PALACES IN HEAVEN

 
Once Meher Baba asked us to define God. We made various attempts, but Baba was not satisfied. He said when the question "What is God?" is asked, the answer is "What is not God?"

He then continued, "Age after age, from the immemorial, you have been trying to find God, but you do not do so. Only one in tens of millions somehow or other realizes God. But why do so many sincerely, wholeheartedly strive to find Him and so few do so? If God exists, and He does, then why cannot we find Him?"

Baba answered His own question, "It is foolishness on the part of man seeking to find Him. How can anybody find something which is never lost? God eternally is. Stop your search to find Him, lose yourself and you will realize Him."

That is what Baba taught us. No sooner do you lose yourself than you realize God: not by search, but by effacing ourselves, not by asserting ourselves that we are the ones searching for God, positively asserting ourselves, but by losing ourselves in His love.

Lose yourselves by remembering Him more. We here are the same; now we remember Him. When He was physically with us, His presence was such that there was no room for remembering. Our presence here now with each other is quite different from being in His presence. There is ample scope in my mind now in your presence to remember aspects of His life, but His presence was so overwhelming that it enfolded everything. There was nothing left for us. Nothing. Not even a thought that we should remember Him.

But, mind you, thoughts were there — yet they were thoughts revolving around Baba, His welfare, His comfort, His work. We were disturbed with thoughts, you could say, but all that was really no disturbance because it was a game where we spent the whole time associating ourselves with Him, heading towards Him.

Meditation has to serve but one purpose: to steady the mind of the aspirant, to make him think less of his life and eventually to make him forget totally his false self. If, on the contrary, meditation were to remind one of himself or herself, the purpose of meditation would not be served. One has to beware of getting attached to any form of meditation. Meditation then becomes a ritual.

Meher Baba has revealed to those who lived with Him that true meditation is to remember Him constantly in our everyday life. Whether we eat or drink, feast or fast, attend to nature's call or take a bath, whether we are busy in an office of business, or relaxing in bed, whether we are meditating in a place or making merry, sleeping or moving about, we should always think of Him. We should have Him always as our constant companion. There is no better way of meditation than this. This is spontaneous meditation. There is no set time, place, posture, principle or austerity for this meditation where every breath is dedicated to His remembrance.

Eventually we totally forget ourselves, and act and live in His Grace alone. Blessed indeed is such a life.

This is what we have gathered about meditation. After all, what is meditation? There was no scope for meditation while we lived with Him. Meditation needs some separateness. All the time, everything involved us with His presence. We could not meditate on Him when He was never absent.

One day Baba asked the mandali which was more difficult, to give one's life or to lose one's life. Each was asked, and then one said, "Of course losing, Baba."

Baba answered, "You are right. What is there in giving one's life? It is comparatively easy to give your life for a great cause, for honor, religion, or country. Even cowards may, under a sudden impulse, give up their lives. But to lose one's life is to die every moment. Every second one suffers the poignant pain of ego elimination, to culminate in utter resignation to the Divine Will."

In Baba's presence there was the continuous process of losing your life to Him. We were alive and at the same time dead. We had to be, as it were, not there, our self not present, alive and yet, in His presence, not allow our selves to be present.

Of course, there were times when we would take Meher Baba for granted. And yes, there also were times when we would be despondent, and so Baba, in His compassion, told us this story. Baba did not refer to our moods or our attitude towards Him. He simply asked if we would like to hear a story, and then began.

There was a certain emperor in Persia and his kingdom was extensive. He ruled justly, peace prevailed, and his subjects were very happy. One day, without warning, the emperor took to the streets of his capital, instead of sitting on his throne. For a time the courtiers and officials took it as a capricious whim, but days went by and the emperor continued to wander the streets. They began to suspect that there might be something wrong.

They went to the emperor and requested him, "Sire, will you not now return to your palace?"

But he replied, "Palace? Which palace? Here is my palace, here is the dome of my palace," he said, pointing to the sky. They realized that something had gone wrong with the emperor's mind, and they were unanimous in their decision that his younger brother and wife should now be king and queen.

The emperor continued to wander the city, begging for food, indifferent to his condition. He was familiarly known now as Bahlul, and soon people forgot that he had been the king and he became the butt of jokes — an object of teasing by the children. Yet the wife of Bahlul's brother, now the queen, always maintained a soft spot in her heart for Bahlul, and never even considered that he had gone mad. Rather she suspected him as somebody who has been struck with love for God.

The years passed. One day the queen was strolling along the seashore with her ladies, and she came upon Bahlul playing in the sand. He was sitting there, scraping the sand with his hands into a huge pile, and then brushing it aside and then scooping it back together again, chuckling all the while to himself. The queen was drawn to talk to him.

"Bahlul, do you recognize me? Do you know who I am?"

"Sure, I know who you are. You're the empress of this kingdom."

"What are you doing, Bahlul?"

"Oh, I am very busy. I am building castles in heaven for those who deserve them."

"You are building castles here?"

"Yes."

"Do I deserve one, Bahlul?"

Bahlul looked at her a moment. "Yes," he replied.

"Will you build a castle for me, then?" she asked.

"Sure, but you will have to pay the price."

"What price?"

He pointed to a necklace of precious gems she was wearing.

Although it was an heirloom given to her by her husband, she promptly took it off and gave it to Bahlul. He looked at it and then, laughing as he did so, he tore it apart and threw the gems, one by one, into the ocean. After throwing the last jewel into the sea he looked up at her and said, "Now go. It is all built in heaven for you. Go."

The empress and her maidens went happily off and enjoyed themselves on the seashore. It never occurred to the empress that she might have done something wrong. To her it was just a simple necklace of precious stones, that's all. She forgot all about it.

But after a few days the king noticed that his wife never wore the necklace anymore. "Don't you like the necklace I gave you?" he asked her.

Suddenly she remembered the incident, "Yes, I liked it, but I gave it away," she confessed.

"Gave it away! To whom did you give it?"

"Bahlul."

"What! Bahlul, that madman!"

"Yes, he asked for it," and then she related the whole episode.

The king was furious, and a good verbal fight ensued between the two. He tried to impress upon her that she had no right to give the necklace away, for it did not really belong to her but to the kingdom, it was part of the royal treasure. She replied that one little necklace didn't matter. And besides, what harm had been done? Bahlul, after all, was the real emperor, and he was entitled to the necklace if he wanted it.

As you can imagine, one word led to another and eventually they became so angry with each other that they stopped speaking entirely. Days passed and neither would say a word to the other. Until one night, in the middle of the night, the king had a terrible nightmare. He tossed and turned on the bed, moaning and calling out loudly, obviously in great distress. Even though she was still upset, the queen's heart melted and she took pity on her husband and woke him up.

He came to with a groan, drenched in perspiration. "Oh, what a nightmare I had!" he exclaimed. He sat up in bed and recounted the dream.

I still remember Baba's gestures so clearly as He went into all these details. The way He would turn His face aside to show how the queen refused to talk to her husband. The way He acted out the part of the husband, having a nightmare and then waking up trembling. I can't give you that vivid picture that Baba gave us of all this, but I am giving you the gist of the story, the food, as it were, without the spice, the seasoning.

"I dreamt," the king said, "that I was dead and was led through the gates of heaven. For some time I wandered around, enjoying the sights, but gradually I began to grow tired and longed for a place to settle down. There were many castles all around, but each time I tried to enter one, the owner would stop me, saying, 'This is mine.' Everywhere, every time, it was the same story. I grew more and more tired. I became despondent and finally even frightened. When would I ever find my own place?

"I came to yet another castle, but as I approached, a window opened on the first floor and I saw your face. I was so relieved that at last I had found my own castle. I rushed up to enter, but as I did you stopped me and said, 'Here, no one can share a castle. Each to his or her own.' And so I was left outside once more. The experience was terrifying. Nowhere was there any place for me. And that's when you woke me."

The queen comforted the king, helped him to calm down, but then reminded him. "Do you remember what happened last week?" She couldn't resist giving him a little dig. "You were so furious with me that I had given the necklace to Bahlul when he offered to build me a castle in heaven in exchange, but now see!"

But the king was too miserable for the queen to enjoy chiding him so, she relented and suggested, "Why don't you ask Bahlul to build you a castle in heaven? He is your brother, surely he will do it for you if you ask."

The king readily assented, and Bahlul was brought to the palace. He was given a good scrubbing and then adorned with royal clothes and made to sit opposite the throne of the king. "Bahlul, do you recognize me and this lady here?" the king asked.

"Yes," Bahlul replied, "you are my brother. You are also the king and the lady is your wife, the queen."

"Do you recall, Bahlul, that you said to her on the seashore that you were building castles in heaven for those who deserved them?"

"Yes, that is what I do all the time."

"Do I not deserve a castle in heaven? Would you not build one for me?"

"Surely I can do that, but you will have to pay the price," Bahlul answered.

The king immediately took a string of pearls from around his neck and handed it to Bahlul. Bahlul merely looked at the king and said, "What else?" The king added another necklace but again Bahlul replied, "What else?" The king added more and more jewelry but Bahlul remained unimpressed and kept asking, "What else?" The king took all of his jewels, and even sent to the royal treasury for some particularly fine pieces, but Bahlul's answer never varied, "What else?"

Finally the king burst out, "Why is it that my wife gave you only one necklace and you built a castle for her, but with me you keep asking for more and more, saying, 'What else?' Why is it that my castle costs so much more than her castle?"

Bahlul laughed, "Even if you were to offer me the whole of your kingdom, it would not be enough."

The king was dismayed. "Why? What have I done?"

"You know the worth of a castle in heaven," Bahlul replied. "On the seashore your wife just took my word that I was building castles in heaven. Whatever price I asked, she gave immediately. She did not bargain, nor did she give in a calculated manner. But here, now, with you, there is bargaining, because you know the worth of what you're seeking. Even if you were to part with your whole kingdom it would not be enough. Part with the kingdom and with yourself, only then may you have your own castle in heaven."

Here Baba finished the story and commented, "Do you all realize what this story means? When I first asked you to leave everything and stay with Me and obey My orders, you did so without knowing what you were doing. You were drawn to do so, and you willingly parted with all the things you had in the world in order to be by My side and to live with Me. But you did not know the worth of what you were doing.

"But there will come a time when the world will know of Me, who I am. Then, even if the emperors of the world want to part with their kingdoms to be with Me, that price will be too little. The little price you paid to be by My side was enough for Me, because you did it not knowing what you were doing, but trustingly relied on My word without giving a second thought to what you would gain by doing so."

That is why we sometimes tell all of you who come how lucky you are to come now when it is only love which brings you. The day will come when the whole world will recognize Baba. When people will be flocking here. When so many will come to Baba, but why will they come? They will come in a spirit of bargaining, to get something out of it.

Even those who are sincere will have a hard time keeping such motives out of their mind, for at that time it will be to one's advantage to come to Baba, it will be good for one's business, for one's reputation to have it be known that one follows Baba. So it is good now to be able to come to Baba when the only incentive is love.