Sai Baba

Interesting information about Sai Baba that I was reminded of in my daily Meher Baba newsletter (link). 

On June 5th 1927, Baba went with a few of the mandali to Aurangabad, and from there proceeded to the Ellora Caves and the area called Khuldabad. While drinking tea at Khuldabad, Baba disclosed, “The tomb of Sai Baba’s Master Zarzari Bakhsh is in Khuldabad.” When asked how this could be since Zarzari Bakhsh actually lived hundreds of years prior to Sai Baba, Meher Baba answered, “You have no idea of how great is the grace of the Perfect Master. While Zarzari Bakhsh was alive, Sai, in a previous incarnation, was his disciple. The Master’s grace descended upon him at that time; however, it carried over and made him perfect after seven hundred years. Zarzari Bakhsh means Giver of the Wealth of Wealth. This he gave to Sai.” The group returned to Meherabad the same day. Sai Baba of Shirdi had physical contact with other Masters — Gopal Rao and the Swami of Akalkot. However, it was Zarzari Baksh who bestowed Realization upon Sai while he was in a cave at Khuldabad. The Swami of Akalkot brought Sai down and made him a Perfect Master.

Thus the connection between a Perfect Master and his disciple can extend over lifetimes and Realisation can be bestowed in the physical absence of the Master, although I surmise that this is not the norm. I've been to the Ellora Caves and even to the cave at Khuldabad (about four miles away) were Sai Baba received Enlightenment.

Wikipedia (the source of all knowledge) had this to say about Khuldabad:

The name 'Khuldabad' translates to 'Abode of Eternity'. It is derived from the posthumous title of Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb, 'khuld-makan' (lit. 'Dwelling in Paradise'); the name came into currency following Aurangzeb's interment in the city. Priorly, the city was known as 'Rauza' (lit. 'Garden of Paradise'), a common term used to describe Sufi shrines in South Asia.

This made me realise how little I know about the Mughal Empire and reference to Sufi shrines I found quite intriguing. I downloaded "The Last Mughal" by William Dalrymple from the Internet Archive and transferred it to my Kindle. It looks like an interesting read.

On a hazy November afternoon in Rangoon, 1862, a shrouded corpse was escorted by a small group of British soldiers to an anonymous grave in a prison enclosure. As the British Commissioner in charge insisted, “No vestige will remain to distinguish where the last of the Great Moghuls rests.” 

Bahadur Shah Zafar II, the last Mughal Emperor, was a mystic, an accomplished poet and a skilled calligrapher. But while his Mughal ancestors had controlled most of India, the aged Zafar was king in name only. Deprived of real political power by the East India Company, he nevertheless succeeded in creating a court of great brilliance, and presided over one of the great cultural renaissances of Indian history.

Then, in 1857, Zafar gave his blessing to a rebellion among the Company’s own Indian troops, thereby transforming an army mutiny into the largest uprising any empire had to face in the entire course of the nineteenth century. The Siege of Delhi was the Raj’s Stalingrad: one of the most horrific events in the history of Empire, in which thousands on both sides died. And when the British took the city—securing their hold on the subcontinent for the next ninety years—tens of thousands more Indians were executed, including all but two of Zafar’s sixteen sons. By the end of the four-month siege, Delhi was reduced to a battered, empty ruin, and Zafar was sentenced to exile in Burma. There he died, the last Mughal ruler in a line that stretched back to the sixteenth century.

Award-winning historian and travel writer William Dalrymple shapes his powerful retelling of this fateful course of events from groundbreaking material: previously unexamined Urdu and Persian manuscripts that include Indian eyewitness accounts and records of the Delhi courts, police and administration during the siege. The Last Mughal is a revelatory work—the first to present the Indian perspective on the fall of Delhi—and has as its heart both the dazzling capital personified by Zafar and the stories of the individuals tragically caught up in one of the bloodiest upheavals in history.

How To Find God

Given my last post titled No Growth Without Resistance, today's post from the Avatar Meher Baba Bombay Centre is quite relevant.

HOW CAN I FIND GOD?

Baba was discoursing about the Path when he remarked: “The fun of it is that the One who is sought is Himself the seeker. It is the same One God who prompts the seeker to ask, ‘Where can I find God?’ … ‘How can I find God?’

“The seeker asking ‘Where can I find God?’ is really God saying: ‘Where indeed is the seeker?'”

“Will I realize the Truth in this incarnation?” was an ardent question put to Baba by a young seeker one day.

Baba replied, “Why be so eager, so impatient? How will you profit by my reply? If I were to say that you will realize the Truth in this very life, will you gain anything more than merely hearing these encouraging words? And if I were to say ‘No, not this lifetime’ and that you need many more births to realize the Truth, you will feel nervous and dejected.”

The young man answered, “Nothing will affect me in either case.”

“Then forget your question altogether! This much is certain, that the Truth is infinitely more anxious to reveal Itself through you – and through everyone – than your seeking It with utmost efforts.

“Even wanting Truth is an unwanted want, and Truth is far beyond wanting. You cannot demand Truth; it dawns unawares. The way lies through successive unconditional surrenders to the Perfect Master.”

Baba continued, “Again, remember the Path is slippery. Guard yourself against posing. It is the worst thing. Let the lamp of honesty ever burn within you. Be sincere in your seeking. My nazar is on you. Don’t worry.”

The School of Hard Knocks

Lately I've been watching various accounts of Near Death Experiences of NDEs on YouTube. It's slowly dawning on me that a physical incarnation on Earth is really the only way to make significant progress spiritually. While living on this planet, we are utterly focused temporally and geographically due to our physical bodies. Unless we are conjoined twins, these same bodies divide us absolutely from other bodies. We may try to fuse with another body sexually but such encounters are short-lived and often unfulfilling. 

Our bodies may be sick and frail, damaged or incomplete. We may eat too much or not enough. We may eat foods or take drugs that undermine our physical health. Our life is dependent on taking our next breath and, if that is denied us for any reason, we die. Death is literally one breath away. Our awareness of the world is created and sustained by a wondrous but bizarrely intricate nervous system supported by an assemblage of other interconnected systems.

Psychologically we are slaves to an ego that should act in our best interests but instead wreaks havoc in our lives due to outbursts of anger, jealousy, lust and other excesses. The mind is a butterfly that flits into a remembered past or an anticipated future, never alighting on the moment. The frustrations we experience because of our physical and psychological limitations can drive us to madness or suicide. Material and emotional losses can be equally destructive but both can be transformative in ways that are not possible on the non-physical planes of existence.

On the astral plane, or subtle plane as it's sometimes called, we remain distinct but much less so than when we are in physical bodies. We can feel what others feel and know what others are thinking without the need for words. We are diffuse and bathed in the ashen light. For the majority of suffering humanity, its only experience of the astral occurs for a short time after "crossing over". Soon the astral body sinks into a state of profound subjectivity as the life just lived unfolds and the life review proceeds.

The astral body slowly fades away as it literally digests itself. Even in the astral world, energy cannot be created or destroyed but only changed into other forms. The energy required for the life review draws by necessity on the energy contained within the astral body and is transferred to the mental body that stores the insights and lessons that arise from the review process. 

This review process is far different from what might have been its equivalent in the physical body. Remember in the astral world we can feel what others are feeling and know what others are thinking. During our life review, we get to feel the effects of our actions on others and know directly what they thought and felt. Freed from our bodies, our ego, that was once very much associated with our physical form, undergoes a transformation. There is still the sense of "I am" but it is no longer connected with the body or the thoughts that are generated by our physical brains.

We can therefor observe the life just lived with dispassion and objectivity (within our deep subjectivity). We can see our imperfections clearly, understand how we could have done better and begin to formulate a new plan for a new life that will set matters right. All our insights are progressively stored in our mental bodies as the energy of our astral bodies fade. Eventually the light flickers on and off and then goes out forever. All that we once were in our previous incarnation is gone forever.

As this point there is no awareness of anything. We are simply the potential energy that is stored in our mental body, although "body" is not the best term perhaps. We have no form, no shape but only potential. This point of potential now begins to grow an astral body. This is the beginning of our true gestation. I'm not sure what our state of awareness is as this body grows. I would imagine that we are immersed in the light and love that pervades the astral plane. There would be awareness of that without our necessarily having any thoughts or self identity. There would be a feeling of lightness, diffuseness, joy and vibrancy.

As the time draws near for a new physical incarnation, the descriptions offered by the Tibetan Book of the Dead describe the situation fairly accurately. We begin to feel like we are being squeezed or squashed into small crevices in rocks. It is a painful process to accept the limitation and confinement of a new physical body. For some, just this initial experience of the physical plane, is sufficient. The fetus fails to thrive or is terminated and the embryonic astral body is raised on the astral plane by benevolent astral entities. For most however, physical birth will ensue.

Some people, upon passing over, do not go through the immersion into deep subjectivity and subsequent rebirth because their connection to the physical world was already tenuous. Instead they can begin to live and function on the astral plane. They can remain there as long as they like and make progress through the various subplanes of the astral realm. Nonetheless, for ultimate realisation it will be necessary for them to take physical incarnation again. In some cases, only one lifetime will be necessary but in other cases several. The same is true of the astral bodies who only associate temporarily with a human fetus and spend their childhood on the astral plane.

The physical world is truly the school of hard knocks where consciousness experiences maximum resistance. These knocks however, are necessary to knock some sense into us so that we eventually realise who we really are. These knocks or shocks are not possible on the higher planes that are permeated with the divine radiance. Meher Baba has described the music of the astral planes as being so indescribably sweet that it can be listened to for days on end without boredom. On the higher planes we bask in such divine radiance but we are not one with it.

On the physical plane, this divine radiance is denied us and it can only be regained with great difficulty. The terrible struggle to find it again is sufficient in some cases to draw a person into the circle of a perfect master, someone who is already one with this divine radiance. If we are deserving, the perfect master will bestow realisation on us and in turn we may pass it on to others. This happens rarely but it happens and in the fullness of time it will happen to us all. Jai Baba.

The Numbers of Creation

There are numerous references in Lord Meher to the fact that there are 56 God-realised souls on Earth at any one time.

Lord Meher Online Edition Page 683:

While Baba was discoursing on the 29th, someone asked, "Why are there 56 Realized souls in the world in every age?"

The number 56 denotes perfection. This number appears to be perfect to those who manage these spiritual workings, as one Supreme Being alone cannot manage the whole affair single-handedly. He requires assistance, and the number of assistants is fixed at 56.

For instance, a toddyshop-keeper needs several helpers — one to prepare the toddy, another to serve it, another to collect payment, et cetera. But if there is no shop, what is the use of helpers? In the same way, when there is no universe — as is the case for the majzoobs, who are realized but have no consciousness of the world and its affairs — for them, there is no work.

To return to the question: The universe must be maintained, and to carry out the affairs of the universe in an orderly manner 56 God-realized persons are required. The number is fixed at 56 because a number less than that cannot do all the work and the different duties. Suppose a man has lost one of his eyes. Although he can still see with the other eye, he sees with difficulty. Therefore, two eyes are given to each human being to enable him to see perfectly.

In just the same way, two ears, one nose, two hands, and two feet are provided. In short, everything in nature goes on according to rules and regulations and principles laid down by the "Experienced" or Realized Sages, and nothing is haphazard.

All these explanations are beyond comprehension by your intellect. Such understanding is virtually useless, unless one has the real Experience of Realization. However much you may exert your brains, in the end it is all like the caterwauling and barking of cats and dogs, until such time as you experience the wind of Reality.

The Knowledge and Experience of a Sadguru cannot be grasped through the intellect because it is altogether beyond the intellect. As Hafiz says:

This Knowledge is never grasped by the intellect's noose; Untie the noose and you will obtain it.

Lord Meher Online Edition Page 2350

Figure 1 shows a chart with explanation following.

Figure 1 

Now, after the human form reincarnates 84 lakhs of times, how does the soul enter the subtle world?

From the gross to God state, there are seven stages of winding and seven stages of unwinding. Up to the stone form, there is no winding nor twist. Neither are there species up to the stone form. Thereafter, 14 lakhs of species in each of the six forms up to human evolution, equals 84 lakhs of species. These seven twists, where each form changes to another higher one, are for making the seven main species thicker and thicker.

There are always and eternally 84 lakhs of souls who experience subtle experiences. Among them, there are seven who are the chiefs and can experience the mental world in the same subtle body. These seven have duty. The 84 lakhs of subtle experiencers are existing even today. The figure is always constant. There are an equal number who experience the mental world. But in each new unwinding, one of the seven chiefs with duty becomes less, meaning he gets no normal consciousness nor duty. How many out of the seven chiefs get duty in the subtle? Seven. In the mental, six have duty; in the God-state, five.

On the gross plane: 84 lakhs of reincarnations, although there are millions of human beings in the world.

On the subtle plane: 84 lakhs of souls who experience the subtle world.

Out of these 84 lakhs of those experiencing the subtle world there are seven chiefs who have duty. When these seven cross over to the mental plane, only six have duty and one remains dormant. When these seven cross over from the mental to the God-state, five have duty and two remain dormant. In the God-realized state, out of 56 there are five heads and two majzoobs. The majzoob state is attained on the seventh plane.

The first human form that one gets after the last animal form of monkey is not a complete human form. It has no differentiation in sex. The first human form is that of a bahirupi [neuter]. That is to say, the first human form is neither male nor female. Then what happens? The same form develops a different form with a male sex organ. If you reverse this organ, it is transformed into a female sex organ. This is mere phenomena, but it is all the exchanging of sanskaras.

How does this happen? It is just like a slight flicker, a flash or spark of light. When a railroad engine changes tracks, its light flickers. It is the same here. The first human form has both the male and female sexes latent in it. Therefore, the first human form is that of a bahirupi. Only when the bahirupi takes another form, either male or female, are the organs visible. This causes the process of reincarnation to begin.

That is also why among the five Perfect Masters there are four males and one female.

This is most interesting because Baba explains that there are continuously 8.4 millions souls experiencing the subtle plane and the same number experiencing the mental plane. Meanwhile, there are billions of humans on Earth and other planets experiencing the physical plane. I've long entertained the notion that each soul can be conceived of as a prime number, unique and indivisible, with the Avatar as 1 and the Godhead as 0. The next God-realised person, made so by the Avatar, would be 2 and so on. This is just my imagining and has nothing to do with Baba.

Getting back to Baba, here is what he had to say about the number 7:

There are seven worlds [planets in evolution], seven skies, seven suns, seven moons, seven planes and seven heavens [in involution]. Why this figure seven? And sanskaras too are of seven colors. Why? Because in the very beginning, when Energy (Pran) clashed with Matter (Akash), it created seven divisions.

Each individual human being is a universe unto himself. In the head there are seven openings: two eyes, two ears, two nostrils, and one mouth. In the body there are seven parts: two arms, two legs, two openings (front and back), and one trunk.

But all this explaining of the universe and creation relates to the hair and has nothing to do with the head. So first try to get hold of the head, because out of it comes everything.

Baba drew a figure of a man's head with hair and added:

The barber's work is to shave the head. And who is the barber in this case? Mahapralaya! For when it occurs, all the hairs (universes) on God's head are shaved off.

It is said that the universes pour out of the Godhead; they are like God's hair. Your head may symbolize God and your hair the universes.

The Spiritual Hierarchy

In these dark days, it seems that the world has been overrun by the forces of evil and that the spirit of humanity is being submerged by a ruling elite. At such times, I need to remind myself that there is a spiritual hierarchy overseeing the affairs of this planet and that the real power lies in their hands. In 1934, Meher Baba stated that:

Out of 160 or 170 [very advanced] souls on earth, only 76 are conscious of their body and the gross world. The rest are masts. Twenty of these 76 are 'indifferent' [without duty]; 56 perform different duties, under the five Perfect Masters. Numerous walis, pirs and saints at different stages of advancement work as agents. Every place, village, town and city has its agent [chargeman]. The Hyderabad agent is a wali who moves about in rags and is unknown to people.

Ten years earlier, in 1924, Baba has said that:

... there exist in the physical cosmos 18,000 planets with human life forms, and millions of planets with evolutionary life forms, along with millions and millions of universes which are in a state of cosmic evolution. But he clarified that earth was the only planet where the process of involution occurred — that only on earth do human beings experience the planes of spiritual consciousness. And he further explained that not only were the five Perfect Masters on earth, but also the entire 7,000 member spiritual hierarchy of saints and advanced souls. 

Baba provided an interesting table, shown in Figure 1. He goes on to explain the details behind this table. This occurred in 1943.

Figure 1

Now, after the human form reincarnates 84 lakhs of times, how does the soul enter the subtle world?

There are always and eternally 84 lakhs of souls who experience subtle experiences. Among them, there are seven who are the chiefs and can experience the mental world in the same subtle body. These seven have duty. The 84 lakhs of subtle experiencers are existing even today. The figure is always constant. There are an equal number who experience the mental world. But in each new unwinding, one of the seven chiefs with duty becomes less, meaning he gets no normal consciousness nor duty. How many out of the seven chiefs get duty in the subtle? Seven. In the mental, six have duty; in the God-state, five. 

On the gross plane: 84 lakhs of reincarnations, although there are millions of human beings in the world. On the subtle plane: 84 lakhs of souls who experience the subtle world. Out of these 84 lakhs of those experiencing the subtle world there are seven chiefs who have duty. When these seven cross over to the mental plane, only six have duty and one remains dormant. When these seven cross over from the mental to the God-state, five have duty and two remain dormant. In the God-realized state, out of 56 there are five heads and two majzoobs. The majzoob state is attained on the seventh plane.

In 1926, Baba had explained that:

The key to the world is only one, but it is in the hands of the five Perfect Masters. For example, a safe has only one key and no other key can unlock it. The five Perfect Masters control the safe [the world]. One Master is the keeper of the key, without which the safe cannot be opened. The second guards the safe which cannot be opened without his prior consent. The third is the one who alone has the authority to use the key to unlock the safe. The fourth is the one who has the right to distribute the riches in the safe. And the fifth Master is the one who has the power to authorize the distribution. Thus there is only one key to the world, equally shared among the five Masters.

The five Perfect Masters, plus the 51 other God-realized souls [majzoobs and Jivanmuktas] control the key. These 51 are members of the parliament of the five Perfect Masters. Fifty-one plus five equals 56; this number 56 never changes. Each of the Perfect Masters has a circle and each circle consists of twelve members. In this way does the game of the world go on and on. All this I am telling you is a secret.  

Baba said in 1953 that:

When the Avatar descends, there are five Perfect Masters who sustain him. These five have always sustained me: Sai Baba, Upasni Maharaj, Babajan, Narayan Maharaj and Tajuddin Baba. Sai Baba was Perfection personified, a very rare type even among Sadgurus. Babajan was after all the Shahenshah [Emperor] of Sadgurus. So, there are five Perfect Masters who sustain me from eternity. In every age, when I come, they sustain me. Sai Baba made me what I am; Babajan made me feel what I am; Upasni Maharaj made me know what I am. And what I am, I am! 

Later, in 1956, Baba added that:

Now that my five Perfect Masters, who actively worked, have left their bodies, I carry the entire burden myself, and all who share in it are most fortunate. 

Baba left us in 1969 and so, at this time, the world's affairs are being directed by the five Perfect Masters, whoever they may be, and so we must endure. The current oppression may wane or even intensify but the temporal forces that are oppressing humanity will pass away. As Baba explained, God has no rival in the form of Satan. Only God IS and it is to God that we will all return one day. In the meantime, life in illusion continues.

God is a State not a Person

When I say that God is a state, I mean of course a state of consciousness: the ultimate state of consciousness in which all duality vanishes and there is only the experience of an indivisible Oneness. It is certainly preferable to view God in this way and to abandon these silly anthropomorphic conceptions of God. Having done this, God no longer punishes us for our sins. We punish ourselves thanks to the impartial workings of karma. The hurt and suffering we cause others rebounds upon us, either in this life or the next. If we hurl a ball against a wall, it rebounds under the laws of physics. God has nothing to do with the rebounding ball or our so-called sins.

The notion that I'm espousing does not bring us any closer to God but it can save a lot of wasted energy. How many prayers are offered up to God, asking for this or that, in the mistaken belief that these prayers are being heard and assessed by some divine being? Consciousness develops in physical organisms to the point where, in the human species, it is capable of realising Oneness but rarely does because of the karmic knots accumulated during countless lifetimes, the most recent in human form but before that in animal form. Because of this the majority of us identify with our ego, that sense of self that arises around three years of age and that we cling to throughout the remainder of our lives. Only very few can abandon that identification with the ego.

At the instant of illumination, the limited ego dissolves and consciousness experiences the infinite bliss of union. There is no awareness of the creation. The physical world disappears and in most cases the body is discarded after a few days. In some cases, the body is retained and functions more or less automatically while consciousness remains divinely absorbed and oblivious of the body's continued existence in illusion. A very, very few are destined for whatever reason to return to the physical world to become Perfect Masters. They are God in the sense that they retain their awareness of Oneness after their return. The very first human to realise Oneness is unique however, and is referred to as the Avatar. The Avatar feels a sense of responsibility for ignorant and suffering humanity and returns to Earth every 700 or 1400 years in order to lend us a helping hand as it were.

These incarnations of the Avatar are very special, each one having a unique flavour. Zoroaster, Ram, Krishna, the Buddha, Jesus Christ and Mohammed are some of his incarnations, with Meher Baba being the most recent. The Avatar always returns in male form. That is not to say that God is a male. Before Realisation, the Avatar was a male and remains so in subsequent incarnations. God is of course neither male nor female but a state that transcends all opposites. Both males and females can realise this state but the ego must be extinguished before this is possible. Extinguishing the ego of course is all but impossible and definitely so without the direct help of a Perfect Master. In a sense the aspirant never achieves illumination because he or she must die in the process, not physically (although this is often a side-effect) but mentally. The illusion of a separative ego must vanish.

Religions cause a great deal of confusion in our attempts to understand God. While inspired by the Avatar, religions continue to develop following the death of the Avatar, taking the form of Zoroastrianism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity and Islam. Some of course would argue that Buddhism, in its essence, is not a religion but there's no point debating that here. Religions were intended to help us realise our essential Oneness but often serve to highlight Duality. This is the fault of the religion's adherents who lose touch with the originating spirit of the religion. The problems caused by religions have come to outweigh their benefits and that is why Meher Baba, the latest incarnation of the Avatar, chose not to establish a new religion. If someone is following a religion, Baba didn't recommend that he or she abandon it. Instead, he recommended that the adherent be true to the spirit of the religion and not become absorbed in empty rituals.

What I've written here is only a very brief summary of my interpretation of what Meher Baba has said. The reader is advised to go the source if there is desire to understand more about what I've written. Many books, in electronic format, by or about Meher Baba are available for free download at https://www.ambppct.org/library.php.

Tim Buckley's Morning Glory

There's a few songs that for me at least have a spiritual significance and one of them is Morning Glory by Tim Buckley. Here's a video of his singing the song:

Here are the lyrics (there are some slight differences to what he actually sings):

I lit my purest candle close to my

Window, hoping it would catch the eye

Of any vagabond who passed it by,

And I waited in my fleeting house

Before he came I felt him drawing near;

As he neared I felt the ancient fear

That he had come to wound my door and jeer,

And I waited in my fleeting house

"Tell me stories, " I called to the Hobo;

"Stories of cold, " I smiled at the Hobo;

"Stories of old, " I knelt to the Hobo;

And he stood before my fleeting house

"No, " said the Hobo, "No more tales of time;

Don't ask me now to wash away the grime;

I can't come in 'cause it's too high a climb, "

And he walked away from my fleeting house

"Then you be damned!" I screamed to the Hobo;

"Leave me alone, " I wept to the Hobo;

"Turn into stone, " I knelt to the Hobo;

And he walked away from my fleeting house

At first sight, the lyrics may not seem to have any spiritual significance so let's look more closely. The fleeting house is a symbol of our transient physical form. As the saying goes, the eyes are windows of the soul so putting my purest candle close to my Window, hoping to catch the eye of any vagabond who passed it by means putting oneself in a very still and receptive state in the hope of making eye contact with a vagabond. A vagabond is a person who wanders from place to place without a home or job and is free of worldly ties. It serves here as a metaphor for a perfect master, a God-realised being, who has transcended duality and become one with God.

He waits and feels the vagabond drawing near but feels the ancient fear which is the threat of ego annihilation that is a necessary prelude on the path to becoming a spiritually perfect. The fear that he had come to wound my door and jeer is of course the way in which a perfect master methodically demolishes the disciple's ego. On arrival, the vagabond is referred to seven times as the Hobo and seven of course has deep mystical significance as a number of perfection. However, it is the prospective disciple that unwisely decides to set the agenda: tell me stories ... stories of cold ... stories of old.

The Hobo is not about to do this: no ... no more tales of time. Those who have attained union with God have transcended time and exist in eternity. The world of duality in which we are enmeshed however, is a world of time. Any reference to it is pointless from the spiritual point of view. Don't ask me now to wash away the grime: the grime is a reference to the karma (sanskaras) that we have accumulated over the course of our evolution and which bind us to the physical plane. Perfect masters can erase these sanskaras in an instant if they have the whim and if we are deserving of their grace.

I can't come in 'cause it's too high a climb, says the Hobo because the spiritual aspirant has put himself above the master by attempting to set the agenda. He has not shown proper humility, an essential prerequisite to spiritual progress. The perfect master, being one with God, is above everything and thus there is nowhere to climb. The master walks away from the aspirant much to the latter's annoyance, his anger demonstrating further his egotism and unsuitability for spiritual uplifting.

That's my take on it anyway.