Functioning on the Higher Planes

I asked the following question of Gemini using the sources in my Meher Baba Notebook:

I find it hard to understand how people on the higher planes of consciousness can be oblivious of the physical world and yet continue to function in it with a physical body. What do the sources have to say about this?

Here was the response:

To understand how an individual on the higher planes of consciousness can be completely oblivious of the physical world yet continue to eat, walk, and function within it, Meher Baba compares their state to that of a somnambulist or sleepwalker . While this appears contradictory to ordinary human understanding, Meher Baba explains the mechanics of this phenomenon through several core principles:

A somewhat flawed graphic generated by Gemini
based on its response to my query

The Analogy of Sleepwalking and Reflex Actions

• When a person walks or talks in their sleep, those around them can hear and observe these physical actions, yet the sleeping individual is completely unaware of performing them.
  
  
• Similarly, individuals on the subtle or mental planes are totally unconscious of gross physical actions, even though they appear to ordinary observers to speak, eat, drink, or move around.
  
  
• In the case of a Majzoob - a God-merged soul on the seventh plane who is conscious only of the "I am God" state and utterly oblivious to the three worlds - any apparent physical preference, emotional reaction, or bodily movement is an automatic reflex action of which they are entirely unconscious, much like the sound of snoring is to a fast-asleep man .
  
  
• When a Majzoob walks, he is functioning as a "divine sleep walker," and if he speaks, he is talking in his divine sleep .

Subconscious Energy and Divine Sustenance

• Once an advanced pilgrim directs their conscious energy entirely toward the inner spiritual life beyond the domain of the intellect and physical senses, they become unconcerned with bodily requirements.
  
  
• All conscious energy is absorbed in the inner planes, leaving the physical body and its ongoing sustenance to its own subconscious energy and to direct support from God.
  
  
• Meher Baba noted that when the mind stops paying attention to the physical body, the body automatically survives and looks after itself.
  
  
• For those in states of deep divine intoxication (*masts*), the divine power of *Vidnyan* (superconscious knowledge) that vibrates the universe directly sustains and cares for their physical frames.

Indirect Utilization of the Body

• Although an aspirant on the subtle or mental planes is unconscious of the gross body, they still work through that body indirectly from their respective spiritual station.
  
  
• An individual with subtle consciousness functions consciously in the realm of energy, while one with mental consciousness functions in the realm of mind.
  
  
• Because their subtle and mental bodies are fully developed, they can unconsciously utilize the gross body for basic functional aspects such as eating, drinking, seeing, and sleeping, while their actual awareness remains exclusively anchored in the inner spiritual worlds.

The Reflection of Consciousness

• Meher Baba clarifies that what ordinary gross-conscious people observe as physical actions performed by someone on the mental plane is merely the gross interpretation of the reflection of their mental activity.
  
  
• He illustrates this using the reflection of the moon in a lake: as long as your gaze is directed at the water, the moon appears to be in the lake, but it is actually only a reflection.
  
  
• In the exact same way, the true consciousness of an advanced soul is not present in the physical world; only the reflection of their consciousness is here, making it appear to observers as though they are conscious of the gross plane.

Ultimately, while the physical shell continues to operate through natural laws, automatic bodily reflexes, and divine support, the individual's true awareness is entirely detached from matter . Their physical form remains visible and active to ordinary observers, but their consciousness is fully absorbed in the profound grandeur, power, and beatific vision of the inner spiritual realities .

Baba on Masts

I found this explanation, taken from Lord Meher, about how masts see the world to be very poignant:

Although Baidul would work wholeheartedly and very hard in the mast work, his mind would at times trouble him. He could not accept Mohammed as a saint or wali, thinking him to be mad for playing with dirt or digging with his fingers in dirt. Once in Ranchi it began raining heavily. Baidul tried to dissuade Mohammed from playing in the dirt (or “deesh” as he called it), and to come in out of the rain to protect his health. Baidul was rather harsh with him and Mohammed started crying. Baba happened to come by when Baidul was threatening Mohammed and forcefully pulling him out of the mud and rain. It was this incident that caused Baba to give a long explanation about the condition of these masts and the undesirability of using any force on them.

"You have no idea how these masts feel in this changed environment. All the care we bestow – the food and clothing we give – is no obligation to them at all, for they do not need it; rather they resent it. In allowing us an opportunity to serve, they are, on the contrary, obliging us. Otherwise, it is a binding to those accustomed to live freely and happily according to their own peculiar whims and methods. To distract them from a particular thing in which they are interested is a torture to them, for they find relief even in staying in their squalor and playing with dirt and filth.

A mast such as Karim Baba gulping five and six coins at a time and passing them out in his stools, and again gulping them down is an example of this. It is his method. If you try to stop it, even with the best of motives to keep him clean and out of the dirt, and he gets enraged, you could be doomed for life, because the wrath of masts and saints is very dangerous.

Mohammed’s trait of finding and looking at his “deesh” is a sort of relief to him to be thus occupied. You think that he is playing with dirt and is exposed to the elements. With the best of motives of safeguarding his health, you try to bring him in. When he resists, you forcibly try to pull him out and break his link to what he has seen in that particular object, through the higher consciousness of the spiritual plane on which he is. And what happens? The moment he finds you trying to dissuade him, he feels disturbed and is indecisive whether to be there or here, meaning where his consciousness has taken him on the higher planes through the thing he is looking at, or where he is called on by you to go, leaving his deesh on this earthly plane.

This is no joke. It is a regular torture to Mohammed to reconcile the two different and conflicting states of the higher and lower planes of consciousness. If, in the torments of this torture or excitement, he were to abuse or curse anyone for thus disturbing him in the enjoyment of his ecstasy, the cursed one would be doomed for this life. It is simply because of me that he cannot do this and you are saved from his wrath. That is why I have been asking you constantly to be very tolerant and lenient with the masts and never to disturb them if they are persistent, even when you have the best of motives such as to protect them from the elements, uncleanliness, et cetera, which is also one of your duties.

The best way to handle them is the way of love and mild persuasion. If these do not succeed, nothing else will. Compulsion or force would be worse, even if they cannot hurt you for my sake. It reacts on them and causes them to suffer, which I do not want. For I know what a torture it is to them, and how they suffer.

It is a torture both ways. First of all, the masts suffer from being deprived of their own environment and their freedom in the places where they used to live. To be thus kept confined, even with all the other liberties we give them, and best care we take of them is to suffer. Secondly, the masts suffer whenever disturbed and pulled out of their ecstatic enjoyment. It is because they feel happy in my presence that they stay. They see me and know me as none of you do. That is why they are quiet. Otherwise, they would be impossible to manage.

If efforts made with love are effective with worldly people, they would be all the more effective and essential in dealing with these saintly beings who are lost in the love of God. You love to enjoy one phase of some of their peculiar traits when they are quiet and pleasing. You should equally enjoy the other phase of their insistence in the experience of the bliss they find in certain things which your eyes cannot penetrate, nor your mind understand."

Lord Meher, American ed., Bhau Kalchuri Vol. 7, pp. 2583 – 2585.

There's not much that I can add to that. It makes you realise how little we really understand about what is going on. We are totally mesmerised by the world and experience it as the only reality. The masts become mesmerised as well and the reality they experience is very different to ours. They are still trapped in illusion but with far fewer veils of ignorance separating them from the ultimate reality. Yet the "well adjusted", those who are fully absorbed in the earthly drama, have no understanding of these masts who are seemingly insane or mentally handicapped. Even Baidul, one of Baba's mandali, failed to understand them.

Of course, with any mention of masts, one cannot forget Dr. William Donkin, or Don as Baba called him, who accompanied Baba on many of his journeys to find masts and who wrote "The Wayfarers" that chronicles these journeys.

Dr. William Donkin

Born : 14 November, 1911 - England

Died : 9th August, 1969 - India

To quote from Meher Baba's Life and Travels:

These Men of God, who are themselves the "Great Heroes" of the Spiritual Path, have at times spontaneously given expression to their recognition of Baba as He Is: they are able to see and know from personal inner knowledge The Real Being that is Baba. As Dr. Donkin points out in "The Wayfarers” from which these examples are taken, "In reading these brief paragraphs one should remember that, when on tour in search of MASTS, Baba is almost always incognito, and that when a MAST bears witness to Baba's spiritual greatness, he often does so without having any external means of knowing who Baba is; those (who do know Baba externally) have reputations as MASTS or saints quite independent of their contact or relationship to Baba, and this, I believe, adds greatly to the value of what they say.”

Bob Mossman has written a biography of Don titled "Slave of Love" and in this YouTube video he talks about the inspiration behind the idea of writing of the book as well as the process of of its creation. Unfortunately, it only seems to be available as a paperback and not in electronic form.