How much better it would be if God were conceived of less as a person and more as an experience. Boys pass into to manhood, girls pass into womanhood and some humans pass into Godhood. All humans have the capacity to experience Godhood but very few do. The more God is objectified, the more humans project human qualities on to this notion that they have of God. God becomes a sort of super-person who is all powerfull, all knowledgeable, all merciful etc. The attempt is made to contain God within the bounds of human intellect and understanding.
The so-called Perfect Masters, also called Sadgurus or Qutubs, have experienced Godhood or God-consciousness and returned to worldly consciousness for “universal duty”. Others, called Majzoobs, have also experienced Godhood but remain oblivious to the world, their bodies are here but they have no awareness of their physical surroundings. The majority of those who attain Godhood drop their body within three days, as they have no further use for it. Meher Baba has told us that there are always 56 God-realised souls on Earth at any one time. It is only on Earth that these God-realised souls can be found and on none of the other approximately 18,000 worlds supporting human life.
The first human to attain Godhood is known as the Avatar or Ancient One. This human was a male and His “universal duty” is never-ending. Unlike the Sadgurus who return to consciousness of the physical world only once, the Avatar returns periodically (every 700 or 1400 years) and always in a male body. Zoroaster, Krishna, Ram, Buddha and Christ are some of the forms He has taken. His most recent incarnation was in the form of Meher Baba (1894-1969).
Meher Baba’s life has been recorded in great detail and Bhau Kalchuri’s epic biography, Lord Meher, remains the most authoritative account of His life. Unlike previous Avatars, Meher Baba did not establish a new religion because He said that there were enough of them already. To quote His Universal Message (source):
I have come not to teach but to awaken. Understand therefore that I lay down no precepts. Throughout eternity I have laid down principles and precepts, but mankind has ignored them. Man’s inability to live God’s words makes the Avatar’s teaching a mockery. Instead of practicing the compassion He taught, man has waged crusades in His name. Instead of living the humility, purity and truth of His words, man has given way to hatred, greed and violence. Because man has been deaf to the principles and precepts laid down by God in the past, in this present Avataric Form I observe Silence. You have asked for and been given enough words — it is now time to live them. To get nearer and nearer to God you have to get further and further away from “I”, “my”, “me” and “mine”. You have not to renounce anything but your own self. It is as simple as that, though found to be almost impossible. It is possible for you to renounce your limited self by my Grace. I have come to release that Grace. I repeat, I lay down no precepts. When I release the tide of Truth which I have come to give, men’s daily lives will be the living precept. The words I have not spoken will come to life in them.
It can be noted that the Avatar Himself uses the term God but He makes it clear, via His other utterances, that God is not an external entity but an inner state to be attained. To find God is to experience Godhood: Oneness without Division. Meher Baba emphasised the importance of the Perfect Masters and Avatar as well as alluding to the formless state of God (Godhood) in the following quote:
On May 27th, (1926) Meher Baba discoursed on the Personal and Impersonal sides of God:
The foremost and highest object in life is personally serving a Sadguru and complete surrenderance to him. The second is constant meditation on the divine name. The third is selfless service, and the fourth is the offering of worship (prayer). Serving a Sadguru is like taking a course for a Master’s degree; meditating on the divine name is like studying for a Bachelor’s degree; performing selfless service is like obtaining a high school diploma, and offering prayers is like learning the alphabet. Once one attains the Bachelor’s degree, it does not take much time to attain the Master’s degree.
Were someone to ask me who is greater Personal or Impersonal God, Tukaram or Bhagwan, Zarathustra or Ahuramazda, Jesus or God the Father, I would definitely answer that Tukaram, Zarathustra and Jesus are greater. In fact, they are the Greatest of the Great because by being a Sadguru or the Avatar they render infinite service to the universe and suffer infinitely by taking upon themselves the burden of the world’s infinite amount of sanskaras. Undoubtedly, a conscious divine person such as Tukaram or Zarathustra, compared to the unconscious Bhagwan or Ahuramazda (formless God), is definitely greater!
Zarathustra was actually God in human form – an Avatar. In order to work in creation, he had to come down as man among illiterate, fanatical and hot-tempered humanity. Had Zarathustra told them to worship him, they would have denounced, harassed and murdered him. They would have thought him an enormous egotist and absolutely crazy. So he taught them to pray to formless God. But in reality, by worshiping formless God, they were worshiping him; and consequently they gained the impression that Ahuramazda was greater than Zarathustra, which was wrong.
Lord Meher, Original ed., Bhau Kalchuri, Vol. 3, 803.
No comments:
Post a Comment