THE GUIDE

 
If a man be ninety-nine percent blind, that man may be said to see if he believes in what he sees. That one percent of seeing can become the spark of sight if the one percent of seeing be touched by the light of God-Man's beauty.

Such a one am I, touched by the spark of God's holy face; but more than this, God has given me the vision to express the wondrous sight in colors of Divinity so that all those who love can see what I have seen.

To walk I must be held by the hand so that I may not stumble on my way; yet it has been given to me to teach others to see what has been shown to me. To do by God's grace what has been given to me to do is for me both a humiliation and an exaltation at one and the same time. I am simultaneously both humble and proud.

I bow down in my heart to God-omnipotent, whom I see in the form: Lord, Meher Baba, King of the Universe.

To walk with the brother of that King through the bustling streets of His birth, is to tread the loftiest heights of imagination, happiness, and love. To spend a day with the brother of Avatar is to run and play again like a child.

It was, morning in the city of Poona, India, birthplace of the Avatar of our age. One feels of Poona, "This is surely the home town of everyone and anyone who is in any way reaching out for the hand of God."

My trip to Poona in 1965 was truly the journey of a pilgrim. So also was my trip to that city in 1969. In the journey of a pilgrim there is much anguish and desperation. And in the progress of a pilgrim there is virtual despair when one reaches that point where all hopes, dreams and visions have fallen into ruin.

But in the sojourn of a beggar, even despair and disappointment are left behind, and one finds himself entering into a state of existence, an adventure that seems more truly charged with humor than with any other attribute of consciousness. This was a journey without hopes or expectations, a journey in which the funny side of this beggarly sojourn continued to show itself with a sparkling and iridescent humor.

We went out of our hotel into a beautiful Poona December morning. The shops were just beginning to open for the day's business. We decided to walk through some of the busy streets just to feel the atmosphere and aroma of India.

How many young people from America now wander the streets of India amidst the millions whose karma gave them birth in that land? How many western-born souls now go a-searching in that land — for what they do not know, but with a kind of homing instinct that brings them? How many long to know what so few know, that the One for whom all ultimately search has already come and finished His mighty work, which is to rechart compassionately the course of each and every wandering soul towards its real destiny?

How fortunate we were, my companions and I, to simply know while strolling through these Poona streets that we had come simply to pay homage to the one God of Gods who has come down to human level in our time and made Himself known to us so that this morning's stroll had real direction.

We were looking for the family home of a man who wandered out of Persia a hundred years ago in search of God — a man named Sheriarji, the man whose privilege it was to become human father to the living Christ.

Now it was the house of Baba's brothers, Behram and Jal, who are real disciples of that one Christ. It must surely be of profound importance to the God-Man that His own brothers follow and obey Him in His lifetime. We felt that we would find the house if we just kept walking through the neighborhood we were in, a neighborhood as full of amazing sights as of smells and sounds.

I could never figure out how it is that an American is always recognizable to the eyes of the Indian people. In Ahmednagar and even in Poona the American is met wherever he goes with the sound of "Jai Baba."

As we were walking along one narrow street, we heard a "Jai Baba!" My companions told me it was a blind beggar. I didn't see the blind beggar myself, but the blind beggar easily spotted us as Americans and thus the "Jai Baba." I thought: "What a hallucination this great country is, what a Divine hallucination!"

Sure enough, we found the house of Sheriar Irani and were greeted most warmly by Behram who promptly showed us into the little room where Baba underwent the horrendous agony of "coming down" from the unlimited freedom, power and bliss of the Almighty to become the bound Prometheus for this kali yuga.

No one can imagine that agony. All one can say in that little room in one's own little heart is, "Thank God, agony or no agony, that You came down." He had to come down to rechart the destiny of this lost universe. To be here on this planet is amazing enough. But to be in that very room of His coming down is beyond words.

Then Brother Jal came in and we embraced merrily. God would have to possess an infinite imagination to have produced for Himself a playmate brother such as Jal. One never forgets for a minute that this is Baba's brother — not that he reminds you, but because he is simply Jal.

As you go about the city of Poona with Jal as guide, Jal does not remind you of who he is; but rather, he never lets you forget that this is the great city of Poona where the Avatar of the cycle was born into the world. Jal has all kinds of amazing statistics on the city of Poona to prove to you beyond a shadow of doubt that this is indeed the city of cities.

Jal took us to many places that day, including Guruprasad where in '69 we had that "unparalleled darshan." And we were told now that soon it will all be torn down, the scaffolding of work completed, and so no longer necessary. When one is with Brother Jal, one feels that this city belongs to Jal. It seems as if it is his city; Baba gave it to him.

In the afternoon Jal took us on a trudge up a high hill with seventy steps. Baba had climbed this hill even as a boy and had run down all the way in three minutes flat. Jal told us that Rick Chapman equalled that record with bare feet, but that after the three minutes dash, Jal had spent an hour bandaging up Rick's bruised and bleeding feet.

When we got to the top we found a highly decorated temple to Shiva. I found it impossible to be impressed with any aspect of the temple, but the view of Jal's city was really beautiful in the late afternoon sun. I was also impressed that a man over seventy years old could so easily climb those seventy steps.

We felt we had had enough sight-seeing for one day, but Jal told us he had one other place to take us as he pointed way far down in the center of the city. So from this hilltop with its gaudily painted temple to Shiva, we went back down into the teeming city.

When one of us half-heartedly protested that it might be getting a little late for this next excursion, our guide said confidently, "I think Baba will hold the sun up long enough for us to go where we are going."

We got stuffed into a taxi at the foot of the hill and went off plowing through turbulent streets as all Indian taxis do. I suspect that I was less panic-stricken than most Americans are riding in a Poona taxi. That's because what you don't see does not frighten you.

When I had sat at Baba's feet, Baba said to the mandali something like this: "Lyn is very fortunate, because he doesn't see so much of the illusion." Certainly in a Poona taxi ride these words prove to be most blessedly correct. I see just enough to know with some amusement what a terrifying sight it must be for those unaccustomed to the streets of India, packed with humanity together with almost every other form of land-creature and conveyance.

It never ceases to amaze me what a lavish and extravagant Creator Baba the Creator actually is. I guess it is true that Baba does not create one thing more than is necessary for His purpose; but in India, His activity as God the Creator seems absolutely flamboyant.

I can honestly say that in these past eight years of following and loving Meher Baba, I have acquired tremendous knowledge. But the crowning jewel of that knowledge is the knowledge that I am enveloped in ignorance.

This is indeed the precious jewel of my knowledge because, knowing that I am enveloped in ignorance and also knowing that I am while yet in ignorance allied to the One who is the embodiment of Real Knowledge, I am confident that some day at long last I will be brought out of this ignorance to share permanently in that Real Knowledge.

Baba says, "Blessed is the knowledge that is gained through ignorance." Until that knowledge is gained I remain a humble and helpless beggar, helpless before the whim of my Beloved. And to console myself I sometimes recall those words from the "Song of the New Life," "Your beggarly life shall be the envy of kings of the world."

The taxi pulled up to its destination as our guide quickly stepped out into an open but crowded area, ready to show us what he had brought us to see. It was a huge general market place, spread over many acres under a vast building or network of buildings.

This was a kind of distribution center for the produce, the fruits and vegetables grown all over India. It was an overpowering impression of sight and smell and sound. The sound and the smell were mysteriously one and and inseparable. It was the odor of fermentation saturating the air and that sharp shrill sound of the venders' shrikes the like of which one hears only in India. You hear it in the railroad stations.

But here in the huge market hundreds of such voices were ringing out all around us as our guide briskly led us amongst the labyrinthian stalls. Jal was able to move with remarkable swiftness through the confusion so that it was not easy for me and my companions to keep up with him. For this guide had learned long ago to keep up with the great stride of His Master, who had been the swiftest man alive.

We went up this way and down that way through crowded aisles until we were virtually lost but for our guide, now quite a bit ahead of us. He did not look back once to see if we were keeping up with him. My mind was saying, "What is this? What is happening? Why are we here?"

We passed under a large circular opening in the roof, which I took to be the very center of the market place. There, for a moment, was the blue sky over our heads, and then we were back amidst the stalls and the shrill venders. We moved on, and suddenly we were out of the compound and into a more open area.

I turned to look from where we had come, and lifting my gaze over the roof line I saw the most dazzling sight — an architectural wonder. I saw what appeared to be the towering heights of some great cathedral, but it became clear to me that it was the crowning superstructure of this incredible market. There it was, glittering and gleaming in the last slanting rays of the afternoon sun.

Yes, Baba had done as Jal said He would: He held up the sun, so that we could come down into all of this topped off with that golden cathedral sight.

Jal had shown us something without saying a word. He showed me in the flash of a moment that the temple of God is to found almost anywhere, not just on a hilltop. Here in this most worldly of places was Baba. This teeming market place was as much God's house as was that painted doll-house of a Shiva temple back on the hill.

I will always think of that golden-spired market place as a Temple of Shiva. Surely Baba had walked here amidst the noise and confusion and the smells.

And I will long remember that day as the day when Baba held up the sun for His brother so that I could see the sight that Baba wanted me to see.

What I saw I pointed out to my companion, but he was not visibly impressed. Why is it that what I see others do not see? Sight must be, it seems to me, something that is given, like love.

Perhaps sight is not in the eye at all; perhaps sight is in the heart. It seems that there are things given me to see. These are the things that Baba wants me to see. Sometimes I am amazed at the beauty of what I have seen, and I seem to be the only one who sees what I see, i.e., what has been shown to me by God.

There are many things that are not given me to see. These are the things that Baba wants me not to see. Not to see is an important part of seeing. To be shown one thing and not another is more significant than to be shown all things or to be shown no things.

To me Baba says, "Look here; do not look there. See this; do not see that." The Beloved selects for me what I will see and not see. Thus it is that I am the artist to whom it is given to represent in painting the face of the Almighty Beloved.

For a painter light and color are the air he breathes. For me, however, the image of the God-Man is the very substance of art. Through my eyes Baba produces great and mighty works, while all along I remain the one who sees that which is given to very few to see.

It is as though a beggar were suddenly given a great fortune — yet he remains what he was, a beggar, while retaining the fortune.

The day was over for in India the twilight time is very short. The next morning Jal put us in the paper-taxi and sent us on to Ahmednagar.