Discourse: Avatar Meher Baba - The Times of India
Friday, 10 March 2006
Sufi poets often compare love with wine because both intoxicate. However, while wine causes self-forgetfulness, love leads to Self-realisation.
The behaviour of the intoxicated and the lover are similar; each disregards the world's standards of conduct and each is indiffe-rent to the opinion of the world.
But there is a world of difference between the course and the goal of the two: One leads to subterranean darkness and denial; the other, love, gives wings to the soul for its flight to freedom.
The drunkenness of the drunkard begins with a glass of wine which elates his spirit and loosens his inhibitions. It gives him a new view of life that promises forgetfulness from his daily worries. He goes on from one glass to two glasses, to a bottle; from companionship to isolation, from forgetfulness to oblivion which in reality, is the original state of God, but which, with the drunkard, is an empty stupor.
And he awakens in a dawn of futility, an object of disgust and ridicule. The lover's drunkenness begins with a drop of God's love which makes him forget the world.
The more he drinks the closer he draws to the Beloved, and the more unworthy he feels of the Beloved's love; and he longs to sacrifice his very life at his Beloved's feet.
He, too, does not know whether he sleeps on a bed or in a gutter, and becomes an object of ridicule; but he rests in bliss, and God the Beloved takes care of him. One out of many such lovers sees God face-to-face. His longing becomes infinite; he is like a fish thrown upon the beach, leaping and squirming to regain the ocean. He sees God everywhere and in everything, but he cannot find the gate of union.
The 'wine' that he drinks turns into 'fire' in which he continuously burns in blissful agony. And the fire eventually becomes the ocean of infinite consciousness in which he drowns.
In love there can never be satisfaction, for longing increases till it becomes an agony which ceases only in Union. Nothing but union with the Beloved can satisfy the lover.
The way of love is continual sacrifice; and what gets sacrificed are the lover's thoughts of 'I', until at last comes the time when the lover says, "O Beloved! Will I ever become one with you and so lose myself forever? But let this be only if it is your Will". This is the stage of love enlightened by obedience. Now the lover continuously witnesses the glory of the Beloved's will; and in the witnessing does not even think of union.
He willingly surrenders his entire being to the Beloved, and has no thought of self left. This is the stage when love is illumined by surrender. Out of millions, only one loves God; and out of millions of lovers, only one succeeds in obeying, and finally in surrendering his whole being to God the Beloved.
Greater than love is obedience. Greater than obedience is surrender. All three arise out of, and remain contained in, the ocean of divine love.
Monday, October 09, 2006
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Monday, October 09, 2006
Getting Intoxicated with The Love of God
Discourse: Avatar Meher Baba - The Times of India
Friday, 10 March 2006
Sufi poets often compare love with wine because both intoxicate. However, while wine causes self-forgetfulness, love leads to Self-realisation.
The behaviour of the intoxicated and the lover are similar; each disregards the world's standards of conduct and each is indiffe-rent to the opinion of the world.
But there is a world of difference between the course and the goal of the two: One leads to subterranean darkness and denial; the other, love, gives wings to the soul for its flight to freedom.
The drunkenness of the drunkard begins with a glass of wine which elates his spirit and loosens his inhibitions. It gives him a new view of life that promises forgetfulness from his daily worries. He goes on from one glass to two glasses, to a bottle; from companionship to isolation, from forgetfulness to oblivion which in reality, is the original state of God, but which, with the drunkard, is an empty stupor.
And he awakens in a dawn of futility, an object of disgust and ridicule. The lover's drunkenness begins with a drop of God's love which makes him forget the world.
The more he drinks the closer he draws to the Beloved, and the more unworthy he feels of the Beloved's love; and he longs to sacrifice his very life at his Beloved's feet.
He, too, does not know whether he sleeps on a bed or in a gutter, and becomes an object of ridicule; but he rests in bliss, and God the Beloved takes care of him. One out of many such lovers sees God face-to-face. His longing becomes infinite; he is like a fish thrown upon the beach, leaping and squirming to regain the ocean. He sees God everywhere and in everything, but he cannot find the gate of union.
The 'wine' that he drinks turns into 'fire' in which he continuously burns in blissful agony. And the fire eventually becomes the ocean of infinite consciousness in which he drowns.
In love there can never be satisfaction, for longing increases till it becomes an agony which ceases only in Union. Nothing but union with the Beloved can satisfy the lover.
The way of love is continual sacrifice; and what gets sacrificed are the lover's thoughts of 'I', until at last comes the time when the lover says, "O Beloved! Will I ever become one with you and so lose myself forever? But let this be only if it is your Will". This is the stage of love enlightened by obedience. Now the lover continuously witnesses the glory of the Beloved's will; and in the witnessing does not even think of union.
He willingly surrenders his entire being to the Beloved, and has no thought of self left. This is the stage when love is illumined by surrender. Out of millions, only one loves God; and out of millions of lovers, only one succeeds in obeying, and finally in surrendering his whole being to God the Beloved.
Greater than love is obedience. Greater than obedience is surrender. All three arise out of, and remain contained in, the ocean of divine love.
Friday, 10 March 2006
Sufi poets often compare love with wine because both intoxicate. However, while wine causes self-forgetfulness, love leads to Self-realisation.
The behaviour of the intoxicated and the lover are similar; each disregards the world's standards of conduct and each is indiffe-rent to the opinion of the world.
But there is a world of difference between the course and the goal of the two: One leads to subterranean darkness and denial; the other, love, gives wings to the soul for its flight to freedom.
The drunkenness of the drunkard begins with a glass of wine which elates his spirit and loosens his inhibitions. It gives him a new view of life that promises forgetfulness from his daily worries. He goes on from one glass to two glasses, to a bottle; from companionship to isolation, from forgetfulness to oblivion which in reality, is the original state of God, but which, with the drunkard, is an empty stupor.
And he awakens in a dawn of futility, an object of disgust and ridicule. The lover's drunkenness begins with a drop of God's love which makes him forget the world.
The more he drinks the closer he draws to the Beloved, and the more unworthy he feels of the Beloved's love; and he longs to sacrifice his very life at his Beloved's feet.
He, too, does not know whether he sleeps on a bed or in a gutter, and becomes an object of ridicule; but he rests in bliss, and God the Beloved takes care of him. One out of many such lovers sees God face-to-face. His longing becomes infinite; he is like a fish thrown upon the beach, leaping and squirming to regain the ocean. He sees God everywhere and in everything, but he cannot find the gate of union.
The 'wine' that he drinks turns into 'fire' in which he continuously burns in blissful agony. And the fire eventually becomes the ocean of infinite consciousness in which he drowns.
In love there can never be satisfaction, for longing increases till it becomes an agony which ceases only in Union. Nothing but union with the Beloved can satisfy the lover.
The way of love is continual sacrifice; and what gets sacrificed are the lover's thoughts of 'I', until at last comes the time when the lover says, "O Beloved! Will I ever become one with you and so lose myself forever? But let this be only if it is your Will". This is the stage of love enlightened by obedience. Now the lover continuously witnesses the glory of the Beloved's will; and in the witnessing does not even think of union.
He willingly surrenders his entire being to the Beloved, and has no thought of self left. This is the stage when love is illumined by surrender. Out of millions, only one loves God; and out of millions of lovers, only one succeeds in obeying, and finally in surrendering his whole being to God the Beloved.
Greater than love is obedience. Greater than obedience is surrender. All three arise out of, and remain contained in, the ocean of divine love.
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