UNIVERSAL MESSAGE
UNIVERSAL MESSAGE
Meher Baba arrives in America, 1958
Meher Baba arrives in America, 1958
Among the many discourses and messages that Meher Baba has given from time to time, the Universal Message, given at the gathering at Meherabad on July 10, 1958, is considered most important for its clarity and profundity:
I have come not to teach but to awaken. Understand therefore that I lay down no precepts. Throughout eternity I have laid down principles and precepts, but mankind has ignored them. Man's inability to live God’s words makes the Avatar's teaching a mockery. Instead of practicing the compassion he taught, man has waged crusades in his name. Instead of living the humility, purity and truth of his words, man has given way to hatred, greed and violence.
Meher Baba in the Lagoon Cabin in Myrtle Beach in 1958
Meher Baba in the Lagoon Cabin in Myrtle Beach in 1958
Because man has been deaf to the principles and precepts laid down by God in the past, in this present Avataric Form I observe Silence. You have asked for and been given enough words - it is now time to live them. To get nearer and nearer to God you have to get further and further away from 'I', 'Me', and 'Mine'. You have not to renounce anything but your own self. It is as simple as that, though found to be almost impossible. It is possible for you to renounce your limited self by my Grace. I have come to release that Grace.
I repeat, I lay down no precepts. When I release the tide of Truth which I have come to give, men's daily lives will be the living precept. The words I have not spoken will come to life in them.
I veil myself from man by his own curtain of ignorance, and manifest my Glory to a few. My present Avataric Form is the last Incarnation of this cycle of time, hence my Manifestation will be the greatest. When I break my Silence, the impact of my Love will be universal and all life in creation will know; feel, and receive of it. It will help every individual to break himself free from his bondage in his own way. I am the Divine Beloved who loves you more than you can ever love yourself. The breaking of my Silence will help you to help yourself in knowing your real Self.
All this world confusion and chaos was inevitable and no one is to blame. What had to happen has happened and what has to happen will happen. There was and is no way out except through my coming in your midst. I had to come and I have come. I am the Ancient One.
Meher Baba at Avatar’s Abode in Australia
Meher Baba at Avatar’s Abode in Australia
In February 1959, Vilayat Khan, the son of Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan, came to see Baba at Meherabad with a desire to sit in meditation near a shrine in Ajmere and expressed his desire to meditate on Baba in Baba's physical presence. Baba told him: "Don't run away from the world: renounce your own lower self. Silently cry out within your own self, 'Beloved One, reveal yourself to me as my own real infinite self.' It is you who are obstructing yourself from finding your self, so try to lose your lower self in continued remembrance of God, who is your real self. Don't become Master of disciples till you have mastered your own self." The very next month Baba visited Bombay where he gave darshan to hundreds of people. At the end of the month he returned to Poona and one day, during this period, he remarked, "When I retire at night I feel as though my body has been wrung out.... My general health is getting worse, yet I am getting much more active. But it is not for reasons of health I now stop giving darshan. It is for my universal work, which weighs on me heavily, of which you can have no idea. The time is come. The universe is come out of me and has to come into me." But the love of his lovers for the Beloved was insatiable. On June 5, 1960, Baba emerged from his seclusion and gave darshan to over ten thousand people who had come from many parts of India and a few days later he received and bowed down to 160 poor people by placing his forehead on their feet. Baba once again went into seclusion, and on the thirty-sixth anniversary of his silence on July 10, he asked all those who love and obey him to observe complete silence for twenty-four hours.