JESUS, THE ONLY ONE?

 
To a Born-Again Christian who wanted to have my reaction to Jesus's statement in the Bible that all who did not believe in Him were condemned, I answered that Meher Baba was the same Ancient One who comes again and again in our midst, and therefore one must not differentiate between Jesus and Meher Baba.

Baba, like Jesus, said that He and the Father were One, and He is not only the Father, but the Mother, the Son, the Friend, the Redeemer, the Saviour and the Compassionate One.

What Jesus as the Ancient One stated is so true. For our sake He takes birth, suffers and gets persecuted, and for not recognizing Him when He is in our midst, we stand condemned. But we are not condemned forever since He is the Compassionate One, and if we did not falter or fail, how would He exercise His Compassion for us?

"Time and again," Meher Baba told us, "I come to arouse and awaken humanity. I came as Zoroaster, Abraham, Rama, Krishna, Buddha, Jesus and Mohammed and now I have come as Meher Baba. When I am here, I come for all but I am for the few who recognize Me and are made to recognize Me by My Grace. It is my Grace that makes people recognize Me as I am."

Whenever He comes we miss Him because despite His repeated assertions, we do not recognize Him. He does not come in the same form or with the same physical features but as the same Truth, for He is Truth and Truth's body.

Once Meher Baba gave us a simile to illustrate this. He told us about a family that during the last war faced a shortage of the well-known Quaker Oats for their only child. They strongly believed in its energizing quality and so on the day when the mother discovered that her cupboard was empty of this cereal, she rushed to the store in great anxiety and saw to her relief that there was still one tin of oats available.

She hastened to grab the cereal but the shopkeeper confronted her and stopped her in the act. Fearing that she might lose the cereal to another, the woman in a torrent of words begged to be allowed to have it even double the usual price, citing the urgent need of her child.

When the shopkeeper managed to get a word in, he explained that he was stopping her only because the tin on the shelf had come from an old stock and having received a new shipment, he wanted to offer her fresh cereal instead.

Baba then asked us, "Is there a mother in the world who would reject the new stock of cereal and take the old one?" And then He added, "Time and again I come. I am the same Ancient One. I am that fresh stock of Quaker Oats!"

The question then arises: Is it the purpose of creation that the Father should condemn forever those who failed the Son in His one and only advent? Of course not! The purpose is for the Lord to exercise His Compassion which He does by forgiving them for their weaknesses and shortcomings, and Meher Baba has assured us that He will be born again after 700 years.

What is written in the Bible is the Truth but there are deeper meanings behind that Truth and to understand those meanings one must yearn for the Lord Jesus, and by our loving Meher Baba we can have a deeper understanding of Jesus who got Himself crucified on the cross.

To love Meher Baba does not signify that one is no longer a Christian; it only means one can be a true Christian and thereby realize the Truth. Meher Baba is the Infinite Ocean and everyone is welcome to quench his thirst from the Ocean of His Love and nothing else matters.

As someone once said, "The sea remains the sea whatever the drop may think."