About The 84 Lakhs

I asked the following of NotebookLM:

Meher Baba mentions that "The soul goes through 84 lakhs (8.4 million) of shakes (births and deaths) during this process". I'm unclear as to whether these are human births and deaths or whether these are the total through all the stages of evolution: stone, metal, vegetable, worm, fish, bird and animal. Can you seek clarification within the literature?

Here was the response:

Source: Gemini

The number 84 lakhs (8.4 million) is highly significant in Meher Baba's cosmology and actually applies to both the stages of pre-human evolution and the cycles of human reincarnation, which often causes confusion. Meher Baba explicitly noted that "Ninety-nine percent of the pundits have blundered in taking both evolution and reincarnation changes and rounds of births and deaths as 84 lakhs".

Here is how the literature clarifies the exact meaning of this number across the two different stages:

1. Reincarnation (Human Births and Deaths) When Meher Baba speaks of the soul going through 84 lakhs of "shakings" or reincarnations, he is directly referring to the exact number of times a soul takes a human form.

• Once the soul has attained the human form, the process of evolution is complete, and the process of reincarnation begins.
  
  
• To wear out the accumulated impressions (sanskaras) from evolution, the soul must experience exactly 8,400,000 human lifetimes (births and deaths), alternating between male and female, rich and poor, and different nationalities to gather a complete balance of opposite experiences.
  
  
• Meher Baba refers to these 84 lakhs of human reincarnations as "shakings" because the soul is being shaken loose from its tight grip of sanskaras before it is ready for the process of spiritual realization.

2. Evolution (Pre-Human Forms) Before the soul ever reaches the human form, the number 8.4 million also dictates the exact number of species the soul must traverse during evolution.

• During the evolutionary journey, the soul passes through six primary pre-human stages: stone/metal, vegetable, worm, fish, bird, and animal.
  
  
• Meher Baba explained that there are exactly 14 lakhs (1,400,000) of species in each of these six pre-human forms. Multiplying 6 by 14 lakhs equals 84 lakhs (8,400,000) of species or "bindings".
  
  
• Thus, the soul experiences 84 lakhs of changes in species during evolution.

The Distinction: "Shakings" vs. "Sleeps of Death" To further clarify this distinction, Meher Baba's close disciple Eruch Jessawala provided an important note in God Speaks. He explained that the "Eighty-four lakhs of shakings or reincarnations are in human form". However, if one were to count the actual number of individual "deaths" or shedding of forms during the entire pre-human evolutionary process (moving from one individual stone to another, one plant to another, etc., rather than just counting the broad species), the soul goes through approximately "fifty crores [500 million] of sleeps of death" before it even reaches the human form.

In summary, the 8.4 million "shakes" or "reincarnations" strictly refer to the number of human lifetimes a soul experiences. However, during the prior evolutionary journey, the soul also traversed exactly 8.4 million species of pre-human forms (from stone to animal). The number is fixed for both processes independently.

The Grand Ilusion

I post fairly often to my Alternative Media blog. There's plenty of material to comment on, whether it be the latest false flag event, vaccination propaganda, political machinations or whatever. I don't regret the amount of time I've put into delving deeper into the workings of the world and finding out what's really going on beside the facade that is presented to us by the mainstream media. At the same time, it can be very draining. Once I realised the extent of the deception and propaganda, a sense of helplessness and frustration sometimes overcomes me as it did tonight. That's why I'm writing this.

Figure 1: multifaceted crystal ball
as a metaphor for the Self

The world is either run by psychopaths or by a global elite who, if not psychopaths themselves, employ psychopathic minions to maintain control over an increasingly deluded humanity. If I were younger I might be more active in opposing some of the worst excesses of this Synagogue of Satan but, to quote from the lyrics of the song Carrickfergus, "I am old now and my days are numbered". I will soon be leaving the world behind and I don't want to waste my remaining years focused on negativity. In my final years, the focus should be on the realising the Self.

I don't mean the limited ego, the self that I largely identify with now, but the larger Self underlying it. I'm using the metaphor of a multifaceted crystal ball to represent the Self with each facet representing a life lived in Illusion and the total number of facets, making up the surface of the globe, representing all the lives, human and non-human, that I have ever lived or ever will live. They all exist in the Eternal Now. Imagine the soul, unchanging and eternal, as a light within shining through each facet simultaneously. The light passes through and is projected into the darkness in the manner of Plato's cave (see Figure 2).

Figure 2: Plato's cave illustration
from https://cdn.dribbble.com/users/221477/screenshots/4180313/platos-cave.jpg

For most of my life I've been in thrall of the dance of shadows on the walls of my 3-dimensional prism but in the final phase of my life, I should at least try to turn toward the light. It's enough to recognise the madness and emptiness that has overtaken the world but there's nothing I can do about it. Dwelling too much on my impotence to make any changes in the world however, tends to merely reinforce my ego.


As Meher Baba said:

The less you think of yourself and the more you think of Baba, the sooner the ego goes and Baba remains. When you - ego - go away entirely, I am One with you. So bit by bit, you have to go.

Dwelling on my impotence is no better than embracing an imagined omnipotence. Both inflate the ego in different ways. The only way I can influence the world around me is through the people I interact with. The more ego I project into that interaction, the less harmonious that interaction will be. Returning to the analogy of Plato's cave, the most monstrous shadow that I cast on the wall of my cave is that of my own ego. The image of myself, the "idea" of myself, is always in my head. It fills my head with thoughts and those thoughts always lead back to me in a self-reinforcing cycle. I know this is not really me. It's a notion I've formed of myself but it's just a trick of the light. I'm not really there. Such thoughts as an adolescent might have signalled the onset of schizophrenia but I established a solid foundation for my ego many decades ago.

It's time to realise that what I built was a necessary but temporary structure. It served its purpose but now it's time to let go of it. Of course, the ego is rooted in the body and upon death the severance of the connection with the body is a profound shock to the sense of self and allows the ego to view the life just lived with far more objectivity than was possible in its corporeal life. The more I can prepare for that before it happens, the easier the transition will be. At birth, I took in my first breath and at death, I shall let out my last. Both are equally important but the latter I can prepare for and it's only in corporeal existence that significant spiritual progress can be made. Life may be a grand illusion but it is a delusion nonetheless and something that I must extricate myself from.