The Harper

 

In his Masnavi, Rumi tells the story of the harper. The harper was a musician with a beautiful voice, “sweet as that of the angel Israfil.” He was, therefore, very successful and sought after by many to perform at feasts, festivals, and all manner of special occasions. But over time and with age, his voice lost its charm, and no one would employ him.

In despair and hoping for relief, he went to the burial grounds to play his harp for God. When he finished playing, he fell asleep and had a dream that he was in heaven. At the same time a divine voice spoke to the Khalifa Omar.[1]

The voice told Omar to go to the burial ground where he would find an old man and to assist him. Omar went to the burial ground, found the old man, and gave him money promising that he would always have more when it was needed. With that, the old man cast away his harp, saying that it had diverted him from God, and expressed great contrition for his past sins.

But Omar corrected him, telling him that his worldly journey was now over and that he should not give way to contrition for the past as he had now entered into the state of ecstasy and intoxication of union with God, and in this exalted state regard to past and future should be swept away.

At this point the story ends, but not really, and another begins, the story of Mustafa. This is very common to the Masnavi. Rumi often enters correctives in the form of tangents, deflections, and contradictions. I believe this is because Rumi is sensitive to the fact that when truth is conveyed through a form, like a story or a parable or a discourse, etc., it becomes as if set in stone and over time becomes its own opposite.

It is also not uncommon to encounter in Rumi’s writing the technique of a story within a story. Who was Mustafa? It’s a common name in the Islamic world. It means the chosen one, and here it is in reference to the Prophet Muhammad and the night of his marriage to Safiyya. But Rumi is not speaking about worldly marriage for here, the bride is God, and the wedding night signifies Mustafa’s union with God. Likening this union to a blissful sleep, Mustafa’s morning prayers were put off till noon, and this brings up the question of fault, both Mustafa’s putting off of his prayers and Rumi’s for referring to God as a bride.

Rumi tells us as much when he says, “Impute it not as a fault if I call Him, ‘Bride,” to which the Beloved replies, “Speak on, tis fault only to him who sees faults. But how can the Pure Hidden Spirit notice faults? Faults seem so only to ignorant creatures, but not in the sight of the Lord of Benignity.”

Then, returning to the story of the Prophet, Rumi explains that God ‘sees’ differently than a common person and what appears a fault to man may be something quite different to God.

“How can the Pure Hidden Spirit notice faults? Faults (may) seem so to ignorant creatures, but not in the sight of the Lord of Benignity. Blasphemy even may be wisdom in the Creator’s sight.”

Then quoting the sages, Rumi closes with, “’The bodies of the righteous are as pure souls.’ Their words, their actions, their praises, are all as a pure soul without spot or blemish.”

But the discussion is not yet finished, and this is where Rumi returns to the story of the harper, beautifully connecting it with the discussion of the Prophet’s wedding night and Rumi’s fault.

Remember how in the beginning, the Khalifa Omar, responding to the divine voice that spoke to him, relieved the harper of all his worldly difficulties and plunged him into the ultimate dream state of union with God? Awaking from the dream, the harper was filled with contrition for his past sins, but Omar reminded him that he was now free of his former self and that the past no longer existed for him.

“But Omar corrected him, telling him that his worldly journey was now over and that he should not give way to contrition for the past as he had now entered into the state of ecstasy and intoxication of union with God, and in this exalted state regard to past and future should be swept away.”

But apparently, the harper is unable or unwilling to comply with Omar’s correction and is unable or unwilling to give up his contrition. Now, in part two of the Harper’s Tale, Omar reminds him that “Past and future are what veil God from our sight. Burn up both of them with fire!” I’m reminded of a statement by Gurdjieff that the most difficult thing for a man to give up is his own suffering…

What follows is some of the most beautiful writing I have discovered in the Masnavi. Upon seeing the harper’s contrition as an act of ego that keeps him from union with God, Omar’s says,

“This wailing of yours shows that you are still in a state of sobriety which savors of memories past; past and future are what veil God from our sight, burn up both of them with fire.”

“While circumambulating the house you are a stranger, but when you enter the house, you are at home.”

“Oh, you who seek to be contrite for the past, how will you be contrite for this contrition?”

For those who are unfamiliar with Rumi, the Masnavi is divided into six different books—each with its own prologue. Thie prologue in Book I is the famous story of the reed flute and its complaints and lamentations for being pulled as a reed from it home in the reed bed.  

“This plaint of the flute is fire, not air. Let him who lacks this fire be accounted dead! Tis the fire of love that inspires the flute, tis the ferment of love that possesses the wine.”

Rumi is speaking about the journey of the soul’s consciousness from unconsciousness to illusory consciousness, and from illusory consciousness to consciousness of Self. The state of illusory consciousness is what we call creation, the dream state of the soul in which the reed experiences having been pulled from the reed bed –the state of unconscious God.[2]

Now, in the Harper’s tale, speaking of the Harper’s inability to relinquish identification with the sense of otherness from God—from Self—Rumi revives the story of the reed flute.

“How long will you be partitioned by these segments (of past and future) as a reed? So long as a reed has partitions, it is not privy to secrets, nor can it sing in response to lip and breathing.”

I believe that Omar is referring to a particular state of the soul in illusion when he reminds the harper that he must give up his identification with his former reed state and embrace his reed-flute state so that he may fully sing the song of the Soul. This state of the soul, this limbo, this junction, is something akin to what Gurdjieff use to call ‘sitting between two chairs.’ Sitting between two chairs is a very uncomfortable state. 

I have personally observed that this state manifests on the level of ordinary human consciousness in the expression of objective conscience. Objective conscience is the response to objective morality. Objective morality is the same as objective Truth. This conscience, this morality, is beyond and untouched by social mores and cultural distinction. It is not amenable to any form of outer coercion or convincing. This conscience, this morality, never argues, it just states the truth. But at times, for some individuals, it can be pushed so far down beneath the surface of awareness that the individual is barely aware of it. The purpose of this avoidance of conscience is the avoidance of pain. Conscience is often quite painful to the self, but not to the Self, and the Self being God, ultimately and always eventually breaks free and one becomes aware of choice.   

This state of sitting between two chairs manifests at the higher levels of human subtle and mental consciousness as well. It reaches its summit in what Meher Baba describes as the sixth plane of consciousness. The sixth plane is the final stage of consciousness before the ultimate state of God Realization—the seventh plane. Here, the individual consciousness sees God everywhere and in everything and yet does not see itself as God. This is the expression of duality at the highest level, the highest state of sitting between two chairs. Can you imagine? As Kabir said, “Until you experience it, it is not true.” And as impossible as it is to describe that state, how much more impossible would it be to describe the state of Union with God? Rumi concludes the story of the harper this way,

“The heart of the harper was emancipated, and he was freed from weeping and rejoicing. His old life died, and he was regenerated, and amazement fell upon him for he was exalted above earth and heaven, an uplifting of the heart surpassing all uplifting. I cannot describe it—if you can, speak on.

“Ecstasy and words beyond all ecstatic words; Immersion in the Lord of Glory! Immersion from which there was no extrication—as it were identification with the Very Ocean.”

 

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[1] Omar was Khalifa approximately in the 14^th-15^th Century. The title Khalifa has many meanings, but at the time it signified a divine leader—a Master).

 

[2] Another example of this same story is told in the Cole Porter song, Begin the Beguine.

The Four Stages of Duality

 

“Shri Shankarro Chhapavale came alone for worship; on this Sri Baba asked, ‘You are alone today? Is your wife angry or what? If so, on whom; you or me? Anger is one of the means of effecting unity.’”

 

What causes a Perfect Master to speak? On many occasions Upasani Maharaj has said that if He were alone, i.e., not conscious of the world—of illusion—, He would not be seen to speak or act in any way. What would He need to say or do while experiencing Perfection in Perfection? The consciousness of others—of the world—of illusion—causes Him to speak—to act—actually, to appear to speak and act, while in Reality, He does nothing, for what is it for Him to do? This appearance of doing is prompted by the needs of others—of the world—of illusion—and is always motivated by Unconscious God’s lahar, i.e., whim, to know Himself.

 

“Husband and wife are two Jivas who are opposed to each other both from within and without. The union of these two means the union of the husbandhood and wifehood, i.e., the male and the female state, and with this union the object for which marriage is effected is achieved.”

 

An objective and impartial look at creation, as the average person sees it, cannot be divorced from duality. Everything seems to have its opposite, every stick has two ends, every state has two sides, etc. The human form consists of both the male and the female forms. Normally they seem to be attracted to each other—to seek completion in each other. What is the motivation? The motivation—the drive—is union with God. When all opposites are joined together, i.e., when duality merges in union, the final merging, i.e., union with God is effected.

 

“When two such opposites are joined together, then the pair of opposites in the form of ourself and God are seen to unite. One who has attained this state, whether a man or a woman, takes the whole world to be his abode, like Parameshvara (God as the Supreme being).”

 

Upasani details four stages of union that are achieved through the process of dissociation from opposites, from duality. The union of the male and the female duality constitutes an important stage. If a pendulum were envisioned swinging back and forth, the male and female forms are on either side. The pendulum swings back and forth over countless lifetimes, sometimes male and sometimes female, until identification with the two opposites ceases and the pendulum comes to rest.

 

But this pendulum is just one of countless pendulums that characterize gross consciousness and its projections in the gross world that is experienced by the vast number of souls in creation. This gross creation, with its universes and worlds, is that which science tries to understand and explain, and it is this gross creation which evolution and reincarnation finds itself mired in.

 

The male-female pendulum is just one of countless pendulums we see outside ourselves—like rich and poor, Christian and Jew, Hindu, and Muslim, healthy and sick, strong, and weak, smart, and dull, etc. Upasani Maharaj is telling us that all these gross dualities must be extinguished in unity—in oneness, and the key is love, the way is love, and the goal is love, but this love is not what we think it is, and the pendulums that comprise gross consciousness and the gross world are just one of the four stages that need to be crossed. Once all the dualities of creation are united, the next stage, the duality of external and internal, of me and you, i.e., the duality of the state of within and without the world needs to be united.

 

After the union of the male state and the female state, representing the union of dualities exhibited by and throughout the whole of gross creation, there still exists the duality of internal and external. In other words, there still is the sense that one exists in creation, but that creation itself is something other than oneself. I believe that when Upasani Maharaj speaks about the union of within and without the world, he is speaking about the shift of consciousness from gross consciousness to subtle consciousness—from the state of evolution and reincarnation to the state called involution wherein lie the subtle and mental worlds with their various planes and heavens. These worlds do not have a physical location outside of oneself. They are all inner states of consciousness.

The mental and the subtle worlds, consisting of six planes of consciousness and their heavens, and the gross world, consisting of all stars and planets, etc., and all forms and beings from stone to man, etc., can be said to encompass the Divine consciousness of the soul, as it were, like three bubbles. But how, since the soul and its consciousness are eternal and infinite, can it be encompassed by anything? So, when it is said that the soul and its consciousness is encompassed by three bubbles, this apparent encompassing must be false and is the result of gross consciousnesses’ attempt to explain and understand that which is beyond itself. [1]

 

Meher Baba explains that the sixth plane is the final plane of consciousness before union with God. In this state, one sees God everywhere and in everything and yet does not experience oneself as God. The experience of oneself as God is the Goal. There is no goal beyond this Goal. This union is the final stage that Upasani Maharaj is speaking about.

 

Upasani Maharaj then goes on to explain, “Thus there are three pairs of opposites; one, a man and a woman; two, man and God; three, within and without the world. Once the union of the first is effected, union of the other two become automatic in the course of time. When within and without the world the world are harmonized—united—then one is able to see the world anywhere, even in ‘(the) beyond the world (state)’ or ‘‘(the) beyond the world everywhere in the world (state).’”[2]

 

In other words, one is able to see everywhere and everything without any distinction between within and without, because if the external ceases to exist, then it follows the internal ceases to exist as well. One can only imagine what this state would be like, or as Kabir once said, “Until you experience it, it is not true.”

 

Upasani Maharaj once recounted the occasion when he woke up in Sai Baba’s body. (Sai Baba was the Perfect Master who precipitated Upasani Maharaj’s God Realization). He said that Sai Baba simultaneously woke up in his body. This was significant because Sai Baba had Muslim followers while Upasani Maharaj had Hindu followers. So, the Muslim followers actually were bowing down to a Hindu Master in their Master’s body while Upasani’s followers were actually bowing down to Sai Baba in his body. He went on to say that all this might seem quite strange because we are so attached and identified with gross forms, but, in fact, if we could see beyond the gross, we would observe how consciousness is constantly migrating among different gross forms in its journey to Realization.

 

“When you’ve seen beyond yourself then you may find,

Peace of mind is waiting there,

And the time will come when you see we're all one,

And life flows on within you and without you.” – George Harrison (Within You, Without You)

 

“In short, when two opposites are harmonized into one, one first experiences himself to be within and without the world, that he is born of the Infinite, and then, as everything disappears, he experiences himself to be nothing. This means that originally one was not conscious of one’s own existence, and then, having gone through these stages, he becomes conscious of it all. This peculiar cycle of experiences goes on coming into existence and disappearing.”- Upasani Maharaj

 

So, it all comes back to the three states of God, i.e., God in the state of deep sleep, God asleep, but in the dream state, and God in the fully awake state. Just as the average human experiences the cycle of deep sleep, dreams, awake state, dream, and deep sleep, etc., and just as the average human being must pass through the dream state from the deep sleep state to the awake state, and vice-versa, God too, must pass through the dream state on His journey from His deep sleep state to His fully awake I am God state. The dream state of God is what the average human being experiences as the ’awake state’ in creation.

 

This dream state of creation is diametrically opposed to the Unitarian state of God, and hence, is characterized by duality—opposites. When these opposites are harmonized—unified— within an individual consciousness, duality disappears and all of creation ceases to be for that consciousness, and what remains is God, the same original God that was before creation, but with one difference—the most important difference—In the original God state consciousness was only latent, while in the God state after creation, full, perfect consciousness is now manifested, i.e., God is now conscious of being God, “I am God!” Creation consciousness was the mechanism by which this consciousness was manifested and perfected. This was, is, and will be, the only real purpose of creation.

 

But how to emancipate oneself from all dualities—from creation consciousness? As G.I. Gurdjieff once put it, “It is like trying to jump over one’s own knees.” The harder one tries, the more enmeshed one becomes. But God is all merciful and eternally benevolent, He would not leave us without a way.  All religions, all the yogas, and all real spiritual teaching, have been provided to help us, but the most efficient and quickest path of all, is the Path of Love—love for God. But how to love God?

 

God in the Original Infinite God State is called impersonal God, “…without color, without form, and without attributes; unlimited and unfathomable, beyond imagination and conception...” – Meher Baba (Parvardigar Prayer)

 

But for most people, love of this impersonal God is very difficult because it is, well, impersonal, and so God also manifests as personal God in the human form of a Perfect Master or the Avatar, and through that form loves us, speaks with us, jokes with us, and becomes the Perfect recipient worthy of our love for Him.

For love, there must be a relationship, and so to love God in the most natural way, one must put oneself in a relationship with a personification of God, and the best way to do this is by winning the opportunity to be in the presence of and to serve a living Perfect Master or the Avatar. To win this fortune can take many lifetimes, or it could happen in a flash. But, in either case, God in the form of Infinite Intelligence is always working behind the scenes, directing the drama and guiding each and every step of the Way. All religions and teachings, with all their efforts and sacrifices and studies, in fact, all of life itself, are merely steps that lead to His door.

 

It really is quite a drama we are all caught up in. It is sometimes a comedy, sometimes a tragedy, sometimes heaven and sometimes hell, but in the end, Meher Baba has told us, it is always a mighty joke, because it is a drama that never was, is, or will be. It is a drama that took no time at all because time itself was just part of the drama—the illusion. But, until we reach the Goal, it is a drama that is for us, for the most part, totally incomprehensible.

 

Therefore, until then, until the end, we go on living our lives and experiencing the drama and not the Reality and acquiring more and more thirst for that Reality. This is perhaps the meaning of Rumi’s statement, “Cry out less for water, and cry out for thirst more!” For in the beginning, when life turns to God, it is always to make life better, to satisfy its desires, to quench it thirst, but for the one who has turned away from life’s hollow promises, but is not yet free of life’s clenches, the wayfarer—the seeker—the lover of God—realizes that the thirst itself is the reminder and the motivation to love God more and more, and so cries out less for water, and cry out for thirst more.

 

At this stage, the wayfarer—the seeker—the lover of God—still thirsts, but not for water, but for Wine, Divine Wine, and begins to sing a new song.

 

“For this Path of Love, so smooth at first account, but soon we saw how troubles pile, perplexities mount. Cupbearer ho, we pray relieve our soul, give us Wine for pity’s sake, pass round that bowl!” – Hafez

                                                                                                                                 ©Michael Kovitz 2023

 

 

 

 

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[1] For the full explanation and elucidation of the three worlds, please see the book, God Speaks, by Meher Baba

[2] I added this parenthesis as an attempt to make clear this sentence in the translation. Still, there remain more questions regarding the significance of these state…

God As Certainty

 

Supercharged words are often avoided in serious discussions because they can stir up so much emotion and create so much polarization that the very point that was behind their use is all too often obscured or even totally lost.

Take the expression, the search for God. God is the supercharged word because people have such differing opinions of who or what God is. So, the very idea of a search for God often gets stalled behind the question of who or what is God. Ouspensky used to say, “A good plan is a plan that works.” So, what if we call the discussion the search for certainty?  

It could be argued however that certainty and God are not the same, but I think most people would agree that certainty, real certainty, is an attribute of God. In the absence of certainty there is often confusion, fear, worry, stress, and paralysis. If I’m not certain what is coming next, how can I plan on anything? If I don’t know that my next step will support me, how can I walk? If I don’t know how my words will be taken or understood, how can I speak? 

Of course, one might answer by saying that one can never be certain what the next day will bring; one can never be sure how their words will be taken, and yet, we do go on planning and talking, and living. And I agree; we go on living despite uncertainty and maybe that is why we feel so much fear, worry, stress, and paralysis.  I wonder also, if so much of our mental, emotional, and physical, activity is not implicitly, if not explicitly, motivated by a longing to achieve some sort of certainty in life?

The Mulla was observed by one of his followers searching for something on the on the ground under a streetlamp at night. “What are you looking for Mulla?” asked the follower. “Did you lose something?” “Yes,” replied the Mulla, “I lost my key?” “And did you lose it here, under the streetlamp?” “No”, replied the Mulla, “I lost it back there in the yard in the dark.” “Then why are you looking for it here under the streetlamp?” asked the follower incredulously. The Mulla answered, “Because the light is better.”

One of the meanings of this story is that things are not found in the dark where they were lost, they are found in the light. Very esoteric, no? But also, very practical because things cannot be found where they can’t be seen. To find, one must see, and to see, one needs light. One may say that it doesn’t make sense, but perhaps whether it is sense or nonsense depends on what we call the light.

And regarding the search for certainty, how can it be found where it was lost—in the dark—in life as we know it, since uncertainty is found at the very core of life itself? Does not certainty only exist in the Infinite and Eternal Light of God?

“It is the mind that becomes the experiencer and the thing to be experienced. If the mind is not there then there will be nothing—no world, no enjoyer, nothing to be enjoyed. Mind, thus, is a very important entity. It has to take a false form to experience itself.” – The Talks of Sadguru Upasani-Baba Maharaja, Volume IV page 402

In other words, to experience certainty, uncertainty must be experienced first. And that is what life is for, to experience uncertainty. And to experience uncertainty that is what mind is for.

In the dedication to His book, God Speaks, Meher Baba states, “To the Universe—the Illusion that sustains Reality.” But this relationship between God and His creation is not so easy to understand and even some of His closest followers could not understand this statement. One even suggested that Baba had got it wrong.

The question has been asked and answered in countless ways since consciousness first evolved into the first human form. Even the Perfect Ones put their individual spins on the subject, but the one thing I have been able to glean that they all agree upon is that life in creation is indispensable to attaining God—attaining Certainty—the Illusion that sustains Reality.”

“It is that Bliss that first evolves itself into the mind and the body, and then through their help it is able to know it is Bliss. The body and the mind are formed out of that Infinite bliss. Once that Bliss is experienced, then that mind and that body, despite remaining there for a time, virtually become non-existent, since one immersed in that Bliss, does not remain conscious of them. Once that Infinite Bliss is attained that Bliss has no necessity of anything. What for and for whom will such a man request anything?” – The Talks of Sadguru Upasani-Baba Maharaja, Volume IV pages 402 – 403

Meher Baba put it beautifully when he said, "The sojourn of the soul is a thrilling divine romance in which the lover, who in the beginning is conscious of nothing but emptiness, frustration, superficiality and gnawing chains of bondage, gradually attains and ultimately disappears and merges in the Divine beloved to realize the supreme and eternal fact of God as Infinite Love."

Meher Baba is reminding us of the three states of God. God asleep in deep sleep, God asleep but dreaming, and God in the fully awake I am God state. There is neither certainty nor uncertainty in the first state and there is absolute certainty in the third state, but the hallmark of the second state is uncertainty. Everything in this state is always changing. 

Achievement in this state turns into failure and vice versa, pleasure into pain, success into failure, etc. Kabir is quoted as saying, “Because you have forgotten the Friend, that is why in everything you do, there is a strange sense of failure.” It is in the second state of God that God is forgotten—but not completely.

  When they begin the beguine,

It brings back the sound of music so tender,

It brings back a night of tropical splendor,
It brings back a memory ever green.

I'm with you once more under the stars,
And down by the shore an orchestra's playing
And even the palms seem to be swaying
When they begin the beguine.

To live it again is past all endeavor,
Except when that tune clutches my heart,
And there we are, swearing to love forever,
And promising never, never to part.

What moments divine, what rapture serene,
Till clouds came along to disperse the joys we had tasted,
And now when I hear people curse the chance that was wasted,
I know but too well what they mean.

So don't let them begin the beguine
Let the love that was once a fire remain an ember;
Let it sleep like the dead desire I only remember
When they begin the beguine.

Oh yes, let them begin the beguine, make them play
Till the stars that were there before return above you,
Till you whisper to me once more,
"Darling, I love you!"
And we suddenly know, what heaven we're in,
When they begin the beguine.

 

Meher Baba pointed out that the spiritual significance of this famous Cole Porter song, Begin the Beguine, describes the second state of God in which the soul, lost in life, at first finds any reminder in the existence of the Divine Beloved or of the soul’s own divinity unbearably painful, but in the end yields to the Infinite Love of the Beloved and in their union realizes the heaven of Infinite Bliss.

“It is the mind thus that becomes the enjoyer from ‘to be enjoyed’ to enjoy it. The moment that thing is enjoyed it ceases to exist. Then it forms itself into the enjoyer for another thing and on enjoying it, again ceases to exist; and so on. In other words, the mind goes on becoming the enjoyer every time for each of the various things, i.e., it goes on assuming so many forms one after another. 

"In the course of time, the Jiva comes to know the mind’s inconstancy and misleading behavior and becomes tired of it. Somebody may say, then why give any importance to such a mind? Because it is the mind that is able to lead to self-realization, and hence mind, Buddhi[1], and Ahamkara have to be given great importance. Ahamkara is most essential. By Ahamkara is meant the primary—fundamental—consciousness. For, if there is no consciousness, then how can anything be experienced? And that is why Ahamkara is most essential.” – The Talks of Sadguru Upasani-Baba Maharaja, Volume IV page 403

Simply put, life is not what we think it is, or what we think it is for, or even the experience that is experienced. This life is lived and experienced by the Jivatma. Jiv means embodied and Atma is the soul. Upasani Maharaj defines the state of the Jivatma as “that pure celestial soul identified with the projections of the mind.” This state is also called the state of the Holy Ghost. Holy refers to the soul and ghost refers to the soul’s dream of itself as a creature of creation. This state, call it what you will, has but one purpose and that purpose is to acquire and perfect the consciousness by which the soul (Atma) can know and experience itself as infinite and eternal.

Meher Baba explains that this whole process by which the soul gains and perfects consciousness and ultimately comes to know itself as Infinite and Eternal begins with a whim—the Whim of God. Meher Baba uses the Hindi/Marathi word Lahar. He says that the English word whim comes the closest to it. Whim has no cause; it arises spontaneously without any rhyme or reason. The Whim manifests in the Totality of God in the form of the question, “Who am I?” 

With this question the totality of God manifests itself as Everything and simultaneously as Nothing. Everything answers the question and says, “I am God!” but the Nothing, being nothing, tries to answer but cannot, because though God is also Nothing, Nothing is not God, because it is nothing. The Nothing does try to answer the question—actually tries again and again—but always with the wrong answers, “I am stone. I am tree. I am man. etc.” the problem being that the Totality of God identifies Itself with the Nothing and not as the Everything.

Only when God comes to know “Himself” as God, is real and lasting certainty is achieved. It is the certainty that only direct experience can achieve. Belief, conjecture, imagination, can never achieve certainty, because that certainty exists in duality and duality is always a stick with two ends. On one end of the stick is certainty, but the other end of the stick is doubt. To achieve real certainty, we must transcend duality itself. And that is what Upasani Maharaj is talking about.

Consciousness is necessary for experience and mind is necessary for consciousness. It is for this consciousness that the whole of creation came into existence. What started it all was the Whim of God that expressed itself in the question, “Who am I?”

“It is the mind that becomes the experiencer and the thing to be experienced. If the mind is not there then there will be nothing—no world, no enjoyer, and nothing to be enjoyed. Mind, thus, is a very important entity. It must take a false form to experience itself. To experience being water, it must condense and come into that form first. In the same way, to experience the Sat (Real Self—Infinite knowing—Certainty) Asat (false self—ignorance—uncertainty) is necessary.” – Ibid, page 402

Some might ask, “But why must the false, the Asat, be experienced first?” Perhaps it is because the full consciousness necessary to experience the Sat, does not come all at once—it dawns. Think about waking up. We don’t wake up all at once from deep sleep. Deep sleep, prompted by our own latent impressions, precipitates the dream state, which eventually culminates in consciousness of the fully awake state. This, our, fully awake state is nothing other than the dream state (Asat state) of God—a necessary state in the process of His awakening from the deep sleep of His Beyond Beyond State to His fully awake I am God State.

 “To enjoy—to experience—that pure Bliss, true Ahamkara (consciousness), is necessary. But to achieve that consciousness, the false consciousness (finite, illusory,) must first be accepted (experienced). As various false things are experienced, one begins to think that there must be something true, and then slowly begins to think about the origin of all false things. As this happens, one begins to experience the true happiness—the Ananda.” – Ibid, page 404

I remember that as a small child nothing seemed to make any sense to me. What to others seemed important, to me seemed unimportant, that which for others seemed to be real, for me seemed most profoundly unreal. So, I began asking others—relatives, teachers, religious figures, etc.—to explain things to me. Mostly, they were all too happy to oblige me but none of their answers satisfied me—their explanations just did not ring true for me. In other words, a big part of me felt engulfed in the apparently tangible false, but an even bigger part of me began to yearn for the intangible true—or perhaps the intangible true never let go of me—never let me let go of it.

And so, I became a seeker. I felt that there were answers, real answers, and somewhere those answers could be found, and eventually in the words of the Perfect Masters and most especially the Avatar—Meher Baba—I found them. But words are one thing and experience is another. As Meher Baba said in the conclusion of His book, God Speaks,

“To understand the infinite, eternal Reality is not the GOAL of individualized being in the Illusion of Creation, because the Reality can never be understood; it is to be realized by conscious experience.”

These words do ring true for me, and perhaps in that ring of truth is certainty. Yet, as Kabir put it, “Until you experience it, it is not true.” And so, I sit, as it were, between two chairs—not the most comfortable place—not awake, but not believing that I am awake. A healthy sense of humor sure helps…

                                                                                                     © copyright, Michael Kovitz, 2021

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[1] The Buddhi is that aspect of mind that enables the Ego to distinguish, value, and understand the array of worldly impressions that continually bombard the consciousness of the mind. Ed.