1. THE EVERYTHING AND THE NOTHING*

When the discussion of philosophy really becomes serious it ends up in an enunciation of the divine truths by one man, with the rest listening. When such enunciation is an expression of the compassion of one who has passed through suffering, the greatest possible suffering, it is the highest poetry, irrespective of it being in verse or prose.

Meher Baba's God Speaks is the supreme epic; but in epic poetry—the slow unfolding of a grand theme—every word has its weight, and a few words skimmed over, or not felt in their fullness, throws out the balance of a whole passage, and so to the majority of us, used as we are to newspaper and magazine reading where one word in six is enough to grasp the content, God Speaks is a "difficult" book.

His new book, The Everything and the Nothing, is a collection of pure lyrical utterances—on the everythingness of the Everything, and the nothingness of the Nothing which is the shadow of the Everything.

This does not mean that the Nothing is nothing at all; it is something distinctly to be reckoned with, but not given importance. For it is our giving importance to Nothing, our honoring it as really something, which prevents our experiencing ourselves as Everything ―that Everything which created innumerable little nothings (you and me, dear heart) out of big Nothing so that it, the Everything which is nothing but Love, could experience itself as Beloved and Lover. Love, the Everything, not only created innumerable little nothings (you and me, dear heart), but also created the universes which are nothing but a setting for love-making—a place in which the Beloved could hide, and the Lover could wander seeking the Beloved, mountains and hills for the Beloved to leap and skip upon (see Solomon), and a vale for the Lover to practice singing (see Hafiz).

Love is nothing unless it includes everything― which it seldom does. That is probably why lovers' speech is called "sweet nothings"—nothings about something that is everything to them and nothing to anybody else.

Everything is the Self of Nothing, and Nothing is the shadow of Everything—which is what makes the love-game so complicated and so fascinating. The Beloved knows the conclusion of the affair at its beginning, but the poor Lover is always in the position of, He loves me, he loves me not. The Beloved is the very Self of the Lover, but the Lover patiently weaves a net of separation in which to catch desire and sleeplessness.

*The Everything and the Nothing, by Meher Baba.

Meher House Publications, Sydney, Australia.