MEHER BABA ON DESTINY
Destiny is the divine law of will which guides one and all from the starting point of evolution to the ultimate goal, God-realisation.
LA p4
There is a course of experience through which every being must pass to realise God…
In fact, there is nothing such as happiness and misery, virtue and vice, or good and bad. Only bliss exists. The experiences of happiness, misery, virtue, vice, good and bad are nothing. But they are the necessary stepping-stones on the course to higher things, which, though illusory, everyone has to pass through.
Only the Sadguru can alter, divert or destroy this course. That is, he can change the course of a person’s destiny. This automatically occurs once a person comes in contact with such a Master. Unless all the experiences and sanskaras of this course are wiped out totally, there is no chance of Realisation for the disciple; and only a Perfect Master can do that.
21 August 1929,
Dhulia,
LM4 p1203
Law is good. This universe is based on the divine law of love, which pervades all existence.
before 1936,
PM p251
Q. What is destiny, luck, fate, etc.?
Baba: Destiny means the divine will guiding the lines of sin and virtue, resultant in suffering and happiness, experienced by the soul from the beginning of its evolution till its end in Realisation. Fate or luck is the means or process of spending the impressions the soul gathers while passing through innumerable evolutionary stages, which, in other words, is the law of karma, or the automatic forming of luck or fate in the next life, according to the sanskaras in this life. The impressions of each life build the fate of the life coming after.
As a simile, suppose every soul has to bear a burden of 700 tons, i.e. a certain amount of suffering and happiness, which every soul has to pass through from the beginning of its evolution till the end in Realisation. But as the burden of these 700 tons varies in kind and form, the impressions of lives vary too, and the fate of every new life is formed according to the impressions gathered in the past life.
Thus the soul’s present experiencing of the impressions of the past life means fate. The soul has to pass through a number of lives and forms, but as the experiences of every life vary, so the fate varies. Hence, destiny is one, but fate or luck is different.
4 May 1937,
Nasik,
Aw 10:2 p23
Other versions:
Aw 2:1 p12 and LA p189-190
God is not kind, he is the ocean of mercy. But it is all according to law. And law is not complicated, it is simple. You sow a seed, you water it, you have a plant that grows – it is so simple. Law gives you all this from one seed, because all this was latent in the seed.
Law deals individually, and also in multitudes of the same type. Your taking birth at a certain time, your giving up the body at a certain time, is all according to law, which shapes your actions. You are not responsible.
But what about those who all die at one and the same moment, like thousands in an earthquake? Law gathers all of the similar types in one country, and ends it in one time.
When the plant grows into a big tree, it is not conscious of it, not responsible, but law shapes it, brings out of it what is there. When you were a baby, you were not conscious how you grew up. It is so natural because law does it. From childhood to old age, you feel the same yourself. Only when you look in the mirror, you know it (that you are old), and most of the time you forget you have got old.
This law so establishes itself that there is no escape. It grows into a habit which can never be shaken off. Law asserts itself as soon as you are born. The puppy does not open its eyes when it is born. It feels hungry and searches for its mother’s milk.
Law’s grip is eternal till you go beyond law. Then you are free. Shams says,
You think binding to a Master is binding, and all life is free to do what you like. But you are bound by hunger, sleep, etc., and have the body-binding, the greatest binding. But this one binding of faith and love to the Master is sure to free you from all universal bindings.
Being good is a good binding. You must either be good or bad. Bad is like bound wrists. Good is like bound feet. Kabir writes beautifully about this: “Good keeps your hands free, so that you can even unbind your feet.”
Be good. It pays. Bad makes you mad (insane). Good takes you to God. And the best way to become good is to serve others and try to make others happy. The climax of good is loving. Bad is anger, getting excited. Good is forgiving. Biting is bad, but to be bit is good. If you offer your cheek, knowing you could easily wring their neck, that is excellent.
26 January 1939,
Agra, India,
Gl Feb. 1994, p6-7
Shams = Shams Tabriz (d. c.1246) a Perfect Master of Persia
The growth of the physical body is worked out by the operation of natural laws. Whereas the progress of the aspirant towards self-knowledge is worked out by the operation of the spiritual laws pertaining to the transformation and emancipation of consciousness.
The physical body of the child grows very gradually, and almost imperceptibly. And the same is true of the spiritual progress of the person who has once entered the Path. The child does not know how its physical body grows. The aspirant also is, in the same way, often oblivious of the law according to which he makes headway towards the destination of his spiritual progress.
c.1940, Di v2 p37
Before karma is created, the individual has a sort of freedom to choose what it shall be. But after it has been accomplished, it becomes a factor which cannot be ignored, and which has either to be expended through the results which it invites, or counteracted by fresh and appropriate karma.
The pleasure and the pain experienced in the life on earth, the success or failure which attend it, the attainments and obstacles with which it is strewed, the friends and foes which make their appearance in it, are all determined by the karma of past lives.
Karmic determination is popularly designated as fate. Fate, however, is not some foreign and oppressive principle. Fate is man’s own creation pursuing him from past lives. And just as it has been shaped by past karma, it can also be modified, remoulded, and even undone through karma in the present life.
If the nature of the karma in earthly life is determined by the impressions stored in the ego-mind, the impressions stored in the ego-mind are, in their turn, determined by the nature of karma in earthly life. The impressions in the ego-mind and the nature of karma are interdependent. The karma on earth plays an important part in shaping and reshaping the impressions in the ego-mind and giving it a momentum which decides the future destiny of the individual.
It is in the arena of earthly existence that creative and effective karma can take place, through the medium of the Gross body. The proper understanding and use of the law of karma enables man to become a master of his own destiny through intelligent and wise action.
Each person has become what he is through his own accumulated actions. And it is through his own actions that he can mould himself according to the pattern of his heart, or finally emancipate himself from the reign of karmic determination which governs him through life and death.
c.1941? Di v4 p89-90
Good actions lead to good results, and bad actions lead to bad results.
It is through the systematic connection between cause and effect in the world of values that the moral order of the universe is sustained. If the law of karma were to be subject to any relaxation, reversals or exceptions, and if it were not strictly applicable in the domain of values, there would be no moral order in the universe. And if there is no moral order in the universe, human existence would be precarious from the point of view of the attainment of values.
In the universe where there is no moral order, human endeavor would be perpetually fraught with doubt and uncertainty. There cannot be any serious pursuit of values if there is no assured connection between means and ends, and if the law of karma can be set aside. The inflexibility of the law of karma is a condition of significant action. Significant human action would be utterly impossible if the law of karma could be safely ignored or flouted.
In being inviolable, the law of karma is like the other laws of nature. However, the rigorousness of the operation of karmic laws does not come to the soul as the oppressiveness of some external and blind power, but as something which is involved in the rationality of the scheme of life. Karmic determination is the condition of true responsibility. It means that man will reap as he sows. What a person gathers by way of his experience is invariably connected with what he does.
If a person has done an evil turn to someone, he must receive the penalty for it, and welcome the evil rebounding upon himself. And if he has done a good turn to someone, he must also receive the reward for it, and enjoy the good rebounding upon himself. What he does for another he has also done for himself, although it may take time for him to realise that this is exactly so. The law of karma might be said to be an expression of justice, or a reflection of the unity of life in the world of duality.
1941?
India,
Di v4 p91-92
God has ordained certain laws for the universe. They are followed by the Sun, Moon and stars, and everything that breathes. These laws are not binding for the God-realised ones. But they nevertheless respect and observe these God-ordained laws, because they have become one with God.
In a sense, there is no such thing as a violation of any laws. The so-called miracles are performed using the hitherto unknown powers and forces, which operate according to their own laws. The Masters do often perform miracles, but they do so strictly for spiritual purposes. And while doing so, they do not throw off the spiritual laws of the universe. They are above all laws. But even their super-ordinary achievements are according to the eternal law of Truth.
The whole universe with all its laws is subject to the supreme law of Truth. It is ever being administered impersonally, as well as through the spiritual hierarchy. To the superficial observer, it may seem that there is no reign of Truth in the universe. The Truth does reign, and reigns unceasingly and unfailingly.
Even the insignificant business concerns and other private and public institutions have their laws, and cannot function without laws. Much more so is it true of the universe. This vast universe, with all the multitudinous occurrences within it, is subject to some self-justifying law. Sometimes it does appear as if sincere toil is lost, or the virtuous are condemned to suffering and the vicious are enthroned with power or endowed with success. But all this is either a fractional view of the realities or an illusion in the garb of judgment.
To one who can take a complete and unclouded view of occurrences, the inexorable reign of Truth in all happenings, great or small, individual or collective, is a clear and unchallengeable fact. The reign of Truth may be described in different ways as the law of God, or the law of justice, or the law of karma. It is the law of cause and effect, or the law of divine love, according to the angle of vision or the limiting perspective given by the particular standpoint of the intellect.
But the important fact is that whatever may be the manner in which this law of Truth is apprehended by the intellect, it unchallengeably exists. It is a supreme and self-justifying power that unfailingly and irresistibly reigns in the universe, and it has no exceptions. All seers have announced the reign of this law of Truth. It operates both impersonally, and through the conscious working of the divine hierarchy of Masters and their Agents.
Though dwelling in the universal mind, with its seat as the universal body, the Truth-realised Masters do not neglect the coordinative and organised working required for the execution of the divine plan. Their plans for the world are made far in advance of the times, sometimes centuries before the time when they are intended to be executed. They dwell in eternity, and they have in their view the past, the present and the future. They are the custodians of God’s process of self-fulfillment, working itself out through the march of the variegated incidents in time.
The cooperative and organised working of the Perfect Masters expresses itself through the functioning of the spiritual hierarchy. The Masters, as one with the supreme Godhead, convey the divine will and impulse to the advanced souls or Mahayogis or Pirs of the Mental world. The advanced souls catch the impulse originating in the shoreless Truth, and pass it on from the Mental world to those who control the Subtle world. In the Gross world it may manifest itself through many natural upheavals, e.g. earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, floods, changes in the structure of the earth and of the ocean-bed. It may also manifest itself through the upheavals in the life of mankind (e.g. the rise and downfall of empires, wars, epidemics, births, deaths, catastrophes, and other major episodes in the history of humanity). All happenings in the history of humanity are subject to the divine plan, as released and implemented by the Perfect Masters through their Agents in the different worlds.
The causes of what becomes patently manifest in the Gross world are to be found in the commotion in the Subtle world. And the causes of the commotion in the Subtle world are to be found in the directives that obtain from the Mental world. And the origin of the directives of the Mental world is seen as being none other than the will of God as released by the Masters who are consciously one with God.
Thus the Masters are indirectly in charge of the execution of the divine plan. They make use of the infinite power and understanding to further that plan in all the three worlds. And their working gets particularly accelerated and coordinated during the Avataric periods, when the Avatar, as the inspiring force of the divine hierarchy, assumes the principal directive role in the divine task of giving a spiritual push to humanity.
before August 1949,
from notes dictated by Meher Baba, ST p57-60
Law equally binds all, except those who become free. One principal binding appears in varied aspects, like the uniformity of two hands, one head, and two eyes, running through the differences of human features and figures. According to law, the number of lives and deaths, with their measure of suffering and happiness, is fixed. Until the total number of incarnations are gone through, and the amount of experience is earned and unlearned, no freedom can be attained.* But all this experiencing is nothing. When I say this, you will grouse. Since you do not know the law of nothingness, you may even think that there is nothing like justice in the world. But that is not so.
When one escapes law and merges in God, who is beyond law, one becomes God. There is no binding. He is Majzoob-e-kamil. He is merged in God, has no normal consciousness, and is completely disconnected from the world. If he comes down, he brings God on earth. Law exists on earth. However, he brings law-exceeded God down as law-abiding God. As Jivanmukta, God in the Beyond state is conscious of his infinite attributes. Law cannot touch him, because law-exceeded God is infinite, mighty and powerful. The Jivanmukta is God-realised and has normal consciousness, but has no concern with the world, and is unaffected by the world. His state is unique. He does everything and yet does nothing. He is Majzoob-e-kamil, and also has normal consciousness.
The Sadguru (Qutub) is law-exceeded God. He is all-powerful. He comes down from the Beyond state to normal consciousness. He is concerned with the world and its people, and yet is completely detached from them. He has to work with the sins and merits of the world, and is concerned with everyone and everything. He extends his hand of love and grace under a glove that keeps him unaffected by the world. Law cannot touch him, but he touches law. He acts like an ordinary human being, but uses his infinite power, knowledge and bliss to make others free from the law of opposites.
from notes taken of a talk by Meher Baba,
July 1953, Dehra Dun, GG4 p91-92
Another version: GT p267-268
*Bal Natu wrote, “The only exception Baba referred to is through the
contact and grace of a Perfect Master or the God-man.” (GG4 p92)
Only when God is perfectly individualised, as most Perfect Dnyani or most Perfect A’riff, can he impart Knowledge to other individuals. The question may yet be asked as to why should the Master then not impart Knowledge to all individuals, instead of giving Knowledge to some, and not giving it to others.
This is a question of law divine, commonly known as the law of karma, or law of bindings, or law of cause and effect. Except the Perfect Dnyani or Perfect A’riff, no other individual can under any circumstances escape this law and its consequences.
Therefore when the Master gives Knowledge to certain individuals and does not give it to all, that is not because of the Master’s incapacity to give to all, but because of the incapacity of one and all to receive Knowledge. The latter incapacity is due to the lack of a sufficiently deep and strong connection with the Master, or for want of complete surrender to his will, or on account of the absence of the required degree of preparedness on the part of the individuals concerned. Under these circumstances it would be like throwing pearls before swine for the Master to offer Knowledge to one and all irrespective of the individual’s receptivity.
We are all, in a way, hypocrites, inasmuch as we always try to justify ourselves, right or wrong. According to the Vedantists and the Sufis, God does everything. Everything is done according to his will and in accordance with his laws. In a way, that is all right. But, being short of the truth, the whole of it is not right. And the lack of truth is the lack of experience behind the assertions.
Without having gained the actual experience, to act according to facts of experience is not only silly — like a tutored parrot expressing love to a girl – but such assertions, based on mere reasoning and logic, lead to lust and dust. The reactions of the actions based on such ‘ignorance of knowledge’ are too terrible to contemplate, apart from other consequences like lunacy or nervous breakdown.
1950s? Aw 10:4 p 3-5,
also PL p35-36
Although the whole universe is illusion, yet it is governed by a law, a definite law, and that law deals with every detail. We cannot escape from the law of karma. But when we transcend illusion, the law does not bind us any longer…
Krishna said the same thing to Arjuna: ‘Kill your relatives, kill your friends,’ in the battle of Kurukshetra. You must have heard about that famous battle.
Arjuna refused, saying, ‘How can I kill my own kith and kin?’
Krishna then said, ‘I am above the law. The whole creation is from me, has come out of me. Obey me, and you will not be bound.’
If here and now I tell you, there is an ant, and suddenly Don kills it, of course, a binding is then created – the impression of the act of killing. You cannot be free from that binding. You are bound because you killed one ant.
Every action that you do binds you, every action, every little action, whether good or bad. The good action also binds you, but you are bound then, let us say, by a chain of gold. And if the actions are bad, then you are bound, say, by a chain of steel.
Christ said, ‘Leave all, and follow me.’ What did that mean?
Don Stevens: I assume it means literally to leave everything and follow Christ within yourself.
Baba: But the meaning behind it was not to leave all these things, not to renounce the world. It was to obey.
Leave all thoughts, your own thoughts, your selfish thoughts, and simply obey me. Then you are Liberated, then you are free. But if you cannot, then more and more bindings are created, for every action creates a binding.
You are very old, Don, ages old. And you are bound. And you will be bound, and you’ll go on getting bound age after age. Age after age the same bindings will be created, you’ll try to free yourself, and in so doing, get rebound.
But once you are Liberated completely, then you’ll realise that there was no binding at all. It was just imagination, a dream… you were seeing and experiencing only a dream.
All of you here are very old – ancient ones. All are God. God is within each one, and God is not bound by time – he is eternal. You are all eternal. Now you are bound. You feel you are bound, and you continue to get bound. But there will be a time when every individual gets freed, gets Liberated. Then that individual realises that all his bindings were just in a dream – he was seeing a dream.
Christ took upon himself the sufferings. Why? To Liberate humanity. And the bindings are still there. Mankind is still bound. Yet Liberation doesn’t require time. You are bound for ages, but when you get Liberated, it is instantaneous – it comes in a flash.
Just think of it: God is within all, in everyone, and he is infinite. God is all powerful, God is all bliss. And yet, though God is in each one, how helpless we feel. We weep, we feel pain, we feel sorrow, although God, who is so infinitely powerful and blissful, is there. Why? It is because of our own bindings. But there is one way to get Liberated from these bindings, and that is through love…
26 July 1956,
Myrtle Beach,
Aw 4:3 p38-39
The mystery of the universe is hierarchic in structure. There are graded orders, one supervening upon the other. The spiritual panorama of the universe reveals itself as a gradient with laws upon laws. Superimposition of one type of law over the other implies elasticity and resilience of lower laws for the working out of higher superseding laws. Instead of lawlessness, it means a regime of graded laws adjusted with each other in such a manner that they all subserve the supreme purpose of God, the creator.
The lower laws are subsumed under the higher laws. We have first the law of cause and effect reigning supreme in nature. Such natural laws seem to be mechanical, rigid and inexorable. But by acting and interacting with life-force, they lead to higher laws of sanskaric or impressional determination, and become superseded by them. Impressional determinism is not an exception to causal laws, but is their finer and higher form. It supervenes upon mechanical causal laws.
Let us take an example to illustrate the functioning of supervening orders in the spiritual panorama. The days of every incarnate soul in the Gross world, and what they bring, are both definitely determined by the accumulated impressions of past lives. But this impressional determinism does not work itself out independently of, or in defiance of, ordinary causal laws. On the contrary, it works through established causal laws.
For example, wrong diet or gluttony or any other disregard for natural physiological laws will definitely affect the duration of the life-term in the Gross body. In the same way, intelligent use of known laws will affect happenings during this term of life. But whether or not there is going to be a disregard of such laws on the part of some particular soul, is itself impressionally determined, i.e. it is dependent upon his gathered dispositions. Thus physiological and other causal laws are subsumed by higher karmic laws, and lend themselves as pliant fabric-work for them. The law of karma supersedes and uses the other laws of nature without violating them.
Nor are the natural laws in any way violated by what are called miracles. No miracle is an exception to the existing laws of the universe. It is an overt result of the impersonal working or conscious use of the established laws of the inner spheres. It is called a miracle because it cannot be explained by the known laws of the Gross world. Here known laws are superimposed by unknown laws. It is not a case of chaos or lawlessness.
1957? Be p33-35
Everything happens according to divine will, and it is a mistake to think that God has a rival in the form of a devil.
1956? Be p57
Whatever is to happen will happen. This is the principle, or as I call it, the Law of Must, the law on which universal illusion thrives. It is as if the ready and complete film of illusion, from the beginningless beginning to the endless end, is being projected continually.
8 September 1957,
Meherazad,
LC p82
We start with the birth of a child, one human child, for example. The birth of this human child is due to his past karma. No sooner has he taken birth than he begins to experience the sanskaras acquired out of his past lives. So what will be the nature of the child? The nature of the child will, of course, be his past sanskaras. That child must act, feel and think according to his sanskaras accumulated in past lives. There is no way out, and he must experience them. That is the Law of Must.
To add to this principle of Must, the environmental circumstances are such that they help the child to act, feel and think according to his past sanskaras. No sooner does the child see the light of earth, whether it be male or female, it begins to grow older day by day. It has to weep as soon as it is born. It must be given milk-diet. The child must grow bigger and bigger. It must have a name. Its sex, etc., are determined by the principle of Must.
The child knows not whence he or she has come from. It has no thought of all that. It takes for granted that it is born, and it begins to live. It gets a sex and a name, cries, eats, drinks, later studies in school, and enjoys life – all this because of his or her nature…
It is your very nature that makes you think that you are a man or woman, that you have a body (sickly or healthy, beautiful or ugly, etc.) It makes you think that you are hungry, robust, unwell, etc.
23 February 1958,
Meherabad,
Aw 7:2 p24
It is in God’s plan to awaken everyone from the dream of creation, and make him live in him and experience his infinite bliss. The law of opposites operates unfailingly to stage the so-called good and bad times. And in his compassion, God leads everyone and everything towards himself, who is beyond good and bad. So there is really nothing to worry over.
1960,
Poona,
DH p66
God’s existence is infinite. God’s dnyan (knowledge) is infinite. God’s power is infinite. God’s bliss is endless. God’s mercy is unbounded. God’s mercy is closely linked with sanskaras. The law of illusion governs sanskaras, and illusion is governed by sanskaras.
There are no sinners as such. According to the law of illusion, sanskaras give rise to so-called sins. The law of illusion is different from the divine will. Nothing can supersede the law of illusion except divine will.
The deaths of Abraham Lincoln, Mahatma Gandhi and John Kennedy had been so because of the law of illusion which governs sanskaras, and had nothing to do with divine will.
AO p172
According to the law that governs the universe, all suffering is your labour of love to unveil your real self. In comparison to the infinite bliss you experience on attaining the I am God state, all the suffering and agony you go through amounts to practically nothing.
c.1961,
India,
EN p48
There is a king who has vast possessions. But he is a worthless king. He spends all his energy and money in selfish pursuits and luxuries, and has no care for his subjects. In his next birth, he is born blind, and becomes a beggar, and thus compensates for his wrong doings.
Now this king has a servant who is honest and faithful and hard-working. In his next birth, because of his merits, he is born into a cultured and well-to-do family. One day when he is going along the street, he hears a pitiable cry from the pavement. It is from the blind beggar who was the king in his previous life, crying aloud with outstretched hands, ‘Have pity, give me a penny in the name of the Lord.’ And because all actions, however trivial, are inwardly determined by the sanskaric ties, creating claims and counter-claims, the rich man is unconsciously drawn towards the beggar, and gives him a few copper coins.
A king crying out for alms, and a servant taking pity on him – what a comedy, what an irony of fate. This is the working of the law of karma, the expression of justice in the world of values.
The law of karma is impartial and inexorable. It knows no concessions, gives no preferences, makes no exceptions. It dispenses justice.
By the divine law you are shielded from remembrance of past lives, for it would not help you in living your present life, but would make it infinitely more complicated and confusing.
c.1961,
India,
EN p53-54
To you, what you see is absolutely real. To me, it is absolutely false. I alone am real and my will governs the cosmic illusion. It is the truth when I say that the waves do not roll or the leaves do not move without my will.
The moment the intensity of your faith in my will reaches the apex, you bid adieu to worry for good. Then, all that you suffered and enjoyed in the past, together with all that you may experience in the future, will be to you the most loving and spontaneous expression of my will. And as the lover places the will of the beloved above all else, there is nothing which can cause worry.
c.1961,
India,
OL (Aw?),
another version: EN p62
There are two things, Truth and law. Truth belongs to God, law belongs to illusion. Illusion is infinitely vast, yet it is governed by law. The law of cause and effect, which none can escape, belongs to this law.
Law is bondage. Truth is freedom.
Law upholds ignorance. Truth upholds reality.
Law governs imagination, which binds you to illusion.
Truth sets you free from illusion.
Although it is the nature of imagination to run riot, it is restricted to the definite and minutely precise pattern of bindings created and upheld by the law of bondage. The moment imagining ceases, the shackles of the law are broken, and freedom is experienced in the realisation of the Truth.
It is impossible for one, of oneself, to overcome the operation of the law and merge in the Truth. Only those who are one with God can take you beyond the bounds of the law, and give you the experience of the freedom which is the Truth.
c.1961,
India,
EN p97
Everything in the universe is, and from the beginning has been, a materialisation of the divine original whim, working out irrevocably without default, deflection or defeat. It is the unfolding upon the screen of consciousness of the film of creation, sequence after sequence, according to the pattern that issued from the original whim.
However, when God as God-man plays the role of audience, he can alter or erase at his Avataric whim any thing or happening which was destined from the original whim. But the very arising of the Avataric whim was inherent in the original whim.
The Sufis distinguish between qaza, destined occurrences, and qadar, happenings which are impulsive or accidental. The Avatar’s or Qutub’s actions are impulsive, and arise from their infinite compassion. And the functioning of this whim relieves and gives beauty and charm to what would otherwise be a rigid determinism.
The Qutub’s actions bring about modifications in the previously determined divine plan, but they are limited in extent. But the Avatar’s interventions bring about modifications on a universal scale.
For instance, suppose that it was divinely ordained for a war to occur in 1950. It must take place at the appointed time, and the train of events which follows will punctually meet the present timetable. However, if the Avatar is in the world at the time, he might, in his exercise of qadar, ward off the catastrophe by some particular action on the Gross plane. And so, in the relentless working out of the laws of nature, there can enter the inexplicable divine caprice, spelling out peace instead of war in the diary of man.
Kabir has said:
Kabir rekha karam kee kabhee na meete Ram,
Meetanhar samarth hai para samajh kiya hai kam.
‘O Kabir, the lines of fate are never effaced by Ram. He is all-powerful, and can undo destiny, but he never does so, for he has given full thought to what he has planned.’
The Avatar does not, as a rule, interfere with the working out of human destinies. He will do so only in times of grave necessity, when he deems it absolutely necessary from his all-encompassing point of view. For a single alteration in the planned and imprinted pattern, in which each line and dot is interdependent, means a shaking up and a re-linking of an unending chain of possibilities and events.
The least divergence from the pre-drawn line of fate not only requires infinite adjustments within the immediate orbit of the individual concerned, but involves in its interminable repercussions all those connected by the bond of past sanskaras.
The Avataric whim is also part of the divine destiny. Qaza provides for the absolute necessity of the Avatar’s chance intervention, and the very unpredictability of this intervention is predicted in qaza, for his infinite compassion, because of which his intervention occurs, may not be denied.
In the working out of the Avataric whim, there is not the least element of chance. The aim of the whim’s action is perfect, and its result is precise. An ordinary person’s whim, when expressed, may have consequences quite outside itself, as illustrated by the following story:
A drunken man was passing by a wood-apple tree, and had a whim to taste one of its fruits. As a rule, a drunkard has a distaste for sour or tart things, because they nullify the effect of drink. So this man’s wanting a wood-apple was purely a whim, independent of thought or real desire.
He picked up a stone and threw it at the tree. The stone missed any of the apples, killed a bird, scared away many others, and fell on the head of a traveller resting beneath the tree.
Thus the haphazard expression of the drunkard’s whim not only failed to accomplish the whim, but brought about results completely outside it. The whim was merely an unrelated fancy, and the action stemming from it had no connection with its object.
This sort of thing can never happen in the exercise of the Avatar’s whim. Arising from compassion, and the expression of Perfection, it is perfect in its aim and results.
c.1960,
India,
EN p106-107
Keep happy and cheerful, and never worry about the environment in which you find yourself…
Everything is in its place according to the divine plan, and because of the love of the God-man for his creation.
Aw 19:2 p2
(individual instruction)
There is no free will. Everything is in accordance with the working out of one’s own sanskaras, and even this depends on the preordained plan set in execution with the emergence of the original whim of God, which gave the original urge to know ‘Who am I?’ It is the primal impression that works itself out as one’s destiny and as apparent free will. Thus, in fact, there is no free will.
WD p29
“Is it not very strange that, in spite of God being supposed to be equally just and merciful towards all, there are many people who are happy and many who are unhappy? Granted that this is due to individual good and bad actions on the part of the persons concerned. But what about those who are either born princes or born paupers?
“Perhaps it is like the rain. It rains over all places, but while pools hold the water for a long time, rocks soon get dried up. But we cannot blame the rain for this, can we? But then why are there pools that hold water, and the rocks that dry up soon, and who is responsible for creating this difference?”
Meher Baba, 1921,
on a train between
Bombay and Poona, Ms 3:2 p35
“…By a special dispensation of God, also, the very highest type of devotee, whose whole being is permanently focused on the divine beloved, is as completely exempt from the law of karma as the Dnyani (God-realised soul). Unlike the Dnyani, however, such a devotee is utterly ignorant of this exemption.
“But the ordinary devotee, no matter how sincere his devotion, remains bound by the law of karma, and so his best course is to apply this law to his own spiritual advantage by the constant practise of virtue and the constant abstention from evil. And when he fails in virtue, or falls into sin, he must throw himself on the boundless mercy of God and ask his forgiveness.”
Meher Baba, 8 November 1952,
Meherabad, Aw 1:1 p6
“Duality signifies separateness. Separateness implies fear. Fear causes worry. The way of oneness is the way to happiness. The way of manyness leads to worries. I am the only one without a second, so I am eternally happy. You are separate from your Self, so you always worry. To you, what you see is absolutely real. To me, it is absolutely false. I alone am real and my will governs the cosmic illusion. It is the truth when I say that the waves do not roll or the leaves do not move without my will.
“The moment the intensity of your faith in my will reaches the apex, you bid adieu to worry for good. Then, all that you suffered and enjoyed in the past, together with all that you may experience in the future, will be to you the most loving and spontaneous expression of my will. And as the lover places the will of the beloved above all else, there is nothing which can cause worry.
“Live more and more in the present, which is ever beautiful, and which really stretches far beyond the limits of the past and the future. If at all you want to worry, let your only worry be how to remember me constantly. This is worth worrying about, because it is the antidote for worry. Think of me more and more, and all your worries will dwindle into nothing, for they really are nothing. And my will works out to awaken this in you and in all.”
c.1960, India, OL,
another version: EN p62
“The judges of the world bring guilt to the guilty and punish them. I bring guilt to the guilty and forgive them.”
Meher Baba, 1960s? IS p59