G L O W   I N T E R N A T I O N A L

Unraveling the Mystery of Meher Baba's Work

During darshan hours with Meher Baba ib Ahmednagar in 1954
Charles B. Purdom is to His left.

Meher Baba's biographer C.B. Purdom discussed aspects of the Avatar's work with a few friends in London on April 28, 1965. This article is based on notes written by Purdom during his meetings with Meher Baba. We have highlighted excerpts from Purdom's letters to an American devotee.

The last brief chapter of ‘The God-Man’ is devoted to what Meher Baba calls His ‘Work’, or more comprehensively His ‘universal work’. It is a short chapter because, although the ‘ Work’ is without doubt of first importance, it cannot easily be described. Meher Baba’s activities have been prodigious; there is His work with the mandali, the work among the boys of the Prem Ashram, among the poor, the mast work, the world travels, what He called manonash, the darshans and sahavas programmes, His personal contact, and what He termed ‘the infinitely crucial phase of My work’, which, He said, had been completed on 28th October 1959, which, in a message on December 9 that year, He ‘said’ could be ‘compared to the amassing and arranging in a universal heap the accumulated rubbish of man’s ignorance in illusion that enmeshes him in the false and prevents him from realizing his true identity’. Indeed it has to be agreed that Meher Baba’s silence is deepest about His work. We are not to know what it is, and ambiguity is always present. He has said very distinctly that it is His own work, which He does himself, in which no one is required to partake: ‘I alone do My work’, He said to those who had gathered in His presence from all over the world in November 1962.

The best we can do, therefore, is to meditate upon the idea of that ‘Work’, to observe Baba to ask ourselves what it may be, realizing that it is beyond our comprehension. You will understand that what I say are no more than tentative conclusions: arrived at after long reflection, and that I do not speak with any special knowledge and certainly without dogmatism. The mystery of Meher Baba’s work is akin to the mystery of the work of Jesus Christ. There can be no doubt from reading the Gospels that the work of Jesus was much more than His ‘preaching’, His teaching of disciples, His works of healing, and so forth. Apart from a few references in St. John the work itself is not to be found, for ‘works’ mean the works of healing. Nothing is more certain from the three Synoptic Gospels than that the inner circle of Jesus, his closest disciples, had no idea what his work was.

St. John’s Gospel, which is a work of interpretation, describes Jesus speaking to a Samaritan woman, and afterwards explaining to his perplexed disciples, ‘It is meat and drink for me to do the will of him that sent me until I have finished his work’. This implies that his talking to the woman was ‘God’s work’. In the same Gospel we read of the man who had been blind from birth, and Jesus saying ‘He sent me to do his work, after which he put a spittle of clay upon the man’s eyes and he afterwards could see. ‘I am the light of the world’, said Jesus, treating the action as symbol. At the end, before the betrayal, he said in his prayer to heaven, ‘Father . . . I have glorified you on earth by completing the work you gave me to do’.

The Gospels tell a wonderful story, lovely in its setting, marvellous in its ending, but, looked at without the glamour of ages, and apart from the masterly English of our translatiion, we find in them a man of great insight, intelligence and wit, humility and unresentfulness, who treats everyone as his brother who demands respect and admiration; but what more? His rejection and brutal murder were no different from what innumerable prophets have suffered throughout history, and the concluding accounts of His resurrection, read in a detached and critical way, are dubious. We are, indeed, forced to the conclusion, on the evidence of the Gospels, that there is nothing to account for the idea of supreme meaning in His work that His immediate followers had and that history has maintained. We have to go beyond the story in its simple terms for a deeper meaning.

That the original apostles gained that meaning after they had been enlightened, and, above all, that Saint Paul, the unbeliever, knew it is certain. Paul, a Hellenistic Jewish rabbi, an ardent Pharisee, who belonged to Tarsus in Cicilia, was engaged in persecuting his fellow Jews who made out that criminal Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah, when he was suddenly convinced that these despised men were right, that Jesus had indeed come from God to free his people, and had achieved it. Paul saw in Jesus the pre-existent Son of God, who came on earth to redeem mankind by His death and resurrection, an act of God’s judgement and grace. He thereafter devoted his life to the declaration of this great divine act of reconciliation. Saint Paul was not concerned with Jesus’ teachings but His work. He maintains that Jesus’ work was cosmic, affecting the entire world and the whole of mankind, past, present, and future: the work of salvation from the foundation of the world. The first Adam, he said, introduced sin, the second Adam overthrew sin. The work of Jesus was beyond parallel and beyond man’s understanding, it was entirely the work of God, man had only to accept it.

From this has sprung the doctrines and dogmas, the creeds, theologies and the practises of the Christian Church in all its phases and forms, which have been possibly the greatest formative element in Western society. Despite, however, the profound theologies, the protracted discussions and disputes, and the lives of the mystics and saints, throughout the nearly two thousand years since Jesus died, there is no completely satisfactory explanation ot the work of Jesus. It remains a mystery. There are guesses, rationalizations, everything that the most penetrating intelligences and devoted lives have been able to contribute, but the mystery remains.

It is characteristic of Christianity that the mystery remains open. There is no secret doctrine. In all other religions there are mysteries revealed to initiates, not always full to them: in Christianity, nothing of the sort. I have met people who suppose that there is a secret teaching in the Catholic Church available only to a few, which is utter nonsense. The one mystery of the Incarnation — for that is where the mystery lies — is open to all.

There seems close affinity between the mystery of Jesus and that of Meher Baba. Because Baba is with us and we know Him, it is perhaps legitimate for us to contemplate His mystery in the attempt to grasp something of its significance.

In the collection of Meher Baba’s early discourses, “God to Man and Man to God”, there is a chapter ‘The work of the God-Man’ in which it is said that ‘the God Man . . . is concerned to bring about the unfoldment of the spirit in all whom He helps’. It is further said that the God-Man ‘does not follow rules or precedents but is a law to himself. . . . . He can play any necessary role . . . . ‘ Also ‘the God-Man is not bound by conventional standards. He is beyond good and evil . . . . . He may do what shocks . . . may seem to be harsh . . . . . The God-Man helps the soul in bondage by sowing in him the seed of God realization.’ These remarks, together with the connection in which they are made, seem to me to be primarily intended to apply to the Man-God, i.e. to the Perfect Master, who has realized God, for the discourse contrasts him with one who has not attained that realization. Though we should remember that Meher Baba says the God-Man does also the work of the Man-God.

In another discourse entitled ‘Avatar’, the God-Man is said to take the leadership of the five Men-Gods’ who are the spiritual directing body of the world. No further explanation is given of what this may mean. ‘Avataric periods are the springtide of creation’, it is said. ‘Life as a whole is lifted to a higher level of conciousness and geared to a new rate of energy’. The discourse is mainly a description of the Avatar, who has a Circle of one hundred and twenty disciples, all of whom experience realization, and work for the liberation of others. This reference to the Circle — there is a separate discourse on the subject — is not developed in Baba’s subsequent teachings. We can understand from what is said that the work of the God-Man is to awaken men to the realization of their spiritual nature; to demonstrate ‘the possibility of the divine life of humanity’.

When we come to the much later book entitled, ‘God Speaks’ nothing at all is about the God-Man’s ‘work’; the word is not to be found there, except that the God-Man is said to ‘recall his divinity to man’ (p. 141), and to give ‘a universal push to all things . . . . accelerating the maturity of consciousness’ (p. 142) which is to repeat what had been said earlier. That there is no more is perhaps sufficient indication that Meher Baba does not wish to speak about His work. I have already mentioned the few other references to it made by Him on various occasions. While so little is said, increasing emphasis is implied in all Meher Baba’s actions that there is a ‘work’ which counts above all else. When He is in contact with crowds at a darshan or with individuals always so obviously giving Himself, there is no mistaking the fact of a ‘work’ being done. Indeed, all who have observed Him say that He is ‘working’ always, day and night.

I think we must accept the fact that we are not to know the work. Indeed, does not the silence and the not-writing point to this conclusiion? Silence and not-writing are part of conditions of the work, and, may be, contain the work. If then we do not know what the work is, can we ask how it is done? Certainly there is nothing spectacular, nothing corresponding to what is to be seen in great re-forming or religious leaders. Neither are there any of the ways in which philosophers or artists or priests work: there is no sign of what is done or any show of power.

After bathing a leper, Meher Baba bows down
as Gadge Maharaj looks on during Baba's visit to 
Pandharpur in 1954.

That the work has to do with the soul, specifically the soul of man, we should find no difficulty in understanding. The work is on the various planes of involution of consciousness for the development of mankind. In the discourses, in some later talks, and in more detail in ‘God Speaks’, Meher Baba describes the seven evolutionary states in which the soul overcomes the sleep of indifferentiation to arrive at self-conciousness, which belongs to pre-history. After completion of evolution, when self-consciousness breaks into the soul and man is able to say ‘I’, the involution of consciousness starts. When that break took place we do not know, it seems to have been rather like a general jump in evolution that brought in existence the species man. When self-conciousness is reached a reverse process, the ‘in-volution’ of consciousness, starts: if evolution be likened to a spreading-out, involution can be likened to a folding-in, a concentration of the soul. (You will find this discussed in the writings of Teilhard de Chardin.) Involution takes place upon seven ‘planes’, and upon these planes of conciousness in the soul of mankind the specific work of the God-Man is done. These planes are described in ‘God Speaks’ and are summarized and to some extent explained in ‘The God-Man’ (pp. 417-424). It is within these planes, from the first to the last, that the God-Man’s work is done, and within these planes come every soul of man upon earth. The ‘planes’ are not to be thought of as a ‘spiritual’ world, but as belonging to the ‘actual’ world: they describe the soul in its actual living psychosomatic state. Neither should it be thought that individual souls are confined to one plane only or that they progress automatically from one plane to a higher one. An individual soul, upto and including the fourth plane, remains under the influence of the lower planes and can temporarily slip back. The most dangerous is the fourth plane on which ‘catastrophic downfall’ is possible. The God-Man’s work is with the human soul in general and equally with particular souls, for increase in consciousness is increase in particularness. It is a paradox that the more fully the soul knows itself and the more meaning it gives to the ‘I’, the more completely it knows itself to be one with, not seperated from, and having identical interests with, all other souls. The God-Man works irrespective of time and place. He is as near to people at home as when they are in his physical presence. He works unceasingly, everywhere at once and at every time. Our physical-sense terms do not apply to Him in His working; He is bound to nothing. This ‘work’ explains Meher Baba’s more or less continuous seclusion, and the fact that even when we are with Him and He is giving us His full attention, there is in His aspect and eyes a sense of pre-occupation. How He works on these ‘planes’ is, perhaps, explained by His mastery of the principle (or laws) of His own being, what we call His divinity, which takes Him throughout the entire realm of the soul. This is not equivalent to what is called, loosely, supra-sensual powers, for it is nothing that man as man possesses; it belongs to the God-Man as an incarnation. I do not know that any more can usefully be said about Meher Baba’s work. I should add, however, two further remarks. According to traditional teaching, after Jesus died on the cross he descended into hell, which is an indication that the God-Man’s work is not restricted to the soul as we know it in this life of the senses. Secondly, we may suppose that a God-Man, at least theoretically, could not only be such a one as Meher Baba, but could be any man. He could, conceivably, be an artist or a bishop or soldier or a just an ordinary working man — Jesus was a carpenter — but His specific ‘work’ as God-Man would not be in any of these activities : it would be such as I have described. We should now consider what ‘our work’ is. Meher Baba has spoken about what He expects of us. ‘God to Man & Man to God’ is largely concerned with us: The last but one chapter is entitled ‘The Task for Spiritual Workers’, in which He says that our work is to know our true being to be God, ‘eternally one with the one undivided and in-divisible Universal Self’ and to enable others to realize the same truth. To do this, it is necessary to maintain ‘the idea of unity’ with others, to be ‘purged from all forms of selfishness’, to give up ‘separative thinking’, and enable people ‘to tackle their own problems’.

He has made it clear that our work is not to do as He does. We are not to practice silence, to stop writing, to fast, to feed the poor, unless He instructs us to do so. This does not mean that we should not help the sick or disabled or the poor or do other acts of mercy and love, but not suppose that we can do His work or that He needs any help in His work. He is most positive that His work is His own.

Neither is it part of our work for Him to offer Him gifts or to perform His arti, or to carry medalions, or exhibit pictures or to erect statues, or put up buildings. He calls this ‘waste’. He said (1954) : I want love and honesty and clean hearts and sacrifice. Do not expect appreciation; don’t depend upon others. I need no propaganda or publicity, no money; centres are not necessary. The way of My work is the way of effacement.

To be active and extremely busy in what we may call ‘Baba’s work’ is clearly not the work for Him that He regards as essential. He does not encourage it in any way whatever. If we are moved to do it, certainly we should act accordingly, but not over-value what we do, or think it to be a substiture for ‘real work’, The real work is ‘love and honesty and clean hearts and sacrifice’, that is to say our daily lives motivated by love, honesty and self-effacement. This, indeed, is no easy job. It means a complete alteration in our lives. We must ask ourselves, therefore, if such an alteration has indeed taken place. If we are frank with ourselves we may have to admit that it has not: there is some change, some measure of tolerance of othere, some diminution of selfishness, and some better attention to honesty, hardly anymore. What then can we do? Baba says ‘Do not worry: I will help you.’ It is, indeed, His work that He should help us. How are we to get that help? Not by deserving it, but by realizing that we cannot do it without His help.

Of course, the help is always available; but we are not always able to receive it, even when we need it, even when we call for it most desperately. For us to receive it we must be emptied-of ‘desert’, of everthing and be in the state of love and obedience. Oh yes, we are in that state! But are we? It is so easy to say that we love; we breathe a sigh of relief at its easiness; but it has well been said that instead we ‘should be terrified’, and he who does not know this terror does not know the seriousness of the demand. (Rudolf Bultmann : Existence and Faith (1961, p. 225) Meher Baba himself says, ‘To love Me is impossible as I want to be loved.’ Let us realize where we have got to. Our work, reduced to its simplest most necessary terms, is, to love God.’ And whatever else we do or aim to do, however busy we are, there is no alternative if we desire to do Baba’s work. he says, however, to love God is impossible ; but He goes on to say ‘to obey is possible’. What that means is that with the tiny bit of will we possess we can will God’s will. This is not merely doing what we are told by Baba. What are we told? To be honest, tolerant, to be clean in heart, to expect nothing, to carry out any orders we are given, but above all to accept the responsibility for our lives. Whatever happens, to accept our lives as they are as God’s will as our own will. To place ourselves at the disposal of God.

That, as far as I under stand it, is to do Baba’s work: to will God’s will and to love, which just simply means not to cultivate emotional feelings but to renounce one’s own existence.

To understand Meher Baba is not necessary. Simple as it is to say, it is not simple, though the simplest person can act upon it. When Baba says ‘Love me’, ‘have My name on your lips’, He is not asking for sentimental feelings or for idolatrous repetition of words, but to love God as living reality, not as an idea, nor as an idol, but as the only One. It is the very opposite of being confirmed in the world, making us successful as we are, giving us health, or comfort, or any other good that we desire : it is to give up what we are, and what we have, to think nothing of health, or comfort, or wealth. It is to become free.

Yet, to be faced with freedom is the most terrible of all things. Very few are fit for it, because inner freedom is what few have ever experienced. We talk about free-will, and men are treated, politically, as though they possessed it; but free-will is rarely reached. We have nothing to be proud of . ‘Man is trapped in the earth situation, wandering among his memories and dreams’, says the play-wright Samuel Beckett: trapped man has no free will.

Meher Baba has no technique or method or rule for His followers. There is no yoga by means of which perfection may be developed. His aim is ‘being’, which is equivalent to originality, the genius of spirit. He is thus very difficult to follow because it is easy to fall into meaninglessness. He does, however, make us realize that to think of God as far off, suppposing that one has to go through certain processes to get ot Him — beliefs, rituals, sacrifices and so forth — is to be entirely wrong. Instead He directs us to ‘the divine at the heart of glowing universe’, to quote Teilhard de Chardin.

What Meher Baba represents for us is not an ‘ism’ among other ‘isms’, a movement or society, a church or teaching. He tells us not to abadon our own religion but to understand what we are doing in its practice. We should not get the idea that when we have listened to Baba’s ‘words’ read by someone, talked about Him, and perhaps made up our minds to go to see Him, that we are doing His work. Certainly to be in His presence is a great blessing, a marvellous experience; but longing for this can become one of the many forms of idolatry, unless our consciousness and behaviour receive a new orientation. Otherwise what is the point of meeting Him?

It is Meher Baba’s work to do our daily work with all our hearts. To be faithful in duties, respect tasks, be good workers, housekeepers, craftsmen, parents, honest in our dealings: to plunge into the world, take on its burdens and responsibilities and not be defeated: to be conscious in our senses, to accept destiny and accident transforming them into choice. There are three sorts of human beings : those who are enslaved by destiny, those who transform their destiny, those who surpass their destiny, achieving the impossible. The first sort are not doing Baba’s work, the second sort do it, the third sort are raised to the level of His saving work.

The work is unceasing, being essentially work upon ourselves, the development of consciousness and concientiousness, love and obedience. Great and continuous effort is called for: it is the most difficult work one can undertake. Of course, to fail constantly in inevitable, and we must expect it, never becoming conceited about our own abilities. To observe ourselves so as to overcome bad habits of thought, disposition, and treatment of others, to remember ourselves so as to distinquish the real from the false, to give up pretences and laziness — this is to be engaged in Meher Baba’s work.

Finally, we should remember His increasing insistence that His followers should hold on to His daaman, whatever happens. This, He has warned us will be exceedingly difficult. Indeed He says that few will succeed. I can do no more here than to say that it belongs to our work, the final test of it. GLOW

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