Subject: Part I of Bhau's Awakening of Friday, 13th July, 2001 -- How Should My Lovers Serve Me? (including Baba’s Sermon)
Beloved Avatar Meher Baba Ki Jai!
From Bhau:
At 6:15 a.m. on Friday, 13th July, 2001. I was taking a walk in front of my room, and I was thinking about Beloved Baba. All of a sudden, I heard in my heart that He was saying, "My lovers ask you how they should serve Me, and you are thinking about the question. The other day I told you how they should serve Me, and how they should share My work.
"To share My work takes you towards self-effacement. If you work for Me and forget your false self, that will be working for Me and pleasing Me. If you remain present with your work but keep Me absent, you will be serving yourself and not Me."
"When I was in Toka, one person had come to Me. 'What do you want?' I asked him,
"He said, 'I have come to renounce everything and serve You.'
"'What do you want to renounce?'
"'My wife and five children,' he answered.
"And I said to him, 'If you renounce them, then who will take care of them?'
"'You take care of them,' the man said, 'because I am going to renounce them.'
"'This is quite a new type of renunciation,' I observed.
"Actually, you do have not to renounce anything. You have to renounce your false self. If you renounce all the things that you have and go to a jungle forest and meditate there, your world will be there with you, because your mind is there. You do not have to renounce anything. Live in the world, take care of your responsibilities, but long to renounce your false self while following My Wish and remembering Me. This is real renunciation.
"You know I was leading the New Life? What is the New Life? It is a great boon I have given to the world. You will see this New Life come out in different forms after My Universal Manifestation. What did Buddha do? He renounced the world externally. He left His kingdom, and He gave instructions that people should beg for food, remain under a tree, lead a hopeless and helpless life, and do meditation.
"I also did this in the beginning. I left my two ashrams, Meherabad and Meherazad. Lands were sold, and the buildings were given by way of gifts to Nariman, Meherji and Sarosh. Only the Tomb I kept in My name. Because My Tomb is the property of the world and for the world, I could not give it away to anyone. I would beg for food along with the Mandali. I did meditation in Sarnath along with the Mandali. I went walking and begging from Benares to Hardiwar. I was leading the life of hopelessness and helplessness. I would be sleeping under the trees along with My Mandali, men and women. All these phases I was leading, and then afterwards, I gave the Labor Phase to the world.
"I announced that, 'You lead one phase of the New Life for Me, that is, the Labor Phase and I will lead three phases of the New Life for you, that is the begging, meditation and the life of helplessness and hopelessness.
"Now what is the life of the Labor Phase?
"If you have any job, and you do that job for Me and follow the conditions I have given, you are leading the New Life. Similarly, if you work in any profession or business or do farming, and if you do it for Me, following the conditions under the Labor Phase which I have already given, you are leading the New Life. This is the age when work is required. You have to work and work, and therefore, I have given this Labor Phase for this age.
"But if you take the Labor Phase, it is just the middle path. You have to go further.
"You know when I was leading the New Life. After finishing the begging life, the Langoti life, and the life of helplessness and hopelessness, I gave out the fourth phase: the Labor Phase. I asked the Mandali to choose any plan under the Labor Phase. They should lead that phase, and it would be as if I were with them. They should lead this phase for Me and not for themselves. Some of the Mandali left, choosing one plan of the Labor Phase. Others remained with Me. In order to show that if anyone leads the Labor Phase for Me, My physical presence is not required, those who had chosen plan three of the Labor Phase were sent to Delhi.
"There they worked in the ghee business. I did this in order to show that people can lead the Labor Phase of the New Life without My physical presence. Afterwards, I held a meeting in Mahabaleshwar. I entered into the Old Life from the New Life for four hours in order to give My Sermon:
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BABA'S SERMON
Being just now in "Old Life" for these few hours, I will tell you what I feel to be the established Divine facts:
Essentially we are all One. The feeling of our being otherwise is due to ignorance. Soul desires consciousness to know itself, but in its progress toward this Goal which it cannot realize independently of creation, it must undergo the experience which it gathers as the individualized ego and which is all imagination. Thus it is faced at the outset with ignorance instead of Knowledge.
Dual forms and illusionary creations are the outcome of ignorance: birth and death, happiness and misery, virtue and sin, good and bad--all are equally the manifestation of this same ignorance. You were never born and will never die; you never suffered and will never suffer; you ever were and ever will be, as separateness exists only in imagination.
Soul undergoes experience through innumerable forms such as being king and beggar, rich and poor, tall and short, strong and weak, beautiful and ugly, of killing and being killed. All these experiences must transpire as long as the Soul, though it is one in reality and undivided, imagines separateness in itself. When Soul is bereft of the impressions of these illusionary experiences it becomes naked as in its origin, to become now fully conscious of its unity with the Oversoul which is One, Indivisible, Real and Infinite.
The Soul becomes free of the binding of impressions through various paths. And Love is the most important of these paths leading to the realization of God. Through this love, the Soul becomes entirely absorbed in God, ultimately forgetting itself completely. It is then that all of a sudden Knowledge comes as swiftly as the lightning bolt which burns to ashes all that it falls upon.
This Knowledge uproots illusions, doubts and worries, and apparent sufferings are instantaneously replaced by everlasting peace and eternal bliss which is the Goal of all existence. Soul now free from its illusions, realizes its Original Unity of Being.
Let us not hope, because this Knowledge is beyond hoping and wanting. Let us not reason, because this Knowledge cannot be comprehended or thought of. Let us not doubt, because this Knowledge is the certainty of certainties. Let us not live the life of the senses, because the lusty, greedy, false and impure mind cannot reach this Knowledge. Let us love God as the Soul of our souls, and in the height of this Love lies this Knowledge.
The divinely Perfect Ones can bestow this Knowledge on any one they like and whenever they like. May we all gain this Knowledge soon.
-- Source: Bhau's unpublished book on the New Life, currently in preparation by Jeff Wolverton
In His love and service,
Bhau
Trust Office
Ahmednagar, Maharashtra, India
Monday, 16th July, 2001
Ps. Coming soon, Part II of this Awakening.
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