THE SECOND COMING

 
Question: Will Shri Meher Baba explain Christ's words concerning the "Second Coming?" (St. Mark xiii: 21, 26, 27.)(1)

"And then if any man shall say to you, Lo, here is Christ; or, lo, he is there; believe him not ....

"But in those days, after that tribulation ... then shall they see the Son of man coming in the clouds with great power and glory. And then shall he send his angels, and shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from the uttermost part of the earth to the uttermost part of heaven."

The gathering of the elect refers to the reincarnation and final assembling of His close disciples and followers at the time of His Second Coming. It is wrong to associate the Second Coming with the imprisonment of the Devil and a thousand years' peace, or with a literal interpretation of the Last Day of Judgment.

All the great mystics have understood the word "clouds" as a symbolic expression for states of consciousness or spiritual planes. When the Christ descends from the Infinite, i.e., Seventh Plane, He brings with Him to earth the Infinite Goodness, Wisdom, Power, and Love, and also the powers, signs and experiences of the six lower planes. In the words of a great Sufi saint:

"Behold the sky, and clouds and the world;
First is GOD, then the planes, the last is earth; but all three are linked."

We read in St. Mark ix: 2 and 7 that the Transfiguration of Jesus occurred when He ascended into a mountain: "And there was a cloud that overshadowed them: and a voice came out of the cloud saying, This is my beloved Son: hear him."

Brother Leo relates of the Vision of St. Francis in Mount Alvernia that he "saw coming down from Heaven a torch of flame exceeding beautiful and light, which, descending, rested on the head of St. Francis; and out of the flame there came a voice...." St. Francis explains to Brother Leo: "Then was I in a light of contemplation, in which I saw the abyss of the infinite goodness and wisdom and power of GOD.... And in the flame that thou sawest was GOD, who also spake in such a manner unto me, even as in old time He had spoken unto Moses."

On Mount Sinai GOD appeared in a thick cloud and with fire(2).

Therefore we see that "clouds," "the house of clouds" (manzil)(3), is a symbolic expression among mystics for "the six Planes."