrawal of the flashlight of consciousness from the allurements of the gross world. When this happens the gross impressions become subtle, facilitating and inducing the soul’s transference of the base of conscious functioning from the gross body to the subtle body.

Now the flashlight of consciousness falls on the subtle body and works through it as its medium, no longer working through the gross body. Therefore the whole gross world drops from the consciousness of the soul, and it becomes conscious only of the subtle world. The subtle sphere of existence now constitutes the context of its life; and the soul now considers itself to be the subtle body, which becomes and is seen to be the center of all its activities. Even when the soul has thus become subtle-conscious, it remains ignorant of its own true nature, since it cannot know itself directly through itself but only by means of the subtle body.

However, the change of the stage of action from the gross to the subtle sphere of existence is of considerable significance. In the subtle sphere the conventional standards of the gross world are replaced by new standards that are nearer the Truth, and a new mode of life is rendered possible by the dawning of new powers and a release of spiritual energy. Life in the subtle world is only a passing phase in the spiritual journey and is far from being the goal; but out of millions of gross-conscious souls, only a rare one is capable of becoming subtle-conscious.

Impressions connected with the subtle world get worn out in turn through, for instance, some forms of penance or yoga. This facilitates and brings about a further withdrawal of consciousness inwardly, whereby the flashlight of consciousness comes to be focused on the mental body and begins to function through it. The severance of conscious connection with the subtle and gross bodies means that the gross and subtle spheres of existence become completely excluded from the scope of consciousness. The soul is now conscious of the mental world, which affords deeper possibilities for spiritual understanding and a clearer perception of the ultimate Truth.

In this new setting of the mental sphere, the soul enjoys continuous inspiration, deep insight, and unfailing intuition; and it is in direct contact with spiritual Reality. Although it is in direct contact with God, the soul does not see itself as God, since it cannot know itself directly through itself but only through the medium of the individual mind. It knows itself by means of the individual mind and considers itself to be the individual mind, for it sees the individual mind as being the base and the center of all its activities.

Although the soul is now much closer to God than in the gross or subtle spheres, it is still enclosed in the world of shadow; and it continues to feel separate from God owing to the veil created by the impressions connected with the mental sphere. The flashlight of consciousness is functioning through the limitation of the individual mind and does not therefore yield the knowledge of the soul as it is, in itself. Though the soul has not yet realized itself as being God, its life in the mental sphere of existence constitutes a tremendous advance beyond the stage of the subtle sphere. Out of millions of subtle-conscious souls, only a rare one can establish conscious contact with the mental sphere of existence.

It is possible for an aspirant to rise to the mental sphere of existence through his own unaided efforts, but dropping the mental body amounts to the surrenderance of individual existence. This last and all-important step cannot be taken except through the help of a Perfect Master, who is himself God-realized. Out of millions of souls who are conscious of the mental sphere, only a rare one can withdraw the flashlight of consciousness from the individual mind. Such withdrawal implies the complete vanishing of the last traces of the impressions connected with the mental life of the soul. When the flashlight of consciousness is no longer centered upon any of the three bodies, it serves the purpose of reflecting the true nature of the soul.

The soul now has direct knowledge of itself without being dependent upon any medium, seeing itself not as some finite body but as infinite God and knowing itself to be the only Reality. In this major crisis in the life of the soul, there is a complete severance of connections with all three bodies. Since consciousness of the different spheres of existence is directly dependent upon the corresponding bodies, the soul is now entirely oblivious of the whole universe. The flashlight of consciousness is no longer focused upon anything foreign or external but is turned upon the soul itself. The soul is now truly Self-conscious and has arrived at Self-knowledge.

The process of arriving at Self-knowledge throughout the three spheres of existence is attended by the acquisition of false self-knowledge consisting in identification with the gross or the subtle or the mental body, according to the stage of the process. This is due to the initial purpose of creation, which is to make the soul Self-conscious. The soul cannot have true Self-knowledge except at the end of the spiritual journey, and all the intermediate forms of false self-knowledge are, as it were, temporary substitutes for true Self-knowledge. They are mistakes necessary in the attempt to arrive at true Self-knowledge.

Since the flashlight of consciousness is turned throughout the journey toward the objects of the environment and not upon the soul itself, the soul has a tendency to become so engrossed in these objects that it is almost completely oblivious of its own existence and nature. This danger of utter and unrelieved self-forgetfulness is counterbalanced by the self-affirmation of the soul by means of the three bodies, which happen to be used as the focal points of the flashlight of consciousness. Thus the soul knows itself as its own bodies and knows other souls as their bodies, thereby sustaining a world of duality where there is sex, competition, aggression, jealousy, mutual fear, and self-centered exclusive ambition. Hence self-knowledge of the soul by means of any external sign is a source of untold confusion, complication, and entanglement.

This form of ignorance may be illustrated by means of the famous pumpkin story referred to by the Persian poet Jami in one of his couplets. Once upon a time there was an absentminded man who had no equal in forgetting things, even his own identity. He had an intelligent and trusted friend who wanted to help him to remember himself. This friend attached a pumpkin to his neck and said, “Now listen, old man, one day you might completely lose yourself and not know who you are. Therefore, as a sign, I tie this pumpkin around your neck so that every morning when you wake up you will see the pumpkin and know it is you who are there.”

Every day the absentminded man saw the pumpkin upon waking in the morning and said to himself, “I am not lost!” After some time, when he had become used to self-identification through the pumpkin, the friend asked a stranger to remain with the absentminded man, take the pumpkin from his neck during his sleep, and tie it around his own neck. The stranger did this; and when the absentminded man woke up in the morning, he did not see the pumpkin around his neck. So he said to himself, “I am lost!” Then he saw the pumpkin on the other man’s neck and said to him, “You are me! But then who am I?”

This pumpkin story offers an analogy to the different forms of false self-knowledge growing from identification with one of the bodies. To know oneself as the body is like knowing oneself by means of the pumpkin. The disturbance caused by ceasing to identify with the gross, subtle, or mental body is comparable to the confusion of the absentminded man when he could no longer see the pumpkin around his own neck. The beginnings of a dissolution of the sense of duality are equivalent to the man’s identification of himself as the stranger who wore his pumpkin. Further, if the absentminded man in the story were to learn to know himself through himself independently of any external sign, his self-knowledge would be comparable to the true Self-knowledge of the soul-which, after ceasing to identify with the three bodies, knows itself to be none other than infinite God. Arriving at such Self-knowledge is the very goal of creation.

-Meher Baba

From Discourses

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The New Humanity – Meher Baba

The New Humanity

As in all great critical periods of human history, humanity is now going through the agonizing travail of spiritual rebirth. Great forces of destruction are afoot and seem to be dominant at the moment, but constructive and creative forces that will redeem humanity are also being released through several channels. Although the working of these forces of light is chiefly silent, they are eventually bound to bring about those transformations that will make the further spiritual advance of humanity safe and steady. It is all a part of the divine plan, which is to give to the hungry and weary world a fresh dispensation of the eternal and only Truth.

At present the urgent problem facing humanity is to devise ways and means of eliminating competition, conflict, and rivalry in all the subtle and gross forms that they assume in the various spheres of life. Military wars are, of course, the most obvious sources of chaos and destruction. However, wars in themselves do not constitute the central problem for humanity but are rather the external symptoms of something graver at their root. Wars and the suffering they bring cannot be completely avoided by mere propaganda against war; if they are to disappear from human history, it will be necessary to tackle their root cause. Even when military wars are not being waged, individuals or groups of individuals are constantly engaged in economic or some other subtle form of warfare. Military wars, with all the cruelty they involve, arise only when these underlying causes are aggravated.

The cause of the chaos that precipitates itself in wars is that most persons are in the grip of egoism and selfish considerations, and they express their egoism and self-interest individually as well as collectively. This is the life of illusory values in which man is caught. To face the truth is to realize that life is one, in and through its manifold manifestations. To have this understanding is to forget the limiting self in the realization of the unity of life.

With the dawn of true understanding, the problem of wars would immediately disappear. Wars have to be so clearly seen as both unnecessary and unreasonable that the immediate problem would not be how to stop wars but to wage them spiritually against the attitude of mind responsible for such a cruel and painful state of things. In the light of the truth of the unity of all life, cooperative and harmonious action becomes natural and inevitable. Hence, the chief task before those who are deeply concerned with the rebuilding of humanity is to do their utmost to dispel the spiritual ignorance that envelops humanity.

Wars do not arise merely to secure material adjustment. They are often the product of uncritical identification with narrow interests, which through association come to be included in that part of the world regarded as “mine.” Material adjustment is only part of the wider problem of establishing spiritual adjustment. Spiritual adjustment requires the elimination of self, not only from the material aspects of life, but also from those spheres that affect the intellectual, emotional, and cultural life of man.

To understand the problem of humanity as merely a problem of bread is to reduce humanity to the level of animality. But even when man sets himself the limited task of securing purely material adjustment, he can only succeed in this attempt if he has spiritual understanding. Economic adjustment is impossible unless people realize that there can be no planned and cooperative action in economic matters until self-interest gives way to self-giving love. Otherwise, with the best of equipment and efficiency in the material spheres, humanity cannot avoid conflict and insufficiency.

The New Humanity that emerges from the travail of the present struggle and suffering will not ignore science or its practical attainments. It is a mistake to look upon science as anti-spiritual. Science is a help or hindrance to spirituality according to the use to which it is put. Just as true art expresses spirituality, science, when properly handled, can be the expression and fulfillment of the spirit. Scientific truths concerning the physical body and its life in the gross world can become mediums for the soul to know itself; but to serve this purpose they must be properly fitted into larger spiritual understanding. This includes a steady perception of true and lasting values. In the absence of such spiritual understanding, scientific truths and attainments are liable to be used for mutual destruction and for a life that will tend to strengthen the chains that bind the spirit. All-sided progress of humanity can be assured only if science and religion proceed hand in hand.

The coming civilization of the New Humanity shall be ensouled not by dry intellectual doctrines but by living spiritual experience. Spiritual experience has a hold on the deeper truths that are inaccessible to mere intellect; it cannot be born of unaided intellect. Spiritual truth can often be stated and expressed through the intellect, and the intellect surely is of some help for the communication of spiritual experience. But by itself, the intellect is insufficient to enable man to have spiritual experience or to communicate it to others. If two persons have had headaches, they can cooperatively examine their experience of headaches and make it explicit to themselves through the work of the intellect. If a person has never experienced a headache, no amount of intellectual explanation will suffice for making him understand what a headache is. Intellectual explanation can never be a substitute for spiritual experience; it can at best prepare the ground for it.

Spiritual experience involves more than can be grasped by mere intellect. This is often emphasized by calling it a mystical experience. Mysticism is often regarded as something anti-intellectual, obscure and confused, or impractical and unconnected with experience. In fact, true mysticism is none of these. There is nothing irrational in true mysticism when it is, as it should be, a vision of Reality. It is a form of perception that is absolutely unclouded, and it is so practical that it can be lived every moment of life and expressed in everyday duties. Its connection with experience is so deep that, in one sense, it is the final understanding of all experience.

When spiritual experience is described as mystical, one should not assume that it is something supernatural or entirely beyond the grasp of human consciousness. All that is meant is that it is not accessible to the limited human intellect until the intellect transcends its limits and is illumined by direct realization of the Infinite. Jesus Christ pointed out the way to spiritual experience when He said, “Leave all and follow me.” This means that man must leave limitations and establish himself in the infinite life of God. A real spiritual experience involves not only realization of the nature of the soul while traversing the higher planes of consciousness but also a right attitude toward worldly duties. If it loses its connection with the different phases of life, what we have is a neurotic reaction that is far from being a spiritual experience.

The spiritual experience that is to enliven and energize the New Humanity cannot be a reaction to the stern and uncompromising demands made by the realities of life. Those without the capacity for adjustment to the flow of life have a tendency to recoil from the realities of life and to seek shelter and protection in a self-created fortress of illusions. Such a reaction is an attempt to perpetuate one’s separate existence by protecting it from the demands made by life. It can only give a pseudo solution to the problems of life by providing a false sense of security and self-completeness. It is not even an advance toward the real and lasting solution; on the contrary, it is a sidetrack from the true spiritual path. Man will be dislodged again and again from his illusory shelters by fresh and irresistible waves of life, and will invite upon himself fresh forms of suffering by seeking to protect his separative existence through escape.

Just as a person may seek to hold on to his separative experience through escape, he may also seek to hold on to it through uncritical identification with forms, ceremonies and rituals, or with traditions and conventions. Forms, ceremonies and rituals, traditions and conventions, are in most cases fetters to the release of infinite life. If they were pliant mediums for the expression of unlimited life, they would be an asset rather than a handicap for securing the fulfillment of divine life on earth. But they mostly have a tendency to gather prestige and claims in their own right, independently of the life they might express. When this happens, any attachment to them must eventually lead to a drastic curtailment and restriction of life. The New Humanity will be freed from a life of limitations, allowing unhampered scope for the creative life of the spirit; and it will break the attachment to external forms and learn to subordinate them to the claims of the spirit. The limited life of illusions and false values will then be replaced by unlimited life in the Truth; and the limitations, through which the separative self lives, will wither away at the touch of true understanding.

Just as a person may seek to hold on to his separative existence through escape or identification with external forms, he may seek to hold on to it through identification with some narrow class, creed, sect, or religion, or with the divisions based upon sex. Here the individual may seem to have lost his separative existence through identification with a larger whole. But, in fact, he is often expressing his separative existence through such an identification, which enables him to delight in his feeling of being separate from others who belong to another class, nationality, creed, sect, religion, or sex.

Separative existence derives its being and strength from identifying itself with one of the opposites and contrasting itself with the others. An individual may seek to protect his separate existence through identification with one ideology rather than another or with his conception of good as contrasted with his idea of evil. What results from identification with narrow groups or limited ideals is not a real merging of the separative self but only a semblance of it. A real merging of the limited self in the ocean of universal life involves complete surrender of separative existence in all its forms.

The large mass of humanity is caught up in the clutches of separative and assertive tendencies. For one who is overpowered by the spectacle of these fetters of humanity, there is bound to be nothing but unrelieved despair about its future. One must look deeper into the realities of the day if one is to get a correct perspective on the present distress of humanity. The real possibilities of the New Humanity are hidden to those who look only at the surface of the world situation, but they exist and only need the spark of spiritual understanding to come into full play and effect. The forces of lust, hate, and greed produce incalculable suffering and chaos. However, the one redeeming feature about human nature is that even in the midst of disruptive forces there invariably exists some form of love.

Even wars require cooperative functioning, but the scope of this cooperative functioning is artificially restricted by identification with a limited group or ideal. Wars often are carried on by a form of love, though it is a love that has not been understood properly. In order that love should come into its own, it must be untrammeled and unlimited. Love does exist in all phases of human life; but it is latent or is limited and poisoned by personal ambition, racial pride, narrow loyalties and rivalries, and attachment to sex, nationality, sect, caste, or religion. If there is to be a resurrection of humanity, the heart of man will have to be unlocked so that a new love is born into it-a love that knows no corruption and is entirely free from individual or collective greed.

The New Humanity will come into existence through a release of love in measureless abundance, and this release of love can come through the spiritual awakening brought about by the Perfect Masters[1]. Love cannot be born of mere determination; through the exercise of will one can at best be dutiful. Through struggle and effort, one may succeed in assuring that one’s external action is in conformity with one’s concept of what is right; but such action is spiritually barren because it lacks the inward beauty of spontaneous love.

Love has to spring spontaneously from within; it is in no way amenable to any form of inner or outer force. Love and coercion can never go together; but while love cannot be forced upon anyone, it can be awakened through love itself. Love is essentially self-communicative; those who do not have it catch it from those who have it. Those who receive love from others cannot be its recipients without giving a response that, in itself, is the nature of love. True love is unconquerable and irresistible. It goes on gathering power and spreading itself until eventually it transforms everyone it touches. Humanity will attain a new mode of being and life through the free and unhampered interplay of pure love from heart to heart.

When it is recognized that there are no claims greater than the claims of the universal Divine Life-which, without exception, includes everyone and everything-love will not only establish peace, harmony, and happiness in social, national, and international spheres but it will shine in its own purity and beauty. Divine love is unassailable to the onslaughts of duality and is an expression of divinity itself. It is through divine love that the New Humanity will tune in to the divine plan. Divine love will not only introduce imperishable sweetness and infinite bliss into personal life but it will also make possible an era of New Humanity. Through divine love the New Humanity will learn the art of cooperative and harmonious life. It will free itself from the tyranny of dead forms and release the creative life of spiritual wisdom; it will shed all illusions and get established in the Truth; it will enjoy peace and abiding happiness; it will be initiated in the life of Eternity.

-Meher Baba

Taken from Discourses

[1] Sadguru

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Divine Love – Meher Baba

Love

The functioning of love and reason is of three types. In the first type, the sphere of thought and the sphere of love are kept as separate as possible, i.e., the sphere of love is practically inaccessible to the operation of reason; and love is allowed little or no access to the objects of thought. Complete separation between these two aspects of the spirit is of course never possible; but when there is an alternate functioning of love and reason (with both oscillating in their predominance) we have a love which is un-illumined by reason or a reason which is unenlivened by love. In the second type, love and reason are both simultaneously operative but they do not work in harmony with each other. But though this conflict creates confusion it is a necessary phase in the evolution of the higher state where there is a real synthesis of love and reason. In the third type of love this synthesis between love and reason is an accomplished fact with the result that both love as well as reason are so completely transformed that they precipitate the emergence of a new level of con-sciousness which (in comparison with the normal human consciousness) is best described as super-consciousness.

Infatuation, lust and greed might be looked upon as perverted and lower forms of love. In infatuation a person gets enamoured of a sensual object; in lust he develops a craving for sensations in relation to it; and in greed he desires to possess it.

In infatuation, the person is a passive victim of the spell of conceived attraction of the object; but in love there is an active appreciation of the intrinsic worth of the object of love.

Love is also different from lust. In lust, there is a reliance upon the object of sense and consequent spiritual subordination of the soul in relation to it; but love puts the soul into direct and coordinate relation with the Reality which is behind the form. Therefore, lust is experienced as being heavy and love is ex-perienced as being light. In lust, there is a narrowing down of life and in love there is an expansion in being. To have loved one soul is like adding its life to your own, your life is, as it were multiplied and you virtually live in two centres. If you love the whole world, you vicariously live in the whole world. But in lust there is the ebbing down of life and the general sense of hopeless dependence upon a form which is regarded as another. Thus, in lust there is the accentuation of separateness and suffering; but in love—there is the feeling of unity and joy. Lust is dissipation; love is recreation. Lust is a craving of the senses; love is the expression of the spirit. Lust seeks fulfilment but love experiences fulfilment. In lust, there is excitement; but in love there is tranquility.

Love is equally different from greed. Greed is possess-iveness in all its gross and subtle forms. It seeks to appropriate gross things and persons as well as the abstract and intangible things like fame and power. In love the annexation of the other person to your individual life is out of the question and there is a free and creative outpouring that enlivens and replenishes the psychic being of the beloved independ-ently of any expectation for the self. And we have the paradox, that greed which seeks for the self the appropriation of another object does in fact lead to the opposite result of bringing the self under the tutelage of the object; and love which aims at giving away the self to the object does in fact lead to a spiritual incorporation of the beloved in the very being of the lover. In greed the self tries to possess the object, but is itself spiritually possessed by the object; and in love the self offers itself to the beloved without any reservations, but in that very act it finds that it has included the beloved in its own being.

Pure love, which is awakened through the Grace of the Master is more valuable than any other method which may be adopted by the aspirant. Such love not only combines in itself the merits of all the discipline but excels them all in its efficacy to lead the aspirant to his Goal. When this love is born the aspirant has only one desire; and that one desire is to be united with the Divine Beloved. Such withdrawal of consciousness from all other desires leads to infinite purity; nothing purifies the aspirant more completely than this love. The aspirant is ever willing to offer everything for the Divine Beloved; and no sacrifice is too difficult for him. All his thoughts are turned away from the self and come to be exclusively centered on the Divine Beloved. And through the intensity of this ever-growing love he eventually breaks through the shackles of the self and becomes united with the Beloved. This is the consummation of love. When love has thus found its fruition it has become Divine.

Divine Love is qualitatively different from human love. Human love is for the many in the One and Divine Love is for the One in the many. Human Love leads to innumerable complications and tangles; but Divine Love leads to integration and freedom. In human love the duality of the lover and the Beloved persists; but in Divine Love the lover and the Beloved become one. At this stage, the aspirant has stepped out of the domain of duality and become one with God; for Divine Love is God. When the lover and the Beloved are one, that is the end and the beginning.

It is because of love that the contacts and relations between individual souls become significant; and it is love which gives meaning and value to all the happenings in the world of duality. But, while love gives meaning to the world of duality, it is at the same time, a standing challenge to duality. As love gathers strength, it generates creative restlessness and becomes the main driving power of that spiritual dynamic which ultimately succeeds in restoring to consciousness the original Unity of Being.

From Discourses

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The Ego and its Termination – Meher Baba

The formation of the Ego serves the purpose of giving a certain amount of stability to conscious processes and also secures a working equilibrium which makes for a planned and organized life. It would therefore, be a mistake to imagine that the arising of the Ego is without any purpose. Though it arises only to vanish in the end, it does temporarily fulfill a need which could not have been ignored in the long-drawn journey of the soul.

The Ego thus marks and fulfils a certain necessity in the further progress of consciousness. But since the Ego takes its shelter in the false idea of being the body, it is a source of much illusion which vitiates experience. It is of the essence of the Ego that it should feel separate from the rest of life by contrasting itself against the other forms of life.

In the ripeness of evolution, comes the momentous discovery that life cannot be understood and lived fully as long as it is made to move around the pivot of the Ego: and man is, therefore, driven by the logic of his own experience to find the true centre of experience and reorganize his life in the Truth. This entails the wearing out of the Ego and its replacement by Truth-consciousness. The disintegration of the Ego is a condition of realising the Truth.

The false nucleus of the consolidated sanskaras must disappear if there is to be a true integration and fulfilment of life.

While provisionally serving a useful purpose in the development and progress of consciousness, the Ego, as an affirmation of separateness, constitutes the chief hindrance to the spiritual emancipation and enlighten-ment of consciousness.

Every thought, feeling or action which springs from the idea of exclusive or separate existence binds; all experiences—small or great—and all aspirations— good or bad—create a load of impressions and nourish the sense of the ‘I’. The only experience which makes for the slimming down of the Ego is the experience of love and the only aspiration which makes for relieving the sense of separateness is the longing for becoming one -with the Beloved. Craving, hatred, anger, fear and jealousy are all exclusive attitudes which create a gulf between oneself and the rest of life; love alone is an inclusive attitude which helps towards the bridging over of this artificial and self-created gulf and which tends to break through the separative barrier of false imagination. The lover longs too; but he longs for union with the Beloved; and in seeking or experiencing union with the Beloved the sense of the ‘I’ becomes feeble. In love, the ‘I’ does not think of self-preservation, just as the moth is not at all afraid of getting burnt in the fire. The Ego is the affirmation of being separate from the other: and love is the affirmation of being one with the other: so, the Ego can be dissolved only through real love.

The Ego is implemented by desires of varied types. The failure in the fulfillment of desires is a failure of the Ego; and success in the attainment of desired objects is a success of the Ego. Through the fulfilled desires as well as through the unfulfilled ones the Ego gets accentuated. The Ego can even feed upon the comparative lull in the surging desires and asserts its separative tendency through feeling that it is desireless. But, when there is a real cessation of all desires, there is a cessation of the desire to assert separativeness in any form: therefore, a real freedom from all desires brings about the end of the existence of the Ego. The bundle of the Ego is made of the faggots of multi-coloured desires; and the breaking of these faggots amounts to the destruction of the Ego.

The limited Ego of explicit consciousness is only a small fragment of the real being of the Ego. The Ego is like the iceberg floating in the sea. About one-eighth of the iceberg remains above the surface of the water and is visible to the onlooker; and about seven-eighths of the iceberg remains submerged below the level of the water and remains invisible to the onlooker. In the same way, only a small portion of the real Ego becomes manifest in consciousness in the form of an explicit I; and the major portion of the real Ego remains submerged in the dark and inarticulate sanctuaries of the subconscious mind.

If the Ego is submitted to curtailment in one direction it seeks compensating expansion in another direction: and, if is overpowered by a flood of spiritual notions and actions, it even tends to fasten upon this very force which is originally brought into play for the ousting of the Ego.

When, through the grace of the Master, the ignorance which constitutes the Ego is dispelled, there is the dawn of Truth, which is the goal of all creation.

The superiority complex and the inferiority complex have to be brought into intelligent relation with each other if they are to counteract each other; and this requires a psychic situation, in which they will both, for the time being, be allowed to have their play at one and the same time, without requiring the repression of the one in order to secure the expression of the other. When the soul enters into a dynamic and vital relation with the Master, the complexes concerned with the sense of inferiority and the sense of superiority are both brought into play and they are so intelligently accommodated with each other that they counteract each other. In himself, the disciple feels that he is nothing; but in and through the Master, he is enlivened by the prospect of being everything. Thus, at one stroke, the two complexes are brought into mutual tension and tend to annihilate each other, through the attempt which the person makes for adjusting himself to the Master. With the dissolution of these opposite complexes there comes the breaking down of the separative barriers of the Ego in all its forms; with the breaking down of the barriers of separation there arises Divine Love; and with the arising of Divine Love, the separate feeling of the ‘I’, as distinguished from ‘you’, is swallowed up in the sense of their unity.

The Master, when truly understood, is a standing affirmation of the unity of all life; allegiance to the Master therefore brings about a gradual dissociation with the Ego-nucleus which affirms separateness. When the Ego-nucleus is completely bankrupt and devoid of any power or being, the Master as Truth is firmly established in consciousness as its guiding genius and animating principle. This is at once the attainment of union with the Master and the realization of the Infinite Truth.

The long journey of the soul consists in developing from animal consciousness the explicit self-consciousness as a limited ‘I’ and then to transcending the state of the limited ‘I’ through the medium of the Master, in order to get initiated into the consciousness of the Supreme and Real Self, as an everlasting and Infinite ’I Am’, in which there is no separateness and which includes all existence.

– Meher Baba

From Discourses

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Infinite Individuality Asserts Indivisible Oneness – Meher Baba

There is no scope for separateness in the vastness of the Infinite Ocean of Oneness. How then can there be any room for individuality in indivisibility? In the indivisible unlimited Ocean of Reality, how can there be scope for each drop that has fully awakened to Reality to individually proclaim: I am the Ocean!

The moment the drop has been stirred to consciousness, it isolates itself into a separate entity and acquires an individuality, a false I-Am-ness. This awakened ‘I’ is enveloped in falseness that grows with every step of its increased consciousness in proportion to its field of impressions and expression. This falseness that at first helps the drop to establish in individuality in the Indivisible Ocean, becomes the perpetual hindrance that keeps the drop from knowing itself as the Ocean. The ‘I’ has to get rid of the falseness before it can realize Who it is in reality.

At the end of the journey, when at long last the Goal is reached by the grace of the Perfect Master, this falseness is entirely removed and the ‘I’ alone remains with its supreme Self-knowledge – saying, my falseness is gone – I am God!

Thus, when each individual drop sheds its false awareness of being other than the Ocean, it proclaims itself as being the Infinite Indivisible Ocean. At the instant its falseness, its very own falseness is removed, the drop asserts its Infinite Individuality. It then consciously and continuously experiences  for all time as being without a second: the Almighty, Infinite and indivisible Paramatma. This is the I-am-God state. This is how every Atma, from the instant its consciousness is unburdened of falseness (i.e., impressions) for all time, asserts itself as Paramatma, God Absolute.

-Meher Baba

From The Everything and the Nothing

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