MEHER BABA

ON THE FIERY FREE LIFE

AND S EVEN

OTHER MESSAGES

November Price

1952 As. 4

fublished by—Adi K. Irani for Meher Publications.

King's Road. Ahmednagar • India.

Printed by—L. S, Chinchorkar, Mohan Printers,

Station Read, Ahmednagar.

MEHERBABA

ON

1 The Fiery Free Life .... .... 1

2 Life Eternal .... .... , .... 5

3 MIRACLES AND SPIRITUAL HEALING.... 8

4 RELIGION AND POLITICS .... ' ....10

5 THE High Roads to God.... , ....12

6 Our Ills and Their Remedies ....14

7 God as Truth.... .... ....16

8 God as Bliss .... .... ....19

h

MEHER BABA .

on

THE FIERY FREE LIFE

The role, which God has willed for me, has had severalphases. The pre-realisation ordinary state, the old lifestate of realised Divinity, the new life state of perfecthumility and intensive seeking of God as Truth throughthe achievement of ' Mano-nash ' ( annihilation of thelimiting mind ) and the tripartite Free Life, which emerged after the attainment of 'Mano-nash', have allhappened by God's Will.

in the first part of this Free Life, culminating on 10thJuly 1952, bindings dominated freedom. Jt was in thisfirst part that the personal disaster, for some years foretold by me, took place in the form of an auto accident,

, while crossing the American Continent, causing methrough facial injuries, a broken leg and a broken arm,much mental and physical suffering. It was necessarythat it should happen in America. God willed it so. Inthe second part of this Free Life, freedom has dominatedbindings. And in the third part of this Free Life, commencing from 15th November 1952, both freedom andbindings are consumed In the fire of Divine Love, whichdestroys the very basis of the illusion of duality and allits paraphernalia.

I am not concerned with individual reactions to me as

an individual. They will be as various as^ there areindividual temperaments. My sole concern in the FieryFree Life, commencing from November 15th, will bewith the Divine Truth of my realisation, which I would

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like to share with those, who seek it. The consuming,of freedom and bindings ( which is characteristic of theFiery Free Life ) means that there is a complete blendinciof the God-state and the man-state, so that the one does notlive through opposition to the other and there can be noquestion of the one encroaching upon the province ofthe other.

Spiritual freedom is essentially a positive state ofconscious enjoyment of Infinite Divinity. It does nothave to maintain itself through the constant overcomingof any bindings, for these come to be realised as notbindings of the soul, in its essence, but as temporarybindings of the body and the mind, which can in no wavcurtail the Bliss, Power or Understanding of consciousDivinity. In other words, the binding, to which the soulseems to be subject, turns out to be no binding of thesoul, in its true essence. The binding is realised as onlyillusory. After the annihilation of the limited mind, theInfinite Consciousness of the Soul, with all its KnowledgePoue7, and Bliss, remains unaffected by any weaknessesor diseases, to which the body might yield, as a result ofnatural laws.

The Perfect Ones, who retain normal consciousnessand the body, even after realising the Unchanging andA-bsolute Truth, dwell eternally in T)iv'i?ie Bove, whicht? mtscends all dsialitij and surpasseth all undei'standing. Theyenjoy A-biding and Unassailable Peace, for thev have atlast arrived at the final goal of creation.

I have no connection ivith politics. All I'eligions rwa equalto me. And all castes aiid creeds are dear to me. But though Iappreciate all ' isms ', religions and political parties, for

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the many good things that they seek to achieve, I do notand cannot belong to any of these ' isms religions orpolitical parties, for the Absolute Truth, tuhile equally

includinq thern, transcends all of them and leaves no roomfor separative divisions which are all equally false. TheUnity of all Life is integral and indivisible. It remainsunassailable and inviolable in spite of all conceivable

ideological differences.

I am equally approachable to one and all, big andsmall.

To saints loho rise and sinners who fall.

Through all the various Paths that give the Divine

Gall.

I am approachable alike to saint whom I adore

.And to sinner tchom I am for.

And equally through Sufism, Vedantism, Ghristianity

Or Zoroastrianism and Budhism, and other ' isms '

Of any kind and also directly throw/h no medium of' isms ' at all.

When I was in America, people asked me as to whenI would break my silence. I, in my turn, asked them :

' Pj my silence cannot speak, of what avail would be speechesmade by the tongue?' When God thinks my speakingwould be heard universally. He will make me break

my silence. However, silence or no silence, he whowould deeply ponder over the Truth, which I declare,

shall eventually he initiated bo the Lije Eternal!

Side by aide with other activities of the Fiery FreeLife, there will invariably be one constant feature of

that life, wherever it takes me. I will bow down to thesaints whom I adore, the Masts whom I worship; and thepoor, to vihom I am whole-heartedly devoted. Nothingmakes me more happy than opportunities to bow clown to

God in all these forms. I like bowing down to peoplerather than being bowed down to. To serve and worshipGod all around me is most at my heart.

In the Fiery Free Life, all the frailties of the ego-lifeare completely consumed; and there is complete emancipation from all wants, desires and temptations. Andthe result of this Fiery Free Life will make the worldunderstand that Meher Baba and every one is onewith God.

MEHER BABA

on

LIFE ETERNAL

Without beginning and without end, the caravan of

evolutionary creation marches on front 'the ImmeasuT'able to the Immeasurable, Most persons on the way getcaught up in the transient immediate and evolve byconscious or unconscious reactions to it. Some can de

tach themselves from the tra^isient immediate. But since

their detachment is only intellectual, they enjoy freedom only in the realm of the limited intellect, whichnow tries to comprehend the past,' or anticipate the future, as best as is allowed by the limitations under whichit works. They try to shape the present in the light of' their knowledge of history as well as in the light of

their insight into the possibilities for the unborn future.But the limited intellect is not competent to graspquantities, which are beginningless as well as endless,with the result that the purely intellectual perspective, even

at its best, inevitably remains only partial, sketchy, incomplete and, in a sense, even.erroneotts.

The intellectual perspective is workable and evenindispensable for planned action. But in the absence ofdeeper wisdom of the heart, or the clearer intuition ofthe spirit, such intellectual perspective gives only rdativetruth, which bears upon itself the stamp of uncertainty.The sO'Calltd planned action of the intellect has behind it

many mighty forces, which have not even come to the fringeof conscioitsness; and it also actiially leads to many vaUiableresults^ which are entirely beyond the ken of the so-calledplanning* In other words, intellectual planning turns

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out to be a pla^ining mostly in name, containing in itonly as much of truth as is necessary to justify the players in feeling that they have had a real share in theentire gaiue.

Actually everything in the evolutionary creation iswrought solely by the Infinite Power of God who works in

eternal silewcc, from behind the screen as it were, unknown,unfelt, and even unsuspected by most players who are in thepassing flashlight of the stage. Some, through the Graceof the Masters or through the Grace of God, succeedin unlooking within their own being, the hidden springs ofDivine Love, which unveil the unlimited and certain understanding of the Infinite Divinity, which in itseternity, comprehends not only the apparently hegimtinglesspast, and the appareiitly transient present, but also theapparently interminable future. The apparent infinity ofthe stretch of time is ultimately unreal even as timeitself is ultimately illusory. In the last spiritual understanding, which facilitates conscious realisation of theAbsolute Truth, the illusory infinity of time-processesis taken up into the true eternity of God's illimitableLife and Being. The God-men, who get consciouslyestablished in the limitless understanding of God can

hnoio the past, the present and the future. But for them,this knoivledge of the fleeting slictdows of Eternity is far lessimportant than complete merger into the fathomlessness ofGod as Life Eternal, with Infinite Bliss, Infinite Power,Infinite Love, Infinite Understanding and Infijiite Truth orBeality.

In fact, every one without exception, has his trueexistence only in and as this Limitless Being of God asAbsolute Truth. But it is like having some hidden.

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treasure, which, thougli in our possession, is as good asnon-existent, as long as it remains unknown The sole

purpose of evolutionary creation is to put the soul inconscious possession and enjoyment of this infinitetreasure. Iji the Perfect Ones. God works towards this

end consciously. But it is tie alone who works throughevery one and everything else; and though this work ismostly unconscious, it also leads to the same end. This

may be clarified with the aualoQii af hreathiuci. Breathingis the very basis of life and the stopping of breath

means dropping the physical body, without terminatingthe existence of the Soul. But this breathing is for the

most part carried on unconsciously and we become

conscious of it only in cases of exceptional effort. Inthe svme way, God's working through evolutionaryprocesses is mostly unconscious and silent and the stop

ping of this working brings about the end ( Pralaua ) ofcreation, without terminating the existence of GodHimself. God becomes conscious of His Working onlyin the rare cases of the God-men, who own and enjoyGod-hood in Life Eternal. For cu/es and arjes, God hasbeen worliinq in Silence, unobserved and nn-noticed except bythose who experience His Infinite Silence.

MEHER BABA

on

MIRACLES AND SPIRITUAL HEALING • •

When people suffer physically or mentally, individually or.collectively, they want immediate relief fromthat suffering. All over the world, man's strife is subjectto the opposites of pain and pleasure. He does all hecan to avoid tlie former; and he does all he can to havethe latter. But he cannot always avoid pain noralways have pleasure. Pain and pleasiire mx inseparablekoins, horn of a multikide of cravings and desires. Wherethe one is, the other also invariably is as a constantcompanion. And so, man is interminably cavght np in thequick iiiterplay of these two opposites^ unless and until hegoes at the very root of both of them and frees himselffrom the self-perpetuating ignorance, which gives riseto a million cravings.

* The scars left by the non-fulfilment of desires or bythe assailment of unwanted happenings are difficult toerase as long as the mind continues to be swayed by thewinds of multifarious cravings. And when the umalworldly luays of seeking redress from sujfering come to amimpasse, man desperately turns to the Supernatural for explor-^ing unknoton possibilities of seeking redress. This is therealm of Miracles.

But even Miracles, in the last analysis, £tre illusory?even as every happening of this world is essentiallyillusory. There can be no special point in producing somepetty imitation ilhisio7is in the mighty Infinite ilhisionalready created by The healing of physical or mental

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sllffering can be achieved through the exercise of supernatural powers, just as it can be achieved through ordinary natural remedies known to man. But such healinghas ordinarily no special spiritual significance. It is farless important than true spintual healing^ which takesaway: from the mind: the very seeds of all possible suffering.

Miracles are justified only when they are performedfor the purpose of drawing humanity at large towardsthe final goal of realising God; otherwise they are definitely an interference with the natural evolutionaryprocess. In fact, people should look upon physical andmental suffering as gifts from God, They bring theirown lessons of the futility of the passing and the intrinsiGzoortJi of the Eternal When accepted loith grace and understood in their very root-cause, they chasten the soul and"introduce it to the Abiding Happiness of Truth.

, MEHER BABAon

• RELIGION AND POLITICS

The Fiery Free Life, which as God-ordained, hascommenced from November 15th, makes me plunge into'my Divine Mission of bringing the Life in the Truth toevery one, without allowing it to be limited or colouredby the illusions of duality.

As the Divine Life embraces in its being One and All?including even the members of the animal and vegetablekingdom, and since from the moment of the attainmentof Mano-nash (annihilation of the limiting mind), I haveattained complete unity imth that immeasurai.'le and illimitableDivine Life^ I cannot and will not identify myself withany caste, creed, religion or political party. From mypoint of view, all religions are great; hut God is greater. Inthe same way, all political parties are, in their own way,noble, at least in their consciously accepted objectives.But the claims of the undivided and indivisible life areirresistibly supreme, and, as such, greater than those ofany party, howsoever noble.

So, I love and adore all religions; but'I am of no religion.Nor do I seek to establish another religion or add to thenumberless illusions that divide man against man. Noreligion was ever intended to be anything more than theGafetvaij to God as Truth; but every religion has, in thecourse of time, got converted into a veil, obstructing theundimmed perception of that One Truth. As soon as theTruth of direct inner realisation is intellectualised andformulated, it gets enmeshed in creeds and dogmas. They

. (if)

have a tendency to bind the soul in the very attemptto emancipate it. They cover the Truth in the very act ofseehiny to express it. This ooniio traqedij reveals itself in theretrospective analysis of all the world-religions bestowedon man. But it is not inevitable, if man is invariablyvigilant and remains unwaveringly loyal to the innerperception of the inexpressible hut imchanyenide spiritualTruth, which ever affirms itself as the One All-embracingLife Divine, at once indivisible and illimitable.

MEHER BABA

on .

THE HIQH-ROHDS TO GOD

In an important sense, all ■walks of life and all PathsUltimately lead but to one goal, viz., God. All riversenter into the Ocean, in spite of the diverse directionsin which they flow, and in spite of the many meander-ings which characterise their paths. However, thereare certain High Boads, which take the Filgrim directly tohis Divine Destination^ They are important, becausethey avoid prolonged wanderings in the wilderness ofcomplicated by-'ways, in which the Pilgrim is oftenunnecessarily caught up.

The rituals and ceremonies of organised religions canlead the seeker only to the threshold of .the ti-ue Inner JoW'neijt which proceeds along certain Dtgh Boads^ . These remain distinct from each other, for a Very considerabledistance, though towards the end they all get merged in eachother. In the earlier phases, they remain distinct owingto the diversity of sansJcaric contexts of individuals andthe differences' of their temperaments. In any case, itshould be clear from the Very beginning that thotighthe Boads may be many, the Goal is and always will be only

. one^ viz.t altainment of union loith God^

The quiche^ of these High Roads lies through the Qod'-man^who is consciously one with the Truths In the God-man»God reveals Himself in all His Glory, with His InfinitePower> Unfathomable Knowledge, Inexpressible Blissand Eternal Existence. The Path through the God-manis available only to those fortunate ones, who approach

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him, in complete mrrenderance and umoavering faith. Complete surrenderance to the G,od-man is however possibleonly to very advanced aspirants. But when this is notpossible, the other High Roads, which can eventuallywin the Grace of God, are:

(1) Love for Qod and intense longing to see Him and tobe tonited with Him-, (2) Being in'constant company with

and lovers of God and rendering them wholehearted service-, (3) Avoiding lust, greed, anger, hatred andthe temptations for power, fame and fault-finding-, (4) Leaving every one and everything in complete externalrenunciation, and in solitude, devoting oneself to fasting,prayer.and meditation-, (5).Carrying on all worldly duties.with equal acceptance of success or failure, and with apure heart and clean mind and remaining unattachedin the midst of"intense activity, and (6) Selfless service ofhumanity, without any thought pf gain or reward.

MERER BRBfl

on

OUR ILLS RND THEIR REMEDIES

In the world of quiet speculation, as well as in theworld of surging political activity or individual striving,men are desperately trying to remedy the many ills, towhich humanity is heir. All our creeds and faiths, allour parties and ' isms are so many practicil solutionsoffered towards this purpose. But, though good in theirintention and starting point, they often create confusioninstead of chaos because they lose sight of the inesoa-. pable truth that all external -organisation is doomed tofailure unless it is implemented hg inner spiritual transformation of the individual. lam therefore not concernedwith parties, creeds or 'isms' but only with thosefundamental values, which must be whole-heartedlvand universally accepted, if humanity is to be trulvsaved.

I am equally concerned with the saint and the sinnerthe small and the great, the rich and the poor, theignorant and the wise ones, the East and the West. Forthem all, the one Remedy of remedies, which I recommend is .SptriiMai Understanding, which at once includesand supercedes all other forms of knowledge. It inevitably precipitates the blending oj Theorg and Practice, forit is as much of the heart as of the mind. When understand-ing is our law, u'o have Love, luhicli is imperishable andAction which is dynaniicalUj creative,—Love, ivithout entanglement and Action, without attachment to results. True understanding about man's place in God's Life Universal willenable him to avoid much suffering—physical and

(15)

mental—sometimes invited by himself through wroncjaction, and often created by himself through vitiated

iinacjination. All joy, howsoever alluring, will fade away,unless it springs from Life in the Truth Everlasting; and

all suffering will only harden or embitter the heart, unlessit is accepted with grace and resignation and utilised asan awakener to the real values. Suffering will haunt us

again and again in numberless ways, unless we give upthe illusion of separateness, arising out of false identification with the body or the ego-mind. And true joy willevade us again and again, unless we get firmly establish

ed in the Imperishable Sweetness ( Ananda) of Life I.ternal,which admits no divisions and accepts no limitations.

Be ye disciples of this Life Divine, which vibrates eternallyin one and all !

meher baba

on

GOD AS TRUTH

Ultimately Every One and Every Thing is God andthat God, as Truth, can be realised through the Guruor the Master. Generally in this country, Vedantism isassociated with this rendering of the Most High. NowI am not concerned with Vedantism or Sufisni or anyother ' ism ' but only with God as Truth, as He comesin our experience, after the disappearance of the limitedand limiting ego-mind. God is, an Unshakable andEternal Truth. He reveals Himself and communicatesHimself to those, who love Him, seek Him and surrender themselves to Him, either in His Imi^ersonal aspectwhich is beyond name, form and time or in His Persojialaspect. He is more easily accessible to ordinary manthrough the God-men, who have always come andwill always come, for imparting Light and Truth to thestruggling humanity, which is mostly groping indarkness.

Because of his complete union with God, the God-maneternally enjoys the ' I-am-God ' state, which equallycorresponds to the Vedantic ' Ahem Brahmcmni' and theSufi ' Anal-Haq ' or Christ's declaration, ' J a^id my Fatherare one'. In the experience of the Sufis, ' orthe I-am-God ' state is a culmination of ' Hama Oastwhich means everything is God and nothing else existsSince in this approach, only God without a second, iscontemplated, there is no room for love for God or long-ing for God. The soul has the intellectual convictionthat it is God. But in order to experience that state

(17)

actually, it goes through intense concentration ormeditation on the thought, ' / am not the body, I am notthe mind; I am neither this nor that; I am God The soulthen experiences through meditation what it has assumed itself to be. But this mode of experiencing God is nob

only hard but dry.

The Path is more realistic and joyous, when there

is ample play of love and devotion for God, which postulate temporary and apparent separateness from God andlonging to unite with Him. Such provisional andapparent separateness from God is affirmed by the soul inthe two Sufi conceptions, ' 'Hama az Dost, ' which meansEverything is from God and ' llama Boost, ' which meansEverything is for the Beloved God. In both these conceptions, the soul realises that its separateness from God isonly temporary and apparent and it seeks to restore this

lost unity with God, throiigli intense love ivhich consumes allduality. The only difference between these two states isthat whereas the soul, in the state of ' Hama Boost restscontent with the Will of God, as the Beloved, in the state

of ' Hama az Oost', the soul longs for nothing but union

with God.

Since the soul, which is in bondage, can be redeemedonly through Divine Love, even Perfect Masters, whoattain complete unity with God and experience Him asthe only reality, often apparently step into the domainof duality and talk the language of love, wor.ship andservice of God, in his UnmaniJest Being as well as in all

the numberless forms, through whom He manifests Him

self. Love Divine, as sung by Hindu saints like Tukaram,as taught by Christian Mystics like St. Francis, aspreached by Zoroastrian saints like Azer Kaivan, and

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as made immortal by Sufi poets like Hafiz, harbours.nothoii-jht of the self at all- It consumes all wants and frail

ties, which nourish the bondage and illusion of duality.Ultimately, it unites the soul with God, thus bringing tothe soul. True Self-knowledge, Abiding Hapjriness, Unassailable Peace, Uribounded Understanding and Unlimited Poiuer.Be ye inheritors of this Life Eternal which comes tothose, who seek!

MEHER BABA

on

GOD AS BLISS

Everywhere, in every walk of life, man, withoutexceptions, is thirsting for Happiness. From the diverseallurements of the sensual life and from the manypossessions and attainments that feed and tickle the ego,as also from the numberless experiiences, which stimulatethe intellect, excite the mind, calm down the heart orenergise the spirit—from all these he seeks Happiness ofdiverse kinds. But/ie seeis it in the world of duality and

in the fassinq shadmvs of the Mayaivic Illusion, which wecall the universe. And he finds that the happiness, whichhe gets therein is so transient that it has almost disappeared in the very moment of experience. And after itdissappears, what remains is a bottomless vacuity, whichno multiplication of similar experiences can evercompletely fill.

But true Bliss can come only to one, who would take

courage in his hands, and become free of all attachmentto forms, which are nothing but the illusions of duality.Only then can he get united with his True Beloved, whois God as the Eternal and Abiding Truth, behind all formsincluding what he regards as his oivn body.

The endless and fathomless Ocean of Bliss is within every

one. There is no individual who is entirely devoid ofhappiness in some form; for, there is no individual, whois entirely cut off from God as the Ocean of Bliss.Every type of pleasure, which he ever has, is ultimatelya partial and illusory reflection of God as Anajida. But

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pleasure, which is sought and experienced in ignorance,ultimately binds the soul to endless continuation of the

false life of the ego and leaves the soul exposed to themany sufferings of the ego-life. The pleasures of theillusory world are comparable to the many. rivers of

7?2ira(7e that apparently pour themselves into the ocean.Divine Bliss is ever fresh, ever-lasting, continuous, and isendlessly experienced as self-sustained and Infinite Joy ofGod. Be ye united with your Real Beloved, who is God asAnanda or Bliss !

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