BOWING TO MEHER BABA

 
There are certain cultural differences between different peoples and we do not always understand why certain things are done in certain countries. It is very useful to have the opportunity to ask why certain things are done and to have the reasons explained to us. One person once asked Eruch about bowing down to Baba.

Eruch explained:

It was of course a privilege that sometimes Meher Baba permitted humanity to bow down to Him. It was a great dispensation — a rare type of dispensation — when He permitted humanity to bow down to His feet. What we mean by bowing down to His feet is that He being the Highest of the High and we being the lowest of the low — the most weak — we cannot offer Him anything, except offer our weaknesses to Him.

And people, although they don't realize what they do, yet it is innate in every human being to express his weakness before the Highest of the High. It behoves one to express one's weaknesses, one's shortcomings, before the Highest of the High. It is a mark of great humbleness in the presence of the Highest of the High.

The physical manifestation of this is nothing but bowing down to Him in great reverence and homage, because He being the Highest of the High, condescended to descend onto the lowest of the low platform of this earth. Reality descending into illusion, mingling with man in illusion. He comes down to our level, descends to the lowest level, so that we who are on this level may have the benefit of Reality manifesting in human form and knowing fully well, inadvertently not advertently, inadvertently — something happens within us, in our heart, because He touches our heart. Reality touches the heart. Heart testifies to His being in our midst and our automatic reaction to this is that we just humble ourselves before the Highest of the High, the Greatest of the Great, the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords. We being His slaves. We being His puppets. So bowing down is nothing but a manifestation of our homage to the Highest of the High.

His feet are considered to be most sacred to us, we cannot dare to approach His head or the other parts of His anatomy. His body is something very sacred, very holy. We are just a particle, a dust particle in comparison to His body and it is but natural for the dust to settle on His feet. This is where the dust can approach the Highest of the High. That is how inwardly, innately man bows down when he comes to know of it. Not in the literal sense of knowing, but it is inborn in every man who is coming closer and closer towards Reality to express his feelings thus by bowing down to His personality when He is in our midst.

'Now that He is not in the body, how can we continue to do this?' he was asked.

Eruch replied:

Well then what we must do is to take recourse to the things that were associated with His body: just like His seat; just like the tomb where His physical remains are resting. So we go there and bow down to that. Even that is very helpful. Even that is a blessing that He allows His physical remains to stay on the earth.

We approach His cloak and kiss it. We approach these very sandals that He wore, that His physical form had association with. We fondle the hair of His, that we have collected from the combings. We get thrilled to have the touch of the coat that He wore, the robe, the sadra as we call it. These are sacred relics. This very thing gives us an idea as to how very sacred and how most sublime to have Him in His physical frame. If these relics are so sacred to us, how much more sacred is His being amongst us.

But this can only enter into the heads and hearts of that section of humanity which has come closer to Reality. Not all the world will ever realize this all at once, but it is a gradual progression as cross-section after cross-section of humanity progresses towards Reality, incarnation after incarnation, one begins to learn this, one has a little clue to this, an inkling to this.