Messages of Meher Baba

MESSAGES
OF
MEHER BABA
DELIVERED IN THE EAST AND WEST
Compiled by
ADI K. IRANI
Published by:
ADI K. IRANI
For the Publication Committee
Meher Baba Universal Spiritual Centre
King's Road, Ahmednagar, India.
Re. 1/8
Printed by
R. B. HIRAY
Mohan Printers
Station Road, Ahmednagar
"I have come not to teach but to awaken."
Meher Baba
CONTENTS
Page
1 Foreword
2 Biographical Sketch of Meher Baba …… 1
3 Messages Delivered in the East:
To India on His Fourth Voyage to Europe
1923-33 … … … … … … … 5
4 To All Faiths’ Conference at Nasik−June 1933 6
5 Fortieth Birthday Message to Saidapet Ashram,
Madras−February 1934 … … 6
6 To the “Meher Gazette” on the Eve of His Eighth Voyage
to the West−November 1934 … … … … … …
… ... 7
7 Forty-third Birthday Message at Nasik−February 1937
… … … … … 8
8 On the Foundation Day, 17th December, 1939 of the
Universal Spiritual Centre at Byramangala near
Bangalore … … … 9
9 Love … … … … … … … 11
10 The Seven Realities … … … … 12
11 The New Humanity … … … … 13
12 The Travail of the New World Order … 22
13 The Spiritual Significance of the Present War … …
… … … … … 26
14 Action and Inaction … … … … 34
15 The Need for Creative Leadership in India … …
… … … … … 37
16 Violence and Non-violence … … … 42
17 We Must Live for God and Die for God 49
18 Work for the Spiritual Freedom of Humanity … …
… … … … 50
19 The Task for Spiritual Workers … … 55
20 The Modern Youths … … … … 63
21 God and Religion … … … … … 65
22 God as the Only Reality … … … 67
23 God as Love … … … … … … 69
Page
24 Message of Cheer and Hope to Suffering Humanity …
… … … … … 71
25 The Dynamism of Love … … … 73
26 The Unity of All Life … … … … 74
27 The Unquenching Fire of Spiritual Longing … … …
… … … ... 76
28 The Divine Heritage of Man … … ... 78
29 The Hidden Treasure of the Self … … 80
30 Messages Delivered in the West:
To “Paramount Newsreel” on arrival in London on 10th
April, 1932 … … … 83
31 To Reporters and Press Representatives aboard
“Bremen”, New York, on 19th May, 1932 … … …
… … … 84
32 At the Reception Given in His honour at the Residence of
Mr. Phelps Stokes, New York, on 22nd May, 1932 …
… 88
33 To Reporters in Hollywood (California) on 31st May,
1932 … … … … … 90
34 At a General Reception in Knicker-bocker Hotel,
Hollywood (California) on 31st May, 1932 … … 94
35 At “Pickfair House”, Beverly Hills, Hollywood, on 1st
June, 1932 … … 97
FOREWORD
________
We, the human race, stand before two problems: one, the world
as it is today, and the other, the world as it should be in the years
that lie ahead. What it should be, and how to make it so is the
preoccupation, not only of the world's leaders, but of every man
and woman alive.
Behind the veil of a demi-peace and an unfinished war is a

background of terrible suffering which must be relieved. That
have been hitherto so many answers that even the leaders at the
world's conference tables have found it difficult to draft decisions,
because they find themselves confronted by the protagonists of
opposing ideas.
Between the covers of this book is an answer. The reader may

consider that he has heard such an answer before. But there are, I
think, differences. First and foremost, the advice is grounded on
direct Spiritual Knowledge. Secondly, there is, in some of these
pages, a warning that to camouflage weakness and material
advantage with our ethical veneer is dangerous, and solves
nothing. Thirdly, there is an assertion that if our life is centred in a
search for God, everything will go well; that there is no need to
evade the applications of science nor the differences inherent in
life, because
the search for God unites everyone and everything and is at the
root of the meaning of life. There is finally an assertion that Shri
Meher Baba has Himself come to help the world over this painful
phase in its destiny.
The Messages gathered here have been grouped in two sections:

(1) those delivered in the East and (2) those delivered in the
West, and placed in order of time and the reader should bear in
mind the audience and the period of each message if he would
reap its full measure. Each is addressed to the world at large or to
a section of it, and deals, therefore, with current affairs, rather than
with the ups and downs of spiritual life.
We should, I think, be grateful to Adi K. Irani for his inspiration

to collect these Messages into a single volume since, though many
may have copies of the individual messages, few possess a
complete collection which has been brought together for the first
time.
October 1945 Dr. William Donkin
___________
(1)
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF
MEHER BABA
MEHER BABA was born of Persian parents at Poona, India in

1894. His father, Sheriar Irani, was a real seeker of God and a
great Sufi. Meher Baba attended school and college at Poona. His
spiritual life began with his momentous visit to Hazrat Babajan,
the Spiritually Perfect Master, when he was nineteen and still a
student at Deccan College. This meeting brought about a spiritual
transformation of his consciousness and made him aware of his
Divine Mission.
In 1914, Meher Baba's absorption in God-consciousness led to

his being completely unconscious of the things of the world; and
he remained in this transcended state for nine months. After this
period he visited certain saints of India until he met Sadguru
Upasani Maharaj, who helped him to come down to normal
consciousness. So after years of close contact with his second
Spiritual Master, in 1921, Meher Baba, retaining his God-
consciousness, regained his normal knowledge of the world and
became a Perfect Master.
During the following two years, Meher Baba wrote an account of

the Divine experience. This book has not been read by anyone. It
will be published after his world manifestation. Upon completing
the manuscript, he laid down his pen and has not written a line
since, except his signature. Meher Baba's articles are dictated
through the medium of his alphabet-board. He is well versed in six
languages including English.
The early period of Meher Baba's life as a Spiritual Master can

be conveniently divided into three parts
(2)
according to the places where he lived: (l) The hut on the Fergus-
son College Road, Poona, where he drew around him his first
close disciples; (2) Manzil-e-Meem, at Dadar, Bombay; this stay
was chiefly devoted to the training of his mandali (close
disciples) for an arduous spiritual life; (3) Meherabad, Ahmed-
nagar (Bombay Presidency) where a new colony was established
and has been his headquarters ever since. Here under Meher
Baba's guidance the disciples put into practice their training in
selfless service. Interesting activities of the Meherabad Colony
were: The Hazrat Babajan School, where the students received
free schooling; Meher Ashram, a free boarding house for students,
one particular branch of which was for the spiritual awakening of
the selected candidates; Dharmashala or Free Shelter for the
migrant poor; and The Meher Charitable Hospital and Dispensary.
Meher Baba also took personal interest in the upliftment of the
depressed classes, and in all the institutions no distinction was
made between Brahmin or Untouchable who mingled in common
fellowship under the inspiration of the Master. His disciples of
the Colony were of all creeds, and among his Hindu disciples, even
the caste distinctions came to be abolished.
From July 10th 1925, Meher Baba began to observe SILENCE.

The use of his present alphabet-board by which he points to the
letters and digits for communication, came later in 1927. His
silence for spiritual reasons continues until this day. It is a prelude
to his manifestation.
Other characteristics of Meher Baba's life are that he frequently

retires into seclusion, and observes long fasts. These periods of
seclusion are periods of intensive
(3)
spiritual working on the higher planes of cosmic consciousness

for the good of all humanity. Alternating with periods of complete
retirements, Meher Baba leads a dynamic life of activity.
In 1931, Meher Baba first toured the West, visiting principally

England and America and it was at this time that he first contacted
many of his Western disciples. Since that date altogether he has
visited the West nine times, and five times he has encircled the
globe. His disciples to-day are of many nationalities, classes and
creeds, for the Truth underlying every religion is the emblem of
Meher Baba's teaching.
In 1936, a group of Western disciples joined Meher Baba at the

Meher Retreat in Nasik, India. This period of training was to
develop his international crew of selfless helpers whose service
will be capable of universal application.
A new period of training for Western disciples began in 1938 at

Ahmednagar, when, for the first time, Meher Baba joined, in
Meherabad Colony life and activities, the Westerners with his
Eastern disciples, many of whom had been with him since twenty
years.
In addition to the above, Meher Baba established in Ahmednagar

District a unique Ashram for the "God-Mad" (spiritually advanced
souls who are apparently mad ) and he personally serves them.
The Divinity in him, through the physical touch, when looking
after their physical needs, fills the minds of these "God-Mad" men
with consciousness, their hearts being already filled with love.
Also, of late, Meher Baba has taken special interest in contacting

masts (God-intoxicated persons who are
(4)
immersed in bliss and unconscious of the body), and for this work
he has journeyed throughout India and Ceylon. This individual
contact results not only singly, but also collectively, in the sense
that these spiritual contacts are not solely beneficial for the masts,
but also help Baba's Universal Spiritual work, through their co-
operating in his work as assistants.
Meher Baba's plans for the future include twelve Spiritual

Centres, one of which is the long-established Meherabad Colony,
about 200 hundred miles from Bombay, and another is in process
of construction in South India, near Bangalore, Mysore State. This
Universal Spiritual Centre, when completed, shall offer to every
type of person the unique opportunity to acquire spiritual training,
knowledge and experience, according to the longing and ability of
the person.
________________
(5)
MESSAGES DELIVERED IN THE EAST

________
Message to India on His Fourth Voyage to

Europe, 1932-33
India is a spiritual country. It possesses the most fortunate and

unique position in the world of being the land of saints and
spiritual masters since ages. Therefore the spiritual atmosphere of
India must be kept up even at the cost of being in bondage and
materially unhappy.*
It does not matter how much India suffers, as long as its spiritual
power and value are retained. Moreover, the result of its present
suffering will be freedom and happiness.
It is only after experiencing bondage and misery that true value

of freedom and happiness is really appreciated.
But to bring this suffering to an earlier end, there must be love

for friend and foe, goodwill, patience and forbearance. Also, India
should try to remedy its own defects instead of clamoring at the
faults of others. And the hatred between the leading communities
and their petty yet disastrous quarrels and fights, must cease—and
the freedom and happiness of India are ensured.
The world will soon realize that neither cults, creeds, dogmas,
religious ceremonies, lectures and sermons on the one hand, nor,
on the other hand, ardent seeking for material welfare or physical
pleasures, can ever bring about real happiness—but that only
selfless love and universal brotherhood can do it.
*Shri Baba does not deny material well-being or freedom, but if

this is to be had at the cost of spiritual freedom, then material
freedom be sacrificed and spiritual freedom be upheld.
(6)
Message to All Faiths Conference at Nasik, June 1933
( Read by Mr. Ramjoo Abdulla )
I very much appreciate this idea of coming together of the

representatives of different faiths which, in fact, are based but on
one and the same principle—faith itself. The medium, the
surroundings and the settings may be different. It may be formed
of images or imagination; it may be based on the intellectual
conviction or an emotional impression, yet, the central Jewel of a
Faith is just the same. There are no two kinds of faiths. Faith is
the last thing to be labeled. The only question could be of a strong
faith or a weak faith. Some hold it to the point of forms and
ceremonies only, and some, going beyond this, stick to the kernel,
eschewing the crust, either believing in Impersonal Infinite
Existence, or believing in one's own Master. So it is only a
question of degrees. Unless and until there is complete Realization,
which is the goal of all faiths, faith is faith after all, call it blind or
call it otherwise. Once God is realized, there is no question of faith
at all, just as there is no question of faith for a man to believe that
he is a man; because one then, having transcended the boundaries
of faith, feels oneself identified with the Infinite and finds the One
Self manifested everywhere
Please convey my blessings to all.
Shri Meher Baba's Fortieth Birthday Message to Saidapet

Ashram Madras, Feb. 1934
( Read by Mr. B. K. Sarosh Irani

in Shri Baba's presence )
The reason of my coming here all the way from one end of the
country to the other to participate personally in your celebrations is
your love that has irresistibly
(7)
drawn me to you. Love is a mighty force. It not only enables one to

put the ideal of selfless service into practice, but would transform
one into God. With Love, one can follow any of the yogas most
suitable to his or her temperament. It will enable an aspirant to
follow the rigid principles underlying the spiritual path, and,
where and when necessary, make him turn his back to the worldly
pleasures for the sake of union with the Beloved.
Where there is Love, there is Oneness; and there can be no
question of any particular religion or caste or system, superiority or
inferiority, and touchability or untouchability. That these distinct-
ions are not real has been proved in a way by the recent earthquake
tragedy. The earthquake in Bihar was simply a manifestation of
one of the laws of nature. And that disaster spared none, rich or
poor, high or low, belonging to this religion or that. It was not
divine wrath. It is an eye-opener to the fact that where God and
His laws are concerned, there is no question of caste, creed or
country.
But to realize this natural equality permanently, one has to sub-
mit to the greatest law of God, which is Love. It holds the key to
all problems, inasmuch as, under this law, the Infinite is realized
completely at all times in every walk of life, be it science, art,
religion or beauty. May the world realize this highest aspect of
Divinity more and more.
To the "Meher Gazette" on the Eve of Eighth Voyage to the

West, November 15th, 1934
Those who are united in Love know no separation. Wherever I

am, wherever you are, I am always with you.
My Love and Blessings to you all.
(8)
Shri Meher Baba's 43rd Birthday Message

At Nasik
( Read by Mr. R. K. Sarosh Irani, February, l937 )
The incident of birth is common to all life on earth. Unlike other

living creatures which are born insignificantly, which live an
involuntary life and which die an uncertain death, physical birth of
human beings connotes an important and, if they are extra
circumspect about it, perhaps a final stage of their evolutionary
progress. Here onwards, they are no longer automatons, but
masters of their destiny, which they can shape and mould
according to will. And this means that human beings, having
passed through all the travails of lower evolutionary processes,
should insist upon the reward thereof, which is 'Spiritual Birth' in
this very life, and not rest content with a promise in the hereafter.
No sooner one recoils on himself and is eagerly anxious to elicit

replies to interrogative intro- spection 'Whither and Whence',
surely, such a one may be said to have had 'Spiritual Birth'. This
poise of mind once gained, it automatically and unknowingly
brings about a re-adjustment of material surroundings, and the man
finds himself in harmony and at peace with the world.
Conservatism, intolerance, pride and selfishness will be shed off.
Everything will put on a new meaning and assume a purpose.
Sinner and saint will appear to be waves, differing in size and
magnitude, on the surface of the same ocean, a natural outcome of
forces in the universe, governed by time and causation. The saint
has neither the pride of place, nor the sinner the stigma of eternal
degradation. Nobody is utterly lost and nobody need despair.
(9)
My panacea to the worried world is the effort on its part to get an

answer to the question 'Whither and Whence'. The knowledge that
all have the same beginning and the same end, with life on earth a
happy interlude, will go a long way in making the Brotherhood of
Man a reality on earth, and this, in turn, will strike at the root of
narrow communalism and rigid nationa1isms, which mean wars
and economic exploitation. I bless you all for the realization of
this, the aim of life.
Message Given on the Foundation Day of the Universal

Spiritual Centre at Byramangala near Bangalore, 17th
December 1939
(Read by the late C. V. Sampath Aiyangar)
The world is at War to-day.

It has engulfed all departments of life—political, economic,
social and religious. The instinct of self-preservation enhanced by
fear and uncertainty of the future is aggressively active in the guise
of various pseudonyms and catch-words.
Exclusiveness is parading as nationalism; self-interest is known
as economics; fanaticism is synonymous with religion; libertinism
is looked upon as social and moral freedom; and exploitation is
termed politics.
This instinct of self-preservation is legitimate and natural with
the lower order of life, in the scale of evolution. But when it
expresses itself through man, it makes of him nothing more than a
talking animal, and as such, he is yet a long way off from
deserving the title, "the best of creation".
Is it anybody's fault if one finds himself on the right side of
things or the wrong side of things? No! Every human being has
come to serve and achieve a definite
(10)
purpose, and, by playing his part to perfection, he automatically

works out his own salvation.
There is this difference however. In the divine scheme of things,
individuals or peoples when instead of progressing higher and
onward, are about to lapse into bestiality, it is suffering that
rehabilitates them.
Spiritual Masters achieve for humanity this same resurrection
much more easily and less painfully by not only preaching but
translating into fulfilment the too familiar words, self-denial and
brotherhood of man, whose very beginning and whose ultimate end
is LOVE.
The time for such a universal awakening is looming large in the
near future, to meet which, the scheme of a Universal Spiritual
Centre is founded to-day.
Mysore will surely realize at no distant date its singular good
fortune in possessing amongst many progressive features, the
Spiritual Capital of the world as well.
I bless everyone of you, participants and non-participants, in the
greatest scheme of spiritual regeneration the world has ever known
and the foundation of which you have witnessed to-day.
This scheme of a Universal Spiritual Centre symbolises the
character of my Divine Mission on earth.
I bless you.
_________
(11)
LOVE*
Love is different from lust. In lust, there is a reliance upon the

object of sense and consequent spiritual subordination of the soul
in relation to it; but love puts the soul into direct and co-ordinate
relation with the Reality which is behind the form. Therefore, lust
is experienced as being heavy and love is experienced as being
light. In lust, there is a narrowing down of life, and in love there is
an expansion of being. To have loved one soul is like adding its
life to your own; your life is, as it were multiplied and you
virtually live in two centres. If you love the whole world, you
vicariously live in the whole world. But in lust there is the ebbing
down of life and the general sense of hopeless dependence upon a
form which is regarded as another. Thus, in lust there is the
accentuation of separateness and suffering; but in love—there is
the feeling of unity and joy. Lust is dissipation, love is recreation.
Lust is a craving of the senses; love is the expression of the spirit.
Lust seeks fulfilment, but love experiences fulfilment. In lust,
there is excitement; but in love there is tranquility.
Divine Love is qualitatively different from human love. Human
love is for the many in the One and Divine Love is for the One in
the many. Human love leads to innumerable complications and
tangles; but Divine Love leads to integration and freedom. In
Divine Love, the personal and the impersonal aspects are equally
balanced; but in human love the two aspects are in alternate
ascendancy. Human love in its personal and impersonal aspects is
limited; but Divine Love with its fusion of the personal and the
impersonal aspects is infinite in being and expression.
* Extract from an article on 'LOVE' by MEHER BABA,

reprinted from the Meher Baba Journal, February 1940.
(12)
THE SEVEN REALITIES
Existence, Love, Sacrifice, Renunciation,

Knowledge, Control and Surrender
The Era of Spiritual Awakening that Meher Baba has in view,

gives no importance to creed, dogma, caste systems, and the
performance of religious ceremonies and rites, but to the
UNDERSTANDING of the following seven Realities:—
1. The only Real Existence is that of the One and only God, who
is the Self in every ( finite ) self.
2. The only Real Love is the Love for this Infinity (God), which
arouses an intense longing to see, know, and become one with its
Truth (God).
3. The only Real Sacrifice is that in which, in pursuance of this
Love, all things, body, mind, position, welfare, and even life itself,
are sacrificed.
4. The only Real Renunciation is that which abandons, even in
the midst of worldly duties, all selfish thoughts and desires.
5. The only Real Knowledge is the Knowledge that God is the
inner dweller in good people and so-called bad, in saint and so-
called sinner. This Knowledge requires you to help all equally as
circumstances demand, without expectation of reward, and when
compelled to take part in a dispute, to act without the slightest
trace of enmity, or hatred; to try to make others happy with
brotherly or sisterly feeling for each one; to harm no one in
thought, word, or deed, not even those who harm you.
6. The only Real Control is the discipline of the senses from
indulgence in low desires, which alone ensures absolute purity of
character.
7. The only Real Surrender is that in which the poise is
undisturbed by any adverse circumstance and the individual,
amidst every kind of hardship, is resigned with perfect calm to the
will of God.
___________________
(13)
THE NEW HUMANITY
AS in the great critical periods of human history, humanity is

now going through the agonising travail of rebirth. Great forces of
destruction are afoot and might seem to be dominant at the
moment. But constructive and creative forces, which will redeem
humanity, are also being released through several channels. And
though the working of these forces of light is chiefly silent, it is
eventually bound to bring about those transformations, which will
make the further spiritual sojourn of humanity safe and steady. It
is all a part of the Divine Plan, which is to give to the hungry and
weary world a fresh dispensation of the eternal and only Truth.
At present the urgent problem, with which humanity is faced, is

to devise ways and means of eliminating competition, conflict and
rivalry in all the subtle and gross forms, which they assume in the
various spheres of life. Military wars are of course the most
obvious among the sources of chaos and destruction. However,
wars in themselves do not constitute the central problem for
humanity, but are rather the external symptoms of something
graver which is at their root. Wars and the suffering which they
bring cannot be completely avoided by a mere propaganda
against wars; if they are to disappear from human history, it is
necessary to tackle their root-cause. Even when military wars are
not being waged, individuals or groups of individuals are
constantly engaged in economic or some other subtle form of
warfare; and the military wars, with all the cruelty which they
involve, arise only when these underground causes are aggravated.
(14)
The root-cause of the chaos, which precipitates itself in wars, is

that most persons are in the grip of egoism and selfish
considerations ; and they express their egoism and self-interest
individually as well as collectively. This is the life of illusory
values in which men are caught. To face the Truth is to realize
that life is one, in and through its manifold manifestations; and to
have this understanding is to forget the limiting self in the
realization of the unity of life.
With the dawn of this true understanding, the problem of wars

would immediately disappear. Wars have to be so clearly seen to
be both unnecessary and unreasonable that the immediate problem
would not be to stop wars, but to wage them spiritually against the
attitude of mind responsible for such a cruel and painful state of
things. In the light of the Truth of the unity of all, life co-operative
and harmonious becomes natural and inevitable. Hence, the chief
task before those, who are deeply concerned with the rebuilding of
humanity, is to do their utmost in dispelling the spiritual ignorance
which envelops humanity.
Wars do not arise merely to secure material adjustment; they are

often the product of uncritical identification with the narrow
interests which, through association, come to be included in the
part of the world which is regarded as 'mine'. Material adjustment
is only a part of the wider problem of establishing spiritual ad-
justment: but spiritual adjustment requires the elimination of the
self not only from the material aspects of life, but also from those
spheres which affect the intellectual, emotional and cultural life of
man.
To understand the problem of humanity as merely the problem of

bread is to reduce humanity to the level of animality. But, even
when man sets himself to the limited task of securing purely
material adjustment, he
(15)
can only succeed in this attempt, if he has spiritual understanding.

Economic adjustment is impossible unless people realize that there
can be no planned and co-operative action in economic matters
unless self-interest gives place to self-giving love; otherwise with
the best of equipment and efficiency in the material spheres, they
cannot avoid mutual conflict and insufficiency.
The NEW HUMANITY, which has to emerge out of the travail of

present struggle and suffering, will of course not afford to ignore
science or its practical attainments. It is a mistake to look upon
science as anti-spiritual. Science is a help or hindrance to
spirituality according to the use to which it is put. Just as art, when
rightly expressed, is the expression of spirituality, science, which if
properly handled, can be the expression and fulfilment of the spirit.
Scientific truths, concerning the physical body and its life in the
gross world, can become a medium for the soul to know itself;
but, if they have to serve this purpose, they must be properly fitted
in the larger spiritual understanding, which includes a steady
perception of true and lasting values. In the absence of such
spiritual understanding, scientific truths and attainments are liable
to be used for mutual destruction and for a life which will tend to
strengthen the chains which bind the spirit. All-sided progress of
humanity can be assured only if science and religion proceed hand
in hand.
The coming civilization of the New Humanity shall be ensouled

not by dry intellectual doctrines, but by a living spiritual
experience. Spiritual experience has a hold on the deeper truths,
which are inaccessible to mere intellect; it cannot be born of
unaided intellect. Spiritual truths can often be stated and expres-
sed through the intellect; and the intellect surely is of some help
for the communication
(16)
of spiritual experience. But by itself, the intellect is

insufficient to enable man to have spiritual experience or to
communicate it to others. If two persons have had headache, they
can co-operatively examine their experience of a headache and
make it explicit themselves through the work of the intellect. But
if a person has never experienced a headache, no amount of
intellectual explanation will be enough for making him understand
what a headache is. A man must have the headache if he is to
know what it truly is: and in order that he should understand it, he
may have to be hit on the head. Intellectual explanation can never
be a substitute for spiritual experience; it can at best prepare the
ground for the appearance of that experience.
Spiritual experience involves something more than what can be

grasped by mere intellect; and this is often emphasised by saying
that it is a mystical experience. Mysticism is often regarded as
something anti-intellectual, obscure and confused, or impractical,
and unconnected with experience; but in fact true mysticism is
none of these. There is nothing irrational in true mysticism, when
it is, as it should be, a vision of Reality as it is; it is a form of
perception, which is absolutely unclouded; it is so practical that it
can be lived every moment of life and can be expressed in everyday
duties; and its connection with experience is so deep that, in one
sense, it is the final understanding of all experience. When
spiritual experience is described as being mystical, one should not
assume that it is something supernatural or entirely beyond the
grasp of human consciousness; all that is meant is that it is not
accessible to the limited human intellect, unless it transcends its
limits and is illumined by the direct realization of the Infinite.
Christ pointed out the way
(17)
to the spiritual experience when he said: "Leave all and follow

Me." This meant that man has to leave his limitations and get
established in the infinite life of God. Real spiritual experience not
only involves the realization of the soul on the higher planes, but
also a right attitude to worldly duties and everyday life; if it loses
its connection with experience or the different phases of life, what
we have is a neurotic reaction, which is far from being a spiritual
experience.
The spiritual experience, which shall enliven and energise the

New Humanity, cannot be a reaction to the stern and uncomp-
romising demands by the realities of life. Those who do not have
the capacity to adjust themselves to the flow of life, have a
tendency to recoil from the realities of life and to seek shelter and
protection in the self-created fortress of illusions. Such reaction is
an attempt to perpetuate one's separate existence by protecting it
from the demands made by life; and it can only give a pseudo-
solution of the problems of life by providing a false sense of safety
and self-completeness. It is not even an advance towards the real
and lasting solution; on the contrary, it is a side-tracking from the
true Path. Man will again and again be dislodged from his illusory
shelters by fresh and irresistible waves of life; and he will invite
upon himself fresh forms of suffering by seeking to protect his
separative existence through escape.
Just as a person may seek to hold on to his separative experience

through escape, he may seek to hold it on through uncritical
identification with forms, ceremonies and rituals or with traditions
and conventions. Forms, ceremonies and rituals, traditions and
conventions are, in most cases, fetters to the release of infinite life.
If they
(18)
are a pliant medium for the expression of unlimited life, they

would be an asset rather than a handicap for securing the fulfilment
of the divine life on earth; they mostly have a tendency to gather
prestige and claims in their own right independently of the life
which they might express; and when this happens, any attachment
to them must eventually lead to a drastic curtailment and restriction
of life. The New Humanity shall be free from the life of limitations
and allow unhampered scope for the creative life of the spirit, and
break the attachment to external forms and learn to subordinate
them to the claims of the spirit. The limited life of illusions and
false values will then be replaced by the unlimited life in the Truth;
and the limitations, through which the separative self lives, will
wither away at the touch of true understanding.
Just as a person may seek to hold on to his separative existence

through escape or identification with the external forms, he may
seek to hold it on through identification with some narrow class,
creed, sect or religion, or with the division, based upon sex. Here,
the individual may seem to have lost his separative existence
through identification with the larger whole. But in fact, he is
often expressing his separative existence through such identifi-
cation, which enables him to take delight from his feeling of
being separate from others, who belong to another class, nation-
ality, creed, sect, religion or sex.
Separative existence derives its being and strength by identifying

itself with one opposite and by contra-distinguishing itself from the
other. A man may seek to protect his separative existence through
identification with one ideology rather than another or with his
conception of the good as distinguished from what he regards as
evil. What we get in
(19)
identification with a narrow group or section or with some limited

ideal, is not a real merging of the limited separative self, but only
an appearance of such merging. A real merging of the limited
self in the ocean of universal life involves complete surrender
of separative existence in all its forms.
The large mass of humanity is, however, caught up in the

clutches of separative and assertive tendencies; and for one, who is
overpowered by the spectacle of these fetters of humanity, there is
bound to be nothing but unrelieved despair about its future. One
must look deeper into the realities of the day if he is to get a
correct perspective of the present distress of humanity. The real
possibilities of the New Humanity of the future are hidden to the
perception of those who only look at the surface of the world-
situation; but they are there all the same and they only need the
spark of spiritual understanding to come into full play and effect.
The forces of lust and hate and greed make for incalculable
suffering and chaos; but, the one relieving feature about human
nature is that even in the midst of the working of disruptive forces
there invariably exists some form of love.
Even wars require and call upon the existence and exercise of co-
operative functioning; but the scope of this co-operative
functioning is artificially restricted by identification with a limited
group or ideal. Wars often are carried on by a form of love; but it
is a love which has not been understood properly. In order that
love should come to its own, it must be free from all its trammels
and become unlimited. Love does exist in all the phases of human
life; but it is latent or is limited and poisoned by personal ambition,
racial pride, narrow loyalties and rivalries, and attachment to sex,
nationality, sect, caste
(20)
or religion. If there is to be the resurrection of humanity, the heart

of man will have to be unlocked so that a new love is born into it—
a love which shall know no corruption and which shall be entirely
free from individual or collective greed.
The New Humanity will come into existence through a release of

love in measureless abundance: and this release of love itself can
come through the spiritual awakening brought about by the
Masters. Love cannot be born of mere determination: through the
exercise of will one can at best be dutiful. One may, through
struggle and effort, succeed in securing that his external action is in
conformity with his conception of what is right; but such action is
spiritually barren, because it lacks the inward beauty of
spontaneous love. Love has to spring spontaneously from within:
and it is in no way amenable to any form of inner or outer force.
Love and coercion can never go together; but though love cannot
be forced upon any one, it can be awakened in him through love
itself. Love is essentially self-communicative: those who do not
have it, catch it from those who have it. Those who get love from
others, cannot be its recipients without giving a response which, in
itself, is of the nature of love. True love is unconquerable and
irresistible: and it goes on gathering power and spreading itself,
until eventually it transforms everyone whom it touches.
Humanity will attain to a new mode of being and life through the
free and unhampered interplay of pure love from heart to heart.
When it is recognised that there are no claims greater than the

claims of the universal Divine Life which without exception
includes everyone and everything, love shall not only establish
peace, harmony and happiness in social, national and inter-
national
(21)
spheres, but it will shine in its own purity and beauty. Divine Love
is unassailable by the onslaughts of duality and is an expression of
Divinity itself; and it is through Divine Love, that the New
Humanity will come in tune with the Divine Plan. Divine Love
will not only introduce imperishable sweetness and infinite bliss in
personal life, but it will also make possible an era of a New
Humanity. Through Divine Love, the New Humanity will learn the
art of co-operarative and harmonious life; it will free itself from
the tyranny of dead forms and release the creative life of spiritual
wisdom; it will shed all illusions and get established in the Truth;
it will enjoy peace and abiding happiness; it will be initiated in the
life of Eternity.
____________
(22)
THE TRAVAIL OF THE NEW WORLD ORDER
(Released through Meher Baba Journal in November 1944)
The World-Storm
The world-storm, which has been gathering momentum, IS now

having its greatest outburst; and in reaching its climax, it will work
universal disaster. In the struggle for material well-being, all
grievances have assumed fantastic proportions; and the diverse
differences of human interest have been so accentuated that they
have precipitated distinctive conflict. Humanity has failed to solve
its individual and social problems; and the evidence for this failure
is but too plain. The incapacity of men to deal with their problems
constructively and creatively reveals tragic deficiency in the right
understanding of the basic nature of man and the true purpose of
life.
Conflict Between the Forces of Light and the Forces of

Darkness
The world is witnessing an acute conflict between the forces of

Light and the forces of Darkness. On the one hand there are selfish
persons, who seek their happiness blindly through lust for power,
unbridled greed and unrelieved hatred. Ignorant of the real
purpose of life, they have sunk down to the lowest level of culture;
and they bury their higher selves in the wreckage of crumbling
forms which linger on from the dead past. Bound by material
interests and limited conceptions, they are forgetful of their divine
destiny. They have lost the way; and their hearts are torn by the
ravages of hate and rancour. On the other hand, there are persons
who unveil their inherent higher self through the endurance of pain
and deprivation and through the noble
(23)
acts of bravery and self-sacrifice. The present war is teaching man

to be brave, to be able to suffer, to understand and to sacrifice.
Need for a Drastic Cure of Selfishness
The disease of selfishness in mankind will need a cure which is

not only Universal in its application but drastic in its nature. It is
so deep-rooted that it can be uprooted only if it is knocked from all
sides. Real peace and happiness will dawn spontaneously when
there is the purging of selfishness. The peace and happiness,
which come from self-giving love, are permanent. Even the worst
sinners can become great saints if they have the courage and
sincerity to invite a drastic and complete change of heart.
Man Will Be Sick of Wanting, Greed and Hate
The present chaos and destruction will engulf the whole world;
but this will be followed by a very long period, in which there shall
be no war. The passing sufferings and miseries of our times would
be worth enduring for the sake of the long period of happiness,
which is to follow. What will the present chaos lead to? How will
it all end? It can only end in one way. Mankind will be sick of it
all. Men will be sick of wanting and sick of fighting out of hatred.
Greed and hatred will reach such intensity that every one will
become weary of them. The way out of the deadlock will be found
through selflessness. The only alternative which will bring a solu-
tion will be to stop hating and to love, to stop wanting and to give,
to stop domination and to serve.
Suffering Shall Generate Understanding
Great suffering shall awaken great underunderstanding. Supreme

suffering fulfills its purpose and yields its true
(24)
significance, when it awakens exhausted humanity and stirs within

it a genuine longing for real understanding. Unprecedented
suffering leads to unprecedented spiritual outcome; it con-
tributes to the construction of life on the unshakable foun-
dation of the Truth. It is now high time that universal suffering
should hasten humanity to the turning point in its spiritual history;
it is now high time that the very agonies of our times should
become a medium for the bringing of a real understanding of
human relationship. It is now high time for humanity to face
squarely the true causes of the catastrophe which has
overtaken it; it is now high time to seek a new experience of
Reality. To know that life is real and eternal is to inherit
unfading bliss. It is time that men had this realisation by being
unified with their own selves.
Affirmation of The Truth of Oneness
Through unification with the higher self man perceives the

Infinite Self in all selves; and he becomes free by outgrowing
and discarding the limitations of the ego-life. The individual soul
has to realize its identity with the Supreme Universal Soul with
full consciousness. Men shall have reorientation of life in
the light of this Ancient Truth, and they will readjust their attitude
towards their neighbours in everyday life. To perceive the spiritual
value of oneness is to promote real unity and cooperation; brother-
hood then becomes a spontaneous outcome of true perception. The
new life which is based upon spiritual understanding is an affir-
mation of the Truth, it is not something which belongs to utopia,
but is completely practical. Now that humanity is thrown into the
fire of bloody conflicts, it is, through immense anguish, exper-
iencing the utter instability and futility
(25)
of the life, which is based upon purely material conceptions. The

hour is near when men, in their eager longing for real happiness,
will seek the true source of happiness.
Inherit Divine Love Through The God-Man
The time is also ripe when men will ardently seek to contact the
embodiment of the Truth in the form of a God-man, through whom
they can be inspired and lifted into spiritual understanding. They
will accept the guidance which comes from Divine authority. Only
the outpouring of Divine Love can bring about spiritual awake-
ning. In this critical time of universal suffering, men are becoming
ready to turn towards their Higher Self and to fulfill the will of
God. Divine Love will perform the supreme miracle of bringing
God into the hearts of men and of getting them established in
lasting and true happiness; it will satisfy the greatest need and
longing of mankind. Divine Love will make men selfless and help-
ful in their mutual relations; and it will bring about the final
solution of all problems. The new brotherhood on earth shall be a
fulfilled fact and nations will be united in the fraternity of Love and
Truth.
My existence is for this Love and this Truth: and to suffering

humanity I say:
"Have hope. I have come to help you in surrendering yourselves

to the cause of God and in accepting His Grace of Love and Truth.
I have come to help you in the winning the one Victory of all
victories—to win yourself."
__________
(26)
THE SPRITUAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE PRESENT WAR
(Released in March 1942 in response to numerous queries as to

why humanity cannot solve its material problems without taking
recourse to war.)
A New World will Emerge out of the Present War
Two kinds of forces are operative in the present war—(1) The

forces which make for Love, Justice, Harmony and the Well-being
of mankind taken as a whole, and (2) the forces, which in alliance
with narrow racial or national loyalties, work towards the selfish,
exploitation of others. This war is bringing vast amount of
suffering and destruction to millions of people. But all this will
not be in vain. Out of this chaos, there will emerge a new world of
Freedom and Happiness and Understanding.
War is a Necessary Evil
War can at best be only a means to an end; it can never be an end

in itself. It is, therefore, imperatively necessary for the War Lords
to search their own hearts and to make sure that the ends, for which
they are fighting, are a reflection of the Divine Plan which is to
lead humanity to a Spiritual Brotherhood, cemented by an
inviolable sense of the Unity of all human beings, irrespective of
the distinction's based on class, colour, nationality, race, religion
or creed. War-effort will be justified or stand condemned not by
the results, which it produces, but by the ends, by which it is
inspired. The world has to face this war and go through its ordeal
of fire, even at the cost of irreparable damage and unredeemable
suffering; it is a necessary evil.
Spiritual Qualities Fostered by War
Even in itself, war is not an unmixed evil, since it calls forth and
releases under the stress of imminent
(27)
danger, much action which is regardless of the limited self and

which is inspired by the im-personal spirit of welcoming
sacrifice and suffering for the safety and prosperity of fellow-
beings. It is better that such unselfish action be released under
the stimulus of danger than that it should not be released at all: it
is better that men should forget their petty selves under the pres-
sure of a collective calamity than that they should be permanently
encased in the ignoble pursuit of personal safety and in the
ruthless attempt to perpetuate separative existence and interests.
War-effort generates and fosters many qualities of spiritual
importance; it is, therefore, not altogether without spiritual
significance, even when it is considered in itself. And when war-
effort is forced upon a nation or a people for the sake of higher
values and impersonal considerations of general well-being, it
becomes not only spiritually defensible but inevitable.
Duties in a Direct Attack
People ought to face the incidents of war with courage and

equanimity in the faith that no sacrifice or suffering is too much
when the call of duty is clear and imperative. In the event of a
direct and aggressive attack the clear duty of all is to resist it, even
by direct participation in war, if there is no other alternative. But
in offering such resistance they shall make sure that they are
prompted solely by the sense of duty and that they have no hatred
or bitterness towards the aggressor who is acting under spiritual
ignorance. Further, they shall not be callous to the physical and
mental suffering inflicted by air raids or warfare on land or sea.
On the contrary, they shall render to the wounded and desolate
victims of war, every possible service, according to their individual
ability and aptitude.
(28)
Attitude of Spiritual Aspirants
As a rule, spiritual aspirants are indifferent to purely material

well-being. They are prone to be indifferent to war as well as war-
effort on the grounds that most wars are actuated by purely
material considerations. But it is a mistake to divorce spirituality
from material considerations. Material considerations do have a
spiritual aspect and importance. Even spiritual aspirants, who are
wrapt up in the super-sensible realities of inner life, can ill afford
to ignore war, particularly when they are directly involved in it.
Spiritual aspirants take their stand upon the reality and the
eternity of the Infinite Soul: it should, therefore, be easy for them
to stake everything for the sake of duty which springs from the
claims of the spirit.
Two-fold Function of Maya
When truly understood, all conflicts and wars are seen to be a

part of the Divine Game; they are, thus, a result of the Divine Will
which finds expression in the world of Manifestation, through the
help of Maya or the cosmic power which creates and sustains the
illusory world of duality. The purpose served by Maya in the
Divine Game is two-fold: (i) it can be instrumental in entrap-ping
the soul in the mazes of illusion, and (ii) it can also be instrumental
in freeing the soul from the clutches of spiritual ignorance and
bondage. Maya should not be ignored; it must be handled with
detachment and understanding. Wars are the working of Maya;
they would be spiritually disastrous or otherwise, according to
whether they are inspired by attachment or detachment for the
creations of Maya.
Inviolable Unity of All Souls
From the spiritual point of view of the last and the only Truth,
all souls are, in their essence, fundamentally
(29)
one. War cannot create any real cleavage or division between the
people who are fighting with each other. The people of the
warring countries seem to be different from each other merely by
virtue of having different bodies and minds; but from the point of
view of their souls, all differences are not only secondary but false.
The spiritual unity of all souls remains inviolable in spite of all
wars; and from the point of view of ultimate reality, it remains true
that no soul is really at war with any other soul. There is a war in
different ideologies; and this war of ideologies extends to and
involves not only the minds but also the bodies of the people; but
the undivided and indivisible soul remains one in its
unimpeachable and integral unity.
The Role of Spiritually-Advanced Persons
The spiritually-advanced persons are alive to this Truth of

the unity of all souls; and the role which they play in the Game of
God is necessarily determined by the spiritual understanding
which they have. They perform their duty in co-operation with the
Divine Will; and being in tune with the Infinite Truth, they are, in
playing their part, not only free from all thoughts of selfish gain,
but also from the reactionary feelings of hate or malice or revenge.
The Need for Equanimity
The soul remains untouched and unscathed by the loss and

destruction of material things and possessions; and death is only a
gateway to further life. Those who would play their part in the
Divine Game shall remain unmoved by any bereavements or
losses; and they shall also impart to others the spirit of cheerful
resignation to the Divine Will. The un-understood sufferings of
war will embitter many souls; they need to be helped
(30)
in the restoration of unassailable faith and imperishable sweetness

of life. Those who are initiated into the eternal values of
inner life, shall bear the burden of dispelling unwarranted gloom
and depression and cheer up those who are in anguish.
Handling Human Suffering through Love
In the hour of trial, let the thought of every one be not for the
limited self, but for others—not for the claims of the ego-life, but
for the claims of the Divine Self which is equally in all. It is a
mistake to ignore human suffering as merely a part of the illusory
universe. Not by ignoring human suffering, but by handling it with
Creative Love, is the Gateway opened for Life Eternal; and not
through callous indifference, but through active and selfless
service, is secured the attainment of that transcendental and
illimitable Truth, which is at the heart of the illusory universe.
The Value of War is Only Provisional
The last but not the least duty of those who would stand by
Reason and Love, is to see War as well as War effort, in the right
perspective, as being only the means for the goal of Peace and
Understanding. It is not possible to justify war apart from the end
which is sought through it. War does not stand justified merely by
the spiritual qualities which it generates and fosters; these qualities
can also be developed in times of Peace. It is time that humanity is
imbibed by the spontaneous spirit of Love and Service, needing no
stimulus of danger for the release of impersonal and unselfish
action.
Preparation for the New Era of Truth and Love
Though it seems difficult, humanity has to emerge out of this

dreadful war with unimpaired spiritual integrity, with hearts free
from the poison of malice or revenge,
(31)
with minds disburdened of the blows given or received, with souls

unscathed by suffering and filled with the spirit of unconditional
surrenderance to the Divine Will which shall ensoul and inspire
post-war humanity. In spite of its attendant evils, this war shall
play its part in my Mission of helping humanity to fulfil the Divine
Plan on Earth and to inherit the coming Era of Truth and Love, of
Peace and Universal Brotherhood, of Spiritual Understanding and
Unbounded Creativity.
Apropos of numerous inquiries from my followers, seeking

guidance and instructions in the eventuality of the War directly and
palpably affecting India, I have to call upon all concerned to go
about their routine avocations, duties and responsibilities, in a
spirit of detachment, love, charity, and hope, and to observe the
following instructions meant for the category in which they are
placed:—
To the Disciples —
1. They should be above party, politics and should bear malice
and ill-will towards none.
2. They should observe all the precautionary measures of War for

the civil population enforced by the Government of the day.
3. They should continue as usual discharging their special duties

and work for my Spiritual Cause unless otherwise directed by
me.
4. They should stick to their post and appointments anywhere in

India, under any trying circumstances, unless ordered by the
Government to evacuate under emergency regulations.
5. They may undertake humanitarian and relief work of a non-

sectarian character, without identifying
(32)
themselves with any party or political organization working in

that direction, and strictly within the scope of time and leisure
left over after the performance of spiritual duties enjoined by
me.
6. They should extend spiritual solace and comfort to the people

within the area of their contacts and influence with a view to
counteracting the panicky state of their mind.
7. Exceptional cases and circumstances, requiring readjustment

of routine lives may be communicated to me.
To the Devotees—
A. Items No. 1, 2, 3, 6 and 7 (from above) apply in toto to this
category.
B. They may arrange and adjust their family and business

problems, as demanded by the urgency of the situation and
local conditions.
C. They may undertake humanitarian and relief work of a non-

sectarian character and may if necessary join any party or
political organization working in that direction.
In General—
1. They may join the A. R. P. and the HomeGuard Organizations
of the Government and any such humanitarian activities
undertaken by non-official bodies like the Red Cross Ambu-
lance Society and the League of Mercy.
2. They may arrange their family affairs and business problems

consistent with the urgency of the situation and in complete
accord with the Ordinances of the Local Government.
(33)
3. They should undertake humanitarian and relief work in-

dependently or conjointly with any sectarian or political
organization of their choice.
In short, all should face the impending crisis, however

painful and cruel it may turn out to be, with patience, fortitude
and self-sacrifice, never for a moment forgetting the fact that
the redemption of distracted humanity through Divine Love is
very much nearer at hand than many care to believe.
______________
(34)
ACTION AND INACTION
(Released for leaders of all Political thought on the occasion of

Sir Stafford Cripps' offer to India, in March, 1942.)
Action might add to accumulated ignorance
All action, except that which is intelligently designed to attain

God-realization, creates a binding for consciousness: it is not only
an expression of accumulated ignorance, but is also a further ad-
dition to that accumulated ignorance.
Ceremonies become a side-tracking on the Path
Religious forms and ceremonies as well as rituals and injunctions

of different creeds and spiritual institutions have a tendency to
en-courage the spirit of love and worship; and as such, they are
to a limited extent helpful in wearing out the ego-shell in
which human consciousness is caught. But if they are unintel-
ligently and mechanically followed, the inner spirit of love and
worship gets dried up; and then they only result in hardening
the ego-shell rather than wearing it out. Therefore, rituals and
ceremonies cannot carry a man very far on the Path: and if they are
unintelligently followed, they create as much binding as any other
unintelligent action. When they are deprived of all inner life
and meaning, they might be said to be even more dangerous than
other forms of unintelligent action, because man pursues them
with the belief that they are helpful for God-realization, whereas
they are in fact far from being helpful. Owing to this element of
self-delusion, lifeless forms and ceremonies become a side-
tracking on the Path; and often through mere force of habit, man
(35)
becomes so much attached to these external forms that he cannot

be disillusioned about their imaginary value, except through
intense suffering.
Life seeks to free itself from self-created entanglement
Inaction is, in many ways, preferable to unintelligent action for

it has at least the merit of not creating further sanskaras and
complications. Even good and righteous action creates sanskaras
and means one more addition to the complications created by past
actions and experiences. All life is an effort to attain freedom
from self-created entanglement; it is a desperate struggle to undo
what has been done under ignorance, to throw away the accumu-
lated burden of the past, to find rescue from the debris left by a
series of temporary achievements and failures. Life seeks to
unwind the limiting sanskaras of the past and to obtain release
from the mazes of its own making, so that its further creations
might spring directly from the heart of eternity, and bear the stamp
of unhampered freedom and intrinsic richness of being, which
knows no limitation.
Inaction is often a necessary stage between unintelligent action

and intelligent action
The action, which helps in attaining God, is truly intelligent

and spiritually fruitful, because it brings release from bondage;
and it is second only to that action, which springs spontaneously
from the state of God-realization itself. All other forms of action
(howsoever good or bad and howsoever effective or ineffective
from the worldly point of view) contribute towards bondage, and
as such are inferior to inaction. Inaction is less helpful than
intelligent action; but it is better than unintelligent action, for it
amounts to the non-doing of that
(36)
which would have created a binding. The movement from unintel-

ligent action t ointelligent action (i.e. from binding karma to unbin-
ding karma) is often through inaction, which is characteristic of
the stage where unintelligent action has stopped because of
critical doubt, but intelligent action has not yet begun because
there has not arisen any adequate momentum. But this special
type of inaction, which plays its part in the progress on the Path
should in no way be mixed up with ordinary inaction, which
springs from inertia or fear of life.
________________
(37)
THE NEED FOR CREATIVE LEADERSHIP IN INDIA
( Released for leaders of all Political thought on the occasion of

Sir Stafford Cripps' offer to India, in March, 1942. )
The glorious past of India
Throughout the hoary ages of the past, India has played the most
prominent part in shaping the spiritual history of humanity. She
has been a home of Avatars, Prophets, Masters, Seers and Sages,
whose contribution to the spiritual evolution of humanity has been
unparalleled. The contribution of India to the solution of mundane
problems has also been remarkable, since she has produced
scientists, poets, philosophers, emperors, leaders and statesmen of
the first order. In the past, India has attained eminence in spiritual
as well as mundane spheres of life: and her place in the post-war
New World of the future is going to be unique.
The complexity of national problems in India
THE problems, which India has to face today, are, in some ways,
more complicated than the problems which any other country is
called upon to solve. Men of all races, creeds, cults and religions
have found a home in India: and if this lack of uniformity in
composition has presented some difficulties in arriving at solidarity
and concerted action in the national life of India, it must, in no
way, be looked upon as a pure handicap. The various streams of
culture, which have poured into the life history of India, have
added to the wealth of her national personality: and they have not
only created a suitable opportunity for arriving at a new cultural
synthesis, but have necessitated its emergence. If handled with
creative leadership,
(38)
the presence of conflicting elements in Indian life, can be utilised

for bringing into existence a rich world culture, which shall not
only rejuvenate and harmonise Indian life, but will also give a new
tone to the life of the whole world.
The new world-culture must emerge from integral vision
The process, by which we arrive at the new world-culture, cannot

be purely mechanical. We can never have any vigorous world-
culture by merely piling together certain isolated elements,
selected from the present diversity of culture; that way, we shall
only succeed in getting a patchwork of little vitality. A hotch-
potch of collected ideas can never be a substitute for a direct and
fresh perception of the Goal. The new world-culture will have to
emerge from an integral vision of the Truth independently of
existing traditions and not from the laborious process of selection
and compilation of conserved values.
The process of transcending limitations
The new world-culture, which will emerge from integral

vision, will, however, automatically bring about cultural synthesis.
Since the vision that inspires the new world-culture will be
comprehensive, it will not negate the values of diverse traditions:
nor will it have merely patronising tolerance for them. On the
contrary, it shall express itself through active appreciation of the
essentials of diverse religions and cultures. The vast vision of the
Truth cannot be limited by any creed, dogma or sect: however, it
helps men to transcend these limitations, not by blind and total
denial of any value to the existing creeds, dogmas and sects, but by
discovering, accentuating, un- folding and developing such facets
of the Truth as might have been hidden in them.
(39)
Future role of India in the international sphere
Evolving a transcendent and synthetic culture, which will express

the Infinite Truth, is one task before India. The other task, for
which India is particularly qualified, is to help other nations in
arriving at mutual understanding and harmony. This second task,
again, requires creative leadership which will have an unclouded
perception of the Mission, which India has to fulfil in the destinies
of the other nations of the world. In her foreign policy, India must,
in no way, be a party to colour-prejudice and colour-war. Black,
yellow and white are differences of the skin: they are not diffe-
rences within the soul itself. Through her past history, India has
been a link between the East and the West: and the two have
come closer to each other through her.
Implications of political poise
The third task before the creative leadership in India is to strive

for political poise in spite of the difficult situation in which she is
placed. India can never make her contribution to the world unless
she is free from political domination and the fear of foreign
aggression or conquest. If she is to fulfil her mission in the
sisterhood of nations, India must be free to shape her own national
life and determine her policy towards other nations. But insistence
upon this fundamental need should not be allowed to disturb her
political poise. While leadership in India would be justified in
striving for national freedom and determination, it must not allow
itself to be vitiated by reactionary isolationism. In the same way,
while discharging the clear duty of resisting foreign aggression,
India should try to keep free from hate, malice or revenge.
(40)
The problem of violence and non-violence
Aggression must be met with resistance: and here it is

unpractical to insist upon non-violence. Pure, non-violence or
incorruptible love can come spontaneously only when duality has
been completely transcended in the realisation of the last and the
only Truth: and non-violence of the brave is possible only for
advanced souls, who have through rigorous discipline, eradicated
from their minds all forms of greed and hate. But so far as masses
are concerned, it is undesirable to ask them to stick to the external
formula of non-violence, when it is their clear duty to resist
aggression in self-defense or in the defense of other weak brothers.
In the case of the unevolved masses, universal insistence upon
non-violence can only lead to their being cowardly irresponsible
and inert. True love is no game of the faint-hearted and the weak;
it is born of strength and understanding. The ideal of non-
violence, in the face of aggression, is impracticable for the masses:
and it will have a tendency to be readily used as a subterfuge for
servile acceptance of ignoble conditions and contemptible
desertion of a clear duty. In its enthusiasm for the highest ideal,
wise leadership can, in no way, afford to lose all sense of the
relative and the practical. Human evolution proceeds by gradual
stages from selfish violence to unselfish violence and then from
non-violence of the brave to the pure and incorruptible non-
violence of Truth as Infinite Love.
The deep truth
All narrowness limits love. In India, as well as in every other

part of the world, humanity is breaking itself into narrow groups
based upon the superficial and ultimately false differences of caste,
creed, race,
(41)
nationality, religion or culture: and since these groups have been

long accustomed to separative distrust and fear, they have indif-
ference, contempt or hostility toward each other. All this is due to
ignorance, prejudice and selfishness: and it can only be mended by
fostering the spirit of mutuality which breaks through artificial
isolationism, and which derives its strength from the sense of the
inviolable unity of life as a whole. Creative leadership ( which has
so much scope in the soil of India ) will have to recognise and
emphasise the fact that all men are already united with each other
not only by their co-partnership in the Great Divine Plan for
Earth, but also by virtue of their all being equally the expression
of One Life. No line of action can be really helpful or fruitful,
unless it is in entire harmony with this deep Truth. The
future of Humanity is in the hands of those who have vision.
_________________________
(42)
VIOLENCE & NON-VIOLENCE
( Released through " Meher Baba Journal " and pamphlets in

March 1942 when requested by people to explain the Spiritual
significance of Violence and Non-violence and its relative
importance in political life. )
Going Behind Words
Man has a tendency to cling to catch-words and allow his action

to be determined by them almost mechanically without bringing
his action in direct relation to the living perception which these
words embody. Words have their own place and use in life; but
if action is to be intelligent, it is imperatively necessary that
the meaning, which these words are intended to convey, should
be carefully analysed and determined. Among the words, which
need this type of exploration, there are few which are as important
as the words "Violence" and Non-violence"; they have a direct
bearing upon the ideologies, which shape not only particular
actions but also the entire tenor of life.
Spiritual Understanding Goes Beyond

Formulations
Spiritual life is a matter of perception and not a matter of

mechanical conformity with rules, even when these rules are meant
to stand for the highest values; it implies an understanding, which
goes beyond all words or formulations. All words and formulations
have a tendency to limit the Truth; therefore, those, who seek to
bring out the spirit underlying these formulations, have often to
launch upon a searching analysis of the formulated principles, and
supplement this analysis by constantly retaining touch with
concrete examples taken from life. This is particularly true of those
guiding principles of life, which are formulated with the help of the
opposite concepts of Violence and Non-Violence.
(43)
Starting with Representative Situations
The words "Violence" and "Non-Violence", are in ordinary

references, applicable to such diverse situations in practical life,
that no exposition of the issues involved can be complete unless it
takes note of these situations and uses them as a starting point.
However, for the purpose of exposition, it is not necessary to
exhaust numerically all the possible diversities, which would be
covered by these words: it is enough to consider some of the most
representative situations. The representative situations mentioned
below, have been selected because of their capacity to yield ab-
undant light on the fundamental values, which centre round the
concepts of Violence and Non-Violence.
The Case of a Drowning Man
Situation No. 1. Suppose a man, who does not know how to

swim, has fallen in a lake and is being drowned and that there is
nearby another person, who is good at swimming and who wants to
save him from being drowned. The man who is being drowned has
a tendency to grasp desperately to the person who comes to his
help and the clasping is often so awkward that it may not only
make it impossible for the drowning man to be saved, but may
even bring about the drowning of the one who has come to help
him. One, who desires to save a drowning man, has, therefore, to
render him unconscious by hitting him on the head, before he
begins to help him. Striking upon the head of the man, under such
circumstances, cannot be looked upon either as Violence or as
Non-Violence.
The Case of a Surgical Operation
Situation No. 2. Suppose a man is suffering from some con-

tagious disease, which can only be cured through an
(44)
operation. Now in order to cure this suffering man as well as to

protect others from catching this infection, a surgeon may have to
remove the infected part from his body by the use of his
knife. This cutting of the body by a knife is also among the things
which cannot be looked upon either as Violence or Non-Violence.
The Case of an Aggressive Nation
Situation No. 3. Suppose an aggressive nation invades a weaker

nation for selfish purposes and some other nation, which is
inspired solely by the noble desire of saving the weak nation,
resists this aggressive invasion by armed force. Fighting for such
resistance in the defence of the weak nation cannot be looked upon
as either Violence or Non-Violence, but can be called Non-Violent
Violence.
The Case of a Mad Dog
Situation No. 4. Suppose a mad dog has run amok and is likely
to bite school-children, and the teachers in the school destroy the
mad dog in order to protect the children. This destruction of the
mad dog does imply Violence but there is no hatred in it.
The Case of Non-Violence of the Strong
Situation No. 5. Suppose a physically strong man is insulted and

spat upon by an arrogant man who is nevertheless weak, and
suppose that the strong man, who has got the power to crush the
arrogant man, not only desists from hurting the arrogant man, but
calmly explains to him the gospel of love. This action implies
Non-Violence, but it is the non-violence of the strong.
Need for Delicate Considerations
The first three situations mentioned above clearly bring out

that the question whether a situation implies
(45)
violence or non-violence cannot be decided except by entering into

many subtle and delicate considerations (1) with regard to the
diverse details pertaining to the situation and (2) with regard to the
nature of the motive, which prompts action. And the last two
situations bring out that even where it is easily possible to say that
a particular situation implies violence or non-violence, the violence
or non-violence may be characterized by the presence of certain
other factors, which substantially give it a meaning which goes
beyond the ordinary meaning attached to these words.
Comments on the Case of a Drowning Man
A detailed analysis of the case of the hit on the drowning man

(situation No 1) shows that though it involves the use of the force
without the prior consent of the person on whom it is exerted, the
force used is ultimately used with the motive of saving the
drowning man. The situation includes the application of force
without the consent of the man against whom it is used: and in this
sense, it may be said to be a case of violence: but the force is used
for the good of the drowning man and not with any desire to inflict
injury or harm to him; and in that sense it may also be said that it is
not a case of violence. In this special sense the situation can be
said to involve violence and non-violence respectively; but in the
ordinary sense of the words, it cannot be looked upon as a case
either of violence or non-violence.
Comments on the Case of a Surgical Operation
The case of the operation for the cure of contagious disease

(situation No. 2) is slightly different from the case of the drowning
man. Here also there is an application of force (amounting even to
the cutting of the affected part of the body); and the application of
force
(46)
is for the good of the person, against whom it is used, but in most
cases of such operations, the patient gives his prior consent for the
application of such force as may be necessary for the execution of
the operation. Further, the operation is intended not only to protect
the patient himself from further ravages of the disease, but is also
intended to protect others from the spread of infection. The
application of force here springs out of the motive of doing
unmixed good both to the patient as well as many others who
might come into contact with him. Since no harm or injury is
intended, the application of force in this situation does not amount
to violence in the ordinary sense; and it also cannot be adequately
looked upon as non-violence, since it is a clear case of cutting a
part of a living body.
Comments on the Case of an Aggressive Nation
The case of fighting with an aggressive nation (situation No. 3) is

also very interesting and instructive. Here, the fighting which is
involved in offering resistance to the aggression of the nation with
no selfish motive or personal interest, but solely with the purpose
of defending the weaker nation, may entail much injury and even
destruction upon the aggressive nation: and the use of force is not
only without the prior consent of the aggressive nation against
which it is used, but it is definitely against its deliberate and
conscious will. But even in this situation, we do not have a clear
case of violence, since in spite of the injury and harm involved, the
application of force is not only for the good of the weaker nation,
which is its victim, but is also, in a very important sense, for the
good of the aggressive nation itself, because through the resistance
encountered in its aggression, it is gradually cured of its spiritual
weakness or disease
(47)
of having a tendency to invade and exploit the weaker nations.

This violence is really not violent and so we call it non-violent
violence.
Comparison of the Case of Aggressive Nation
The case of fighting with an aggressive nation (situation No. 3) is

in fact very similar to the case of the operation of an infected part.
In the case of fighting with an aggressive nation, the good of the
weaker nation seems to be the primary result and the good of the
aggressive nation (against which force is exercised) appears to be a
secondary result: and in the case of the operation, the good of the
patient (against whom force is exercised) appears to be the primary
result and the good of others appears to be a secondary result. But
this is only a minor difference, and when the two situations are
carefully analysed and compared, it is found that they both equally
promote the good of the target of force as well as many others
involved in the situation.
Defending the Weak is a Form of Selfless Service
Defending the weak is an important form of self-less service and

it is a part of Karmayoga; and use of force, when necessary for the
purpose, stands completely justified as an indispensable instru-
ment for securing the desired objective. But any such fighting
which may have to be undertaken to defend the weak must be
without any selfish motives or hatred if it is to have unalloyed
spiritual importance. It resembles the case of a man defending a
woman who is being attacked by another man for vile purposes
thus saving the woman's honor and life, and correcting the
attacking man by punishing him and making him repent.
(48)
Comments on the Case of a Mad Dog and the Case of Non-

Violence of the Strong
The case of destroying the mad dog (situation No. 4) is definitely

a case of violence, but it is justified because there is no hatred in it
and because it is intended to promote the greater good of the
children, who would be attacked by the mad dog. The case of the
strong man, who gives a sermon instead of seeking revenge
(situation No. 5) implies non-violence : but it is not a case of in-
action. It neither implies passivity nor weakness, but strength and
true creative action of an impersonal nature. It is non-violence of
the strong.
Spiritual Understanding is above Rules and Requires

Application of Divine Love
The detailed analysis of the above diverse situations as well as

their mutual comparison brings out the fact that questions
concerning violence or non-violence, their justification or
otherwise and the ascertainment of the true value or lack of value,
cannot be decided by any formal enunciation of a universal rule.
They involve many delicate spiritual issues and implications: and
a right understanding of the status of violence and non-violence in
the scheme of spiritual values, requires a true perception of the
meaning of the purpose of existence. Action, therefore, should not
be governed by means of any slogans (howsoever high-sounding)
based upon the incomplete and insufficient ideas of mere violence
or mere non-violence: it should be a spontaneous outcome of
Divine Love, which is above duality and of Spiritual Under-
standing, which is above rules.
______________________
(49)
WE MUST LIVE FOR GOD AND DIE FOR GOD
Given on the occasion of the 1st Congregation of disciples and

devotees at Meherabad, Ahmednagar on 27th Dec. 1942
(Read by Mr. Adi S. Irani)
This war is a necessary evil; it is in God's plan, which is to

awaken humanity to higher values. If humanity fails to profit by
the lessons of war, it will have suffered in vain. This war is
teaching that even the man in the street can rise to the greatest
heights of sacrifice for the sake of a self-less cause; and it is also
teaching that all the mundane things of the world—wealth, pos-
sessions, power, fame, family and even the tenor of life on earth—
are transitory and devoid of lasting value. The incidents of war
shall, through the lessons which they bring, win over man for God,
who is the Truth; and they will initiate him into a new life, which
is inspired by true and lasting values. People are making unlimited
sacrifices and enduring untold sufferings for the sake of their
country or political ideology; they are, therefore, capable of the
same sacrifices and endurance for the sake of God or the Truth.
All religions have unequivocally claimed man for the life in the
Truth and it is sheer folly to fight in the name of religions. It
is time that men had a fresh vision of the Truth that all life is one,
and that God is the only thing, which is real and the only thing that
matters. God is worth living for; and He is also worth dying for :
all else is a vain and empty pursuit of illusory values.
__________
(50)
WORK FOR THE SPIRITUAL

FREEDOM OF HUMANITY
The Cry for Freedom
All over the world, the spirit of man is crying for Freedom. Love
for Freedom and search for Freedom are the principal charac-
teristics of humanity; in all races and under all climes, in all
countries and at all times, the watch-word for the groping and
struggling humanity has always been Freedom ! But there are
very few persons who really understand the full implications of
true and unqualified Freedom; and there are many, who, in their
partial understanding of the real conditions of Freedom, strive only
for the attainment of that kind of existence, which gives them a
sense of relative Freedom. Thus, different persons long for dif-
ferent kinds of Freedom according to the different things, which
they have come to value.
Kinds of Freedom
Freedom of life is sought in all the different departments of life;

and this imperative demand for Freedom usually expresses itself by
fastening upon some external conditions of the kind of existence,
which people wish to lead. Thus, those, who identify their being
with their country, seek national or political Freedom; those who
are animated by economic purposes, seek economic Freedom;
those, who are inspired by religious aspirations of any kind seek
Freedom of religion; and those, who are enthusiastic about any
sociological or cultural ideology, seek Freedom of movement
and Freedom of expression in respect of the ideals which they
cherish and which they wish to propagate. But there are few who
realize that the basic Freedom, which alone gives the stamp of true
value upon any of these different kinds of relative
(51)
Freedom, is Spiritual Freedom. Even when all the external con-

ditions of a free life are completely fulfilled and guaranteed, the
soul of man would still remain in woeful bondage if it has failed to
realize spiritual Freedom.
The Limits of Freedom
All the different types of Freedom, which fasten upon some

external conditions, must, in their very nature, exist within certain
limits; for the Freedom, which an individual or community or state
seeks, must be consistent with similar Freedom for other
individuals, communities, or states. National, economic, religious
or cultural Freedom expresses itself in and by means of the duality
of existence; it lives on duality and is sustained by duality:
therefore, it has necessarily to be relative and limited and cannot
be infinite. It exists in varying degrees; and even when it is won
through persistent effort, it cannot be a permanent attainment,
since the external conditions, which have once been secured are
not secured for ever, but are capable of deterioration in the course
of time.
Spiritual Freedom Alone can be Unlimited
Only spiritual Freedom is absolute and unlimited; when it is won

through persistent effort, it is secured forever. For, though Spiritual
Freedom can and does express itself in and through the duality
of existence, it is grounded in the realisation of the inviolable unity
of all life and is sustained by it. One important condition of
Spiritual Freedom is freedom from all wanting. It is want that fet-
ters life through attachment to the conditions, which would fulfill
that want; if there is no want, there is no dependence or limitation.
The soul is enslaved through wanting.
(52)
When the soul breaks asunder the shackles of wanting, it eman-

cipates itself from its bondage to the bodies, mind and the ego.
This is the Spiritual Freedom, which brings with it the final
realization of the unity of all life and puts an end to all doubts and
worries.
The Importance of Spiritual Freedom
It is only in Spiritual Freedom that one can have abiding

happiness and unimpaired self-know-ledge; it is only in Spiritual
Freedom that there arises the supreme certainty of Truth-
realisation: and it is only in Spiritual Freedom that there is the
final ending of sorrow and limitation; and it is only in Spiritual
Freedom that one can live for all, and yet be detached in the midst
of all activities. Any other lesser type of freedom is comparable
to a house which is built on sand; and any other lesser type
of attainment is fraught with the fear of decay. Therefore, there is
no gift greater than the gift of Spiritual Freedom, and there is no
task more important than the task of helping others to have
Spiritual Freedom. Those who have understood the supreme im-
portance of Spiritual Freedom have not only to strive for it for
themselves, but also to share the God-given duty of helping others
to win it.
True Service
Those who are inspired by the spirit of selfless service are quick
to render unto humanity all possible help through the provision of
the necessities of life like clothes and shelter, food and medicine,
education and other amenities of civilization: and in pursuance of
the Path of Duty, they are not only prepared to fight for defending
the weak against cruel aggression and
(53)
oppression, but also to lay down their very lives for the sake of
others. All these types of service are great and good; but from the
ultimate point of view, the help which secures Spiritual Freedom
for humanity, surpasseth them all; and it is insuperable in im-
portance.
The Way to Help Others in Attaining Spiritual Freedom
The way to help others in attaining Spiritual Freedom is far

different from the way of rendering other types of help. To the
hungry, you can provide food; and they have only to eat it. To the
naked, you can provide clothes; and they have only to wear them:
and to the homeless you can provide houses; and they have only
to dwell in them. But to those, who are in the agonies of spiritual
bondage, there is no ready-made provision, which can give them
immediate relief. Spiritual Freedom has to be won by oneself for
oneself, through watchful and unfailing war against the lower self
and the lower desires. Those, who would be the soldiers in the
cause of Truth, have to help all, not only in launching upon the
thrilling enterprise of attaining victory over oneself, but also in
every step which they take towards that attainment; there is no
other way of sharing their burden.
The Call
Ye my devotees, I have full confidence that you will share this

burden. Many of you have, for years together, obeyed my orders
and carried out my instructions, through faith in me and love for
me; you have stuck to me and my Spiritual Cause through storm
and stress and thick and thin; and now the time has come for you
to offer all your services in my Mission of helping humanity to
tread the Spiritual Path for realizing God. The eternal Truth that
God alone is real, has to be clearly understood and unreservedly
accepted; and it
(54)
has to be unequivocally expressed through words and deeds. In

the full realisation of the Truth, man shall attain Spiritual
Freedom. No sacrifice is too big for setting man free from
spiritual bondage and in helping him to inherit the Truth, which
alone shall bring abiding peace to all and which alone will
unfailingly sustain an unassailable sense of universal fellowship,
cemented by the ungrudging love of all for all, as expressions of
the same reality.
The Need for Special Instructions to Each
In this God-willed divinely-planned and predestined task of

bringing Spiritual Freedom to humanity, you, my devotees, have
to help me, even at the cost of life. In your duty of helping others
to find God, you have to welcome every type of suffering and
sacrifice. Those desiring specific instructions in the line of work
most suitable to their individual circumstances may communicate
with me.
___________________
(55)
THE TASK FOR SPIRITUAL WORKERS
Given on the occasion of the 2nd Congregation of Disciples and

Devotees held at five different places on the same Day 14th
Feb. 1943
Read by Ramjoo Abdullah at Bombay

" Savak Kotwal at Poona.
" R. K. Gadekar at Sholapur
" Dr. G. D. Deshmukh at Nagpur
" Adi K. Irani at Lahore
" Late C. V. Sampath Aiyangar at
Madras
Be the Torch-Bearers for Humanity
I am very happy that, in response to my Call, you have gathered

to receive my Message for you. In the Path, the most important
condition of Discipleship is readyness to work for the Spiritual
Cause of bringing humanity closer and closer to the realization of
God. I am glad to note that through faith and love for me, you
have whole-heartedly offered yourselves for sharing my universal
work of Spiritualising the world; and I have full confidence that
you will not only inherit for yourself the Truth, which I bring, but
also become enthusiastic and valiant torch-bearers for humanity,
which is enveloped in deep ignorance.
The Nature of Spiritual Work
Because of its supreme importance for the true and final well-
being of humanity, Spiritual Work has a natural and imperative
claim on all who love humanity; it is, therefore, very necessary to
be quite clear about its nature. The whole world is firmly
established in the false idea of separateness, and being caught up
in the illusion of duality, it is subject to all the complexities
(56)
of duality. The Spiritual Workers have to redeem the world from

the throes of imagined duality by bringing home to it the Truth of
the Unity of all life.
The Origin of Manyness
The root-cause of the illusion of manyness is that the soul, in its

ignorance, identifies itself with its bodies or the ego-mind. The
gross and the subtle bodies as well as the ego-minds of the mental
bodies are all mediums for experiencing the different states of
the world of duality; but they cannot be the mediums for
knowing the true nature of the soul, which is above them all. By
being identified with the bodies or the ego-mind, the soul gets
caught up in the ignorance of manyness. The soul in all the bodies
and ego-minds is really one undivided existence; but as it gets
mixed up with these bodies and ego-minds, which are only its
vehicles, it considers itself as limited and looks upon itself as being
only one among the many of creation instead of looking upon itself
as being the only One Reality without a second.
States of Consciousness
Every soul is eternally and inviolably one with the one undivided
and indivisible universal soul which is the sole reality: and yet the
false identification with the bodies or the ego minds creates the
illusion of manyness and differentiation within the whole in which,
there is, in fact, no room for any kind of separateness or duality.
Bodies or the ego-minds are only the mediums or the vehicles of
consciousness; and as the soul experiences the different planes of
the world through its different mediums or vehicles, it goes
through different states of consciousness.
God-Realisation
Most souls are unconscious of their true nature as God, who is

the unity and reality of all souls; God-
(57)
realisation is only latently present in them, since in them it has not

yet come to be experienced consciously. But those, who have cast
off the veil of duality, experience the soul through itself in-
dependently of any mediums or vehicles; and in this experience,
the soul consciously knows itself as being identical with God, who
is the unity and the reality of all souls. Life in the Truth of the
unity of all, brings with it freedom from all limitation and
sufferings; it is the self-affirmation of the infinite as infinite. In this
state of spiritual freedom and perfection, ego-life is finally and
completely surrendered in order to experience and release the
Divine Life in the Truth; and God is known and affirmed as the
only reality worth living for.
The Importance of Time
To realise God is to dwell in eternity; it is a timeless experience.

But spiritual work exists in relation to the souls who are caught up
in the mazes of the multiplicity of the creation which is bound by
time. Spiritual workers cannot afford to ignore the element of time
in creation; to ignore time would be to ignore the spiritual work
itself. It is imperatively necessary to be discriminatively aware of
the flow of time in creation; and it is particularly necessary to
appreciate fully the supreme importance of the moment, which is in
the near future and which shall witness the universal dispensation
of the Truth of Spiritual Wisdom.
Warning to the Spiritual Workers
The task for Spiritual Workers is to help me in this dispensation

of the Truth to suffering humanity. You have not only to prepare
humanity in receiving this Truth but also for getting established in
it. But it is extremely important to remember that you
(58)
can help others to gain spiritual freedom and to come out of the
illusion of duality only if you yourself do not miss this idea of unity
while working for others, who are inclined to create divisions
where they do not exist and who allow no respite to the Spiritual
workers.
Obstacles in the Spiritual Work
The minds of the people have to be completely purged of all

forms of selfishness and narrowness if they are to inherit the Life in
Eternity, which I bring; and it is by no means an easy task to per-
suade people to give up their selfishness and narrowness. It is not
by accident that the people are divided into the rich and the
poor, the pampered and the neglected, the rulers and the ruled, the
leaders and the masses, the oppressors and the oppressed, the high
and the low, the winners of laurels and the recipients of ignomy.
These differences have been created and sustained by those who,
through their spiritual ignorance, are attached to them and who are
so much settled in perverse thinking and feeling that they are not
even conscious of their perversity. They are accustomed to looking
upon life as divided into inviolable compartments; and they are
unwilling to give up their separative attitude. When you launch
upon your spiritual work, you will be entering into a field of divi-
sions, to which people desperately cling, which they accentuate
and fortify, and which they strive to perpetuate consciously or
unconsciously.
Win them over for Truth
Mere condemnation of these divisions will not enable you to

destroy them. The divisions are being nourished by separative
thinking and feeling; and separative thinking and feeling can yield
only to the touch of love and understanding. You have to win
people to the life of Truth; you cannot coerce
(59)
them into spirituality. It is not enough that you should have

unimpaired friendliness and un- tarnished good will in your own
hearts; if you are to succeed in your work, you have to bring home
to them the faith and the conviction that you are helping them to
redeem themselves from bondage and suffering and in realising the
Highest, to which they are rightful heirs. There is no other way to
help them in attaining spiritual freedom and enlightenment.
Hints for Spiritual Workers
For rendering spiritual help, you should have a clear understand-

ing of the following four points:—
(i) Apparent descent into the lower level:—
It may often be necessary for you to apparently descend to the

lower level of those whom you are trying to help. Though your
purpose is to raise people to the higher level of consciousness, they
might fail to profit by what you say, if you do not talk in terms
which they understand. What you convey to them through
thought-feeling should not go over their heads; they are bound to
miss it unless you adapt it to their capacity and experience.
However, it is equally important to remember that while doing this,
you should not actually lose your own high level of under-
standing. You will change your approach and technique as they
gradually arrive at deeper and deeper understanding, and your
apparent descent into the lower level will be only temporary.
(ii) Spiritual understanding ensures all-sided progress:-
You must not divide life into departments and then begin to deal
with each department separately and exclusively. Departmental
thinking is often an obstacle for integral vision. Thus if you divide
life into politics, education, morality, material advancement,
science, art, religion,
(60)
mysticism and culture and then think exclusively of only one of

these aspects, the solutions which you bring to life can neither be
satisfactory nor final. But if you succeed in awakening spiritual
inspiration and understanding, progress in all these departments of
life is bound to follow automatically. As spiritual workers, you
will have to aim at providing a complete and real solution for all
the individual and social problems of life.
(iii) Spiritual progress consists in the spontaneous growth of

understanding from within:—
As spiritual workers, you have also to remember that the

spiritual wisdom which you desire to convey to others is already
latently present in them and that you have only to be instrumental
in unveiling that spiritual wisdom. Spiritual progress is not a
process of ac-cumulating from without; it is a process of un-
foldment from within. The Master is absolutely necessary for
anyone to arrive at self-knowledge; but the true significance of the
help given by the Master consists in the fact that he enables others
to come into the full possession of their own latent possibilities.
(iv) Some questions are more important than

answers:—
You, as spiritual workers, must not lose sight of the real work,
which the Masters desire to get done through you. When it is
clearly understood that Spiritual Wisdom is latent in all, you will
no longer be anxious to provide to others ready-made answers and
solutions. In many cases you will be content to set up for others a
new problem or to clarify to others the nature of the problem with
which they are faced. You may have done your duty if you ask
them a question, which they would not themselves ask, when they
are placed in some practical situation, and in some cases, you will
have done your duty,
(61)
if you succeed in putting them in a searching and questioning

attitude, so that they themselves begin to understand and tackle
their problems along some more fruitful and creative line. To give
them a deeper point of view or suggest to them a fruitful line of
thought and action may itself mean much more than thrusting upon
them the results of your judgment. But the questions which you
may help them to formulate for themselves should neither be
merely theoretical nor unnecessarily complicated. If they are
simple, straight and fundamental, these questions will answer
themselves, and people will find their own solutions. But you will
have rendered indispensable and valuable service to them, because,
without your tactful intervention, they would not have arrived at
the solution of their multifarious problems from the Spiritual point
of view.
The Overcoming of Obstacles
It has been seen that the Spiritual Workers must necessarily be

confronted with many obstacles; but obstacles are meant to be
overcome. Even if some of them seem to be insuperable, you have
to do your best in helping others irrespective of results or
consequences. Obstacles and their overcoming, success and
failure, are all illusions within the infinite domain of Unity; and
your task is already done when it is performed whole-heartedly.
You are steadfast and one-pointed in your desire to help my Cause
of awakening humanity to the sole Reality and the ultimate worth-
whileness of God and God alone; and you will get many
opportunities for spiritual work. There is ample scope for work in
this field. I am fully confident that you will lend yourself un-
grudgingly for this work; and you will help it, if you unreservedly
follow the Spiritual instructions which shall be given to you
separately.
(62)
The Outcome of Spiritual Work
You have to do your work without worrying about consequences

irrespective of success or failure; but you may be sure that the
result of work, which is done in this spirit and with this
understanding, is forgone. Through the untiring activities of
spiritual workers, humanity shall be initiated into the new life of
Abiding Peace and Dynamic Harmony, Unconquerable Faith and
Unfading Bliss, Immortal Sweetness and Incorruptible Purity,
Creative Love and Infinite Understanding.
____________
(63)
MESSAGE TO MODERN YOUTHS
( Published in the Sept. 1942 issue of the "Comrade" Hyderabad

Sind. )
It is the privilege of youths to be full of energy and hope; not

being caught up in any grooves, their dreams about the future have
the advantage of being inspired by an unfettered imagination: and
in the glow of a new-born love or in the warmth of newly caught
enthusiasm, they are quick to respond to the call for action and
self-sacrifice. Life would be the poorer without these qualities
which are predominantly present in the youths; but if the youths
are to derive the full benefit of the qualities with which they are
abundantly endowed, they must also try to acquire some other
qualities, which are rare in the youths. Hope should be fortified by
a courage, which can accept failure with equanimity; enthusiasm
should be harnessed by the wisdom which knows how to wait for
the fruit of action with patience. The idealistic dreams about the
future should be counter-balanced by a sense for the realities of
the present; and the glow of love should allow itself to be illumined
by a free and unhampered play of reason.
It is easy for the youths to be so much after realising the ideal

that they become bitter against the present and the past; but it is as
well to cultivate the spirit of idealising the real and being
appreciative of the heritage of the past. The world, as it is, may
not seem to be after the pattern, which the youths adore: but they
must never forget that it is always good enough to merit their most
loving attention. In their desire to improve the world, let them not
by becoming bitter, surrender their right to be happy.
(64)
Youths love freedom and, as such, they have a natural impulse to

rebel against all authority and bondage. All this is well and good;
but let them make a real effort to keep free from the many illusions
to which the youths are particularly susceptible. True self-
expression does not necessarily imply irreverence for others; true
criticism does not necessarily imply snobishness or cynicism; and
true freedom does not necessarily imply hostility or separateness.
Freedom without responsibility is a doubtful boon; it is worth
having only where there is self-restraint and willingness to co-
operate with others. The youths are always willing to act and take
risks; let them freely yield to this fearless and imperative urge of
life within them. But while releasing action, let them take every
care that it is creative and not merely destructive: and let their
watchwords always be LOVE and SERVICE.
_______________
(65)
GOD AND RELIGION
( This Message was read out by Honourable Justice Dr. Sir M. B.

Niyogi at the Nagpur Gorakshan Compound congregation held on
11-11-44. )
The organised religions of the world often fail to express the real
Vision of those who have been the Fountain-head of Inspiration for
their very coming into existence. Dogmas and beliefs, rituals and
ceremonies can never be the essence of the true spiritual life. They
are generally not only superficial and ineffective, but positively
harmful and misleading. Often, they not only feed the ego of the
priest class, but also serve as an instrument for the exploitation of
the credulous. When religion has become merely a matter of
external rituals and ceremonies, it has become a cage for the soul.
Nor does it help very far to change one religion to another; it is like
going from one cage to another. If religion does not help man to
emancipate the soul from spiritual bondage and realize God, it has
no useful purpose to serve. Then it is time that religion should go
to make room for God.
I am, therefore, not interested in founding a new religion. The

world is already divided by numberless sects, based upon dogmas
and beliefs. I have not come to give another cage for man, but to
impart to the world the illimitable Truth. The world needs
awakening and not mere verbal instruction; it needs the freedom
and the amplitude of Divine Life, and not the superficiality of
mechanised and pompous forms; it needs Love, and not the display
of power. The world-task ahead of me is particularly creative.
Essentially, we are all one. I am greater than none of you in the
soul-sense and
(66)
really speaking, none of you have to receive divinity from me—the

divinity that is eternally existing equally in us all; but what I have
to give is the knowledge and the experience of the oneness of us
all.
Out of the agonizing travail and suffering of the present times,

the New Enlightened Humanity has to be born. Man shall be
weaned away from the allurements of the ego-life; he shall come
into full inheritance of his own divinity and know himself to be
none other than the Supreme God Himself; and his heart shall be
unlocked so as to release the Dynamic Love Divine. Divine Love
knows no decay, fear or corruption, because it is illumined by the
understanding that all life is One. Let those who are alive to the
real values harken to this call of mine; they will have an ample
share in bringing into existence the New Era of Truth and Love. I
give my blessings to all.
_______________________
(67)
GOD AS THE ONLY REALITY
( Delivered by Hon'ble Justice Mr. W. R. Puranik, Vice

Chancellor, at the Ramkrishna Ashram, Nagpur on the afternoon
of 12-11-44. )
The soul gets deeply stuck in the ignorance of being the same as
the physical body due to sanskaric limitations of consciousness;
and its knowledge of the Reality, therefore, necessarily gets
restricted to that which is given in sense-perception or that
which is inferred from it. But such knowledge is, in fact, quite
inadequate and even misleading in respect of the true nature of
Reality. The manifold world of sense-perception (with its duality
of subject and object) is false, though it seems to be quite real to
those whose understanding is vitiated by identification with the
body. From the point of view of the highest and the only Truth,
God alone is real and is one eternal, indivisible and unlimited
Being which may, for the purposes of intellectual understanding,
be described as an Infinite Ocean of Love, Bliss and Under-
standing.
The realization of God, as He is, necessarily requires the com-

plete surrenderance of the false individuality of the separate 'I'. All
separateness and duality is only illusion: and this illusion is
sustained by the sanskaras (impressions) of the Ego-life which
expresses itself through Lust, Hate and Greed. But through the
pure life of selfless Love and Service and through the Grace of a
God-realized Master, it is possible to brush away these limiting
sanskaras and by transcending the illusory veil of separateness to
know oneself to be identical with God which is the sole Reality.
This God-realization, which comes on the seventh plane of
consciousness is the goal of all
(68)
life; it is the final reason why the entire universe came into exis-
tence.
God-realization is, sometimes mistakenly thought to be a selfish

purpose of the limited individual. There is no room for any
selfishness or limited individuality in God-realization. On the
contrary, God-realization is the final aim of the limited and narrow
life of the separate ego. It not only consists in the attainment by
the individual of an inviolable unity with all Life, but it also
dynamically expresses this final realization of the Truth through a
spontaneous and undivided life of Love, Peace and Harmony. The
life of the God-realised Master is a pure blessing to all humanity.
_________________
(69)
GOD AND LOVE
( Read out by Advocate A. V. Khare, at the National College on

Sunday evening on 12-11-44 in the presence of Shri Baba. )
The spiritual path is like climbing up to the mountain top through

hills and dales and thorny woods and along steep and dangerous
precipices. But on this Path, there can be no going back or halting;
everyone must get at the top which is the direct realization of the
Supreme God-Head. All hesitation or side-tracking or resting in the
half-way-houses is but a postponement of the day of true and final
fulfilment. You cannot be too alert on the Path. Even the slightest
lingering in the false world of shadows is necessarily an invitation
to some suffering, which could have been avoided if the eyes had
been steadily fixed on the Supreme Goal of Life.
If there is one thing which is most necessary for safe and sure
arrival at the top, it is Love. All other qualities, which are essential
for the Aspirants of the Highest, can and must come to them, if
they faithfully follow the whispers of the Unerring Guide of Love,
who speaks from within their own hearts and sheds Light on the
Path. If you lose hold of the mantle of this Guide, there is only
despair in store for you; the heart without Love is entombed in
unending darkness and suffering; but the heart which is restless
with Love is on the way to realization of the Unfading Light on the
Unfathomable Sweetness of Life Divine.
Human love should not be despised even when it is fraught with

limitations. It is bound to break through all these limitations and
initiate the aspirant to the Eternal Life in the Truth so that the
Lover loses his separate and false self and gets united with God
who is
(70)
the one matchless and indivisible Ocean of Unsurpassable Love.

The gateway to this highest state of being one with God is firmly
closed for all who do not have the courage to lose their separate
existence in the restless fire of Divine Love. I give my blessings to
all who are thirsting for the full realization of divinity, for they
shall be the pillars of the coming era of Truth and Love.
__________________
(71)
MESSAGE OF CHEER AND HOPE TO THE SUFFERING

HUMANITY
( Read by Dr. Abdul Ghani Munsiff, at the meeting of the Shri

Meher Baba Reception Committee held at Mr. K. K. Thakur's
bungalow, Nagpur on
13 -11-44 )
In the war-crazy world around you today, what do you see with
regard to the quality and quantity of suffering and pain that has
afflicted humanity in general? It is patent to all that not only those
who have taken up arms and are actually engaged in fighting, that
have suffered intense loss and pain, but even the innocent and the
peace-loving section of humanity—men, women and children,
have experienced and are experiencing crucial agonies and tortures
both physical and mental.
Whatever may be the political and economic explanation of the
worldly wise, in this respect, this sanguine phenomena, from the
spiritual point of view, is a cyclic Divine visitation over which no
earthly power has any control. The whole situation is simply and
purely the resultant of the Divine Law of 'Cause & Effect', which
is the same as conveyed by the Persian adage meaning 'It is only
from us whatever is upon us' ( good or bad ).
However dark the clouds and whatever may be the poignancy of
pain and despair, one spiritual fact, embodying cheer and hope to
suffering humanity, must not be lost sight of and which I am going
to convey to you here today.
There are always two aspects of Divinity, perpetually and
eternally active in the affairs of the world. The destructive aspect
of Divinity as expressed in Persian means 'Self-Glorification' and
the constructive aspect of Divinity is called in Persian as 'Self-
Beatitude'. The
(72)
aspect of 'Self-Glorification' by God, when it gets palpably active,

entails suffering and destruction on a colossal scale, as we see it
today. The aspect of Divine 'Self-Beatitude' when it asserts itself,
brings in its wake peace and plenty.
In the aspect of 'Self-Glorification', Divinity repels itself, through
its own creation and in the aspect of 'Self-Beatitude', Divinity
attracts or loves itself, through its own creation. The former is a
negative method and the latter is a positive method and both these
methods ultimately are instruments of Divine Wisdom, to rouse
humanity to their Divine Heritage, which is 'Self-Realization.'
Further, both the aspects of God referred to just now not only
affect humanity individually and collectively, but its intensity and
force is directly in proportion to each other and they assert them-
selves in cyclic waves. Now that the Destructive phase is about to
weaken, the aspect of 'Divine Beatitude' is nearly due to come to
the force; and to invite humanity to avail themselves of this
Blessedness to come is my Divine Mission in life.
Just as in the present world catastrophe, even the guilty and not
guilty, the combatants and non-combatants have suffered intensely
physically and mentally, similarly, in the 'Self-Beatitude' aspect of
God that is to be manifest in the near future, not only the
deserving, but the non-deserving as well, have as good a chance of
being the recipients of Divine Grace, provided they are wide-
awake to the situation, which will be a cyclic dispensation rare
and unique.
My blessings to all—those who heard my message and those
who have not.
________________
(73)
THE DYNAMISM OF LOVE
( Read by the Secretary, Theosophical Society, Nagpur on the

morning of 14-11-1944. )
True Love is very different from an evanescent outburst of

indulgent emotionalism or the enervating stupor of a slumbering
heart. It can never come to those whose heart is darkened by
selfish cravings or weakened by constant reliance upon the lures
and stimulations of the passing objects of sense. But to those
whose hearts are pure and simple, true Love comes as a gift
through the activitising Grace of a Master. Such Love is ener-
gising and life giving; it breaks asunder the narrowness and the
prejudices which separate man from man; it inspires man for
selfless and creative action which contributes to the well-being of
all, without distinction of caste, colour, race, nationality, creed or
sex; it lifts him from the slavishness of sanskaric attachments to
the unhampered freedom of the divinely conscious soul; and it
initiates him into the Dynamic Harmony of Life in Eternity.
Affirmation of the separative ego is the chief veil between man
and his own Divine Self; but the doors of the heart have to be
thrown open by the surrenderance of ego-affirmation if God as
the Supreme Beloved is to make His entry in the heart. No
one can realize God except through the Grace and Help of a God-
realized Master who is Truth Incarnate. Only a God-realized
Master can awaken this true Love in the human heart, by con-
suming, through the fire of his Grace, all the dross that prevents its
release. Those who have got the courage and the wisdom to
surrender themselves to a Perfect Master are the recipients of his
Grace. The Grace of the Master does come to those who deserve it;
and when it comes, it enkindles in the human heart a Love Divine
which not only enables the aspirant to become one with God,
but also to be of infinite help to others who are also struggling with
their own limitations. There is no power greater than Love.
__________________
(74)
THE UNITY OF ALL LIFE
( Delivered by Hon. Justice Dr. Sir M. B. Niyogi in the

Convocation Hall, Nagpur on the evening of 14-11-1944. )
The Tragedy of Unthinking Strife
The world today is presenting the spectacle of man pitched

against man. Man has become a passive and helpless victim of an
unthinking and ruthless machinery which is dragged on from the
past through sheer inertia of the spirit.
The Fact of Brotherhood
In the one undivided and indivisible Ocean of Life, you have,

through ignorance, created the pernicious divisions based upon
sex, race, nationality, religion or community; and you allow these
self-created divisions to poison your heart and pervert your
relationships. You are already parts of one life and as such,
brotherhood is not something which is to be brought into existence
through laborious efforts, but is the supreme FACT, which claims
your recognition and whole-hearted allegiance, as soon as you
have the candidness and the courage to face the Truth. Slowly but
surely must you imbibe this hard-won Truth at the feet of the
Masters of Wisdom; slowly but surely must you shed prejudices
and get disentangled from the superficial distinctions, created by
identification with forms and names; slowly but surely must you
tread the Path to the Formless and the Nameless One.
The Diversity that does not Divide
When you enthrone the Nameless One in your mind-heart, you

do not necessarily put an end to the game of duality. You have to
play your Divine Role in the drama of creation without being
caught up in duality.
Restoration of unity does not imply the stamping out of all

differences. In the world of forms, there always will be
(75)
room for a rich diversity of expression; but when you understand

the Truth illimitable, this diversity shall in no way be allowed to
create a note of discord in the symphony of creation, but will be
taken up in that creative harmony which reflects the ageless and
the infinite spirit. Out of this understanding, there shall spon-
taneously emerge the spirit of tolerance which is different from
apathy, of active appreciation, which is different from passive
receptivity, and of life, which is different from the entanglement of
attachment. The Unity of Life has to be experienced and expressed
in the very midst of its diverse experiences.
The Inalienable Divinity of Man
There can be no arguing with the imperative claims of Divine

Love; to deny love is to deny one's own true being; it is self-
betrayal and complete extinction, which life is not prepared to
accept. Sooner or later, man must look within, ponder deeply, and
search within his own heart for those factors which hold him down
in spiritual thraldom; and sooner or later, he must break asunder
the gnawing chains of separative thinking which keep him away
from the immense and limitless life of the spirit to which he is
rightful heir. Then why not sooner, rather than later? NOW is the
time to cast off the veil of imagined duality and unreservedly
surrender to the life of open and undisguised love which is pure
and selfless and which knows no fear and needs no apology. All
life is one and all divisions are imaginary. Be ye established in this
Eternal Truth which I bring.
_____________
(76)
THE UNQUENGHING FIRE

OF SPIRITUAL LONGING
( Read by Mr. Harkare, LL. B., Pleader, at the Meher Spiritual

Centre, Saoner (C. P.) on 15-11-44. )
The ego-life of the limited individual sustains the illusory duality

of 'I' and 'You', 'Mine' and 'Thine' and thus artificially breaks
asunder the unity of life, by introducing in it the false and the
vitiating principle of duality. The ego lives in and through the
false idea of separate existence; and this ignorance, which is its
standing ground, becomes a starting point of a life of multitudinous
and ever-increasing desires. The life of desires is always and
necessarily constrained to an unending oscillation between the
opposites of joy and suffering, gratification and disappointment,
good and evil. All the desires which spring from the ignorance of
separative consciousness become a perpetual torture and
limitation; they are all episodes in the life of delusion, where there
is the inescapable tyranny of promises that are never fulfilled.
But even in the very midst of the tumultuous pains and pleasures
of the ego-life, there dawns, in the ripeness of experience, and
through the Grace of the Master, the clear perception of the utter
futility of desires, which seek fulfilment through the false and the
transient forms of life. The Master's life of Love is unperturbed by
desires or duality; and once the soul gets a glimpse into this life of
true values, it protests against the bondage of desires and the cage
of the separative ego-life. This is the beginning of the life of
spiritual longing, accompanied by constant discrimination between
the true and the false, the really important and the really
unimportant. When the spiritual longing is thus awakened, it can
never be
(77)
entirely set at rest or evaded. It becomes an unquenching fire that

burns the very roots of limiting desires. Unabated and uncom-
promising, it eventually leads the aspirant to surrender his separa-
tive existence and be merged and united with the Master's Life in
the Truth, which is one and indivisible. Thus shall the Pilgrim
arrive at his Abode of Peace through keen spiritual longing. For all
those who have this longing, I have my blessings.
________________________
(78)
THE DIVINE HERITAGE

OF MAN
( Read by Khan Saheb Jal D. Kerawala, Dy. Commissioner,

Raipur, (C. P.) in the Municipal School Compound, Saoner (C.P.),
on 15-11-44. )
In all climes and in all places, man is constantly striving for

happiness; but there are very few who have it, because there are
very few who truly know the secret of happiness. Man is cons-
tantly feeling thwarted and limited; and he is ever in the clutches of
unrelieved agony or suffering, because, not knowing his own true
nature, he identifies himself with the body or the desires or the
limited individual mind, and thereby becomes a victim to their
respective limitations and sufferings. It is only by knowing him-
self to be different from and beyond all these that he can fully enter
into the Divine Heritage of the Abiding Happiness, which is
inalienable from his true being as God.
The man, who through sanskaric attachments identifies himself

with his body or desires or the individual mind, is caught up within
the prison of his ignorance. All his efforts to break through his
shackles only lead to his being in their firmer grip, just in the same
way as the parrot which desperately beats its wings against the bars
of its cage succeeds only in injuring its own wings, without being
able to make any headway towards freedom. It is like a person,
who is stuck in deep mud, and who, because of his very efforts to
extricate himself, finds that he is more deeply stuck in it.
The individual and unaided efforts of the aspirant are so often

unsuccessful, because the very source of such efforts which is the
ego, is rooted in ignorance. This is exactly the reason why a
Master is absolutely necessary for spiritual emancipation. The
Master acts from
(79)
the Truth, with which he is one, and not from any limited ego-
consciousness, and his help is more effective than all the unaided
efforts on the part of the aspirant himself. This does not mean that
the aspirant should not try for spiritual freedom and fulfilment. He
must try his best for their realisation; but he must at the same time
open himself out to the abundant and indispensable help that
comes to him from the Master. The Master does not give to the
aspirant something which is not already within the aspirant in a
latent form; he only unveils the real Self of the aspirant himself and
enables him to come into his own Divine heritage which is
rightfully his.
________________
(80)
THE HIDDEN TREASURE OF THE SELF
( Read by Mr. Adi. K. Irani at the Buddha Society, Nagpur on 16-

11-44. )
There is not a creature, but is destined for the Supreme Goal,

even as there is not a river, but is on its winding way to the ocean;
but, in the human form alone, is consciousness so developed, that it
is capable of reflecting and expressing the glory and perfection of
his own True and Highest Self, which is at the same time, the Self
of All. Man is kept away from inheriting the Hidden Treasure of
ineffable Fulfilment and Plentitude, by his own self-accumulated
and Sanskaric ignorance. Sanskaras are the inevitable deposits left
by the arduous evolutionary Descent into the human form and
human consciousness; they are like the dust that gathers on the
pilgrim as he treads his Path. In the human form, which is the
highest, the Divine Life is still enmeshed in these sanskaric
deposits in the mind. Its expression is therefore, necessarily
curtailed and distorted through the diverse and distracting
moments of the sanskaras which keep consciousness pinned down
to the enticing panorama of that which is false and phenomenal.
One by one, the multicoloured attachments to the false have to be
relinquished; and one by one, the sanskaric faggots that feed the
deceptive fires of the separative ego, have to be surrendered in
favour of the imperative claims of the Invincible Flame of the
Truth. Thus and thus only can man ascend to the pinnacle of
Divine Attainment which is the endless beginning of Life Eternal.
The Life in Eternity knows no bondage, decay or sorrow and it is
the everlasting and ever-renewing self-affirmation of conscious
and illimitable divinity. The clouds of sanskaras have to disappear
completely before the sky of consciousness is illumined by the
Inextinguishable Light of God who is the real Self of All. My
mission is to help you to inherit this hidden treasure of the Self;
and all, who earnestly seek it, have my blessings.
_______________
MESSAGES OF MEHER BABA
DELIVERED IN THE WEST

(83)
MESSAGES DELIVERED IN THE WEST
Message to "Paramount News Reel" on Arrival in London on

10-4-1932
( Read by Mr. C. B. Purdom, Editor, EVERY MAN, London )
My coming to the West is not with the object of establishing new

creeds or spiritual societies and organisations; but is intended to
make people understand religion in its true sense. True religion
consists of developing that attitude of mind which should
ultimately result in seeing One Infinite Existence prevailing
throughout the universe; when one could live in the world and yet
be not of it and, at the same time, be in harmony with everyone and
everything; when one could attend to all worldly duties and affairs
and yet feel completely detached from all their results; when one
could see the same Divinity in art and science and experience the
Highest Consciousness and Indivisible Bliss in everyday life.
I see the structure of all the great and recognized religions and
creeds of the world tottering. The West particularly is more in-
clined towards the material side of things which has, from untold
ages, brought in its wake wars, pestilences and financial
catastrophes. It should not be understood that I discard and hate
materialism. I mean that materialism should not be considered an
end in itself, but a means to the end.
Organised efforts, such as the League of Nations, are being made
to solve world problems and to bring about the millenium. In
some parts of the West, particularly America, intellectual under-
standing of Truth and Reality is attempted, but without the true
spirit of Religion.
(84)
It is all like groping in the dark. I intend bringing together all

religions and cults like beads on one string and re-vitalize them for
individual and collective needs. This is my mission in the West.
The peace and harmony that I talk of and that will settle on the face
of this worried world are not far off.
___________
Message to Reporters and Press Representatives aboard

"Bremen"
New York on 19-5-1932.
I am not come to establish any cult, society or organization, nor

even to establish a new religion.
The Religion I shall give touches the knowledge of the One
behind the many. The Book that I shall make people read is the
Book of the Heart which holds the key to the Mystery of Life. As
for ritual, I shall teach humanity to discriminate, express and live
rather than utter it. I shall bring about a happy blending of the head
and heart.
Societies and organizations have never succeeded in bringing
Truth nearer. Realization of the Truth is solely the concern of the
individual.
Every being is a point from which a start could be made towards
the limitless Ocean of Love, Bliss, Knowledge and Goodness
already with him. No Spiritual Master brings religion to the world
in the form which it eventually assumes.
His very presence is a blessing and radiates spirituality. He
imparts it to others by personal contact. The so-called religions are
an effort to commemorate the association with a great Spiritual
Master and to preserve his atmosphere and influence. It is like an
archeological
(85)
department trying to preserve things which only resuscitate the

past. The living spirit being absent, religions or organizations
gradually lose their glamour. The result is a mental revolt against
the established order. Something more substantial and practical is
required which expresses the life of the spirit. There exists at the
moment a universal dissatisfaction and an indescribable longing
for something that will end the chaos and misery that is holding the
world in its grip. I will satisfy this craving and lead the world to
real happiness and peace by making people look more into things
than hitherto.
As a rule, Masters help individually according to temperament

and fitness of the aspirant; but this being an 'Avataric' period
(which means the end of the previous cycle and the beginning of a
new one), my spiritual help to humanity will be both individual
and collective.
The period of junction of the old and new cycle usually connotes
the advent of a Master who rejuvenates religious thought, infusing
new life and meaning into the old order of things.
Besides imparting the highest state of spirituality to a select few,

he gives a general spiritual push to the whole world.
The West looks at things only from the standpoint of reason

and logic and is sceptical about things which baffle the intellect.
Intellect is the lowest form of understanding and is developed by

reading, hearing, reasoning and logic. These processes create an
illusion of real knowledge. The higher state of understanding is
permanent illumination
(86)
through which one experiences and sees things as they are. In this
state, one feels at harmony with everyone and everything, and
realizes Divinity in every phase of life and is able to impart
happiness to others. Here, one attends to all duties and material
affairs and yet feels mentally detached from the world. This is true
renunciation. The last and highest state of understanding is the
merging of the soul into the limitless Ocean of Infinite Bliss,
Knowledge and Power. One who has himself attained this Free-
dom, can make thousands perfect like himself. I intend bringing
about a great spiritual revival in the near future, utilizing the tre-
mendous amount of energy possessed by America for the purpose.
Such a spiritual outpouring that I visualize usually takes place at
the beginning or end of a cycle and only a Perfect One who has
reached the Christ State of Consciousness can make such a univer-
sal appeal. My work will embrace everything. It will permeate
every phase of life. Perfection would fall far short of the ideal, if it
were to accept one thing and eschew another. The general spiritual
push that I shall give to the whole world will automatically adjust
problems, such as politics, economics and sex, though these are not
directly connected with the original theme. New values and
significance will be attached to things which appear to baffle
solution at the moment.
The benefits that shall accrue to different nations and countries,

when I bring about the spiritual upheaval, will be largely deter-
mined by the amount of energy each one possesses. The greater the
energy, however misapplied, the greater the response. The Master
merely diverts the current into the right channel. It will be one of
my greatest miracles to bring together
(87)
and blend the realistic West with the idealistic East, and the West
at the zenith of its intellectual and material attainment and the East
at the height of its Spiritual Manifestation in the shape of a Perfect
Master will meet without shaming or looking down upon each
other. I repeat, materialism and spirituality must go hand in hand.
The balance of head and heart must be maintained (the head for
discrimination, the heart for feeling), whereby it is possible to
realize Infinite Consciousness in art, science, nature and every
phase of life.
I have become one with the Infinite Source of everything. This

is the state of Christ Consciousness. If people call me Messiah,
Saviour or Redeemer, it does not affect me. Terms and names do
not matter. What really matters is the state of Christ Consciousness
that I eternally enjoy and towards which I shall lead all who come
to me. When I speak, my original message will be delivered to the
world and it will have to be accepted.
The ability to perform miracles does not necessarily connote high

spirituality. Anyone who has reached the Christ Consciousness
can perform them. People must not come to me merely for help in
their physical infirmities or for material purposes. I shall perform
miracles when the time and situation demand, and not to satisfy
mere idle curiosity. Spiritual healing is by far the greatest healing,
and this is what I intend to give. The Highest is latent in everyone,
but has to be manifested.
_______
(88)
Message read by Mr. Meredith Starr at the reception given in

honour of Shri Meher Baba at the residence of Mr. Phelps
Stokes
New York on 22-5-1932
I am so very pleased to see you again. Among you are many of

the first Americans I met last time I was here: so I regard you as
old friends.
No doubt, some of you have seen various newspaper reports

about myself and my work. Many of these are misleading. But it is
not to be wondered at if journalists do not understand my work or
pander to the desire for sensation.
I do not intend to found any religion, cult, creed or society.

There are already far too many of these organizations. I have come
to help people realize their ideals in daily life. The wide-spread
dissatisfaction in modern life is due to the gulf between theory and
practice and between the ideal and its realization on earth. The
spiritual and material aspects of life are widely separated instead of
being closely united. There is no fundamental opposition between
spirit and matter, or if you like, between life and form. The ap-
parent opposition is due to wrong thinking, to ignorance. Hence the
remedy lies in the continuous practice of right thinking, to
permanent illumination resulting from the balance between the
head and heart. This is the illumination which I intend to give.
The greatest mystics have realized through personal experience

that God alone is real and everything is God. This means that
(though you may not be aware of it) the Highest is latent in each
one of you. But in order for it to be lived and experienced in
consciousness, it must be manifested.
(89)
Intellectual conviction of this Truth is not enough. True Know-

ledge consists in Illumination which finally culminates in union
with the Ultimate Reality. This last is the state of Christ Con-
sciousness which is my permanent condition.
The obstacles to illumination are certain mental tendencies and

desires connected with egoism which, in the East, are called
'sanskaras'. The sum total of these tendencies and desires creates
the illusion of a separate self at war with or isolated from other
selves. Evolution, or the fall into matter, made the creation of such
a separate self necessary—otherwise, spiritual consciousness could
never be attained in the flesh.
In the beginning, before evolution began, we were united with

the Source of All and a consequent conscious longing to return to it
through a succession of lives and forms. The conscious return to
the Source during physical incarnation only became possible when
consciousness became equilibriated in gross matter.
America represents the vanguard and the synthesis of the white

races and hence forms the best foundation for the spiritual
upheaval I will bring about in the near future. America has
tremendous energy, but most of this energy is misdirected. I
intend to divert it into spiritual and creative channels.
I am now going to California for a few days. From there, I must

go to the Far East for one day for spiritual reasons; but I will be
back in California by the end of June and then I will speak on June
29. But if I should be delayed, I will return on July 12 and speak
on July 13.
When I speak, there will be many proofs of my spiritual power

and of my ability to bestow Illumination.
(90)
People will then realize that Truth, which is the Source of All Love
and Existence, rules supreme in all departments of life.
My work and aims are intensely practical. It is not practical to

over-emphasize the material at the cost of the spiritual. It is not
practical to have spiritual ideals without putting them into practice.
But to realize the ideal in daily life, to give a beautiful and
adequate form to the living spirit, to make brotherhood a fact—not
merely a theory as at present—this is being practical in the truest
sense of the word.
My work will arouse both great enthusiasm and a certain amount

of opposition. That is inevitable. But spiritual work is strengthened
by opposition, and so it will be with mine. It is like shooting an
arrow from a bow. The more you pull the bow-string towards you,
the swifter the arrow speeds to its goal.
Message to Reporters in Hollywood (California) on 29-5-1932.
So much has been said and written about the "Highest Con-
sciousness" and God-realization that people are bewildered as to
the right process and immediate possibility of attainment. The
philosophical mind wading laboriously through such literature only
ends by learning a few intellectual gymnastics. The Highest State
of Consciousness is latent in all. The Son of God is in every man,
but requires to be manifested. The method of attaining this great
Consciousness must be
(91)
very practical and must be adapted to the existing mental and

material conditions of the world.
Rituals and ceremonies instituted by the priest-ridden churches

have made the process of attainment too dry; and that accounts for
the lack of interest felt all over the world towards religious
things in general. India, in spite of its high state of spirit-
uality, at the present moment is very caste-ridden because of the
enforcement by various cults of a plethora of rituals and cere-
monies which maintain the form but kill the spirit. Forms and
ceremonies, instead of diminishing the ego, strengthen it. The
stronger the ego, the more aggressive it becomes. In the anxiety to
become conscious of a separate self through thinking thoughts
such as "I am in the right", "I am the favoured one", "I only have
the right to live", one becomes destructive. The furious race for
armaments by the Christian world, evincing an utter disregard for
the Commandment of Jesus that if one cheek is smitten, the
other should be offered, shows clearly what I mean by the ego. In
the evolutionary ascent from the mineral, vegetable and animal
life, the latent mind gradually expands and develops till full
consciousness is reached in the human form. To create this very
consciousness, the universe emanated from the Infinite Ocean of
Knowledge and Bliss, i.e., God the Absolute. In the human form,
however, a difficulty is confronted, to remove which, prophets and
spiritual Masters have periodically visited this earthly plane.
Besides full consciousness in the human form, as a result of
previous conditions of life, the ego, the 'I', is evolved.
The ego is composed of fulfilled and unfulfilled desires and

creates the illusion of feeling finite, weak and unhappy.
(92)
Henceforth, the soul can only progress through the gradual

suppression of this finite ego and its transformation into the Divine
Ego, the One Infinite Self, but retaining in full the consciousness
of the human form. When man realizes this state of Divine Con-
sciousness, he finds himself in everyone and sees all phenomena as
forms of his own Real Self. The best and also the easiest process
of overcoming the ego and attaining the Divine Consciousness is to
develop love and render selfless service to humanity in whatever
circumstances we are placed. All ethics and religious practices
ultimately lead to this. The more we live for others and less for
ourselves, the more the low desires are eliminated, and this, in
turn, reacts upon the ego, suppressing and transforming it
proportionately. The ego persists to the last. Not till all the six, out
of the seven, principal stages on the Path, culminating into one
God-conscious state, are traversed, is the ego completely elim-
inated to re-appear on the seventh plane as the Divine "I", the state
of Christ Consciousness to which Jesus referred when he said, "I
and my Father are one" and which corresponds to the state of
living in the Infinite and finite at one and the same time.
The above is the normal procedure for one who works on his
own initiative without having come across a living Master. With
the help of a Perfect Master, the whole affair, however, is greatly
simplified.
Complete surrender to the Divine Will of the Perfect One, an

unflinching readiness to carry out his orders, rapidly achieve a
result not possible even by rigidly practising all the ethics of the
world for a thousand years. The extraordinary results achieved by a
Perfect Master are due to the fact that being one with the
(93)
Universal Mind, he is present in the mind of every human being

and can therefore give just the particular help needed to awaken
the Highest Consciousness latent in every individual. Perfection,
however, in order to achieve the greatest result on the material
plane, must possess a human touch and a keen sense of humour.
I eternally enjoy the Christ State of Consciousness, and when I

speak, which I intend doing in the near future, I shall manifest my
true self.
Besides giving a general spiritual push to the whole world, I shall

lead all those who come to me towards Light and Truth. This, in
short, is my mission in the world.
The ability to perform miracles does not necessarily connote high

spirituality. Anyone who has reached the Christ Consciousness can
perform them. People must not come to me merely for help in
their physical infirmities or for material purposes. I shall perform
miracles when the time and the situation demand, and not to satisfy
mere idle curiosity. Spiritual healing is by far the greatest healing,
and this is what I intend to give. The Highest is latent in everyone,
but is to be manifested.
___________
(94)
Message given at a General Reception in Knickerbocker Hotel,

Hollywood (California) on 31-5-1932.
Since arriving in America, I have been asked many times what

solution I brought for the social problems now confronting you,—
what did I have to offer that would solve the problems of
unemployment, prohibition, crime,—that would eliminate the strife
between individuals and nations and pour a healing balm of peace
upon a troubled world ?
The answer has been so simple that it has been difficult to grasp.
I will elaborate it now in order that it may be more easily
understood
The root of all our difficulties, individual and social, is self-

interest. It is this, for example, which causes corruptible politicians
to accept bribes and betray the interests of those whom they have
been elected to serve; which causes bootleggers to break, for their
own profit, a law designed, whether wisely or not, to help the
nation as a whole; which causes people to connive for their own
pleasure, in the breaking of that law, thus causing disrespect for
law in general and increasing crime tremendously; which causes
the exploitation of great masses of humanity by individuals or
groups of individuals seeking personal gain; which impedes the
progress of civilization by shelving inventions which would
contribute to the welfare of humanity at large, simply because their
use would mean the scrapping of present, inferior equipment;
which, when people are starving, causes the wanton destruction of
large quantities of food, simply in order to maintain market prices;
which causes the hoarding of large sums of gold when the welfare
of the world demands its circulation.
(95)
These are only a few examples of the way self-interest operates

to the detriment of human welfare. Eliminate self-interest and you
will solve all your problems, individual and social.
But the elimination of self-interest, even granting a sincere desire

on the part of the individual to accomplish it, is not so easy and is
never completely achieved except by the aid of a Perfect Master,
who has the power to convey Truth at will. For self-interest springs
from a false idea of the true nature of the Self and this idea must be
eradicated, and the Truth experienced, before the elimination of
self-interest is possible.
I intend, when I speak, to reveal the One Supreme Self which is

in all. This accomplished, the idea of the self as a limited, separate
entity, will disappear and with it will vanish self-interest. Co-
operation will replace competition; certainty will replace fear;
generosity will replace greed. Exploitation will disappear.
It has been asked why I have remained silent for seven years,
communicating only by means of an alphabet board, and why I
intend to break my silence shortly; and it might be asked, in view
of what has just been stated, what relation my speaking will have
to the transformation of human consciousness which has been
predicted.
Humanity, as at present constituted, uses three vehicles for the

expression of thought, and experiences three states of
consciousness. These three vehicles are: (1) the Mental Body, in
which thoughts arise as the result of impressions from past
experiences. These thoughts may remain latent in the mental body
as seeds, or they may be expressed. If they are expressed, they
take first the form of desire, and pass first through
(96)
(2) the Subtle, or the Desire, Body, which is composed of the five
psychic senses. They may rest here, as in the case of dreams or
unfulfilled desire, or they may be further expressed in action
through (3) the Physical Body with five physical senses.
The three states of consciousness corresponding to the three

vehicles mentioned above are: (1) unconsciousness, as in deep,
dreamless sleep, (2) sub-consciousness, as in dreams, or obscure,
unformed and unfulfilled desires and (3) waking consciousness, as
in active daily life.
The process by which thought passes from the mental through

the subtle into physical expression, may be called the expression of
human will.
In order that thought may be expressed effectively, all three of

the vehicles used in its expression must be perfectly clear and the
interaction between them must be harmonious. The head and the
heart must be united; intellect and feeling must be balanced;
material expression must be understood to be the fruit of spiritual
realization.
The God-man neither thinks nor desires. Through him, the

Divine Will flows inevitably into perfect manifestation, passing
directly from the spiritual body which, in the ordinary human
being, is undeveloped, into physical expression. For him, the
super-conscious is the normal state of consciousness. From him
there flows continuously infinite love and wisdom, infinite joy and
peace and power.
In order to convey thought to others, man uses speech, or

writing, or some other physical means of expression; or, in some
cases, as in telepathy, thought is transmitted and received through
and by the subtle body.
(97)
The God-man does not convey thought, but Truth, which he

either awakens in the individual whom he is helping through deep,
inner experience, or which he transmits directly from the super-
conscious to the conscious, from the spiritual to the physical, by
means of either the physical eye, the physical touch or the spoken
word.
When he speaks, Truth is more powerfully manifested than when

he uses either sight or touch to convey it. For that reason, 'Avatars'
usually observe a period of silence lasting for several years,
breaking it to speak only when they wish to manifest the Truth to
the entire universe. So, when I speak, I shall manifest the Divine
Will, and a world-wide transformation of consciousness will take
place.
______________
Message gives at "Pickfair House",

Beverly Hills, Hollywood,
on 1-6-1932
I was particularly glad to come to California because of the

opportunity which it afforded to contact those who made or
appeared in the moving pictures, and I am delighted that this
gathering could be arranged for tonight.
I do not need to tell you, who are engaged in the production and
distribution of moving pictures, what a power you hold in your
hands; nor do I doubt that you
(98)
are fully alive to the responsibility which the wielding of that

power involves.
He who stimulates the imagination of the masses can move them

in any direction he chooses, and there is no more powerful
instrument for stimulating their imagination than the moving
pictures. People go to the theatre to be entertained. If the play is
strong, they come away transformed. They surrender their hearts
and minds to the author, producer, director, stars, and they follow
the example which they see portrayed before their eyes more than
they themselves realize.
Both the press and the radio influence thought, but both lack the
power of visible example, which is the greatest stimulant to action
and which the moving pictures offer better now than any other
medium.
We find ourselves today in the midst of a world-wide depression

which affects everyone, rich and poor alike, and from which all are
groping blindly for deliverance. The film companies, the picture
theatres and the stars have also suffered from it. If they could help
to end the depression, I am sure, they would be glad to. How
could the moving pictures help in this respect?
First, it must be understood that the depression is not an accident,

nor is it purely the result of overproduction and inflation. Those,
although the immediate causes, are merely the instruments which
were used to bring the depression about. The depression itself was
caused by those entrusted with the evolution of humanity. Man
has to be stripped of his material possessions in order that he may
realize, through actual experience, that his true base is spiritual,
and not material. Then he will be ready to receive the Truth which
I have come to bring.
(99)
This Truth consists in the knowledge that man, instead of being a

limited, separate individual, completely bound by the illusion of
time and space and substance, is eternal in his nature and infinite in
his resources. The world-illusion is a dream of his imagining—a
play enacted in the theatre of his consciousness—a comedy of
which he is at once author, producer, director, star. But his
absorption in the role which he has chosen to enact has made him
forgetful of his true self, and he stumbles now as a creature
through the part he has created.
He must be awakened to his true nature. He must see that all

material expression depends upon and flows from spiritual being.
Then he will be steadfast and serene under all circumstances.
There will be no further need, then for the depression, and it will
disappear.
Now how can the moving pictures help man to attain to this
realization? The character of the pictures exhibited need not be
changed. Love, romance, adventure are fundamental things. They
should be portrayed as thrillingly, as entertainingly, as inspiringly
as possible. The wider the appeal, the better.
What needs to be changed is the emphasis, or stress. For

example, courage is a great virtue, but it may, if misapplied,
become a vice. So it is with love, the mainspring of our lives,
which may lead to the heights of Realization or to the depths of
despair. No better example can be given of the two polarities of
love and their effects than that of Mary Magdalene, before, and
after meeting Jesus.
Between these two extremes are many kinds of love all of which
are good, but some of which are better than
(100)
others. I use the terms "good" and "better" simply to designate the
degrees of liberation which they lead to, or confer. Even the love
which expresses through physical desire is good to the extent that
it frees one from the thralldom of personal likes and dislikes and
makes one want to serve the beloved above all other things.
Every human relationship is based on love in one form or

another, and endures or dissolves as that love is eternal or temporal
in character. Marriage, for example, is happy or unhappy, exalting
or degrading, lasting or fleeting, according to the love which
inspires and sustains it. Marriages based on sex attraction alone
cannot endure; they lead inevitably to divorce or worse. Marriages,
on the other hand, which are based on a mutual desire to serve and
inspire, grow continually in richness and in beauty, and are a
benediction to all who know of them.
To lead men and women to the heights of Realization, we must

help them to overcome fear and greed, anger and passion. These
are the result of looking upon the self as a limited, separate,
physical entity, having a definite physical beginning and definite
physical end, with interests apart from the rest of life, and needing
preservation and protection. The self in fact is a limitless, indi-
visible, spiritual essence, eternal in its nature and infinite in its
resources. The greatest romance possible in life is to discover this
Eternal Reality in the midst of infinite change. Once one has
experienced this, one sees oneself in every thing that lives, one
recognizes all of life as his life, everybody's interests as his own.
The fear of death, the desire for self-preservation, the urge to
accumulate substance, the
(101)
conflict of interests, the anger of thwarted desires, are gone. One is

no longer bound by the habits of the past, no longer swayed by the
hopes of the future. One lives in and enjoys each present moment
to the full. There is no greater romance in life than this adventure
in Realization. There is no better medium to portray it than the
moving pictures.
Plays which inspire those who see them to greater under-

standing, truer feeling, better lives, need not necessarily have any-
thing to do with so-called religion. Creed, ritual, dogma, the
conventional ideas of heaven and hell and sin, are perversions of
the truth and confuse and bewilder, rather than clarifying and
inspiring. Real spirituality is best portrayed in stories of pure love,
of selfless service, of truth realized and applied to the most humble
circumstances of our daily lives, raying out into manifold
expression, through home and business, school and college, studio
and laboratory—evoking everywhere the highest joy, the purest
love, the greatest power—producing everywhere a constant
symphony of bliss.
This is the highest practicality. To portray such circumstances

on the screen will make people realize that the spiritual life is
something to be lived, not talked about, and that it—and it alone—
will produce the peace and love and harmony which we seek to
establish as the constant rule of our lives.
__________
List of changes made to Messages
1. In line 39 on p. 1 of the Word document an "l" has been

added to the word "convenienty" to form the word
"conveniently."
2. In line 32 on p. 28 of the Word document an "i" was added
to the "t" between the words "ignored" and "must" to form
the word "it" in the sentence, "Maya should not be ignored;
it must be handled with detachment and understanding."
3. In line 15 on p. 37 a "t" was added to the word "humaniy"
to form the word "humanity" in the sentence, "She has been
a home of Avatars, Prophets, Masters, Seers and Sages,
whose contribution to the spiritual evolution of humanity
has been unparalleled."
4. In line 15 on p. 44 a “k” was removed from the word
“amock” to form the word “amok”.
5. In line 23 on p. 50 a "k" has been added to word "inds" to
form the word "Kinds" in the bold-faced heading.
6. In line 17on p. 51 a comma has been moved from after the
word "secured" to after the words "for ever."
7. In line 2 on p. 66 an "x" has been removed from the word
"externally" to make it read "eternally."
8. In line 2 on p. 92 a "p" was added to the word "supression"
to form the word "suppression."
9. In line 35 on p. 93 a comma has been replaced by a period
after the word "manifested."
10. In line one on p. 97 a dash has been added between the
words "God man" to form the word "God-Man."
11. In line 12 on p. 97 the letter "a" was removed from the
word "Avataras" to form the word "Avatars," keeping it
consistent with the plural of "Avatar" as found p. 37.

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MESSAGES

DELIVERED IN THE EAST AND WEST

Behind the veil of a demi-peace and an unfinished war is a

Between the covers of this book is an answer. The reader may

The Messages gathered here have been grouped in two sections:

We should, I think, be grateful to Adi K. Irani for his inspiration

October 1945 Dr. William Donkin

MEHER BABA was born of Persian parents at Poona, India in

In 1914, Meher Baba's absorption in God-consciousness led to

During the following two years, Meher Baba wrote an account of

The early period of Meher Baba's life as a Spiritual Master can

From July 10th 1925, Meher Baba began to observe SILENCE.

Other characteristics of Meher Baba's life are that he frequently

spiritual working on the higher planes of cosmic consciousness

In 1931, Meher Baba first toured the West, visiting principally

In 1936, a group of Western disciples joined Meher Baba at the

A new period of training for Western disciples began in 1938 at

In addition to the above, Meher Baba established in Ahmednagar

Also, of late, Meher Baba has taken special interest in contacting

Meher Baba's plans for the future include twelve Spiritual

MESSAGES DELIVERED IN THE EAST

Message to India on His Fourth Voyage to

India is a spiritual country. It possesses the most fortunate and

It is only after experiencing bondage and misery that true value

But to bring this suffering to an earlier end, there must be love

*Shri Baba does not deny material well-being or freedom, but if

Message to All Faiths Conference at Nasik, June 1933

( Read by Mr. Ramjoo Abdulla )

I very much appreciate this idea of coming together of the

Shri Meher Baba's Fortieth Birthday Message to Saidapet

( Read by Mr. B. K. Sarosh Irani

drawn me to you. Love is a mighty force. It not only enables one to

To the "Meher Gazette" on the Eve of Eighth Voyage to the

Those who are united in Love know no separation. Wherever I

Shri Meher Baba's 43rd Birthday Message

( Read by Mr. R. K. Sarosh Irani, February, l937 )

The incident of birth is common to all life on earth. Unlike other

No sooner one recoils on himself and is eagerly anxious to elicit

My panacea to the worried world is the effort on its part to get an

Message Given on the Foundation Day of the Universal

(Read by the late C. V. Sampath Aiyangar)

The world is at War to-day.

purpose, and, by playing his part to perfection, he automatically

Love is different from lust. In lust, there is a reliance upon the

* Extract from an article on 'LOVE' by MEHER BABA,

THE SEVEN REALITIES

Existence, Love, Sacrifice, Renunciation,

The Era of Spiritual Awakening that Meher Baba has in view,

THE NEW HUMANITY

AS in the great critical periods of human history, humanity is

At present the urgent problem, with which humanity is faced, is

The root-cause of the chaos, which precipitates itself in wars, is

With the dawn of this true understanding, the problem of wars

Wars do not arise merely to secure material adjustment; they are

To understand the problem of humanity as merely the problem of

can only succeed in this attempt, if he has spiritual understanding.

The NEW HUMANITY, which has to emerge out of the travail of

The coming civilization of the New Humanity shall be ensouled

of spiritual experience. But by itself, the intellect is

Spiritual experience involves something more than what can be