JOURNEY OUT OF DARKNESS

 
I would listen to her reading aloud Meher Baba's words. Yvonne's reading voice conveyed a strain of unique happiness, as if the Avatar's words were exactly what we had been always longing to hear. Her voice carried a unique enchantment, as though she were reading some delightful fairy tale. It vibrated, it seemed, deep within the core of Being Itself. Somehow Yvonne's voice, while reading Meher Baba's words, went on pushing open the door of my feeling mind and awakening it to an even wider sense of irresistible Truth — the Reality of God as Avatar. It all came from her voice, with its indefinable accent. Perhaps it was that voice which captured me the most.

I wanted to tell everyone that the Living Christ had come, let everyone know that He was on earth once more. But then Tom advised me, "Baba doesn't want proselytizers. He will bring those who are ready now, but He will bring the whole world to Him when He speaks."

"Who can imagine that?" I said. "I mean, who can imagine His speaking with such magnitude?"

"Probably nobody except for the current five Perfect Masters," Tom replied with thoughtful gravity. "I suppose they know, but possibly even they don't really know just when it will come to pass."

"But how long can Meher Baba live?" I pointed out.

"Well, He once said He would remain in His body till the age of ninety."

It seemed to me, His being now on Earth made everything an even greater mystery. Meher Baba somehow made God still more unfathomable.

But what if Meher Baba was not what He claimed to be? What if He were not God? However, there was no time for such thoughts, such doubts as this, for the time was now. The time had come to act, it was not the time to go on wondering, it seemed to me. The One claiming to be God was here in our midst. That One, calling himself God, maintained that there could be no such idea in all creation as 'not God,' for God was All.

And there was hardly time to ask the question, "But if all is God, then what need have we for an Avatar?" It was very simple. The world needed this Avatar, because He was The One who with infinite consciousness knew He was God. This made all the difference, this Infinitely Conscious Knowing. Wasn't it worth gambling everything on the incredible stakes that Meher Baba possessed all Knowledge of that One, which was the sum total of His Infinite Being? Meher Baba's apparent Knowledge formed the irrefutable premise of His Avataric authority. It seemed to me, we could not allow even the chance that He was the very pivot of Infinite Knowledge to slip through our fingers at this point, for we felt confident that we had hold of the very root of Existence. Only a fool would let go of such an opportunity. Baba was already approaching seventy-one years of age, weighed down by the burden of his 'Universal Work,' whatever in the world that meant. Obviously He was not going to be here in physical embodiment forever. My God! It was very clear, there was no time, no time left to philosophize, for the time was now.