The Sufi Tradition in Tunisia and Indonesia

I watched an interesting video today about Tunisia's Sufi tradition. I asked ChatGPT for more information.

Can you provide some details of the history of Sufism in Tunisia?

Sufism, which refers to Islamic mysticism, has a long history in Tunisia dating back to the early Islamic period. The first Sufi orders or Tariqas were established in the country in the 12th century, with the arrival of Sufi saints from other parts of the Muslim world.

The two most important Sufi orders in Tunisia are the Qadiriyya and the Shadhiliyya. The Qadiriyya order was introduced to Tunisia in the 16th century and became popular in the 18th century, while the Shadhiliyya order was introduced in the 17th century and became dominant in the 19th century.

Sufism played an important role in the spread of Islam in Tunisia, particularly in rural areas where Sufi leaders or marabouts were often the main religious authorities. The marabouts were also involved in social and political activities, and their influence extended beyond religious matters.

During the colonial period, Sufi orders played an important role in the resistance to French rule, and many Sufi leaders were involved in the struggle for independence. After independence, Sufi orders continued to play a prominent role in Tunisian society, particularly in rural areas.

In recent years, there has been a resurgence of interest in Sufism in Tunisia, with a growing number of young people joining Sufi orders and attending Sufi gatherings. Sufi leaders have also been active in promoting interfaith dialogue and tolerance in the country.

I sought to find out a little more about the origins of Tunisia as a country. 

How did Tunisia originate as a country? How it is different from its neighbors like Libya and Algeria?

Tunisia, like many other countries in North Africa, has a complex history of multiple civilizations and empires. The region that is now Tunisia was inhabited by Berber tribes since ancient times, and was subsequently conquered by Phoenicians, Romans, Vandals, Byzantines, Arabs, and Ottoman Turks.

The modern nation-state of Tunisia emerged as a result of the French colonization of the country in the late 19th century. Tunisia became a French protectorate in 1881 and remained so until 1956 when it gained independence.

Compared to its neighbors Libya and Algeria, Tunisia has several unique characteristics. Firstly, Tunisia is the smallest country in North Africa in terms of land area, with a population of around 12 million people. It is also the most densely populated country in North Africa.

Secondly, Tunisia has a long history of political stability, with a relatively smooth transition from authoritarianism to democracy after the Tunisian Revolution in 2011. This is in contrast to the ongoing conflicts and instability in Libya and Algeria.

Thirdly, Tunisia has a more diverse economy compared to Libya and Algeria, with a strong focus on tourism, agriculture, and manufacturing. Tunisia is also known for its highly educated workforce, with a literacy rate of over 80%.

Lastly, Tunisia has a unique culture that has been shaped by its history and geography. Its location at the crossroads of Mediterranean and African cultures has given rise to a rich culinary tradition, as well as a diverse artistic and musical heritage.

Returning to the topic of Sufism, I asked: 

Who were some of the best known Sufi saints who are associated with Sufism in Tunisia?

Sufism, or Islamic mysticism, has a rich history in Tunisia, with many prominent Sufi saints having emerged over the centuries. Here are some of the best-known Sufi saints associated with Sufism in Tunisia:

Sidi Ali Azouz: A 16th-century Sufi saint who is considered one of the most important figures in Tunisian Sufism. He is credited with spreading the Qadiriyya Sufi order throughout the country.

Sidi Bou Said: A 13th-century Sufi saint who is widely revered in Tunisia. He founded a Sufi order known as the Nasiriyya, and his tomb in the coastal town of Sidi Bou Said is a popular pilgrimage site.

Sidi Belhassen Chedly: A 19th-century Sufi saint who is known for his emphasis on spirituality and piety. He founded a Sufi order known as the Chedliyya, which is still active today.

Sidi Ali Ben Aoun: A 16th-century Sufi saint who is considered one of the most influential figures in Tunisian Sufism. He founded a Sufi order known as the Aouniyya, which continues to be active in Tunisia and other parts of North Africa.

Sidi Ahmed Tijani: Although he was born in Algeria, Sidi Ahmed Tijani was an influential Sufi saint who spent much of his life in Tunisia. He founded the Tijaniyya Sufi order, which is now one of the largest Sufi orders in the world.

These are just a few examples of the many Sufi saints who have played important roles in the development of Sufism in Tunisia.

I asked about the differences between Sufism and mainstream Islam.

How does Sufism differ from mainstream or more traditional Islam?

Sufism, also known as Islamic mysticism, is a spiritual and mystical dimension of Islam that emphasizes the inward search for God and the purification of the soul. While Sufism is a part of Islam, it differs from mainstream or more traditional Islam in several ways:

Emphasis on spiritual experience: Sufism places a greater emphasis on the individual's personal experience of God than traditional Islam, which focuses more on adherence to ritual practices and adherence to Islamic law.

Importance of spiritual guides: Sufism places great importance on the role of spiritual guides, known as Sufi masters or sheikhs, who help their disciples on their path to spiritual enlightenment. Traditional Islam also acknowledges the importance of religious scholars, but does not place the same emphasis on spiritual guides.

Use of music and dance: Sufism often incorporates music and dance as a means of reaching a state of spiritual ecstasy and connection with God. This is in contrast to traditional Islam, which generally discourages music and dancing.

Tolerance and universalism: Sufism often promotes tolerance, universalism, and a focus on the unity of all religions and people. This can be seen as different from some more traditional interpretations of Islam, which may emphasize the separation of Muslims from non-Muslims and the importance of adhering strictly to Islamic law.

Focus on love and compassion: Sufism often emphasizes the importance of love and compassion in the spiritual journey, and encourages the cultivation of these qualities as a means of purifying the soul. Traditional Islam also places importance on these qualities, but may not place the same emphasis on their role in spiritual development.

It is worth noting that Sufism is a diverse and multifaceted tradition with many different interpretations and practices. As such, not all Sufis may adhere to all of the above characteristics, and there may be some overlap between Sufism and traditional Islam.

I asked about the status of Sufism in Indonesia.

What is the status of Sufism in modern day Indonesia? Is it widely practiced or it is marginalized?

Sufism has a long and deep history in Indonesia and is still widely practiced today. In fact, Indonesia is considered one of the largest centers of Sufism in the world. Sufism has been an integral part of the Islamic tradition in Indonesia since the arrival of Islam in the archipelago in the 13th century.

Today, Sufism is practiced by a significant portion of the Muslim population in Indonesia. Many Muslims in Indonesia are followers of Sufi orders, such as the Naqshbandi, Qadiriyya, and Shattariyah orders. These orders have established networks of mosques, Islamic schools, and charitable organizations throughout the country.

Sufi leaders, known as kyai or ulama, continue to play an important role in Indonesian society, offering spiritual guidance and social services to their followers. In addition to their spiritual and religious roles, Sufi leaders have also been involved in social and political activism, including advocating for democracy, human rights, and environmental protection.

While Sufism has faced some marginalization in Indonesia due to the rise of more conservative and fundamentalist interpretations of Islam, it continues to be a vibrant and influential part of the country's religious landscape. Many Indonesians see Sufism as a way to reconcile Islamic teachings with local traditions and cultures, and as a means of promoting tolerance, pluralism, and social justice.

I asked about important historical figures in the history of Indonesian Sufism.

Who are some of the most important saints in Indonesian Sufism?

Indonesia has a rich tradition of Sufism, and there are many important Sufi saints who are venerated by Indonesian Muslims. Here are a few examples:

Sunan Bonang: A 16th-century Sufi saint who is considered one of the most important figures in Indonesian Sufism. He is associated with the Wali Songo, a group of nine Muslim saints who spread Islam in Java. Sunan Bonang is known for his emphasis on the importance of love, compassion, and harmony in the spiritual path.

Syekh Abdul Qadir Jailani: A 12th-century Sufi saint who is highly revered in Indonesia. He is associated with the Qadiriyya Sufi order, which has a large following in Indonesia. Syekh Abdul Qadir Jailani is known for his emphasis on the importance of repentance and seeking God's forgiveness.

Syekh Siti Jenar: A 15th-century Sufi saint who is associated with the mystical tradition of Java. He is known for his controversial teachings, which challenged traditional Islamic orthodoxy and emphasized the unity of all religions. Despite facing persecution and condemnation from some quarters, Syekh Siti Jenar continues to be venerated by many Indonesians.

Syekh Ahmad Dahlan: A 19th-century Sufi saint who founded the Muhammadiyah movement, one of the largest Islamic organizations in Indonesia. He emphasized the importance of education and social reform in the Islamic community, and sought to promote a more moderate and tolerant interpretation of Islam.

Hamka: A 20th-century Sufi saint who was a prolific writer and Islamic scholar. He played a key role in promoting a more modern and progressive interpretation of Islam in Indonesia, and his writings continue to be widely read and influential today.

These are just a few examples of the many important Sufi saints in Indonesian history. The diversity and richness of Indonesian Sufism is reflected in the many different Sufi orders, traditions, and practices found throughout the country.

One to One

Meher Baba, as we know, did not found a new religion but his intention was to bring all religions together like beads on a string. Followers of most religions however, are content to follow the rites and rituals of their religion and to maintain its separateness from the religions of others. There is often rivalry and animosity toward one or more other religions. Even within a single religion there can be conflict as there has been historically between Protestantism and Catholicism.

Religions, more often than not, divide rather than unite humanity, making it all the more easy for the "Godless" to weaken and undermine the faith of the followers of those religions. Christianity has been under pressure to accommodate the LGBT agenda. If certain churches accommodate this agenda, they alienate many of their orthodox followers; if they don't, they alienate many of their more "progressive" followers. If either case, the seeds of division are sown and the religion weakened.

Speaking from my own experience, the "fire and brimstone" approach by Catholic educators in the 1960s did much to alienate the "love generation" and it certainly alienated me, leaving me with a life-long aversion to religion. By an emphasis on fearing God and the punishment that God might inflict on those who have "sinned", religions stray from the intent of their founders. For those followers of Meher Baba who chose to retain their religion, He urged them to return to their religion's roots and not be content to merely follow its rites and rituals mechanically.

The best way of doing this is to establish a one-to-one relationship with the religion's founder. We cannot comprehend God but we can follow the example of those humans who truly represent God on Earth. There should be no barriers between yourself and this founder, no intermediaries. The mind should be disengaged and the heart fully engaged as it is essentially a heart-to-heart relationship. Thinking must take a back seat.

Gradually more followers of more religions will come to realise that Meher Baba's intention was not to replace the message of the founders but rather to rebroadcast it for modern times. For those who have abandoned their religion or never embraced a religion, Meher Baba is available. He was God in human form and His Advent has been painstakingly recorded. The power of His words remains potent and reading them will draw more and more followers to Him in the future.

With Meher Baba, there is no religion to navigate and act as a barrier in connecting to Him. Reading about His life and the words that He silently spoke is enough to establish that one-to-one, heart-to-heart relationship. He has nothing to teach us and we have nothing to learn. All that is needed is to awaken and Meher Baba is The Awakener. Jai Baba.

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.

Administrators

I'll keep this post quite general. Suffice to say that I volunteered to help a certain organisation with tasks that could be completely remotely. After an initial online screening by a member of the organisation, I was contacted by two other organisation members but after more than two months I've heard nothing more.

My feeling is that someone has viewed my Alternative Media blog and not liked some of the content. I may be wrong. It could be that the organisation is simply inefficient which is a defining characteristic of most organisations. The problem with most organisations lies with the administrators who are seemingly a breed apart from the rest of humanity.

During my early career as a psychiatric nurse and my later career as a teacher, it was mainly the administrators who caused problems. Organisations are empty shells with positions available to aspiring administrators who have an aversion to the day-to-day activities that the organisation is involved with.

I remember from my teaching days one particular "aspiring administrator" who began life as a classroom teacher but aspired to something higher. Opportunities were seized as they arose and this particular individual rose rapidly through the ranks. He remains highly placed to this day. He was not a particularly likable guy but his personality was well-suited to administration.

Not surprisingly, psychopaths are attracted to these positions of power where they can lord it over those who simply enjoy what they are doing, whether it be teaching or nursing or whatever. Naturally they cause no end of mischief because their allegiance is to themselves and not the organisations which they supposedly serve.

Some administrators are simply incompetent, thrust into their positions by force of circumstances and then failing miserably as the Peter Principle plays itself out. On larger stages, some of those elevated to positions of authority are promoted simply because they can be relied upon to do what they're told. In some cases, there is incriminating information about them that can be used to ensure their cooperation.

Whether in teaching, nursing, government organisations, charities, private enterprise, NGOs or whatever, administrators are at the helm for better or worse but usually the latter. Getting back to my recent brush with administrators, it's probable that a judgment was made that my views on certain matters were not compatible with the ethos of the organisation. I set myself up for that by making contact with the organisation in the first place.

The lesson to be learned is not to involve myself with organisations and the administrators who infest them. Having retired, I have no need to and I need to remember that.

Meher Baba Archives

Yesterday, January 31st 2023, marked the 54th anniversary of Meher Baba's passing. On that date in 1969, I was 19 years old and oblivious of the fact. However, Meher Baba's name was already stored in my subconscious and awaiting activation some 11 years later.

On the subject of death, I rediscovered a website that I'd already made a note of but hadn't visited in a long while: Life Eternal. To quote from the site:

LIFE ETERNAL is a collection of spiritual teachings of Meher Baba, arranged by subject, in the order in which he gave them.

The collection is divided into four sections:

INTRODUCTION

BOOK ONE

BOOK TWO

INCARNATIONS OF THE AVATAR

The site is well organised and a great resource. One of the topics covered in BOOK ONE is Death which was my initial entry point into the site.

I also came across Beloved Archives which states that:

Soon after Silence Day — July 10, 2019 — slightly above average temperatures were recorded in New Jersey — a perfect time to initiate the creation of the “new” Beloved Archives, Museum and Archival Annex (also known as the Meeting Room) at Hamilton. In August warmer-than- average conditions across the East preceded torrential rain. The rainwaters gradually receded as the entire construction crew of Meher Baba followers came from Myrtle Beach to lay the foundation and eventually build the Annex — a major milestone to continue preserving for posterity the personal artifacts, documents, photographs, and films documenting the Avataric Advent.

This is not the organisation to which I volunteered my help. That organisation is called MAC, Meher Archive Collective, and is physically located in North Carolina. The two locations are quite separate geographically:

I was contacted by three different people from MAC but so far nothing has come of it. While it's good to know that two different archival sites are being set up beyond the Meher Baba Centre in South Carolina, it is a little confusing in its apparent redundancy.

The Materium

"The Materium" is a word that Clif High used in a recent video titled 20230114 - Reality Werkz Perfek and seems to refer simply to the material world. He tends to use his own peculiar words and phrases which is his prerogative I guess. One thing that he said struck a chord in me when he said that "only life fused into matter can produce change". This is something that I'd been thinking about recently and had formed an image that looks something like that shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1

Imagine the pyramid at the bottom as the materium or physical plane. Above are six truncated pyramids corresponding to the four astral planes (first, second, third and fourth), and the two mental planes (fifth and sixth). Only the lowermost pyramid is a full pyramid. Even though it is the smallest shape, it is the only one with a point obviously.

The terms "cutting edge" and "one-pointedness" come to mind. The material plane is where the work gets done, where changes can be made and consciousness can become one-pointed in order to reach its ultimate goal. It is where consciousness meets its maximum resistance. In the astral realm, consciousness can imagine a statue and it will appear. In the physical realm, it must be carved out of marble using the cutting edge of a chisel.

Meher Baba is also clear about God-consciousness being only attainable while in possession of a physical body. Once the body is dropped, a new apex for consciousness needs to be regrown. In other words, a new body must be formed. Even a consciousness that has attained the sixth plane  must return to a physical body once the current body has been dropped. 

Only through the assistance of a Perfect Master can a sixth plane consciousness attain liberation by entering the seventh plane. Once this plane has been attained there is no more rebirth. The seemingly endless cycle of illusory births and deaths is over. 

The Ageing Ego

The ego is a marvelous construct and in my case it arrived fully formed as I rolled down the front steps of my grandmother's house when I must have about two going on three. By this I mean, I was lying length-ways along the top step and then I rolled to the lower steps until I reached the bottom. There was nobody with me and there were only about half a dozen steps but I had the realisation when I reached the bottom that "I am". Prior to that I'd enjoyed the freedom and spontaneity of animal consciousness.

With that "I am" experience, I slowly became painfully shy whereas before I'd been the quintessential Aries: footloose and fearless. It took me decades to grow out of my shyness and it certainly handicapped me in the first half of my life. However, like most egos, it did the job and got me through life and at age 73 is still getting me through. As I age though it becomes more and more apparent that my ego is just a construct, artificial and temporary, that has no solidity or permanence. 

I shall be glad to shed it and, while consciousness is retained after death, it's of a very different quality to the ego-bound variety that most of us experience on Earth. First and foremost, as the fraud Freud said, the ego is a body ego and once the body is dropped, consciousness experiences a profound shock and fundamental change. It's experienced as a liberation compared to the tyranny of the ego with its sly, self-serving interests and petty vanities that limit us and make us far smaller than the infinity that we really are. As Barry Long called it: the stinking self. Like electricity, the ego is a useful servant but a terrible tyrant. 

With the body gone, the barriers that the ego set up to preserve its identity drop away and we can review the life just lived objectively. We can experience the effect that our actions had on others whereas as in life we weren't fully aware of them or didn't care. It's a self assessment. No one is judging us. It's our own review and we draw our own conclusions. The lessons learned shape our future life: its circumstances, the time and place, karmic debts to be repayed etc.

Toward the end of life, my life at least, the ego feels like a straight-jacket formed by the habits of a lifetime. I realise that I'm part of something much larger of which this current life is just a facet. My consciousness is focused on that facet currently but soon the light will shift and illuminate another facet. This multi-faceted reality is what Jung termed the Self. All the facets exist simultaneously but the focus of consciousness produces the illusion of time. The goal is to experience the light that is illuminating each facet and with that experience comes liberation. The facets were a means to end, a way of drawing our attention to the light.

For most of our life we are absorbed at a granular level in the details of one facet of this multi-faceted reality, with our backs firmly to the light. We are absorbed in the shadow play on the wall of Plato's cave.

Cosmic Consciousness

 In making reference to Balzac in a recent post to my Staying Healthy blog, I was reminded of Bucke's "Cosmic Consciousness: A Study in the Evolution of the Human Mind" published in 1901 and recommended to me by my mother sometime in the 1960's. She must have come across it thanks to the Theosophical Society whose meetings she often attended in the late fifties and early sixties. The book can be downloaded from PDFDRIVE as well as many other sources probably.

Here is an excerpt from his chapter on Balzac:

While still very young Balzac decided to be a writer. It seems that he felt, even as a boy, that he was destined to do something great in that line, and he composed at school, among other things, a treatise on the will and an epic poem. Later he wrote at Paris, in the course of ten years, mostly over the pseudonymn of "Horace de Saint Aubin," some forty volumes, said to be almost entirely valueless. A good authority sums up this episode in Balzac's history as follows: "Before he was thirty years old he had published, under a variety of pseudonyms, some twenty long novels, veritable Grub Street productions, written in sordid Paris attics, in poverty, in perfect obscurity. Several of these 'œuvres de jeunesse' have lately been republished, but the best of them are unreadable. No writer ever served harder apprenticeship to his art, or lingered more hopelessly at the base of the ladder of fame." Then, at the age of thirty, his genius began to dawn in "Les Chouans" and "Physiologie du Marriage." He must have entered Cosmic Consciousness about the early part of 1831, when thirty-two years of age, since "Louis Lambert" (which was undoubtedly conceived immediately after illumination) was written in 1832. By 1833, when he was thirty-four years of age, he had entered into full possession of his true life, a presentiment of which had dominated him from early boyhood.

It's an interesting book and Bucke does a good job of trying to make sense of such disparate characters as Jesus, Mohammed, Shakespeare, Ramakrishna, Balzac and others. His mistake is to lump them all together under the umbrella of having attained "Cosmic Consciousness". Perhaps he wasn't aware of the seven planes of consciousness. This would have helped him differentiate between the levels of consciousness that each had reached. It was only in 1993, after finally grasping what Meher Baba was writing about in his book "God Speaks", that I understood about these various levels.

Balzac obviously gained access to the higher planes or was a conduit for entities resident on those planes but he was far from the ultimate reality that is realised by beings who attain to the seventh plane of consciousness. This state could justifiably be described as Cosmic Consciousness but not the lower states and it is attained by very few. Once attained it can never be lost. Jesus Christ, Mohammed, Gautama Siddharta, Ramakrisha and of course Meher Baba himself all attained this state. Baba was only seven years at the time the book was written and He himself did not know the future that awaited Him.

God versus Godhood

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.

The Four Pillars of Meherabad

Vishnu came into Meher Baba’s contact as a teenage boy in 1918, and from the days of Manzil-e-Meem in 1922, he was always with Baba. His almost forty years of service, love and obedience to the God-Man were as close to perfect as perfect can be described. His mother, Kakubai, had died in Meherabad, and now Vishnu had laid aside his body at the Beloved’s side. Vishnu was incomparable in forbearance, and Baba was always pleased with him. Even under the most trying circumstances, he would never utter a word of complaint, and he put up with every hardship. Vishnu was called “One of the four pillars of Meherabad,” along with Adi, Pendu and Padri. Among the men, he was sorely missed.

The above is a quote from this source. In reading “Lord Meher” it’s sometimes difficult to clearly distinguish between the different mandali. I’m prompted in this post to explore the life of this pillar of Meherabad, using Meher Baba’s Life and Travels as my source of information. Vishnu Deorukhar was also known as “Bazaar-Master,” because he did the marketing for many years at Meherabad, Meherazad and other headquarters. Figure 1 shows a photo of him. The text following is taken from the just quoted source and is reproduced in full because it’s difficult to read on the actual site. I took a screenshot of the text and then used Google Keep to grab the text from the image. It did a good job and I only needed to make a few minor corrections.

Vishnu
Born : 21st June 1903
Died : 13th May 1962

When the disciple is ready, it is said, the Master appears. Vishnu Deorukhat, later known as “Vishnu Master,” must have completed his preparations in previous births, since he met Baba when just a boy of fifteen, and remained His permanently. The year was 1919, and the place was Poona. Vishnu lived with his mother just across the street from Merwan’s toddy shop located in the Kasba Peth district, a neighborhood near the river inhabited by poor fishermen. In these days, Baba would perform arti in a small room adjacent to the shop that He had established as a temple, and after prayers He gave gave prasad to all-comers. Baba was drawing many of His earliest disciples to Himself at this time.

One day while Baba was distributing prasad, a boy came forward, holding out his hands. Before he could leave, Baba asked him, “Where is your father!” Young Vishnu told Baba that his father had died and that he lived with his mother. Baba told the lad, “From now on I am your father” With these words Baba sealed the connection, which proved to be lifelong. Soon after this Vishnu’s mother, who was cooking Baba His lunch each day, complained that her son was associating with a bad group of boys and going to movies. Immediately Baba set off to the neighborhood theater, caught the boy, and slapped him several times. Shocked, Vishnu protested that he had bought the ticket with his own money. “But did you ask me if you could go to the movies? Baka scolded him. “Didn’t I tell you that I would be your father!”

From that time on, Vishnu knew that he could not do anything without Baba’s permission. Four years later, in early 1923 Vishnu was called to join Baba as one of His mandali at the Marsil-e-Meem in Bombay; and a year after that he came to live with Baba at Meherabad. During this period Baba designated Vishnu as bazaar-wali responsible for shopping and keeping the accounts. And this duty stuck throughout the years, whether Baba was on tour, in Meherabad, in Meherazad, in Guruprasad, or other places.

Vishnu accompanied Baba on His first trip to Persia in 1929 and during His sensational, high-profile visit to the West in 1932. On other tours during this phase of Baba’s intensive world travel, He assigned Vishnu the duty of sending Him a daily telegram reporting on the routine activities and health of the mandali back in the ashram. If Vishnu happened to miss a day, Baba would demand, “What happened! Why hasn’t Vishnu sent the telegram! And Baba would have His own telegram sent out asking the reason for the lapse.

From the mid-1920s until he passed anang, Vishnu was closely associated with Meherabad. Indeed, he was one of the “Four Pillars of Meherabad,” along with Padri, Pendu, and Adi Senior. Baba give them this title in the great meetings in August 1949 in which He announced the New Life. During those meetings Vishnu came forward as one of the “yes-walis” and set out with Baba as one of His twenty companions on October 16.

After the New Life Vishnu continued in his role as one of Baba’s resident mandali. He was one of Baba’s fellow-travelers when He met with His second automobile accident in Satara in December 1956. When Eruch regained consciousness and staggered out of the car with broken ribs in the accidents immediate aftermath, he asked Vishnu, who was the least hurt, what had happened. But it seems that Vishru had experienced a vision of Baba in His universal body, surrounded by effulgent light. Stunned by what he had witnessed, Vishnu could only speak to Eruch about the radiance of Baba’s face, who had appeared to him like Krishnu triumphant on the battlefield of Kurukshetra! Perhaps Baba had granted him some glimpse of the inner dimensions of His Avataric working on that momentous occasion.

Though Vishnu did not often stay at Meherabad, when Baba shifted residence to Guruprasad in Poona in the summer months, Vishnu accompanied Him there. And so it came to pass, one afternoon in 1962 shortly after the usual Sunday darshan gathering had dispersed, that Vishnu passed away after a heart attack. Informed by Goher of what had happened, Baba came from His room and sat by His old disciple, who had worn out his life in his Beloved’s service, for a full hour. “Never before have I sat near the body of any of My mandali as I am doing today by Vishnu,” Baba commented.”He is most fortunate. Vishnu is now merged in Me.”

A “smallish man of regal bearing” as Mani afterwards described him, Vishnu kept a low profile among Baba’s mandali, but was one of the stalwarts in His work. His body now tests in the men’s graveyard in Lower Meherabad next to the grave of his fellow disciple and longtime friend Nilu.

The author of Meher Baba’s Life and Travels makes the odd statement on the site that Meher Baba claimed the Vishnu was Napoleon Bonaparte in a previous life. However, a reading of Lord Meher (page 2209 online edition) makes it clear that this is not the case. What Baba actually said was:

Meanwhile, at Laksar, the men mandali had to change trains with Chatti Baba, who refused to board it. The train was about to leave when Vishnu thought of this trick: He told the mast, “We are trying to take you back to your native place, but we can’t, if you won’t board the train.” The ruse worked and Chatti Baba happily climbed on board. When Baba heard of it, he laughed, and joked, “Vishnu is short and does all the work of marketing and travel arrangements. But now I see that not only does he look like Napoleon and labor like Napoleon — even his brain works like Napoleon’s!”

Remembering Meher Baba's Birthday

Today marks the 128th anniversary of The Ancient One. To celebrate I'll relate a most interesting incident that was reported in the book I read recently about Harry Kenmore's life with Baba. I made a post about my reaction to the book in a post titled Harry Kenmore. The incident occurred some months after Baba's death and I've taken the liberty of quoting from the book:

Tape Transcription - Sunday, August 24, 1969

Eruch and Harry are walking along the Khajgi Rasta Road

engaged in conversation about Baba and His work with the

lepers, when they meet an old Indian farmer. Later they realize

that looks can be deceiving.

Eruch: "Jai Baba. Here is an old man who wants to shake hands."

They are addressing a man they meet on the road. He had a red

turban on his head.

Harry: “He's a big man, isn't he? How tall is he?”

Eruch: “Just feel him, just see his shoulders.”

Harry: “How tall is he, about six foot.”

Eruch: “About six foot two inches, I'd say.”

Harry: “He's a big man in these parts.”

Eruch: "He's an old man too."

Harry: “And what does he do, is he retired?”

Eruch asks the man in an Indian language. The man replies to

Eruch that he does field work. Eruch: “He's a farmer.”

Harry: “Oh, he's a farmer.”

The man laughs.

Harry: "Oh, up in this town, a town nearby?”

Eruch: “Near Yoshindi.”

Harry: “Hmm, How old is he?”

Eruch asks his age and the man says seventy-five.

Harry: “Seventy-five.” Eruch and Harry are laughing. “My God

isn't that a very, very ripe old age.”

Eruch: “Very old age, but he is so strong and hefty.”

Now the man is laughing again.

Harry: “Oh, so strong. He understands English?”

Eruch: “No, no, he says from the gestures he understands."

The man continues to laugh.

Harry: “Oh I see he has a good laugh.”

Eruch: "Jai Baba."

Harry: “Namaste, Jai Baba. Oh he knows Baba.”

Eruch: “Hmm.”

Harry: “He's quite a happy old man isn't he?”

Eruch: "He wanted to embrace us.

Harry: “He did really?”

Eruch: “So, I said simply shake hands.”

Harry: “Why, just because he's a happy fellow?”

Eruch: “No, no, not a happy fellow. I don't know what it is.”

Harry: "Something he saw in us?”

Eruch: “He just came. He was walking on the side road. He came

with all smiles and his arms spread out as if he came to embrace

us."

Harry laughs and says, “Maybe because it's Sunday!”

Eruch: “God, no."

Harry: “You've never seen him?”

Eruch: “No, I haven't seen him. He looked very hefty. How did you

recognize he was hefty?”

Harry: “His distance of his hand above me and the size of his hand,

and the manner in which he shook my hand I could tell that he's

a big fellow. That's pretty good isn't it?”

Eruch: "It's common sense.”

Harry: “Yeah, I mustn't give away my secrets."

They resume the conversation they had before they met the

man.

Tape Transcription – Tuesday, August 26, 1969

The women mandali and Harry are talking about the things he

did during his stay and the unique experience he had with the

farmer.

Harry: “... ...And then we had the, let's see, the walks were very

fine. Did Eruch tell you about the interesting experience we had

Sunday morning? I think it was Sunday morning.”

Mani: “Yes.”

Meheru: “Mehera said she would like to hear it.”

Harry: "Well, this is what happened. We were walking up on the

road along the Rasta. This was Sunday morning and of course,

Eruch did not alert me to it. But a tall man approached us. He

seemed to come out of nowhere. He had on a white dhoti and a

white shirt with an attractive red turban. He was dressed simply

but he was clean. He looked up and he approached us with

outstretched arms. So Eruch stopped us and I asked what are we

stopping for? He said there's a man here who wants to embrace

us.

Mani: “Yes.”

Harry: “You know, we had met farmers on the road and other

people before, but they usually just say Jai Baba and they go on

their way. Or Eruch may have a few words in Marathi about

something - their crops or what not and then they go on their

way. But this gentleman was different, you see.”

Mani: "It's most unusual."

Harry: "Eruch said he wants to embrace us. So Eruch said, wait

shake hands with him. So he put his hand out and we shook

hands. The way he shook hands, it was just as though it was

Baba. And he spoke in a very cryptic tone, very terse answers.

Just one word answers. I said where are you from? He said,

Shinti. I said, what's your occupation? He said, farmer. You

know, just one word.”

Mani: "Yes.”

Harry: “Then I said how old are you? He said seventy-five. Then,

where's your chin” Harry says to Mani. “Then he took hold of

my chin, the way Baba did in playing with me - just like this.”

Mani: “My gosh!”

Harry: “You know, playing just like this. He was very happy,

smiling and we shook hands again. And the rhythm, give me

your hand.” He took Mani's hand. “The rhythm of the hand was

the way Baba would shake hands with me, you know.” Harry

demonstrated to Mani an up and down motion.

Mehera: “Isn't that wonderful.”

Harry: "Well, and then he said jaja - now you can finish your

walk.

Now a farmer never does that.”

Mani: "No."

Harry: “And He didn't seem to have a farmer's hand. You know,

they never say jaja they say, Jai Baba, they bow and they leave.

But he said jaja - keep going with you walk. Just like that he

went down the road. Unfortunately I didn't ask Eruch to turn

back to see if he was in sight. I swear if he had turned around I

bet in ten seconds, he would have been gone. Just like that.

What happened was I was thinking about it all day. Eruch, I

think was thinking about it too. Then in the evening he said, “Do

you remember that fellow on the road that we met with the red

turban?' Then I said, do you think he was an Abdul or

something?” Eruch said, 'No, I don't know. It might have been

Baba because he was very happy, smiling.'

Mani: “And he also laughed.”

Harry: “Yes, as if to say you fool, don't you recognize me or that

kind of an attitude. Eruch also said the same thing. And he only

had business to do with me. Not with Eruch.”

Mani: "No!”

Harry: “You see.

Mehera: Baba told you to come to Meherazad, not to Poona, so

Baba wanted to give you Darshan.”

Harry: “So I said to Eruch, why didn't you let him embrace us

when he came over to us? Eruch said, 'Well, you know how are

you to know what might sing out of something.' I said, “That's

ridiculous he came in a very friendly manner, alright!”

Mani: “I'll tell you something. When Eruch told me the story that

morning, I thought that Eruch usually understates things like this

then over. But even when he began telling me, and he told me

how that man looked, he said something strange happened this

morning. He said, 'Harry and I met this native and he was quite

unusual; he did unusual things. First, he approached us with his

arms out stretched towards Harry and wanted to embrace him.'

Eruch said he was so startled. It was all so sudden that he

automatically put out his hand to stop him. He said to the man,

“What do you want?' But even while Eruch was telling me this,

it was very strange to hear it. One had such a thrill of not

knowing what was coming. Now, after I heard the whole story I

came and told Mehera. Even as I began to tell her, she had that

same kind of look in her eye as I had when Eruch was telling

me. Because she had the same feeling that it was Baba.”

Harry: “Do you think it was Baba?”

Mani: “Yes, I have thought that. I told Mehera and I only just began

telling her that they met a man.”

Harry: “Do you think it was Baba?”

Mehera: "I felt it was Baba."

At this point Harry becomes very animated and excited in his

voice.

Harry: “Fantastic! Because he was a tall gentleman about six foot

or six foot two. He was cleanly dressed, simple but clean with a

properly tied turban. He had just a turban on his head - a red

turban.”

Mani: "We who know natives feel it is most unusual for a man to

come and shake hands like that and come and do that.”

Harry: “Do that, he did that just the way Baba used to do, when He

used to say, 'Oh you haven't shaved.'You know.'

Harry is referring to the times when Baba and he used to

compare the closeness of their shaves, and how Baba would

stroke Harry's chin.

Mani: “Apart from that he didn't say, oh, I know he's a doctor or

who are you, or Ram Ram or anything like that.”

Mehera said, “Did he ask any questions?”.

Harry: “No. But why didn't Eruch let him embrace me. I don't

understand it.”

Mani: “Eruch was also looking down, he was talking to you and

then suddenly he was there, you see. And you had your

apparatus there and suddenly it was automatic for him to do that.

He did contact you, he shook hands.”

Harry: "Oh definitely.”

Mani: "It's the same thing.”

Meheru: “Harry, Mehera says that because you didn't come for the

Darshan in April, Baba's giving you Darshan here.”

Harry laughs heartily and says, “You think that was Baba?”

Mehera: “Yes, definitely!”

Harry: “Really fantastic. I know he wasn't a farmer.”

Mehera: “He took the form of a farmer to come to you.”

Harry: “I said how old are you? What's your age? He said seventy-

five.”

Mehera: “Seventy-five was Baba's

age.”

Harry: “Seventy-five and it was cryptic, a terse answer. He gave

one word answers. He was giggling, laughing, you know, very

happy. Eruch said he was looking at him as though with the

attitude. Fool don't you know who I am? Don't you recognize

me?” Harry says this with a laugh in his voice.

Meheru: “Mehera says a native usually never knows their age and

even if they did they would never outright say it.”

Harry: "He said seventy-five.”

Mehera: “Baba's age. Yes, more signs that Baba gave to you and

yet you did not recognize Him.”

Harry: “I'll be dog gone! That might have been Baba.

Unfortunately, I just didn't remember. Eruch and I were deep in

a certain discussion about Baba.”

Mani: “Baba meant for you to be engrossed and not look back.'

Harry: “That's it, because somehow I didn't say turn around to see

if you could see him. I bet you if he turned around, in ten

seconds, he would have be gone. I bet you he wouldn't have

been on the road. We were on a long stretch of the Rasta road

and you could see way down the road. There were no side roads,

you see. We were right on that main road.”

Meheru: “You didn't get it on your baby either?

Harry: “I don't think so. I think when he stopped, I shut my baby

off. Because we'd been stopped on the road so many times I

figured this is just another incident. So I didn't catch it on the

baby. But he spoke low, like he didn't want to reveal his voice.”

This encounter was caught on Harry's 'baby'. And the previous

taped transcription of Harry and Eruch meeting the farmer with

the red turban was the actual encounter.

Meheru: “What was the voice like Harry?”

Harry: “Well, it was very..... I'll tell you one thing he was very

happy and he was giggling. He was very happy, you know. He

was giggling about something.”

Mani: “You said the hand wasn't like a farmer's.”

Harry: “It wasn't a farmer's. No. It almost felt a little bigger, like

the shape of Baba's hand.”

Mani: “I'll tell you something, a farmer who was seventy-five

years old, his hands would be very much like a farmers.”

Harry: “Oh, this is no farmer. He was straight, he was vigorous,

you know, vigorous, no question about it. There was vigor,

strength and clarity about him. There was nothing old about him.

He was very self-contained and had tremendous self-confidence.

Everything about him was different. He was just different.”

Mani: “And the way he was laughing, he was enjoying the joke,

you see.”

Harry: “He was giggling and he was very happy. And the way he

said jaja, you know.”

Mani: “Keep going”

Harry: “Go on with your walk.”

Harry laughs.

Meheru: “No farmer would have said that.'

Harry: “No farmer, so I knew he wasn't a farmer. So I kept thinking

about it and thinking about it. And I said was he an Abdul, you

know. Eruch said, “No I think it was Baba.' I said, I thought of

that but I don't know.”

Mani: “The jaja was accompanied by gestures, as Eruch showed us.

It was very much like Baba's.”

Harry: “Oh, really?”

Mani: “He said more than that to Eruch, take him for a walk; go on

with your walk.”

Mani demonstrates the gesture to Harry with Harry's own

hands.

Harry: “Fantastic!”

Mehera: “Wonderful experience you had.”

Harry: "It was a marvelous experience. Let's see I think it

happened that morning.”

Mehera: “On Sunday?”

Harry: “Last Sunday morning. So probably that was my Darshan

with Baba, I don't know.”

Mehera: “It shows that Baba is happy with you. He loves you.”

Harry: “Yes, you really feel that was Baba?”

Mehera: "Yes, yes definitely!”

Harry: “Fantastic!”

Mehera: “Baba could take any form He wants.”

Harry: “Any form, ah, I see, because he came taller. He was about

six foot two."

Mehera: “Yes.”

Harry: "He was chesty with broad shoulders. He was a fine looking

man.”

Mani: “Mehera says no Hindu, let alone a farmer, would do this.”

Harry: "He just took my chin, just the way Baba would, just like

that.”

Mani: "No stranger would just approach like that with arms

outstretched. They would first say Ram, Ram, where are you

going? They always go round about.”

Harry: “It was as though he was expecting us on the road. He came

with outstretched arms. I don't remember if I shook hands with

him a second time, I don't remember. It was all so quick.”

Meheru: “He both hid his identity and revealed it at the same time.”

Harry: “I see it was a wonderful experience.”

Mani: “Even shaking hands, a farmer would know that they don't

shake hands. He might have come like this. No, they don't shake

hands."

Harry: “No, he came with his hands just like that. And the rhythm

was like Baba's.”

Mani: “By the time a farmer is seventy-five he would have such

gnarled hands."

Harry: “It was like the shape of Baba's hand

the broad palm.

Because in November, 1968 Baba must have shaken hands with

me three, four or five times. We'd shake hands and He'd say,

'It's a deal.' Then He'd be talking and again He would say, 'It's

a deal.' That's the first time Baba asked me to shake hands with

Him, which was last November.”

Mani: “Oh really?”

Harry: "Oh, yes.”

Mani: “Ah, you mean Baba put out His hand first.”

Harry: “Baba indicated through Eruch, that He wanted to shake

hands. It's a deal, and Baba would say, it's a deal.”

They continued their conversation but now they were asking

Harry how many times he was embraced by Baba.