MEHER BABA ON GOD REALISATION
It is better to die than to live, better to fear than to die, better to fill than to fear, and better to do or make than to fill.
‘To die’ does not mean the ordinary death of the body, but the real death of the ego. That is, to die before death, which amounts to becoming one with God.
‘To fear’ is not to be taken literally. To fear means to be in the state of one created, in spite of realising oneself as the creator, or God. This is the state of a normal-conscious Perfect Master, which is more difficult to attain, and spiritually superior to that of a Majzoob – one who remains eternally immersed in the ocean of divinity, intoxicated continuously.
‘To fill’ means to fill the hearts of people with the wine of divine knowledge.
‘To do or make’ is the highest possible attainment. It means to make others Perfect like yourself. To do for others what you have done for yourself. To make them like yourself in terms of power, knowledge, authority and duty. This is the most supreme state, the state of being a Perfect Master.
The meaning of my words is that it is better to be one with God than to lead a worldly life; better to return to normal consciousness after union with God than to remain divinely absorbed; better to fill the hearts of others with divine love than to remain indifferent to humanity; and better to make others one with God than merely to fill their hearts with love.
24 February 1923,
Meherabad,
LM2 p488-489
The realisation of the Supreme Being (Paramatma) as our own self is the realisation of Truth. The universe is the outcome of imagination. Then why try to get a superficial knowledge of the imaginative universe, rather than acquire the knowledge of self (Truth)?
What is knowledge? Knowledge means the experience of Paramatma (Dnyan) – the knowledge of the highest that our soul, which is everlasting, gets of the Supreme Being, i.e., Self-realisation.
What is the universal understanding? It is called Vishva Dnyan, or the knowledge of the universe with which one comes down after realisation of Paramatma (Dnyan), i.e. knowledge of God and the Nirvikalpa state. That is to say, knowledge equals experience plus universal understanding, or perfect knowledge of that experience. Meaning again that he who acquires knowledge must necessarily acquire experience, and then again, he must have a perfect knowledge of that experience. Otherwise, those who acquire experience and remain in that Nirvikalpa state (the state of Ananta Ananda or everlasting bliss) are called Majzoobs. Although they are all-knowing and perfect in every way, they are unable to do anything for, or give salvation to, the world.
In short, the experience of the state of the Supreme Being (God) is the real state.
Now let us see what this experience is that one gets before acquiring the real knowledge.
The Sadgurus or Realised ones take those to whom they are to give this experience through the seven planes absolutely in the dark – either with bandages around their eyes, or with their eyes closed. That is, those to whom the Sadguru gives the experience have no knowledge of these seven planes. They are quite ignorant of that knowledge, though they have already crossed all these seven planes.
It is for this reason that when the candidate for this experience is let off by the Sadguru just below the seventh plane, his state is unimaginable and indescribable. It is as if an unexpected current of millions of candlepower of electric light enters or dissolves his Subtle body. He is amazed and stupefied at this new experience.
Then, before he can properly think of his new, unimaginably wonderful experience, he suddenly acquires the Nirvikalpa state, where he himself becomes one with the Ananta Ananda or eternal bliss.
But it is useless to realise all this without personal experience. One may listen to years of explanations, or read volume after volume, but one would not get even a glimpse of an idea – a shadow of a shadow – of the real experience, without experiencing it personally.
Such a perfect state is attained by one out of millions, and that too, only by the grace of a Sadguru. To talk about this knowledge and experience without acquiring it – to realise it only through philosophy or the superficial knowledge of religion – is utter folly – humbug, pure and simple.
29 April 1926,
Meherabad,
Aw 16:1 p3-4
The easiest and shortest way to God-realisation is through the contact of a Sadguru, which means keeping the company or sahavas of such a Master, obeying him and serving him. This remedy is like a special express train which carries you straight to your destination.
The second way is to repeat, with all love and in all sincerity, any one name of God, and in the absence of a Sadguru, to serve humanity selflessly. This is like a journey by a passenger train, which halts at almost every station.
The third method takes a very long time. It means performing all the rites and ceremonies of one’s religion wholeheartedly and faithfully, but not mechanically. This method is like a freight train chugging along very slowly.
The Avatars and Perfect Masters carry their special disciples with them by express trains. To those individuals who are inclined toward devotion and service, the Masters have shown the path of selfless service and repetition of God’s name. And for the world at large, they have pointed to the path of observing rituals and ceremonies.
31 May 1926,
Meherabad,
LM3 p806
Upasani Maharaj was a woman in his previous birth, and he will never take birth again.
God-realisation is usually obtained while living in a human form, as with the human form comes authority. But there is a special authority that comes with the male human form.
A Perfect Master has a Circle of twelve men and two female appendages. Of the fourteen people, all the members of the Circle are males, except the two women, who play the roles of spiritual mother and sister.
Babajan is a Qutub, one of the five of this age. From the fifty-six God-realised people, one woman becomes a Perfect Master, and another is also Perfect — a Jivanmukta or Majzoob. That woman is presently in Tibet. She has a group of disiples, but usually stays in the mountains, and very, very few ever see her.
The remaining fifty-four God-realised beings are men.
The number of God-realised souls on Earth is eternally fixed at fifty-six, and is never altered, except during Avataric ages, when God directly descends as a man.
June 1926?
LM3 p815
It is not clear whether Baba was saying that there are always two Realised women living on Earth, or that just at that time (1926?) there were two Realised women incarnate. I think the latter is more likely. Later, in the 1950s, Baba said that Upasani Maharaj would take another birth in the future, even though he was a Perfect Master in this one.
Editor
A Sadguru is like an ocean, a limitless stretch of water. Empty your mind of all mayavic desires, and the waters of the ocean will find a way in – the waters of knowledge, power and bliss.
The Jivanmuktas and Majzoobs and other spiritual beings on the Subtle and Mental planes are the pipelines for the waters of Realisation. They distribute the ocean’s waters to deserving candidates who are prepared and who are being prepared.
22 June 1926,
Meherabad,
LM3 p816
These Realised personalities are of two kinds: Saliks or Sadgurus, and Majzoobs or Brahmi-bhoots. Both are Realised and enjoy perfect bliss. But outwardly there is a vast difference between these two types. The Majzoobs, though God-realised, go about in rags or are completely naked. They remain in dirty surroundings, and are oblivious of the world and of people, to whom they appear to be crazed beggars. On the other hand, Saliks and Sadgurus, though fully God-realised, act just like ordinary mortals. They eat, drink, sleep, talk and appear to suffer like any other ordinary man.
But how can you recognise them? Among a hundred thousand so-called saints, there may be only one who is real. What is the test? The best test is his company. Maintain your connection with him, stay with him. Then you can know him, and even, in your own limited way, judge him by your standards, understanding him to some degree. For example, there are two glasses full of water. One glass contains a little salt in it. But how can you know which is which? For that, you have to taste the water, and only then are you able to know the difference. Similarly, by keeping the close company of a so-called saint or Master, you will come to know who is real and who is false.
21 August 1929,
Dhulia,
LM4 p1202-1203
Love and self-surrender both lead one to the goal. But generally in the path of love, one drops his body after reaching the final destination. Whereas the one who treads the path of surrender, besides becoming conscious of God, also becomes conscious of the three spheres, Gross, Subtle and Mental, and thus returns to gross consciousness to serve as a beacon of light to others on the Path. That is why surrendering is better than love.
A Majzoob has no other consciousness except of God – no Gross, Subtle or Mental consciousness. He is fully and divinely absorbed. After gaining normal consciousness, however, one can become conscious of the Gross, Subtle and Mental planes. Because of this, the Qutubs are able to lead others on the Path and make them like themselves… Alongside their state of divinity, the Perfect Masters remain in the dirt of the world, the ocean of life. They work in the maya of the illusory world, though this dirt does not touch them. On the contrary, they lift others from the world and purify them. Therefore, surrender to a Perfect Master is the best method of treading the Path, and there is no better way than that for reaching the objective, God-realisation.
February 18 1930,
Nasik,
LM4 p1269
To lead men and women to the heights of Realisation, 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 a definite physical end, with interests apart from the rest of life, and needing preservation and protection.
The self in fact is a limitless, indivisible 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 everything that lives, one recognises 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 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 Realisation.
1 June 1932,
Beverly Hills, California,
Me p100-101
There are many who have delusions of having realised God. After reading Vedanta and Sufi literature, many genuinely believe that they have attained the state of Aham Brahmasmi or Anal Haq, the I-am-God state.
Nevertheless, such delusions are far better and more tolerable than the established assumptions of mankind that this world and its affairs are everlasting and real.
What I say is that it is far better to be led into believing that ‘I am not other than Paramatma’ than to get established in believing that ‘I am only a speck of dust, I am a sinner, and I am weak.’
1 November 1932,
LM5 p1735
The shortest and easiest way toward God-realisation is that of the seeker who has the good fortune to be accepted as a disciple by a Perfect Master. Only a Perfect Master, who is the veritable incarnation of divinity, can awaken in the individual the fire of divine love, which consumes in its flames the lesser desires of body, mind and world, all of which must be completely relinquished before Perfection can be realised. The only requirement is complete surrender to his supreme will, perseverance, love, courage and trust in him.
… The ego persists till the last stage of the Path or gnosis. Not until the seventh stage of the Path is reached, and God-consciousness is achieved, can the ego be completely transmuted from finite to infinite. It is only in this stage that the false I (individual ego) disappears for good, and the real I appears for all time. This is the state of Christ-consciousness, to which Jesus referred when he said, ‘I and my Father are one,’ and which implies living simultaneously in the infinite and in the finite.
c. 1930 Si p27
It is never presumptuous for anyone to hope for Realisation. It is the goal of creation and the birthright of humanity.
Blessed are they who are prepared to assert that right in this very life.
1936, India,
to Garrett Fort,
Tr p194, also A p26
All illusion comes and goes, but the soul remains unchanged. What is meant by God-realisation is to actually experience this important thing – that the soul is eternal.
December 1936,
Nasik,
LA p157
Imagine your being everything, these pillars, walls, everything. You are, but you cannot understand. Why? Because the mind is there. Realisation means being fully awake in the sound-sleep state. In sound sleep there is no mind, no consciousness. You don’t see anything, not even dreams of the subconscious. You don’t hear, see, or feel.
But self exists and there is consciousness also. It is just like the sound-sleep state. The only difference is that you are conscious of it.
December 1936,
Nasik,
LA p158
How to explain what happens when you become God-realised? No more body, mind, ego, no more universe, only you as God experiencing bliss. You then experience knowledge too, power too, but you do not use power. You are one with this power, this knowledge, this bliss. When you come down for the world, you take on a universal mind. Now, as God, you see all souls as your own. You see yourself in everything, and your universal mind has all minds in it, as one mind.
What every mind suffers comes into your mind. Your mind suffers the suffering of all minds, and experiences the happiness of all minds. But as ignorance exists in all minds, the suffering is infinitely more than the happiness of those minds. Therefore, you suffer infinitely. However, your soul, which is fully conscious and enjoys God’s bliss continually, and which is also enjoying its infinite state, is not affected by this suffering.
Now you, as soul in your present state, are unconscious of God and God’s bliss. Your mind now suffers or is happy according to your impressions. Soul, as it were, is not affected, because through ignorance your soul is identified with your mind. After attaining knowledge, your soul consciously experiences God’s bliss. If you come down, your mind then experiences suffering or happiness, but soul is not affected. You are soul. When your mission is complete, the universal mind goes, and with it universal suffering goes. Then soul enjoys God’s bliss eternally.
19 September 1938,
Meherabad,
LM7 p2318
Most God-realised souls leave the body at once and forever, and remain eternally merged in the unmanifest aspect of God. They are conscious only of the bliss of union. Creation no longer exists for them. Their constant round of births and deaths is ended. This is known as Mukti or Liberation.
Some God-realised souls retain the body for a time, but their consciousness is merged completely in the unmanifest aspect of God, and they are therefore not conscious either of their bodies or of creation. They experience constantly the infinite bliss, power and knowledge of God, but they cannot consciously use them in creation, or help others to attain to Liberation.
Nevertheless, their presence on earth is like a focal point for the concentration and radiation of the infinite power, knowledge and bliss of God. And those who approach them, serve them and worship them are spiritually benefited by contact with them. These souls are called Majzoobs, and this particular type of Liberation is called Videh-Mukti, or Liberation with the body.
c.1939, Di v1 p 2-3
Essentially, we are all one. I am greater than none of you in the soul sense, and, 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.
11 November 1944,
Nagpur,
Me p65-66
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 understanding.
The realisation of God as he is necessarily requires the complete 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-realised 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-realisation, which comes on the seventh plane of consciousness, is the goal of all life. It is the final reason why the entire universe came into existence.
God-realisation 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-realisation. On the contrary, God-realisation 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 realisation 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.
12 November 1944,
Nagpur,
Me p67-68
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 realisation of divinity, for they shall be the pillars of the coming era of truth and love.
12 November 1944,
Nagpur,
Me p70
No one can realise God except through the grace and help of a God-realised Master, who is Truth incarnate. Only a God-realised Master can awaken this true love in the human heart, by consuming, 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.
14 November 1944,
Nagpur,
Me p73
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.
16 November 1944,
Nagpur,
Me p80
A young man named Keith McGaffney asked Baba ‘what was all this stuff about God-realisation?’
Baba: It’s like a headache. Until you have a headache yourself, you can’t understand what it is like.
July 1952,
New York,
Aw 14:2 p19
When a person becomes God-realised, he drops the body in one to three days.
Only a very few keep the body, but they are unaware of the creation. They become Majzoobs.
A very few – and these are decided by God – keep the body, and are also fully God-conscious and world-conscious. They become the Perfect Masters. But that is by God’s will.
July 1952,
New York
Aw 14:2 p20
God is eternally free. To realise God is to attain liberation from the bondage of illusion.
1954,
Andhra,
MD p8
We are already in possession of infinite power and happiness. But it is our way of life which prevents us from enjoying these eternal treasures of God.
1954,
Andhra,
MD p12
As long as you remain separated from God and try to understand him, he cannot be understood. There is no separation between you and God. Lover and beloved are one. You, yourself are the way. You are God.
1954,
Andhra,
MD p14
The happiness of God-realisation is the goal of all creation. The real happiness which comes through realising God is worth all physical and mental sufferings in the universe. Then all suffering is as if it were not.
The happiness of God-realisation is self-sustained, eternally fresh and unfailing, boundless and indescribable. And it is for this happiness that the world has sprung into existence.
before 1955, GS p139
The Mental-conscious soul, even while retaining a Gross body, remains stationed on its higher planes, without getting entangled even with the Subtle planes. It keeps waiting till it merges with God or Truth in the seventh plane.
After merger, the soul may remain immersed in the bliss of God-realisation and become a Majzoob, or come down to the lower planes of duality for work (without losing its Realisation of the unitary Truth) and become a Perfect Master.
Whether a particular God-realised soul becomes Majzoob or a Perfect Master is a matter decided by the initial urge in creation. These varieties of terminal states are not subject to sanskaric or impressional determination. In both terminal states there is not trace of any binding impressions. However, the entire fabric of the universe serves but one purpose, viz. realisation of God.
1955? Be p17
Q. Has not the God-realised one an ego?
Baba: He has. But the ego of the God-realised one is altogether different. When you say, ‘I am so-and-so,’ it is the false ego asserting the false self. When you become God-merged ( a Perfect Majzoob or Brahmi-bhoot), you have no mind, and you are conscious only of being God. This is the state of superconsciousness. But when, retaining that state, you come down to normal consciousness, you have ego, and it is the real ego.
1960, Poona, DH p52
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.
1960, Poona, DH p52
The God-realised soul lives in the world, but the world does not and cannot touch him. But to achieve God-realisation is not child’s play. For this, one has to surrender all, body, mind and heart, to the Perfect Master…
The intensity of longing necessary for becoming one with God can never be measured, however high the Gross standard. Such longing is a rare experience, altogether unique, and it is exclusively for the one who is ablaze with a spark of divine love from the Perfect Master.
1960, Poona, DH p69, 71
The journey seems infinitely long while you are passing through the dream-experiences of reincarnation and the six planes of involution, until finally you merge into yourself, to emerge as self. But the journey is after all no journey. It is simply the momentum of your urge to awaken from the dream, and get established in the reality of the God-state of infinite consciousness.
To awaken means to consciously experience the sound-sleep state of God. When you awake you find that the great dream, containing all the varied illusory aspects of dreaming, has vanished forever. Heaven and hell, as well as all the planes, vanish within yourself, to remain as nothing. In this awakened state, there is no scope for anything besides you, the self, the existence eternal and infinite.
This is the only experience worth experiencing and aspiring after. To gain this experience, you have to become as dust at the feet of the Perfect Master, which amounts to becoming as nothing. And when you become absolutely nothing, you become everything.
c.1961, India, EN p11-12
The direct knowledge of God is that knowledge (dnyan) had through the experience of becoming one with God, and can only be had by the grace of the Perfect Master. But indirect knowledge, such as that obtained through descriptions and pictures, is information for the mind only.
To know reality is to become it. It is nearest to you, for in fact, it is you. Owing to ignorance, God, who is nearest, appears to be farthest. But when the veil of ignorance is rent by the grace of the Perfect Master, you become you, the real self, which is the innermost reality that you are, ever were and ever will be.
c.1961, India, EN p36
I am infinite knowledge, power and bliss. I can make anyone realise God if I choose to do so.
You may ask, ‘Why not make me realise God now?’ But why should it be you? Why not the person next to you, or the man in the street, or that bird on the tree, or that stone — who are all one in different forms?
The more you love me, the sooner you will discard the falsehood you have chosen to hide under, that hoodwinks you into believing you are what you are not.
I am in all and love all equally. Your love for me will wear through your falseness, and make you realise the self that you truly are.
c.1961, India, EN p50
The experience of both imprisonment and release is of illusion. But the experience of the final freedom is of reality. The emancipated soul then experiences continuously and eternally its own infinite freedom.
The world exists only as long as the soul experiences bondage. When the soul realises itself as reality, the world vanishes, for it never was. And the soul experiences itself as being infinite and eternal.
c.1961, India, EN p99
After Realisation some persons may live only for a few days. Most humans drop the body after three days. Some live a few weeks, a few months, a few years or many years.
Some human beings are God-realised at a young age — Dnyaneshwar was 8, the youngest Sadguru ever, but only lived to 18 — or at a mature age, or at a very old age. Hazrat Babajan was in her 70s and lived to be 141.
from notes dictated by Meher Baba,
1967, NE p114