Where is Baba Now?

by Chris Ott

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The version of God Speaks used in this article is the online version, which is the same as the 1997 current printed version.

There is an old question from the early days among the followers of Meher Baba after he dropped his body in 1969, "Where is Baba now?"

The original cable sent by Baba's secretary Adi to Baba's lovers throughout the world when Baba first dropped his body in 1969 read as follows.

AVATAR MEHER BABA DROPPED HIS PHYSICAL BODY AT TWELVE NOON 31ST JANUARY AT MEHERAZAD TO LIVE ETERNALLY IN THE HEARTS OF HIS LOVERS.

However, some people were not long satisfied with seeking Baba simply in their hearts. Missing him, they began to wonder if in fact he had gone to some other place, maybe with some surroundings like in life. The question itself betrays an erroneous assumption that the Avatar after dropping his body continues to be conditioned and limited by factors like time and space, thus limited and located in some relative sense as things are that we see around us in illusion.

This misunderstanding has its roots in the kinds of thinking expressed in occult cosmologies other than Baba's own, which had been popularized in the years leading up to Baba's advent and clarification. This was especially true for those of Baba's lovers who had passed through Theosophical studies as part of their search in finding Baba. Thus it is only natural that these false teachings began to reassert themselves in the years following Baba's dropping his body.

To explain in depth the root of these false assumptions, and what Baba himself said about them, and what he said actually happens to the Avatar when he drops his outward form is the purpose of this short essay.

In 19th and early 20th century Theosophy, it was taught that certain clairvoyants received messages from "ascended masters," often claimed to be transmitted through "thought transmissions" or through automatic writing. The transmitters of these messages, often heard in the form of voices, claimed to be teachers who had gone beyond our mortal plane and now were immortal and hidden someplace, the name and character of their location frequently changing depending on who was claiming to be their intermediary - from a hiding place in or beneath the Himalayas to other planets or even flying saucers. These voices also claimed they orchestrated world events without their physical bodies. Baba said quite clearly that this was untrue of real masters.

The Theosophists, including Besant Bai and Master Murti, do not have even a smell of the Truth. It is said that the spirit of the World Teacher will manifest itself to the world through the medium of this boy, and the wire-puller of this show is supposed to be somewhere in the Himalayas.

There is nothing but ice and stones and dust in the mountains and on the plains. The real teachers like the Buddha, Krishna, Jesus and Zoroaster, never kept themselves perched on some mountain peak or hid themselves in the jungle. They freely mingled with those they had come to save. In spite of their unimaginable exultation, they came down to the lowest levels of men.

Not a single spiritual Master ever required any vehicle save his own physical body. In truth, this false note of the Theosophists in the eternal God-man's song of God and man is the result of the multifarious aspects of my work, and my methods in clearing a path for my manifestation.

—The Silent Word, pp. 262-263

To dramatize the confusion some of the early followers of Baba felt upon first coming to him, due to their encounters with Theosophical teachings, I quote from a conversation between Baba and the screenwriter Garret Fort who was impressed by some of these channeled books - concerning where the real Perfect Masters do in fact go when they die. This conversation is taken from The Answer, ed. Naosherwan Anzar, pp. 26-28, also Treasures from the Meher Baba Journals, ed. Patterson/Haynes pp. 195-197.

Garrett Fort: Is there really the place known as Shambala, the Astral centre where the Masters dwell in disembodied form?

Baba: It is presumed that you already know that planes are not places. The state and stage connoting Shambala exists. There is difference of terminology only. This is also known as Vidnyan

Indeed in God Speaks (written twenty years later), Baba continued to assert that this state of vidnyan is "the resting place of the Masters" (God Speaks, p. 226).

The following about this vidnyan state is from God Speaks, from the chapter The Ten States of God, p. 184

This State VIII of God is of the highest divine consciousness, which is the ahadiyat (halat-e-Muhammadi) or the vidnyan. All God-realized beings—the Majzoob-e-Kamil (Brahmi Bhoot), Majzoob-Salik (Paramhansa), Azad-e-Mutlaq (Jivanmukta), Qutub (Sadguru), and Rasool (Avatar)—retire to this state B of God in the Beyond after disembodiment.

Thus we see very clearly that the Avatar retires to this state after disembodiment, as do all Perfect Masters. The "state B" referred to above (highlighted in red) refers to state II B, which we learn from careful reading is the same as state VIII, also highlighted.

Now we have the actual answer to the question, "Where Baba is now?" in Baba's own explanation rather than those of others, as people have unfortunately been relying.

How does Baba characterize this State?

To see it in its perfect clarity, we must examine how Baba breaks down state II (starting on p. 161 of God Speaks) into its three sub-states, A, B, and C.

To begin with State II is the state of God in His Beyond State. This Beyond State (II) in turn has three aspects, of which B pertains to the question of where Baba is now that he has dropped is body. We go over the three sub-states now carefully. Sub-state B is highlighted.

• Sub-state A: In this state God is in His state of infinite unconsciousness. He is not conscious either of the illusion (world) or Reality (Self).

• Sub-state B: In this state God is conscious only of Himself, but not conscious of illusion (the gross, subtle, and mental worlds).

• Sub-state C: God in this state (as embodied Perfect Master or Avatar in form) is conscious of both the illusion (the three worlds) and simultaneously conscious of Reality (Self) at one and the same time.

So now we see that when Baba drops his outward form and enters vidnyan (state II B), he experiences His own Real Self, but in this state does not experienced the illusion (the gross, subtle, and mental worlds).

This state II is thus the same as deep sleep, and differs from ordinary deep sleep only in that God in this state B is awake in deep sleep, experiencing only Self. He experiences deep sleep consciously whereas ordinary people experience deep sleep unconsciously.

About this state that he said the Avatar enters upon dropping his form, Baba goes on to clarify something of immense importance — and it should be taken notice of by all who are experiencing hearing "voices" claiming to be from him.

In this State of II B God experiences his trio-aspects of infinite knowledge, infinite power, and infinite bliss, but does not use them and in fact cannot use them for the advancement of others.

How can this be so? This is because from the vantage of experiencing only Self, there really is no one else to help.

This may upset some who wished for it to be another way, perhaps due to loving hearing voices, hoping they were hearing Baba speak to them from beyond. But this clearly is what Baba says.

God in this sub-state B consciously experiences His own infinite power, infinite knowledge and infinite bliss but He does not use them. He is conscious of His Reality but is unconscious of Illusion. (God Speaks, p. 166)

This is very important and the crux of the discussion, and why Baba is not referring to an 'ascended master' teaching in the sense the Theosophists wrongly conceive it.

As we read further in this chapter, based on a chart by Baba, we learn that state II B is in fact the same as State VIII. They denote the same state. This is unequivocal and unambiguous in God Speaks. What is the experience of State VIII (or II B)?

Baba says that in this state God experiences his infinite power, knowledge, and bliss, but does not use them for the salvation of mankind. His experience is entirely of Self alone. This is also known as the state of nirvakalpa samadhi. In this state there is no experience of the illusion, no experience of the three worlds (gross, subtle, or mental), no thought, awake while in deep sleep.

I cannot go to sleep now, or I would not wake up until after seven hundred years. (Lord Meher, p. 5977)

Now when we study what Baba says about this state very carefully, we can see something important about it. This state (VIII or II B) is Majzoob state, which is the state of nirvakalpa samadhi, in which there is experience of Self and nothing else. From this state Baba cannot talk to people.

Some people are disturbed to hear that in this state the Avatar does not experience anything but Self. They feel this limits God. But this view misunderstands the meaning of limitation from a spiritual point of view. The feeling that the experience of only Self (which is all that really is) is a limit upon God fails to understand that Baba tells us that the illusion is utterly an illusion, and thus mistake Self as limitation if it does not include what is false.

It is the coming down into the false illusion that Baba tells us is the taking on of limitation, not the remerging into (passing away into) experience of Self again. Recall Baba's words above. This state of pure Self-experience is the unlimited state Baba is referring to when he speaks of the "unimaginable exultation" that is sacrificed by the Master in 'coming down' into illusory experience for the benefit of others. Remember also, this 'coming down' means from the exhausted state, not a literal coming down from a place.

Baba teaches something more profound than ascended master teachings. Baba explains that Self (God) is really all that truly is, the genuine Everything. All other apparent somewheres in illusion, whether gross, subtle, or mental, are really speaking from his vantage point limited and the Nothing. Thus in this state of vidnyan that the Avatar passes away into when he drops his body in order to take sufficient rest from the illusion and sufferings and miseries of others is his true exultation, not limitation as it would seem to us who are still apparently caught up in illusory happenings. It is in the state of Perfect Master that God endures experience of limitation. God as God-Man, in a gross form, actually allows himself to experience the torture of limitation in order to emancipate ailing humanity.

Vidnyan is thus not the passing away into limitation, but quite the reverse, is the emancipation from all limitation.

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