SPARKS OF THE TRUTH

From MEHER BABA’s Dissertations

The infinite God, in His original state, may be compared to the ocean. When the ocean is completely still, it can not know itself as might, since it is bereft of all movements. In order to realize itself as a mighty ocean, with all the immensity of its stored-up energy, there must come into existence some movement within it. Now the wind that creates a stir in the ocean of God is the impulse which God has in His original state for realizing the fullness and immensity of His own infinite being. This wind creates bubbles of different dimensions in the ocean. They correspond to the innumerable forms of evolving life from atom to man.

The highest bubble is perfect in consciousness and may be compared to a boat. It is the human body. The driving force of the evolution is the same as the original impulse to attain self-knowledge. But it gets wrapped up in diverse impressional dispositions. Therefore, that impulse, which has been likened to the wind, now expresses itself as ingrained mental dispositions, or active inscriptions which each action or experience scrawls on the evolving mind. The wind that drives the boat of the human body gets its directions from the determinative mental imprints. The impressions, left by experience and action on the evolving mind, are not mere idle imprints or entries. They have stored in themselves inexorable driving power or directional force.

The average man occupies the boat of his body; but he has no control over the driving of the boat. In the boat his hands and feet are, as it were, tied down by his accumulated impressional dispositions. He can not himself drive the boat as he pleases. But he finds that the boat of his body is driven hither and thither by his ingrained impressional dispositions. As he breathes, he adds to the wind, i.e. he creates further new impressional dispositions. It is not himself but these freshly acquired dispositions, which have the determinative power for driving the boat.

If the man has good actions to his credit, the wind of his impressional dispositions leads the boat to a Boatman, who can not only freely guide the boat on the surface of the ocean, but even knows all the ins and outs of the ocean. The Boatman can not only lead on the surface, but also to the very bottom of the ocean. He knows the immensity of the ocean in its fullness. It should never be forgotten that it is the ocean itself which becomes the man in the boat, the boat and the Boatman. The moment the man drowns himself in the ocean he gets lost in the ocean, like a sugar-doll; and he realizes "I was and am the ocean, though previously I knew it not."