BLESSED TO AWAKEN

 
God is Reality and Reality has substance. Illusion is the shadow of God, and shadow has no substance. To remain under the influence of illusion is to remain in the shadow world of the dream state. The world itself is the shadow, and so the whole world goes on dreaming and dreaming from beginning to end. Consciousness through evolution and involution is a state of dreaming, and though through involution the dream becomes divine, even this dream must end. The divine dream ends for that individual who realizes God and becomes one with God, and thereby becomes divine himself.

To become one with God is most difficult, because man must awaken from this dream of creation. How can a man awaken from this long dream? Does meditation, trance, jap, the repetition of God's Name, yoga exercises, penance, reading of spiritual books, listening to discourses, and so forth, help a man awaken from this dream? The answer is no! No, because these actions themselves are happening within the dream. They are part of the dream.

If a man, while asleep, dreams of a holy man who comes and gives him a long spiritual discourse on God, will this long discourse end his dream? Not at all! The discourse is a part of the dream, and the dream will have a certain duration and then will end. And, if later this same man dreams of this holy man who teaches him how to meditate, or do yogic exercises, or certain penances, or even reads to him from scripture, will his dream end by practicing these things? Definitely not! The dream inevitably takes its own course.

However, if someone comes into that man's room and shakes him in the midst of his dreaming, he will immediately awaken. That one is the Avatar, and his work is to shake human consciousness until it awakens. In order to awaken from this dream of illusion, what is required now is not meditation, trance, jap, penance or discourses, but a shaking of one's consciousness.

The Avatar is the one who gives such a shaking, because he has come to awaken. Meher Baba meant what he declared, "I have come not to teach, but to awaken." What he does to awaken an individual, or the world, is his work and it is his duty in this age. Those who come to the Avatar will receive a great shaking of their consciousness, and not simply a filling of their intellects with more words.

The false saints and false gurus can only lecture and discourse, and teach spiritual exercises within the dream in which we find ourselves. These false gurus and saints, who have not realized God and who are not perfectly one with God, cannot awaken anyone to the Truth, because they themselves are in a dream state. There is a vast difference between the divine work of the Avatar and that of yogis, religious saints, or spiritual teachers.

How blessed we are to have Meher Baba, for without him none of us would awaken. It is Meher Baba's love, released through his work, that awakens us to realize we are blessed to have his love — THE OCEAN OF LOVE.