MEHER BABA

 

 

A book by a man Junnaid would have loved: Meher Baba. He was silent for thirty years. Nobody has been silent for so long. Mahavira was silent for only twelve years, that was the record. Meher Baba broke all records. Thirty years of silence! He used to make gestures with his hands, as I do when I speak, because there are a few things which can only be said through gestures. Meher Baba dropped the words, but he could not drop the gestures. We are fortunate that he did not drop gestures too. The intimate ones who lived with him started writing notes through his gestures, and the book that was published after thirty years of Meher Baba′s silence has a strange title, as it should have. The title of the book is God Speaks.

 Meher Baba lived in silence and died in silence. He never spoke, but his silence was itself his statement, his expression, his song. So it is not really strange to title the book God Speaks. There is a Zen book which says: The flower does not speak. It is wrong, absolutely wrong. The flower speaks too. Of course it does not speak in English or Japanese or Sanskrit; it speaks in the language of flowers. It speaks through its perfume. I know it well because I am allergic to perfume. I can hear a flower speaking from miles away, so I am speaking from my own experience.

 It is not a metaphor. I say again, a flower speaks too, but its language is that of flowers. God Speaks, however it sounds, is true about Meher Baba. He spoke without speaking at all.

 

-Osho, "Books I Have Loved, #8"

 

 

 

 

Osho on Meher Baba

 

 

God Descending, Man Rising

 

Question

Meher Baba has talked about God descending in man (Avatar, Rasool, Christ) and man rising to be God (the perfect Master, Sadguru, Qutub, Teerthankara). Would you please talk to us about the same?

 

 

God is. He neither ascends nor descends. Where can he ascend to and where can he descend to? God is all. There is nothing in to which God can ascend or descend. There is nobody else other than God. All that is is divine. So the first thing: there is no ascendence, no descendence.

 But when Meher Baba says it, there must be some meaning in it. The meaning is something quite different. Let me explain it to you.

 God is, remember. God is a pure isness, pure existence, and there is nowhere for God to go or come. The whole is full of him. He fills his existence, one thing. Second thing: but Meher Baba must be true. Then there must be some other meaning to it - not God descending and ascending. What can be the meaning? The meaning is there are two ways of man approaching God.

 What do I mean by "man" when God is the only reality? Man is the God who has forgotten that he is God; man is a God who has forgotten himself.

 Man can remember his godliness in two ways. One way is that of surrender, devotion, love, prayer; another way is that of will, effort, meditation, yoga. If a man tries to work his way through will, then he will feel he is ascending towards God or he is reaching towards God through his will. Hence Jainas call the man who attains to godliness a Teerthankara. Teerthankara means consciousness has reached the peak; man has arrived by ascending, as if there has been a ladder, the ladder of the will, the ladder of effort and yoga. So is the concept of the Buddhas; that too is the path of will. Avatar means God descending; that is another approach, when a man surrenders. He cannot ascend. He simply opens his heart and waits, prays and waits, and suddenly he starts feeling a stirring in his heart. Certainly he will see "God has descended in me." Avatar means descendence, God coming down.

 Mahavir went up. For Meera, God came down.

 But God never comes down, never goes up. God is where he is. But your experience will be different. If you try hard to achieve God, you will go higher and higher and higher; naturally you will feel the God hidden inside you is arising, rising up, reaching to the zenith. But if you surrender, nothing is arising in you. You are where you are, you simply wait in deep prayer, in deep love, in deep trust, and one day you find God is descending in you, coming from above. These are the experiences of two types of seekers. It has nothing to do with God. It has something to do with the seeker and his way: will or surrender, effort or prayer, yoga or Bhakti.

 So the religions which believe in Bhakti, in devotion.... Christianity says Christ comes from God. That is the meaning of saying that he is God's son - he comes from above, he has been sent. And that is the meaning of Mohammed - he is a prophet, a messenger, Paigambar. Paigambar means a messenger who comes from above, brings the message. He does not belong to this world; he comes like a ray of light into the darkness. And so is the concept of the Hindus' avatar - Krishna, Ram - they come, they come into the world.

 The Buddhist, the Jaina concept is just the reverse. They say there is no God to come, and God is not a father and he cannot have a son. These are all very childish concepts for them. And if you look through their eyes they are; these concepts are childish, very anthropomorphic, man-centered. You create God in your own image, as if God also has a family. He has a family - the Trinity: God the Father, Christ the Son, and the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost must be a woman; otherwise the family will not be exactly as it should be.

 But why don't Christians call the Holy Ghost a woman? Male chauvinism. They cannot make a woman also part of the Trinity; it is difficult for them, very difficult for them. So to what have they reduced their God? It seems to be a homosexual family. All men, not a single woman there. It looks ugly. But my feeling is that the Holy Ghost must be a woman.

 We create God in our own image.

 Jainas and Buddhists say that there is no God and there is no God's family and nobody comes from there. Then what has one to do? One has to arise. God is in you like a seed, as a tree arises from the earth and goes higher and higher. God is not like rain falling, but a tree arising. Man has the seed. Man is potentially God. So when you work hard, you start growing.

 These are the two concepts. That's why Meher Baba says, "... God descending in man (Avatar, Rasool, Christ) and man rising to be God (the Perfect Master, Sadguru, Qutub, Teerthankara)." But it has nothing to do with God.

 

-Osho, "The First Principle #4"

 

 

 

 

Osho on Meher Baba and Hazrat Babajan

 

 

 

 

Hazrat Babajan

 

 

But I say it depends. It may happen suddenly as it happened for Meher Baba: that was a sudden case. It happened in Bombay. It happened by a kiss from an old lady, Babajan. Meher Baba was just passing, coming back from his school. Babajan was an old Sufi mystic, an old lady who was just sitting under a tree for years and years and years. Meher Baba was just coming, and Babajan called him. He knew this old lady. She was sitting for years under the tree, and he had passed by that street daily on his way towards his school and towards his home. She called and he came near. She kissed him - and he dropped as if dead just there. Then he had to be carried home.

 For one year continuously the kiss remained on him and he was in a coma. It may happen suddenly like this. Mm? This was a great transfer, and Babajan died afterwards because she had just been waiting for this moment to give someone the whole energy. This was her last life, and there was not enough time even to explain what she was giving. And also, she was not the type to have explained. She was a silent mystic. She had not touched anybody for years. She was only waiting for this moment when she was to kiss someone and the whole energy was to be transferred in a single transfer. Before this she had not even touched anyone, so this touch was to be total.

 And this child was simply unaware of what was going to happen. He was ready - otherwise this transfer would not have been possible - but he was not aware. He had worked through his past lives. He was just coming up. He might have become aware later on, but just now he was completely unaware. This happened so suddenly that he had to go again through a second pregnancy. For one year he was as if not. Many medicines were given; many, many doctors and physicians tried to help, but nothing could be done. And the woman who could do something, she disappeared, she died. After one year he was a different man - totally different.

 If it happens so suddenly, then it will be a deep coma. If it happens through some exercises, then it will never be so deep a coma. If you are doing awareness exercises, meditation, then it will never happen so suddenly. It will come so gradually, so gradually, that you will never even become aware of when it has happened. By and by, inactivity will be there, activity will be there, and very gradually inside everything will have changed. And the desire will drop, the activity will drop, but no one will ever feel that you have been lethargic or that you have become inactive.

 This is the gradual process. So those who follow yoga or any method will not feel the suddenness. There are also methods in which sudden happenings become possible, but one can be prepared. Babajan never prepared this boy; she never even asked his permission. It was a one-way affair. She just transferred the energy.

 

-Osho, "The Ultimate Alchemy, Vol.1 #4"