THE TREE, YET THE ROOT

 
I have received many strange letters and communications during my professional years. Some have written that they have seen visions of Meher Baba, while others have said that their child was declared dead; Meher Baba gave them a pinch of ash to administer on the child, and the grateful parents claimed that the child came to life. I know these stories are sparks of the Truth. The God-Man's ways are strange and unfathomable.

Recently, during my visit to Meherazad Eruch Jessawala narrated an incredible story. A Maharashtran lady in Ahmednagar, devoid of any means of sustenance, with an alcoholic for a husband and a child to feed, sat heartbroken in her little hut, calling out to God for help.

As if in response, a neighbor ran up to her and told her, "A saint called Meher Baba is giving darshan in Nagar. Why don't we go to him, he might help us?" The lady wearily looked up and reluctantly agreed.

The two ladies walked up to Khusru Quarters (Meher Nazar), stood in the queue waiting for Baba's prasad. The prasad comprised of the usual bananas, flowers and Indian corn. The grieved lady bowed down at Baba's feet, collected per prasad and walked away. When she opened her palms, to her surprise, instead of the bananas and the flowers, she found a bundle of hundred rupee notes, amounting to a thousand. She looked back at her Lord. There he sat. The Giver. The Provider. The Helper. She wept. She thanked Meher Baba in her heart. She was saved. With the money she put up a shoe shop in the market-place.

Today, her son is the proud owner of the shop. To him it is God's manna, but to his mother the shop is the House of God.

We do not question the why and wherefore of God's benevolence. We know that Meher Baba is God in human form. We have the conviction of his Godhood and therefore we gather and direct all our energies to him; to love him, to surrender to him, and although he, in his compassion, tells us that 'we are all one,' he also emphasizes 'be the dust of my feet.'

Sometime back a Baba-lover, also a former Municipal Councillor at Nidadavol in Andhra Pradesh, wrote to me that since "the individual cannot attain God-realization without the aid of a living perfect master," he had found one at Mandapeta, an obscure village in the same state, who claimed that Meher Baba had made him perfect and that he receives orders from Baba himself.

The writer says that "he is an instrument in the hands of Meher Baba and people of different faiths are going to him. He is Meher Baba functioning in a different body." It is suggested in the letter that I, as Editor of The Glow, investigate into this phenomenon and sing the glory of this new perfect master.

Many years ago a young Baba-lover from Delhi was sent to England for studies. So intense was his love for Baba that before long he established a Baba-center in his place of residence. There were those who came to the center in their love for Baba, but there were also those who deluded this young man into believing that he was a perfect master.

So enmeshed was he in this illusory belief, that he became deranged and was admitted into a mental hospital. Baba called him back to India, got him admitted into a clinic and had him treated. Today he is a successful man, no longer deluded, with unbounded love for Baba.

In 1968 once again a man from Nizamabad claimed himself to be Meher Baba, saying "I am God in human form" and then told people "you will get a promotion in April" and to another "a son will be born to you." Anxious Baba-lovers wrote to Meher Baba. In reply Baba from his seclusion sent a cable "He loves me very much as very many others do but neither he nor anyone of you should indulge in or give any importance to his hallucinations and imaginary experiences." That put a stop to the man's mystical mumbo-jumbo.

To a query from the United States, on the subject of Master-disciple relationship, one of Meher Baba's mandali once wrote:

"...all kinds of saints and masters with groups and followings spring up like mushrooms in every age and more so at every Advent. And, like the mushrooms, there are the edible kind and the poisonous ones, which we as children ignorant in such matters cannot differentiate. And thus the beloved Father warns us from approaching all variety of fungus which could lead us into temptation of picking the wrong kind and perhaps eating it with disastrous results. Besides all this, 'mushrooms' (even the edible kind) are not on the menu personally planned for the health of our spiritual progress by our Guide and God."

The Ancient One can and does take birth from time to time as the Avatar, in different Avataric ages to give a spiritual push to all His Creation in general and to suffering humanity, in particular.

Perfect Masters, and even the Perfect Ones (who are simply God-realized) do not take form again. When the soul has gone through the whole lengthy process of illusion to become self-conscious, when the sole purpose of illusion is for man to become God, and when that purpose is fulfilled and the goal is reached, why and how should there be a 'coming back' into a form in illusion? When a Perfect Master does not reincarnate, and there are those who believe in such an absurd claim, how can an Avatar be expected to reincarnate as a Perfect Master!

Meher Baba called such claimants as 'wolves' who preyed on his unwary 'lambs,' his lovers. Baba has emphasized that as long as they have conviction in his Avatarhood, they should not fall into allegiance with any other spiritual master or masters, nor seek their advice and follow instructions, even occasionally.

As early as 1922 Meher Baba prepared his disciples to a life of devotion. That life culminated in the New Life when even the thought of renunciation had to be renounced. We have devoted this issue to that phase when Meher Baba gave the gift of conviction to those who came to accept him as God in human form. He told them "Do not leave me at any cost."

Meher Baba has repeatedly given us the definite understanding that we should not approach or contact any saint, genuine or otherwise, and he has helped us to remember that we should 'stick to Baba's daaman till the very end,' for of that Tree with the ever attractive branches, leaves and blossoms, He is the ROOT that sustains all.