MEHER BABA'S LOVE EMBRACE

 
Meher Baba has rejuvenated the meaning of the word love. He has given it a new dimension and a new life. Love is one; there are not two loves. Any difference in love is created by motivation and application.

Love is like water. Water in the form of vapor is pure and ethereal. This may be called Divine Love; it is untarnished by any color of selfishness. Distilled water is also pure, but is thicker in density than vapor. It may be called the higher human love. Next in grade could be almost pure drinking water which contains some salts. It is a high type of human love, but lower in grade than distilled water. It is basically unselfish love but is mixed with some selfishness.

Then comes colored water. The different colors from light to dark represent different degrees of selfishness. The lowest grade of water is sewage water which is full of dirt and filth. This may be compared to sexual love outside of marriage and to love for committing criminal actions. Really speaking, there is only one love, absolutely pure, but from its source of Divine Love it changes into all the lower and lowest grades of love....

Meher Baba indicates that love — whether it exists in prayers for the praise of God, feelings between parents and children, love between a husband and wife, relatives and friends, love for the accomplishments of endeavors, great or small, love for academic pursuits, love for sexual gratification or gain in a monetary transaction, be it honest or dishonest — is the essence of all these activities.

But the quality of love can be pure, impure or mixed, depending upon the degree of selfishness or selflessness it contains. The greater the purity or selflessness in love, the greater the joy in living and dying. The greater the impurity of selfishness in love, the greater the misery or suffering in life and death.

We are very fortunate in having come, or in expecting to come, with all our weaknesses and strengths, within the love-orbit of Meher Baba. How very fortunate indeed that we have come to love Him, or are expecting to love Him, and to know of Him in our limited way. The ocean of Meher Baba's Love cleanses all impurities poured into it by an act of prayer, service, sacrifice and loving surrender to Him.

Meher Baba's love embrace is always open to the saint or sinner alike, the active or slow moving, the handsome or ugly, the healthy or ill, the intellectual or emotional type, the sharp witted or dunce and the educated or uneducated. His love flows out in equal measure to those of any caste, creed, religion, color or nationality. None is too bad for Him who cannot become good, and none is too good for Him who cannot become better and best.