Just to Love Him

De Simple Silence.

Contents 1 Now You Say It Is All The Whim 2 The Most Precious Thing 3 He Sows The Seed 4 Self-Effacement 5 Blindfolded 6 Wake Up 7 The Avatar 8 Establishing Our Link With Him 9 Everyone Works In His Or Her Own Way

[modifier] Now You Say It Is All The Whim

One evening at Guruprasad before Baba was about to retire, He walked by the building where the mandali resided. He was en route to the small room where He would go for His night’s rest. While passing, a question was brought up. At that time Baba said everything is done by the whim, that we do not do anything.

I said, « Baba, all along You have been telling us that the Avatar does so much ; He changes this and He does that. Now You say it is all the whim.

« Suppose Baba, for example, that the flow of the whim goes in a straight line. One man is here and another is there. The one man has been in penance of God, praying to Him for a number of years. The other man is one of the greatest rogues and scoundrels of the world. They are in their respective places. Can it happen, Baba, in the flow, in the blessings of the whim, that instead of covering this righteous man it covers the scoundrel and purifies him ? »

Baba said yes. I then asked about the men. Baba said, « You do not know, you fool. » I then asked how I could account for that.

He replied, « You only see the present life of the man who is a scoundrel whereas I see the millions of past lives of what he has done before. Perhaps the righteous man was the greatest scoundrel in his previous lives. So I have to explain that when the whim flows, it knows where to go and where not to go. »

[modifier] The Most Precious Thing

One pointed devotion to Meher Baba or His work does not imply that one should give up all other work and responsibilities of life. On the other hand, it means that one should be practical and devoted to doing all the things that one is required to do, including looking after his possessions and all those dependent on him.

From the indications Meher Baba has given, it means that one should be attached to all things and beings conducive to a normal life of helpfulness, happiness and honesty. Let these attachments be skin-deep and attachment to Meher Baba heart-deep. All attachments, except to Meher Baba, one day or another, are to be given up whether one wants them or not. But the attachment to Meher Baba will outlive man’s life and help him to cross the ocean of life and gain eternal bliss for himself.

Meher Baba places alternatives before you as a novice. His is a game of love with no ceremony of initiation, no lure of proselytizing, no coercion, no foisting, no forcing of ideas or injunctions. He just appeals to your heart and lets His words sink into your logical head—if it is logical and not prejudicial.

The pillars of all His adesh and upadesh (messages and discourses), His behests and His advice, are love of God and love of man, obedience, service and charity. Love is the most common possession of every man. It is the most precious thing of his life. All feel this love within themselves, but very few can rightly direct it toward their release from illusion. On the other hand, it is used, misused and abused in pursuit of sex and greed.

[modifier] He Sows The Seed

Every individual has a high skyscraper of his entire being, an accumulation of sanskaras of millions of previous lives. Meher Baba leaves the skyscraper standing as it is. He goes in like a termite into the foundation and carves it out, making the entire foundation hollow. Then He recedes. When the proper time comes, He passes over the whole structure and it topples down in a fraction of a second. No other agency is required to do it. He does it. He sows the seed and the latter result automatically follows.

[modifier] Self-Effacement

One poet has said that all the paraphernalia of the entire creation—the mental world, the physical world and the subtle world—came into being because God is hidden from us ; He is behind the curtain (the ego). Suppose He had not hidden Himself, where would I have been ? I would have been with Him all the time. So this ego, which has been very helpful to us in evolving consciousness, eventually has to be kicked out.

Churchill was the Prime Minister of England during the time of war. Everybody loved him very much. He was a great man who managed to win the war and give encouragement to the entire nation. But the moment the war was won, the populace of England threw him out. They felt that in the days of peace Churchill would not be useful. Similarly, after evolving consciousness, the ego is no longer useful and should be thrown out. But we are not able to do it. The only way is to submit ourselves to the procedure that Meher Baba lays down for us, which is to remain in so-called ignorance all the time and travel the path in absolute safety in His hands. For this He makes us efface our ego. Self-effacement or ego-effacement is easier in an ordinary state of consciousness than on the spiritual path, because on the spiritual path we get many, many experiences ; we assert ourselves. Wherever there is purposeful suffering, there is self-effacement. This is the law.

[modifier] Blindfolded

Meher Baba says in effect, « Be patient. I shall take you blindfolded, and I shall give you the inner strength to withstand the ups and downs of your mind and the ups and downs of the events of the world that have impact on your mind. Rely on Me only and I shall do your work. » But for that you should have conviction which is even greater than faith.

Where will I get this conviction ? Baba says learn to do nothing. You have been doing too many things. To try to do nothing is more difficult than doing everything. It is not possible for us to do nothing. But for us doing nothing means not doing anything by our own volition. Leave it to Him. Be guided by Him all the time. This does not mean that I do not use my free will, but I use it to remember Him and surrender to Him ; then He does everything. And how shall I be guided by Him ? I do not understand if the guidance comes from Meher Baba or if it is created by myself. For this situation, Meher Baba has given a message which is so beautiful, so simple and practical :

Think thoughts you would not hesitate to think in My presence. Speak words you would not hesitate to speak in My presence. And do things you would not hesitate to do in My presence.

That is all—the problem is solved.

I should visualize Him before me. Then whatever thoughts I think, I can ask myself, « Would I ever think these thoughts when He is present before me ? » I will get an answer. If my conscience alone tells me that this thought would be completely and fully endorsed by Meher Baba—that it will be liked by Him—then there is no objection in my thinking that thought as long as I want. There are certain thoughts, I am sure, that He would not like, so I do not think about them.

Similarly with speech, I may utter a word and ask myself if He would like it. If He likes it, then I would go on saying it. If He would not like it, then I should give it up.

Most important are the actions. If I feel His presence before me, would I dare do this ? If my conscience says no, then I can’t do it. If it says yes, then I do it, whatever the action is.

The thought of good or bad should be relegated to the corner of your mind. Ask yourself a question most honestly, and if your heart really says yes, then do whatever it is. But you should be very honest in your asking and listening.

It all boils down to this : self-effacement contains the spiritual path but the spiritual path does not contain self-effacement. If we go through the spiritual path there are a lot of dangers, and we may not be able to go to the end of our journey. But if we go blindfolded under the guidance of our Master who is Perfect, and try our best to exercise self-effacement, then we are absolutely safe.

He gives the inner strength. And the inner strength and the inner conviction that Meher Baba gives us in the state of our ordinary consciousness is more powerful that what a man going on the spiritual path experiences of the higher states. This is because both the ordinary state of consciousness and all the stages of the inner path are drowned in the ocean of illusion. The aim of life is to get away from the state of duality and merge ourselves into unity. Even if one is on the sixth plane of consciousness, he is able to see the existence of God everywhere, but cannot unite with Him.

Many, many people who get stranded on the way are going through many types of practices, and they do not know the way. How could one really travel the path unless he knows the path himself ? It is a leap in the dark. If I do not know where the next step lies and where I should take a jump, I could break my ankle, knee or backbone. This sort of progress is absolutely in the dark. But Meher Baba knows the path. That is why He asks you to be quiet, have patience, have faith, have conviction about Him, and love Him ; and He will do all your work.

My only end and aim should be to do as one poet says, « Out of all my sincerity and love, I place my heart at Your feet. Now it is up to You to bless me anyway You like ; it is not in my hands. » The things which are in His hands, I should let Him do. The things which are in my hands, I should do. But I should not try to overstep my knowledge or authority and poke my nose into things Meher Baba wants to do by asking Him the question, « When shall I get God-realization ? » In the very asking of the question, I doubt His knowledge.

If we really believe that Meher Baba has one hundred percent knowledge of everything, then does He not know when we are going to get God-realization ? Must we ask Him the question ? We should not place ourselves in this position in our relationship with Meher Baba. However, all are not equally gifted to be strong. There will be many, many persons who ask all these questions, and of course they eventually will come to know that it is very foolish on their part. They could ask these questions of other masters. Masters who are on the first, second, third, fourth, fifth or even sixth plane can advance one to their plane, but they can never take one out of illusion and unite one with God. So Meher Baba is not a half-way business.

Someone has asked if Meher Baba takes everybody blindfolded. For those who love Him, the answer is yes. But there are certain exceptions. Suppose a man is a yogi who has gone a long way on his own. Contrary to us who are on the path that Meher Baba has made for us to traverse blindfolded, this yogi has gone his own way. One day he comes in contact with Meher Baba who asks him to do something for Him. This yogi cannot take a jump from where he is to the right road that Meher Baba has established. He has to be brought down to start again. That is the difficulty. So for yogis or such persons who have gone through a lot of exercises in their lives, it is a different question which does not generally apply to us since we are whole-hearted lovers of Meher Baba. If I am a sincere Baba-lover, I do not bother about the path. What do I want ? I want His Reality. Whether it is a path or a bath, I do not bother about it.

Followers of Meher Baba cannot be found by the millions or even thousands at a time. We do not find diamonds by the thousands or millions. Pebbles, on the other hand, do exist by the thousands, millions and billions. We can go on the dunes and find many pebbles, but are they diamonds ? Certain pearls have a brightness, but it is an imitation brightness. They are not real pearls but cultured pearls. We are attracted by them and want to own them. Eventually we find that they are not real pearls. In real pearls, the true followers of Meher Baba, there is a real longing and a real love. That is why they are not commonly placed. Meher Baba is for all, but Meher Baba is also for those persons who have a real longing.

People have asked me the question, « Since Meher Baba is the Avatar and is so powerful, why aren’t there millions of people running after Him ? » Were there millions of people running after Christ ? No, only a handful of fishermen. Look at the life of Krishna. Look at the life of Zoroaster. Look at the life of Buddha. They were shunned. They were molested by humanity, crucified by humanity. They were not yogis, but the Avatar. That name lives forever, for all time. Anyone who came in His contact was taken through blindfolded to the head of the path.

Again the question turns to Meher Baba, « What shall I do if I am too weak to remain in the darkness of my ignorance while clinging to that conviction and that love ? » Meher Baba explains that it is all right, that He recognizes your weaknesses. He does not expect you to be a stalwart, to be very strong ; but there is a way out if you listen to Him. You must be prepared to do one thing. Can you make a decision today, a wholehearted decision, that you shall obey Meher Baba and try to love Him as much as He wants ? Do you want this ? Then you have made a decision. Make it wholeheartedly, not half-heartedly. Do not try to fool yourself. But do not worry about your weaknesses. The decision is in your hands. If you want to get the degree of master of hearts, then you must make a wholehearted decision now whether or not to take up the course. Meher Baba says to decide now. In the vein of the Perfect Master Kabir, if you want to make a decision tomorrow, decide it today. And if you want to decide it today, then decide it at this moment. The time will pass out of your hands, and when are you going to do it ?

There is a very simple, logical and practical thing within the means of any man. If you do not want this, then wait and just go on floating in the ocean of uncertainty in your life until you are able to decide.

When you really want to become 100% Meher Baba’s, listen to Him and do what He wants you to do. You will still have weaknesses. Meher Baba knows it. But if you are staunch, if you are strong, if you are steady, if you are unchanging in your decision, then the weaknesses will not matter. If you make mistakes, then go before Meher Baba like a child, and in the style of Hafiz say to Him, « If You do not like me, if You do not like my actions, please pardon me and change my destiny. You call yourself the Avatar—why don’t You do it ? » But you will have the claim to ask Him that question only when you wholeheartedly decide—not otherwise, sir. You cannot have it both ways.

You are not expected to be born a saint. Meher Baba knows all the weaknesses of every human being. They are there, but they should not take us away from making a firm, unchanging, wholehearted, most honest decision right now. Mistakes are all right. If you want to obey and love Meher Baba, then your heart will tell you that you should please Meher Baba in every way, in spite of your weaknesses. To please Him is to obey Him.

Honest mistakes can be made like a child’s. If you displease Him, then ask His pardon, correct yourself and go forward. That is all. Do not brew and repent much over the mistakes that have taken place by your hand. But instead, use your energy to prevent repeating the mistakes in the future. That is exactly what Baba wants.

You may repent for awhile, but do not go on repenting all the time, forming a habit of it. Rather use your energy to make up your mind not to repeat the same mistake. That is all. It is as simple as the error, provided that you are motivated and want to improve.

If you want to do it, you will be able to do it. A man may say that he is too weak, that is not possible for him to do it. But I say, « You are not weak ; rather you don’t want to do it. » We have seen many cases where people, who have formed habits for the last twenty, thirty or forty years, have given up their habit overnight, in a very short time. How could they do it ? One man takes one day to do it, another man takes ten days, and another takes ten months. It depends on your sincerity and honesty of purpose.

Someone has asked about detachment or renunciation. Your detachment should not be born out of indifference to your ego. Rather your detachment should stem from knowing the importance of your ego and being aware of your attachment to it ; and from this position you become detached.

Suppose I see a great treasure before me. I am very attracted to it because I know its value. Still I am not concerned ; I remain detached. This renunciation is of great value to me. But if the same treasure is placed before a child who does not know its value, he cannot be said to be detached from it. A man may say, « I renounce everything, » but maybe he does not have anything to renounce ! He may not have had a penny in his pocket. What is the value of this renunciation ? One may say, « Oh, I am a great renunciate ! » « What did you renounce ? » « Nothing. I did not have anything. » « But probably if you had something, you would stick to it very hard. » One needs the chance of owning something first in order to be able to renounce it. So the renunciation can only come into prominence if one first knows the value of a certain possession that he has.

[modifier] Wake Up

God eludes our attention. We are not able to understand Him. Even though we are thinking with our minds, through our logic, all the actions of our lives are really not always logical. There are many, many actions which are most illogical. We try to understand Meher Baba by applying the yardstick of our logic to measure His height and depth. We absolutely fail because logic cannot grasp the Truth. At most, it can give us a little intellectual understanding. But what actual Reality is can never be experienced by the mind.

Baba says that we need not do any sadhana (spiritual discipline). We need not do any yoga or puja (the path of attainment which usually emphasizes external observance of religious rituals). We do not have to exert ourselves in this manner at all to understand Him, feel Him and see Him. Baba says that He resides in our hearts twenty-four hours of the day, and if we really want to see Him and feel Him—feel His presence—we can do it.

The poet Hafiz was a Perfect Master (Sadguru) from Iran. An idea that Hafiz expresses is that if you want to see the presence of God, the presence of the Avatar in your heart, you also must be present there ; do not keep yourself absent from your own heart. Do not run after your desires. Do not go outside of your heart. Keep yourself present in your heart so that you will be able to see and feel Him there.

Our spiritual growth should unfold with no great labor in a most natural manner. I will give you an example. A child is born to parents, and he grows. We do not know how the child grows. The child at one time is a small baby, then he grows to two feet, three feet, four feet, six feet. How does he grow ? In the most natural circumstances. The child doesn’t need to do any sadhana, or yoga or puja, and yet he grows. We cannot observe how he does this, yet he grows in the most natural manner.

Meher Baba says, « I have instilled the growth of that soul in you, of that atma in you, of that spirituality in you, so that it unfolds in the most natural way. You need not do any acrobatics of the mind, any sadhana, nor undergo a long fast nor a long penance. » You need not sit on top of the Himalaya Mountains to understand and feel Him. You need not go on any pilgrimages. You need not go to Nasik or Hardwar. You need not go to Kailas. What is left ? God is everywhere. God is equally placed everywhere. He is as much in your house as in His Kailas. What is the importance of Kailas ? Baba says, « I am in you, in your heart. » Do not try to seek Him anywhere else except in your own heart.

Naturally you may ask the question, « Baba says that He resides in my heart, but how do I find Him ? How do I know Him ? How do I understand Him ? How do I feel Him ? » Shall I ask you a simple question ? Do you love your child ? Do you love your mother ? Do you love your father ? Does a husband love his wife ? Do I love my friend ? Do I love my teacher ? This love is already there. Nobody has taught you how to love your father. I was never taught how to love my brother. A woman was never taught how to love her husband. The husband never had to be educated on how to love his wife. It is there already within you. You just have to make use of what already exists within you.

By loving Baba wholeheartedly, you can get everything. But don’t ask ! -- then you will get everything. The Perfect Master Kabir—you may have heard his name—has said that if you do not ask and He gives it to you, what comes to you is something like pure milk. If you ask and He gives it to you, it is like water. And if you try to extract it from Him, pestering Him all the time, « Fulfill my desire ! » « Give me this ! » it is like blood. Have faith in Him. Does not a child have faith in his mother ? A child is not able to look after himself. But the mother looks after the child. We must become a child before God, Meher Baba, and entrust ourselves to Him ; then He will give us everything. Baba wants only our love—unselfish, pure, unadulterated, simple love—and nothing else.

Because of a relationship, you love all your friends, your parents, and so forth. So with Meher Baba, you have to establish your relationship, and then of course, you begin loving Him. And this relationship is established by creating circumstances in which you grow in love for Him. These very circumstances, this environment, are greatly responsible for evoking love in your heart. I shall give you an instance to that effect. A woman gives birth to a child. At the time of birth, the child is removed from the real mother and taken to another woman in whose charge the child is reared. By the circumstances created, the child begins loving the false mother as if she were the real mother, and when the real mother comes before the child, the child turns his face and says, « You’re not my mother. I do not love you at all. She is my mother ! » I am just giving an example of how circumstances are responsible for the growth of love.

Baba says, « I reside in your heart all the time, twenty-four hours, every minute of your life. I am there with every breath that you breathe. With every heartbeat, I am there. The only thing is for you to create the circumstances by which you will be able to love Me. »

[modifier] The Avatar

For man there is a limitation of time and space. For God there is no limitation of time and space because He is everywhere at all times. For the God-Man or Avatar, there is no limitation of time and space as God; but as man He assumes the limitation of time and space to make man free of his limitations. The Avatar is unique inasmuch as He is one with and conscious of everything and every being at all times. He is unique because He is commonly not understood yet most commonly lives in everything and every being. He is the Lord of all. He is the Master of Servitude of all. He has a physical body, alternating His descent in different human forms on earth with the exigency of time and the needs of man. He has a subtle body to balance Universal Energy to the requirements of man. He has a mental body to focus the Universal Mind for the guidance of individual minds. He has a Universal Body to always maintain His link with the earth for a periodical descent on it in an individual body. He has the Universal ego and the Universal Consciousness to sustain His individuality and consciousness of God. What an all-comprehensive existence and life! Nothing is excluded from Him. Everything is included in Him. Even God, in His beyond the Beyond state, fails to fulfill the condition of being God-and-illusion-conscious at one and the same time. God, having divested His consciousness to the state and authority of the Avatar, exists and lives consciously at all times as the Avatar. For Avatar Meher Baba, His body was not for Himself but for others. The difference for us is between the joy of our looking at His face, at His inimitable smile, and the pain of our missing Him. We have to reconcile the Truth of His physical existence with His eternal life to which we owe a conviction — the conviction that has been given to us by Him in His oft-repeated message, "Hold on the My daaman till the very end." What is the end? The end is not that of our body but of our desires and eventually of our minds. The death of the physical body is the life of the mind, and the death of the mind is God-consciousness. The evolution of the latent consciousness in God was a necessary urge. The urge created an impression and the impression created a mind. The mind gave rise to a gross body as a medium of expression. Of course the mind outlasts the body. When millions of bodies are taken up and discarded from stone, metal and vegetation to fish, insect, bird, beast and man, the mind remains the same. It changes only in its texture, not in substance. It is born once and dies once. When the mind dies, pure consciousness remains, and that is God-consciousness. The Avatar is at all times the sole balancing power between Absolute God and illusion. He ever resides in both and is in perfect identity with them. Our prayers to God should be to bless us to exceed the limitations of our minds so that we can experience His true glory. Our prayers to God eventually are responded to by the Avatar in whom is vested the supreme command of creation. Then why not pray to the Avatar in a more direct way?

[modifier] Establishing Our Link With Him

As Baba has said, "I do not change your destiny, but the one thing I do give you is inner strength, and by that inner strength you can fight the battle of life." He will not remove our difficulties. He wants us to fight our difficulties and He will give us the strength, like Arjuna, to fight our enemies. He wants us to become warriors in our lives — not to turn our faces away from life, not to do sannyas or go into seclusion.

We must each face our life in a very positive way. Baba is behind us. We can derive all the benefits from Him, provided we fulfill the condition of establishing our link with Him by virtue of unselfish, pure, unadulterated love. Meher Baba, the personification of God, is not attracted by anything; not our talents, our money, our beauty or even, I would say, our service, unless of course, that service is most unselfishly born out of pure love. Meher Baba is only attracted by our pure love and nothing else.

[modifier] Everyone Works In His Or Her Own Way

A mother loves her child and can teach him or her everything she knows; but Meher Baba has the whole family of humanity to look after. This may sound fantastic, but it is true.

From a reservoir water can flow to every nook and corner of a town, house, garden or street, but no one can make use of it unless the pipelines are laid and the required water-flow is channeled and directed. Likewise, the sense of doing Baba-work could be attributed to this need for a pipeline system.

Work can be done in many ways. Creating a center offers people a facility for coming together to sing, pray and discourse. This is one of the ways of doing Baba-work collectively.

There are some Baba-lovers who for years have been working and sacrificing silently and undemonstratively, giving all they can to uphold the truth of their love and conviction, which they accept as a gift from their Beloved Baba.

Everyone works in his or her own way. Some work comes to the view of others; other work may remain ever concealed, known only to the doer and the one for whom it is done. Such work has its own charm, strength and merit. It stays like unflamed fire, ever warm and potent.

Adi K. Irani. Published by Sheriar Press. © 1985 AMBPPCT