AT MEHER BABA'S FEET I REMAIN BOWED

 
Here ends the story of the Mischievous Chicken, the Ancient One Who comes again and again. But this story does not end for us. Every individual must complete the same journey, every individual must write the same story. Every soul must journey the same Fourteen Adventures (and everyone journeys in his own unique way) toward realizing Self.

In Reality this story never began so it will never end. This is the story of the Beginningless Beginning to the Endless End. The meaning of the Beginningless Beginning is that God has no beginning — God is Eternal, Ever-Existing in Reality. But Illusion does have a beginning, and because of the mischief of that Chicken, all of creation has come into being.

The beginningless Soul by becoming an individual has a beginning as an embodied drop (the Jeevatma) and journeys through evolution, reincarnation, and involution in Illusion to attain Realization. That which has a beginning must have an end. For this reason, after the Realization of God in human form, the story of Illusion comes to its end, the Endless End.

The Soul ever-lives; Its existence is ever-lasting — there is never an end to it. That Endless End is the story of the other drops, the countless stories of each mischievous chicken. That story is the story of Illusion, and it ends for each individual drop in finding Its Real Self, the Ocean.

Enmeshed in the Beginningless Beginning, we who have been everything have been adventuring, and after innumerable and unimaginable ages we have reached the human form. The adventure is still in dream (Illusion), and still we know not that it is a dream and think and feel and act as if it is real. Ultimately we have to awaken from this dream, and we can only do that if we love God so much that we forget our own being.

The only remedy for finding an end to this beginning, the only remedy to our sleeping and dreaming is real love, such love can awaken one. Such love brings back the Mischievous Chicken to tell us His story which tells us our future. Real love will make us realize this story which He Himself has told.

The Universe is the game of Everything and Nothing, and in the infinite nothing of this nothingness we remain entrapped. This play of Everything and Nothing is the First Soul's Leela as He is so mischievous that He only loves to play, and none knows how He plays His game until Who He Is has been realized. The limitation of imagination (the prison of creation) is the play of the Beloved Child Who became our Beloved Father and Who keeps playing to gradually give God-Realization to every one.

Though we suffer in this prison of body, energy, and mind continuously, none could bear it unless He came back again and again; and He does, because the Mischievous One is filled with love and pity. And He gives a little love and pity to every one of His little brothers and sisters so we can bear being without Him when He is not in form.

In order to experience Everything all of Nothing must be experienced, and that is why He has kept this play of Everything and Nothing. The shadows of the Nothing are the gross, subtle, and mental worlds; they have to be experienced until ultimately the Real Nothing is experienced — Nirvan. Then only, in the Infinite Nothing, the Everything is experienced as real — Nirvikalp. Thus this divine game of Nothing and Everything is necessary and will continue, and the Mischief Monger will have to incarnate at the appointed age every time as the Avatar. Thus He has come in this age to make us realize that the Nothing is necessary to experience the Everything.

May we who have bowed to His feet for endless ages and cycles ever remain bowed at the feet of the Ancient One and call on His name. Calling His name whenever He, the Nameless One, returns! That Mischievous Chicken Who calls Himself Huma, the Phoenix, or that Mischievous Child Who became the Father, ever declares, "I have no name. I Am He, the Only One. But for the sake of pity, you may call Me by name." The Nameless One, the Formless One keeps on playing the game of Everything and Nothing and assumes a form and name to be one of us. None loves the game more than He because it is all His mischief.

It is Meher Baba Who keeps up the game of the worlds of creation, His dream, only for that one moment when in an instant He has planned to awaken one of us. At Meher Baba's Feet I remain bowed, for He is no one else but the Same Ancient One Who has come to awaken. It is only He to whom mankind can remain bowed. It is only He that mankind can worship. For that purpose He keeps playing this game — that some of us will awaken.