Dear folks of Baba,

“The way of My Work is the way of effacement, which is the way of strength, not of weakness and through it you become mature in My love."

- Meher Baba

In the coming chapter, Darwin Shaw writes about the path of self-effacement encouraged by Baba. It was a new concept for most of us, and the term is rarely used even in spiritual circles. Simply put, it involves vacating our interior, so to speak, and letting Baba move in. His mandali would use the phrase: “When He takes over.” This transformation does not occur instantly, but gradually over our lifetime as we surrender our interior to Him.

In my view, Baba affirms two major spiritual approaches, that of self-realization and that of self-effacement. On the path of self-realization, we seek to realize our spiritual potential, going up through the planes of consciousness, gross, subtle and mental, to realize our own divinity. Many of the saints are on this path. On the path of self-effacement, which Baba guided most of His mandali and close ones on, is about vacating our interior and allowing Baba to live our life, with us as the witness. In the Bible are the words, “Not I, but Christ liveth in me.” Unlike the path of self-realization, self-effacement means giving up even our spiritual experiences, which can be so compelling. Rick Chapman, in his meeting with Baba at Meherazad in 1966, was told by Him, "In fact, pay no attention whatsoever to the spiritual path, the planes of consciousness, or to any spiritual experiences—they are all nothing but toys for children, because they are nothing but illusion.” In this approach, Baba is implying to even renounce our "spiritual experiences " in favor of self-effacement. Such spiritual experiences are still in the dual realm. In truth, Love is the higher self, which is ever-present in everything, in what is “unspiritual” as well as “spiritual.” It is a matter of realizing Love heart-to-heart with Baba and each other, not chasing after spiritual experiences. The one Love that surrounds us and is ever-present only needs to be cleansed of its impurities, and its sanskaric veils removed.

In clarifying the two approaches, Baba gave the metaphor, as Irwin Luck shared with me, of two methods of taking down a large tree. Paraphrasing, in the first method, we go to the top of the tree and cut down, say, ten feet of the topmost branches, and then we come down another ten feet, and then another and another, until we reach the base of the tree. This is like going through the inner path of consciousness, plane by plane, until Divinity is reached. In the second method, continuing the metaphor, Baba introduces termites into the bark of the tree, and gradually the tree is hollowed out, so that to all intents and purposes the tree appears to be thriving at the gross level. We remain at the level of the world where we can express Baba’s personal love to those around us. Baba becomes the indweller, and we become vehicles of His love in the world, rather than regarding our self as the base of operations. The remembrance of Baba in any way, shape or form acts like an invasion of termites that eventually destroys the tree.

As has been said, Baba affirms both paths. The path of self-effacement allows us to empathize with others in the gross world; we are spared the infinite vastness and complications of the overwhelming experiences of the higher planes. However, we are nevertheless exposed to the experiences of the ups and downs of life in the gross world. Baba has said, “I will teach you how to move in the world, yet be at all times in inward communion with me as the Infinite Being.” On the path of self-realization, the bliss of the higher planes makes it difficult for the advanced aspirant to truly empathize with others in the gross world; there is sympathy and the sharing of the higher expression of love, but empathizing with others as they experience themselves at the gross level is not really possible.

Among the myriad methods leading toward self-effacement, adopting the provisional ego is essential, in which we imagine Baba as living our day and doing everything through us. What starts as a mental exercise eventually becomes our actual experience, the gradual transition from micro-managing our lives to letting Baba take over. And of course, focusing on Baba in all the ways that we can is paramount, making Him our constant companion, which over time, gradually effaces our ego in Him.

“I believe that as spiritual aspirants our concentration should be on loving God and merging with Him, and the predominant process we are engaged in is not self-realization but complete self-effacement, which is both total annihilation and complete merging of the personality self into God.”

- Darwin Shaw

P.S. We are continuing on page 61

We have some informal chat after every arti, the "post-arti party"! But once a week, Jeff Wolverton joins us for some serious mining of the spiritual depths. Join us for conversation, more readings, songs, quotes - you never know what treasures will be uncovered!

The Topic: No Villain Is Required

Dear folks of Baba,

When I went off to college in 1962, although coming from a free-thinking, fun-loving and non-religious family, I nevertheless naively bought into the world as being the “reality" as it is described in the excellent article below. I think probably all of us did. This was before Baba entered my life in January, 1968. It was soon after that I found myself going to Darwin and Jeanne Shaw’s meetings in Schenectady, N.Y. Darwin would speak of the myriad ways of the world as a “mayavic trap”, and at the time I felt, although he radiated such a rarified love, that he was a bit too detached from the world—ha! He didn’t seem to see some of its valuable and creative possibilities—haha!

My parents encouraged my siblings and me to strive to leave the world a better place. Now decades later, I find my orientation toward the world has changed 180 degrees. What I had struggled with for years and found most difficult to resolve is this: How do I express the love within me in this world without getting bound up in it? Ultimately, I have had to give up even "my own loving agenda" in regard to the world and actually liberate Baba’s Love in me from my agenda—who would have imagined that! I had to quietly step out of the game and let Baba and His Love do its own thing. Here are Baba’s magnificent words about our purpose in the world:

To penetrate into the essence of all being and significance, and to release the fragrance of that inner attainment for the guidance and benefit of others, by expressing, in the world of forms, truth, love, purity and beauty—this is the sole game which has any intrinsic and absolute worth. All other happenings, incidents and attainments can, in themselves, have no lasting importance.

To me, this has meant to not live in the world on its terms, but on Love’s terms—Baba’s Love has its own agenda. How is this done? This is taking me a lifetime to fathom. The article below describes succinctly how difficult it is to disentangle from the clutches of the world. It is not only colorfully written, but in my view, reveals a very profound insight into the subtlety of Maya, the principle of ignorance. It bears studying. I should say that it isn’t written knowingly from Baba’s point of view.

In His love, Jeff

A link to the PDF of Effort and Grace: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xrR75eksY-tErdKZm9aOBs3omuhioasb/view?usp=sharing

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