Many planes and levels of understanding and realization have to be crossed before an appreciation of the real nature of this enquiry can dawn.

What is this "Word " that people seem to imagine? Is it just a word of any known language of the world? Is it going to be a word like "Aum," Allah," "Amen" or such other master-words that the great religions have mentioned? Is it again going to be a word with known meaning, descriptive the ideal central Reality? The question asked and repeated is: what is that Word, and what will be its meaning?

It is safe to assume that Meher Baba "Uttering the Word " does not mean that he will utter any known word of any known language. He will use no habitual pattern of thought and expression to which men are accustomed, because they have become mechanical and lifeless. His Word is intended to break patterns, prisons and habits. If anything, it will be sound forged by his cosmic experience of the universe. It will be drawn from the Source and will be a part of the universal Reality. It is equally safe to assume that no hour, date or place will be announced in advance for breaking his Silence and for uttering his Word. He has himself said on many occasions that he will not call a public meeting at a public place, announced and notified beforehand that he will break the Silence. As he never announced the date, hour and place he went into Silence, so it will be appropriate to think that he is equally under no obligation to announce the hour, date and place of breaking it. As the world only knew of his Silence after he became silent, so would the world know after he has uttered the Word. The universe is always its own proof. The axiomatic truth is self-evident. It will be wrong to think that this is a mere whim on his part. It has mystical and spiritual significance which should be realized and understood.

If any known word is used, it will not help to break the prison of the habits of thoughts and understanding of mankind. The ordinary spoken word is the prison wall. It denotes specific and narrow habits of thought, memory, experience and recollection, in the coils of which men are entangled not only during this birth and its present environment, but also by the previous experience, in past existence. To break such a long-standing and a hard habit, something unusual, something infinitely strong, has to be used; and that will be the Word of Meher Baba. His mission is to break the shackles that fetter the freedom, spiritual, moral and physical, of mankind.

Ordinary man is in love with his fetters and believes paradoxically that the fetters are his security. He has no conception of that indestructible and unchallengeable security that lies beyond, when his fetters are broken.