Lyn Ott questions and offers a few answers
by Lyn Ott
ff God is infinitely kind, then God must also be infinitely cruel. It is necessary, because God is everything. But this is true only within the framework of cosmic illusion, the realm of opposites. It is the way we see it with our minds, the way of ignorance, not the way of Reality or of Knowledge. In Reality God is neither kind nor cruel; God simply and unqualifiably IS. It is the nature of Being, God's pure identity--Infinite Intelligence.
When we ask ourselves the question, who is this Avatar, aren't we asking the question, who is God that He should be concerned with us?
In 1893 the great American historian, Turner, announced in a talk delivered in Chicago the closing of the American frontier. This meant that all the land from the Atlantic to the Pacific had been explored and settled. Geographically, there was nowhere left to expand.
In the very same year, 1893, Swami Vivekananda spoke in the city of Chicago to announce the opening of the Eastern frontier, which is to say the amazing frontier of inner discovery.
Vivekananda was a disciple of the Perfect Master, Ramakrishna. Vivekananda maintained that of the followers of a master, eighty percent are fakes or charlatans, fifteen percent of the followers are mad or deluded. Only the remaining five percent are genuine seekers of Truth.
Meher Baba tells us that from the Absolute Divine loneliness of His Original, Unitary Existence, His first-most state of Being, God spoke, bringing forth the Universe. Years ago, I already was wrestling with the enormous question — what is the nature of God's existence on the expanding frontier of evolving human consciousness? From where did man's concept of God's existence really come, and further, how can we respond to the simple question, "Who is Meher Baba?" Meher Baba is said to have told His close Mandali, "None of you have the faintest idea who I really am."
Meher Baba asserts that we exist entirely in ignorance; but at least we can rest assured we have journeyed far enough as devoted followers of the Master, to have climbed out of the primordial trap of human religious dogmas. Most religious conviction pretends to lay claim to real knowledge, real understanding, and a solid grasp of the nature of divinity within the scope of human comprehension.
But in fact, where are we, and what are we within the spiritual panorama? Considering the question, we come to the suspicion that quite possibly we ourselves are the real mystics and seekers of this era called "the New Age." As followers of the Master, we are that, simply because we confess to being in a state of not knowing, while believing that the Master knows all and that, being connected with Him, we are in His Grace. He knows for us what we do not know but can eventually know through His Grace. Thereby we become free of the hypocrisy of pretending to know that which we cannot know.
Meher Baba says, "To try to understand with the mind that which the mind can never understand, is futile; and to try to express by sounds of language and in form of words the transcendental state of the soul, is even more futile."
But for us it is true that Meher Baba knows. Thus our knowledge of what He has told us renders us more secure in our grasp of the Truth. This is because Baba shared with His lovers a significant portion of His truth. Hence, our not knowing has become for us the one factor of real gnosis.
From time to time I am asked to speak in one place or another purely because I have met the Avatar of this age in His physical form, and therefore supposedly might know more than I would had I not met Him in physical form. However, such an invitation to speak is rather ironic, for having confronted the physical form does not necessarily mean that one has found the Truth. As a disciple of the master, I am simply a beneficiary of the legacy of Truth, a beneficiary of that living presence which is the human embodiment of Truth, the Master Himself.
Here one has hold of the treasure. For to have the Master is to have something real, something imperishable, something which inspires that Love which the Master verily is.
In all truth, the one thing I can say is that, for any person, the Master is the single great possession, the one supreme treasure of treasures. He is the very source of Real understanding. The understanding that the Beloved Himself is Knowledge, provides all of the knowledge that any seeker should ever need. Outside of that Knowledge, it is all a fantastic game of make- believe. What do I know to be True? It is the feeling of the Master's touch upon my cheek. This for me has become knowledge. His touch has provided the matchless knowledge of Love.
At least instinctively, we understand that God Is, purely because Existence Is, for Existence must necessarily be all inclusive. Consequently, we are brought to believe in God's Identity as Everything.
However, not until I learned of the Divine Being of Meher Baba did I begin really to examine the WHO of God, and to begin to grasp the concept that the Avatar is, indeed, none other than one's own true Self.
God is simultaneously both infinitely conscious and infinitely unconscious. Creation is the great game being played between the two. This game, Meher Baba has given us to understand, is God's magnificent journey from absolute unconsciousness to infinite consciousness, so as to gain personal experience of His own true Glory of Being. Hence, the awareness gained through His Grace-of-coming over the past 100 years, has become the guiding light of our journey with God.