GOD REALIZATION

What  Meher Baba has told on GOD REALIZATION

Reproduced from ---

http://www.corespirituality.com/cs_pp.html

Ultimate Reality

The masters of wisdom teach that the source, course and goal of the spiritual path are but different aspects of one indivisible ultimate reality.

I am That,
Thou art That,
All this is That,
There is nothing else but That,
That is all there is.

The task of the seeker is to turn That into This by consciously realizing one's true nature. According to Meher Baba, the sole purpose of creation is the eventual enlightenment of all beings:

GOD REALIZATION

Knowing that Creation is not an accident and that it has a deeper meaning than

is apparent to the eye, the seers of all ages have time and again drawn the attention of the world to the fact that, although for a certain period of his life on this planet man may identify himself exclusively with the life of the senses, his transcendental destiny is God-realization.

Maulana Rumi, in his Masnavi, has a parable that illustrates this: The cub of a tiger happened to be re a red amongst a flock of sheep. As the cub grew up, it developed all the traits of the sheep and grazed and bleated like them, so that it never thought of itself as anything different from the sheep. One day, however, a tiger from the jungle approached the one from the flock and said to him, “Do you know that you are a tiger like me, and not one of the sheep?” Thereafter he coaxed the strayed tiger to look at its image in a rivulet nearby, and succeeded in enlightening it as to its true nature .

The moral of this fable is that man also allows himself to be identified with the world of the senses and seems to have no way of escape. But there is a way of escape, for eventually a Master appears who enlightens him. He is then redeemed, and finds himself in the course of time face to face with his ultimate goal—

God-realization.

— Meher Baba
God Speaks: The Them of Creation and Its Purpose
Walnut Creek, CA: Sufism Reoriented, 2^nd rev. ed., 1973, (1997 reprint), p. 38

According to Meher Baba, the goal of life is to realize God:---

The real Goal of life is not the death of the ego but the death of the mind. When Mohammed or Jesus or Zoroaster talked of being born once and of dying once, it was of the mind [and not of the body]. When mind dies totally, the false ego becomes Real I [i. e., false ego is completely effaced and Real I manifests]. In reality ego is not born and as such it does not die. Ego [as witness consciousness] is always Real. It is only due to mind that ego acts and feels limited and false.

Mind takes the body according to its good and bad impressions [sanskaras]. Taking up and giving up of bodies is not the mind or the ego taking birth or dying. Every time when body is discarded, mind survives, impressions remain. These impressions press on mind to spend them by taking another body. So mind takes another body according to the impressions; ego witnesses. And another body and another.

When you are in sound sleep, ego, mind and sanskaras are there. Sanskaras wake up mind. They say, Go on, spend us. Waking up from the sound sleep is, in a way, an everyday birth for the body. When one body is left, another body comes up though there is a time lag between the giving up of one body and taking up another. Mind exists even when a new body is not given to the ego; it is the mind-state of heaven or hell. But mind has to die while it is in a human body, retaining full consciousness. This is the Goal.

          — Meher Baba

in Bal Natu, Glimpses Of The God-Man, 1979, Vol. II, p. 343

Longer version in Bhau Kalchuri, Lord Meher, vol. 10, p. 3712-3718

Ways and Means

Meher Baba observes that the means to realizing God are many. But the way of surrendering to a God-realized master (guru kripa yoga) is superior to all other ways because a God-realized Master is all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-compassionate, hence, is able to deal with one's accumulated impressions most expeditiously:

God manifests his presence when and where lust, greed, anger, jealousy, hatred, back-biting and selfish desires are totally absent. But, as they are the outcome of impressions (sanskaras) of past lives, and must necessarily be expressed, getting rid of them is ordinarily impossible. It would be like a rock trying to lift itself. Nevertheless, past impressions must be expressed to be got rid of. But at the same time that these past impressions are being expressed and spent, new ones are forged, because of the presence and assertion of the lower self.

If one is to be free of the endless chain of impressions, past and present, this assertive lower self must be abolished. Only when one's assertive (lower) self is removed can the impressions be automatically spent without incurring the binding of fresh sanskaras. One who has achieved this can never be bound by, or held responsible any more, for his actions, good or bad, which are the expression of his past impressions of virtue, patience, lust, anger, etc. Thus, with the cessation of new sanskaras, all past impressions naturally unwind to the finish, and one is free of all impressions.

To follow the path of the true yogas — karma yoga, dnyan yoga, raj yoga, bhakti yoga — is the remedy for the uprooting of this heritage of evils derived from past impressions, expressed by constant actions, and sustained by the continual formation of new ones. In karma yoga, one tries to lose one's self in selfless service for others. In dnyan yoga one tries to lose one's self in contemplation and meditation. In raj yoga one tries to lose one's identity with the individual self, and establish identity with the universal self by aiming, through constant mental poise and non-attachment, to be in the world and yet not of it. In bhakti yoga one tries to lose one's self in devotion to God. Even in these yogas, only when the zenith is reached can the individuality of the lower self be lost, yet consciousness remain.

But the easiest and safest way to lose one's self is by completely surrendering to the Perfect Master. Then the past, present and future of the one who has surrendered are drowned in the Master, and he is no longer either bound by, or responsible for, any of his actions, whether good or bad, expressed during his implicit obedience to the Master. Thus complete surrenderance to the Perfect Master is, in itself, freedom.

— Meher Baba

In the Vedic tradition the way of the Master's grace is called guru kripa yoga. Meher Baba explains why the Perfect Master is in this unique position to exercise spiritual power, a position which also includes the Avatar as the Highest of the High and the Master of Masters:

The Sadguru or Perfect Master has a position and power which is unique. There are many souls in the world who are more or less advanced on the spiritual Path, but there are few who have crossed all six stages of the internal spheres of consciousness and become one with the infinite source of existence, knowledge and bliss. The Sadguru has not only experienced the different planes of consciousness, but he actually permeates the very being of all souls because of his having become one with the Infinite. He is the pivot of universal activity.

In a sense, to him are due all your thoughts and actions, your joys and sorrows, your frets and fumes, your strength and weaknesses, your possessions and surrenderance and your love and longing. He not only pervades all existence, but is consciously conversant with the cosmic law of cause and effect and the complex working of the sanskaras of the individual souls. The causes of individual happiness or misery, vices or virtues are as much known to him as the causes of cosmic changes and upheavals. Every being is an open book for the infinite searchlight of his omnipresent consciousness. Because of his union with the Infinite, he is endowed with unlimited power and in the twinkling of an eye can annihilate all the sanskaras of the soul and liberate it from all entanglements and bondage.

         — Meher Baba

Discourses 

Myrtle Beach, SC: Sheriar Press, 2^nd rev. ed., 1987, p. 58-59

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