by
Adi K. Irani
A talk given on his Andhra summer tour – 1972

 

Dear brothers and sisters, I am very happy indeed to have an opportunity to come here and I bow down to your love for Meher Baba.

It is as easy to understand Meher Baba as it is difficult to understand Him. He is the ocean of Truth and He also manifests Himself in a drop of the ocean. We have been given the opportunity to know Him and to love Him in the form of the ocean, or to love Him in our hearts as Meher Baba, a perfect human being. The only thing that Meher Baba is interested in and has come down to show us, is to give us the consciousness of who we ourselves are. The great poet, Hafiz of Iran, who was a Sadguru, said, "I do not know what I was, I do not know why I have come here, I do not know where I'm going, I'm absolutely oblivious of myself and I do not know who I am." Baba says what a tragedy it is with everyone of us that we try to study the whole world around us but do not study ourselves. We become educated, we go to colleges, we earn money, we marry, we beget children, we get a pension and then we die. But we do not know who we are.

When I went to America in 1970, I had a chance to ask a man a question. I asked, "Please sir, show me who you are." He said, "I am this," pointing to his chest. I told him, "This is your chest, please show me who you are." He said, "I am this." I said, "These are your legs." He said, "I am the whole of it." I said, "This is your body, but you are something else. I fold my hands and ask you a question, please show me who you are." He could not answer.

We cannot answer this most simple question of who we are in our lives. We study everything else around, keeping ourselves absolutely in oblivion and in darkness as to who we are.

What is the main work that Meher Baba has come down for, that God has come down for in human form? It is to give us the consciousness of who we are. We are not our body, not our mind, not our feeling, not anything that is outside of ourself. We are ourself, alone, we are nobody but God. Baba says, "You and I are One; you are God and I am God." Since Baba says that "you are God and I am God" why can't everyone call themselves Meher Baba? Because until man is conscious that he is God, he experiences himself as his body, which is not knowing his true self. Meher Baba has come to give us that experience and consciousness of God.

What a joy it would be really it we were fortunate enough to be colored by the love of Meher Baba! Why? We have nothing to lose. We all have our relatives, we all have our

© 1973 by Adi K. Irani