WHO CAN VOUCH FOR THE INTEGRITY OF THE PRESENT CIVILIZATION?

 
Question [Dr. Abdul Ghani]: Will material science, in the near or remote future, be able to probe into subtle and higher planes? At the present rate of scientific progress it ought to be possible, if there be continuity or a point of fusion from the material to the subtle.

Meher Baba: You are going into deeper waters. Now listen carefully. The soul, essentially divine, infinite in existence, knowledge and bliss is, all by itself, the only Reality. Everything else exists only in imagination. The famous and oft-repeated parable of the snake and rope will elucidate the point. The soul somehow imagined the rope to be the snake. This phase engendered fear which, to stretch the simile further, we may call mind. The mind extended itself to grasp it (the snake); this is energy, and actually grappling it means body. Thus we see mind, energy, body, although all three have no existence except in imagination; but in relation to each other they are altogether distinct, separate and independent.

Although mind emanates energy and energy in essence is mind, nevertheless in expression and form both are distinct and apart. Similarly, body is the outcome of energy, and though identical in essence the function and formation is radically different and independent.

To illustrate the point, let us take thread to be mind, and cloth made thereof to represent energy, and clothing to signify body. The cloth here is of thread, but in utility and form is altogether different from thread. The clothing, say a coat, is from thread, but in form and expression is obviously and distinctly apart from cloth and thread.

The making of cloth and coat from thread is easy and possible, but the return of the coat and cloth to the state of the original thread means the destruction and annihilation of the form and expression of both. Similarly, the emanation of energy and matter from mind is automatic and natural; but the return of matter and energy to mind is almost impossible. This return business is the beginning of spirituality.

You must have felt by now your question answered by realizing how impossible it is for science to probe the subtle and higher planes. Science is, as yet, a long way off; it has up to now only touched the fringe of the matter. It may, at the most, touch the extreme limits of matter but that will take ages. And who, till then, can vouch for the integrity of this — the present civilization?