Meher Baba Books Los Angeles
 


God is everywhere and does everything. 
God is within us and knows everything.

God is without us and sees everything.
God is beyond us and IS everything.

God alone IS.

  

Meher Baba  

  

                                 -- Excerpted from God Speaks by Meher Baba (1955, 1973), p. 298

 

                     
Weekly Reflections No. 48
from Meher Baba Books
     (Los Angeles, California)                     Nov-20-2015

Hello Dear Companions:

Greetings from Los Angeles, California. Wishing you well in Beloved Baba's Love and Compassion. The autumn season is here, and it shows its beauty with changing colors in nature while bringing a colder climate. I am including a nice photo a friend sent from New HampshireIsn't this beautiful? 



We have had a little rain in the past few weeks. The soil was wet and our souls were happy. The trees, plants and greenery were all smiling and displaying joy. Thanks to Beloved God.  

Well, it is time for us to meet again in our appointment with Meher Baba -- this time to remember Him through His words on the importance of understanding Maya . 

I'd like to reflect on my source of inspiration for the focus this week and over the next few weeks.  

Ward Parks, who was caught in the Avatar's net in 1970 while a freshman at Harvard University, and who moved to India in 1993, recently visited us for 10 days here in LA.  Ward works in the Avatar Meher Baba Trust's publication program and was among the editors for In God's Hand (2000), Infinite Intelligence (2005), the revised sixth edition of Baba's Discourses (2009), Early Messages to the West (2009), and republication of the Divine Theme (2003-2011). He has been editing the Trust newsletter, In His Service, up until the last one. He is a rare Baba scholor whose life is totally devoted to Meher Baba's words. Ward has been travelling to and spending some time in LA annually for the past four years, and has given seminars on topics such as certain themes of Infinite Intelligence and God Speaks in these past few years. This year, his two-weekend seminar focused on that essential work of Baba's, the Discourses

          
Meher Baba, Discourses - Revised 6th Edition
(4 Volume Set)
Meher Baba, Discourses - 7th Edition (Single Volume)
   


















Ward shared that " Although it deals with many different topics, repeatedly Baba's Discourses returns to the theme of truth in values. Indeed, recognition of truth in values provides the foundation for spiritual understanding in any subject area; and acting on the basis of these perceived truths defines the life of the karma yogi. Truth in values brings spirituality into the practical domain; 

The theme of this year's seminar was "Truth in Values: Excursions into the Practical Teachings 
of the Avatar of the Age in His Discourses." A really great topic. 

More than any other book of Meher Baba's, the Discourses focuses on spirituality as a practice in life.  In this week's Reflections, we will explore the problem of Maya, which is the source of false valuation. Meher Baba explains how truth in values can be discovered only when falseness is exposed as it is. This is Maya's role. Baba's Discourses explain, if one wants to discover truth in values, one needs to discriminate truth from falsehood. So Maya is the necessary element as the principal of ignorance, and it plays its role for truth to be recognized by our consciousness.  Very interesting. Isn't it? 

                

For the rest, I leave it up to you to read the passages  below, and treat  yourself to Baba's sweet divinity. 
We will also cover other topics in Baba's Discourses over the next few weeks. 

We hope you enjoy these small occasions for reflecting on the divinity of Beloved Baba's words and life. Be Happy. Meher Baba said, 

"It is a divine art to look cheerful, it helps others."


 
In His Love and Service,
Mahoo s. Ghorbani for Meher Baba Books 




~ Importance Of Understanding Maya ~

 
 
I mportance of Understanding
Falsehoods of 
Maya

E VERYONE wants to know and realise the Truth, but Truth cannot be known and realised as Truth unless ignorance is known and realized as being ignorance.  Hence arises the importance of understanding  Maya  or the principle of ignorance. People read and hear much about  Maya , but few understand what it really is. It is not enough to have a superficial understanding of  Maya ; it is necessary that  Maya  should be understood as it is,  i.e. , in its reality.  To understand Maya or the principle of ignorance is to know half of the Truth of the universe . Ignorance in all its forms must disappear if the soul is to be established in the state of self-knowledge. Therefore  it is imperatively necessary for man to know what is false, to know it to be false and to get rid of the false by knowing it to be false .

Meher Baba
Discourses, "Maya - Part 1: False Values," Vol. III, p. 137 (6th Edition, online)  


             
                               
  -- Two kinds of knowledge  --

... Broadly speaking there are  two kinds of knowledge: (i) purely intellectual judgments about the facts of existence, and (ii) judgments of valuation which imply the appreciation of the worth or importance of things.  Two kinds of knowledge Purely intellectual judgments or beliefs derive their importance from being related to values in some way. Divorced from values, they have very meager importance in themselves. For example, no one takes much interest in counting exactly the number of leaves on a particular tree, although from the purely theoretical point of view such information would be a form of knowledge. Such information or knowledge is treated as unimportant because it is not vitally connected with other values. Intellectual knowledge becomes important (i) when it enables man to realize certain values by giving him control over the means to their realization, or (ii) when  it enters into valuation itself as an important factor, modifying or in some other way affecting the accepted values.

        Just as there are two kinds of judgment, there are two kinds of falsehood: (i) mistakes in accepting as facts those things which are not facts, and (ii) mistakes in valuation.  Three mistakes in valuation Mistakes in valuation can be committed in three ways: (a) in taking as important that which is unimportant, or (b) in taking as unimportant that which is important, or (c) in giving to a thing an importance which is other than the importance which it really has. All these falsehoods are creations of  Maya.



        Although  Maya includes all falsehoods from the  spiritual point of view, there are some falsehoods which count and some falsehoods which do not count very much. If a person takes a throne to be higher than it is, it would be a falsehood, but one which does not matter very much.  Price of mistakes in valuation On the other hand, if a person regards the throne as the be-all and the end-all of his life, that would be a falsehood which substantially affects the course and significance of his life.  On the whole, mistakes in valuation are far more effective in misguiding, perverting and limiting life than mistakes in purely intellectual judgments about certain objective facts .
        Mistakes in valuation arise owing to the influence of subjective desires or wants.  True values are values which belong to things  in their own right.

Meher Baba 
Discourses, "Maya - Part 1: False Values," Vol. III, p p. 138-139 (6th Edition, online)  



For readers located in Southern California, you are cordially invited to join us mid-morning this Sunday, November 22, for a Meher BabaBooks event in mid-City Los Angeles.  Come to Meherabode (where Meher Baba Books is located), at 1214 S. Van Ness Avenue, Los Angeles, California 90019, as we welcome visiting a visiting auithor.


Australian writer Emily Chantiri will join us for a breakfast chat followed by book signing, this Sunday from 10:30 am - 11:30 am, as Emily shares her newly-published volume The Voice of Intuition.

If you can come, kindly RSVP on the Facebook Event page, here: 

 
Please click the above link for more details.


Hope to see you in person!  


Jai Baba!







  Meher Baba with Gustadji in Manzil-e-Meem, 1922

[CLICK to hear]

Singing Meher Baba Name.
Please adjust your audio volume.


Meher Baba - Meher Baba - Meher Baba - Meher Baba - 
Meher Baba - Meher Baba - Meher Baba -Meher Baba  ....






   - Meher Baba, Manzil-e-Meem, 1922-23 -


--  HOLD TIGHTLY TO MY FEET  -- 


God uses maya to conduct the affairs of the universe. Paramatma never uses maya to make others free from maya. Suppose Arjun is Paramatma and his cane is God. If you wrap a seven-colored string around this cane, that string is maya. What a difference between Arjun and the string - the string has only touched God (the cane) and not Paramatma, Who is aloof.

Suppose you come along and mistake the string for a snake. This mistake creates maya. But, if we see that the string is only a string and nothing else, then where is maya? It is only your false supposition that is really maya. In the end, when it is found that it is only a string, you laugh at your false presupposition because your fears are gone - the illusion is removed. In the same way, when one attains Realization, he laughs at these false notions of maya - the world and all its connections - for they are totally false and not real.


Therefore, the very moment maya (desires, passions and anger) enters your head, thrust it out. Do not let it in at all. If a rabid dog goes after you, you shout to drive it away. If, on the other hand, you give it food, it will follow you and will not go away. Similarly, maya is like a rabid dog. Do not allow it to enter your mind. Drive it away as you would a mad dog. Drive it away with all your strength, for once it sticks to you, it will be quite impossible for you to free yourself.



People say that God created maya, but that is not so. For example, take the hair on the head. The hair is maya and the head is God, the Creator. Although the hair grows on the head, the head does not know how, why and where it comes from. Then how can it be said that the head created hair, or God created maya? But in a way, the very creation of maya itself is dependent on God.

Maya is sheer illusion - the force of imagination. Where there is lust, there is maya. Where there is anger, there is maya. Where there is greed, there is maya. He who renounces maya finds everything! Do not be a slave to maya. Subjugate maya and you will see God in all His perfection.
But it is next to impossible to realize God. One must die to gain this state, not by drowning or committing suicide, but by renouncing maya and freeing oneself from its deluding allurements. And this maya is so tyrannical and powerful that even the best of persons succumb to its lures. The real heroes who eat her up are very rare. So hold tightly to my feet to ease your way or else you will not get even a whiff of Reality and your strenuous efforts to reach the Goal age after age will not bring you any nearer to it.

             -- Meher Baba 
             -- LORD MEHER, 1st ed, Vol. 3, pp. 820-821 


 





- MAN MUST BE AWAKENED TO HIS TRUE NATURE -


Among the remarks Baba made before the dinner were these hints about the role of motion pictures during the Depression:
"We find ourselves today in the midst of a world-wide depression which affects everyone, rich and poor alike, and from which all are groping blindly for deliverance. The film companies, the picture theaters and the stars have also suffered from it. If they could help to end the depression, I am sure they would be glad to. How could the motion pictures help in this respect?

"First, it must be understood that the depression is not an accident, nor is it purely the result of overproduction and inflation. Those, although the immediate causes, are merely the instruments which were used to bring the depression about. The depression itself was caused by those entrusted with the evolution of humanity. Man has to be stripped of his material possessions in order that he may realize through actual experience that his true base is spiritual and not material. Then will he be ready to receive the Truth which I have come to bring.

"Man must be awakened to his true nature. He must see that all material expression depends upon and flows from a spiritual being. Then he will be steadfast and serene under all circumstances. There will be no further need then for the depression and it will disappear."
        -- Meher Baba

        -- THE GOD-SEEKER, pp. 41-42, Minoo Kharas
 
Minoo Kharas_ The God Seeker


 




- FALSEHOODS CREATED BY MAYA -
 
~ God as only Truth ~

Not until the shedding of the last vestige of Maya-created falsehood is God known as the Truth. Only when Maya is completely overcome does there arise the supreme knowledge that God is the only Truth. God alone is real. All that is not God, all that is impermanent and finite, all that seems to exist within the domain of duality, is false. God is one infinite Reality. All divisions that are conceived within this reality are falsely conceived; they do not actually exist.

~ God is indivisible ~

When God is considered as divisible, it is due to Maya. The variegated world of multiplicity does not effect the partitioning of God into several different portions. There are different ego-minds, different bodies, different forms, but only one Soul. When the one Soul (God) takes different ego-minds and bodies, there are different individualized souls; however this does not introduce any multiplicity within the one Soul itself. The Soul is and always remains indivisible. The one indivisible Soul is the base of the different ego-mind and bodies, which do the thinking and acting or various types and which go through innumerable types of dual experiences. But the one indivisible Soul is and always remains beyond all thinking and doing and beyond all dual experience.

~ No opinions or ways of thinking within Soul ~

Different opinion and different ways of thinking do not introduce multiplicity within the one indivisible Soul, for the simple reason that there are no opinions or any ways of thinking within the Soul. All the activity of thinking and conclusions drawn therefrom are within the ego-mind, which is finite. The individualized soul as Soul does not think; it is only the ego-mind that thinks. Thinking and the knowledge that comes through thinking are both possible in the state of imperfect and incomplete knowledge that belongs to finite ego-minds. In the individual soul itself there is neither thinking nor the knowledge that comes through thinking.



~ Soul is infinite thought and intelligence ~

The individualized soul as Soul is infinite thought and infinite intelligence; there is no division between the thinker and the thinking and the conclusions of thinking, nor the duality of the subject and object. Only the ego-mind with the background of the soul can become the thinker. The individual soul as Soul, which is infinite thought and infinite intelligence, does not think or have any activity of the intellect. Intellect with its limited thinking comes into existence only with the finite ego-mind. In the completeness and the sufficiency of the infinite intelligence, which is the one Soul, there is no need for the intellect or its activities.

~ God the only Reality ~

With the shedding of the last vestige of falsehoods created by Maya, the individualized soul not only knows its reality to be different from the gross, the subtle, or the mental body but it knows itself to be God, who is the only Reality. In this state the soul know that the mind, the subtle body, and the physical body were all equally the creations of its own imagination, and that in reality they never existed. It knows that through ignorance it conceived itself as the mind or the subtle body or the physical body. The individual soul knows also that, in a sense, it became the mind, the subtle body, and the gross body, and then identified itself with all these self-created illusions.

                        -- Meher Baba
                                                            -- DISCOURSES, 7th ed, pp. 382-383 
 
 




-- GOD AND MAYA --

Hence  Maya  cannot be finite through any limitations of space.  Nor can  Maya  be finite because of any limitations of time. Though  Maya  comes to an end in the state of super-consciousness, it need not be considered finite for that reason.  Maya not limited by time  Maya  cannot have a beginning or end  in  time, because time itself is a creation of  Maya . Any view that makes  Maya  a happening that takes place at some time and disappears after some time, places  Maya  in time and not time in  Maya. Time is in Maya, Maya is not in time . Time as well as all happenings in time are the creations of  Maya . Time comes into existence because of  Maya  and disappears when  Maya  disappears.  God is a timeless reality and the realization of God and the disappearance of Maya is a timeless act Maya 
 is in no way limited by time.

         Nor can Maya be considered to be finite for any other reasons, for if it were finite it would be an illusion, and being an illusion it would not have any potency to create other illusions. Maya is infinite for the purposes of intellectual explanation, Maya is best regarded as being both real and infinite, in the same way that God is usually regarded as being both real and infinite.

Meher Baba was coloured by-hand by Hermes. Private collection. Source: MeherBabaTravel.com

        Among all possible intellectual explanations, the explanation that Maya, like God, is both real and infinite is most acceptable to the intellect of man.Maya cannot be ultimately true Nevertheless Maya cannot be ultimately true.Wherever there is duality there is finite-hood on both sides. The one thing limits the other. There cannot be two real Infinite. There can be two huge things, but there cannot be two infinite entities. If we have the duality of God and Maya and if both are regarded as coordinate existent then the infinite reality of God is considered as the second part of a duality. Therefore the intellectual explanation that Maya is real does not have the stamp of final knowledge, though it is the most plausible explanation.

         There are difficulties in regarding Maya as illusory and also as ultimately real. Thus all attempts of the limited intellect to understand Maya lead to an impasse. Intellectual difficulties in understanding Maya On the one hand if Maya is regarded as finite, it itself becomes illusory and then it cannot account for the illusory world of finite things. Therefore Maya has to be regarded as being both real and infinite. On the other hand if Maya is regarded as being ultimately real, it itself becomes a second part of the duality of another infinite reality, namely God. From this point of view, therefore, Maya actually seems to become finite and therefore unreal. So, Maya cannot be ultimately real though it has to be regarded as such in order to account for the illusory world of finite objects.

- Meher Baba, Avatar of the Age -

         In whatever manner the limited intellect tries to understand Maya, it falls short of true understanding. Maya is God's shadow. It is not possible to understand Maya through the limited intellect; it is as unfathomable as God. God is unfathomable, un-understandable; so is Maya unfathomable, un-understandable. So they say, "Maya is God's shadow." Where a man is, there is his shadow also. So where God is, there is this inscrutable Maya.
        
Enigma of Maya solved after realization. Though God and Maya are inscrutable for the limited intellect working under the domain of duality, they can be thoroughly understood in their true nature in the final knowledge of realization. The enigma of the existence of Maya can never be finally solved until after realization, when it is known that Maya does not exist in reality.


 -- Meher Baba
                                                                    -- Discourses online - Volume III  Page 156   §  Maya: IV






   

- The Beloved's Face -
Ever since I saw the Beloved's face,
its lines have etched themselves on my heart.
I still nurse the wound of separation within me -
it has left me broken.

Flowing tresses may be a snare and a net:
those are pagan tresses
whose lure, like the bulbul, has sprung from the head,
bogged in the heart.

When ego is erased, duality disappears:
God's lover is himself God.
This is the heart's only home -
the heart in the lover, the lover in the heart.

O Seeker, you make a show of public worship,
then claim your share of desires.
The true lover carries within him, in secret,
the name of God.

Strange are the ways of the enlightened ones.
They weep and laugh in one breath,
scorn on the lip, grace in the heart,
profanity on the tongue, praise in the heart.

Some say God dwells in the temple,
others put him in the mosque.
What do you seek abroad, ignorant one?
Realize, oh Huma, God is within you.

THE MASTER SINGS
Meher Baba's Ghazals

 

-- Translated by Naosherwan Anzar
Note: These ghazals were written and sung by Meher Baba during his years of intense spiritual training between January, 1914, when Hazrat Babajan tore away the veil of his limited individuality with a kiss to his forehead, and February, 1922, when his consciousness stabilized in both the individual and universal states, and Upasni Maharaj declared him to be Adi Shakti (the Primal Force of the universe). He then assumed his Avataric duties and began the process of attracting and training his inner circles of intimate disciples.

© Zeno Publishing Services - On-line edition, May 28, 1995



 

        
 
Avatar Meher Baba's Universal Message
Message that Meher Baba gave on July 10th 1958, 
and stated it was for all, regardless of whether one
believes in Him or not.

produced by: Robert Fredericks and narrated by Meherwan B. Jessawala 

 
Good bye. See you at our next appointment, next week.
Keep Happy in His Love. Have a good weekend. 

Jai Ba
ba!

-- Artist: Diane Cobb --




Meher Baba Books (Los Angeles)

 

www.meherbababooks.com

Avatar Meher Baba Center of Southern California 
1214 S. Van Ness Avenue 
Los Angeles, CA  90019 


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