God Descending, Man Rising
Meher Baba has talked about God descending in man (Avatar, Rasool, Christ) and man rising to be God (the perfect Master, Sadguru, Qutub, Teerthankara). Would you please talk to us about the same?
God is. He neither ascends nor descends. Where can he ascend to
and where can he descend to? God is all. There is nothing in to
which God can ascend or descend. There is nobody else other than
God. All that is is divine. So the first thing: there is no
ascendence, no descendence.
But when Meher Baba says it, there must be some meaning in it. The
meaning is something quite different. Let me explain it to you.
God is, remember. God is a pure isness, pure existence, and there is
nowhere for God to go or come. The whole is full of him. He fills
his existence, one thing. Second thing: but Meher Baba must be true.
Then there must be some other meaning to it - not God descending
and ascending. What can be the meaning? The meaning is there are two
ways of man approaching God.
What do I mean by "man" when God is the only reality? Man is the God
who has forgotten that he is God; man is a God who has forgotten
himself.
Man can remember his godliness in two ways. One way is that of
surrender, devotion, love, prayer; another way is that of will,
effort, meditation, yoga. If a man tries to work his way through
will, then he will feel he is ascending towards God or he is
reaching towards God through his will. Hence Jainas call the man who
attains to godliness a Teerthankara. Teerthankara means
consciousness has reached the peak; man has arrived by ascending, as
if there has been a ladder, the ladder of the will, the ladder of
effort and yoga. So is the concept of the Buddhas; that too is the
path of will. Avatar means God descending; that is another approach,
when a man surrenders. He cannot ascend. He simply opens his heart
and waits, prays and waits, and suddenly he starts feeling a
stirring in his heart. Certainly he will see "God has descended in
me." Avatar means descendence, God coming down.
Mahavir went up. For Meera, God came down.
But God never comes down, never goes up. God is where he is. But
your experience will be different. If you try hard to achieve God,
you will go higher and higher and higher; naturally you will feel
the God hidden inside you is arising, rising up, reaching to the
zenith. But if you surrender, nothing is arising in you. You are
where you are, you simply wait in deep prayer, in deep love, in deep
trust, and one day you find God is descending in you, coming from
above. These are the experiences of two types of seekers. It has
nothing to do with God. It has something to do with the seeker and
his way: will or surrender, effort or prayer, yoga or Bhakti.
So the religions which believe in Bhakti, in devotion....
Christianity says Christ comes from God. That is the meaning of
saying that he is God's son - he comes from above, he has been
sent. And that is the meaning of Mohammed - he is a prophet, a
messenger, Paigambar. Paigambar means a messenger who comes from
above, brings the message. He does not belong to this world; he
comes like a ray of light into the darkness. And so is the concept
of the Hindus' avatar - Krishna, Ram - they come, they come into
the world.
The Buddhist, the Jaina concept is just the reverse. They say there
is no God to come, and God is not a father and he cannot have a son.
These are all very childish concepts for them. And if you look
through their eyes they are; these concepts are childish, very
anthropomorphic, man-centered. You create God in your own image, as
if God also has a family. He has a family - the Trinity: God the
Father, Christ the Son, and the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost must be a
woman; otherwise the family will not be exactly as it should be.
But why don't Christians call the Holy Ghost a woman? Male
chauvinism. They cannot make a woman also part of the Trinity; it is
difficult for them, very difficult for them. So to what have they
reduced their God? It seems to be a homosexual family. All men, not
a single woman there. It looks ugly. But my feeling is that the Holy
Ghost must be a woman.
We create God in our own image.
Jainas and Buddhists say that there is no God and there is no God's
family and nobody comes from there. Then what has one to do? One has
to arise. God is in you like a seed, as a tree arises from the earth
and goes higher and higher. God is not like rain falling, but a tree
arising. Man has the seed. Man is potentially God. So when you work
hard, you start growing.
These are the two concepts. That's why Meher Baba says, "... God
descending in man (Avatar, Rasool, Christ) and man rising to be God
(the Perfect Master, Sadguru, Qutub, Teerthankara)." But it has
nothing to do with God.