A Personal Riff on Meher Baba’s Manifestation
by Viveshwar (Mike Pettingill)
From the outspoken blog “Riffs of Viveshwar,” post dated July 30, 2010. Mike (whose handle used to be “amerbud”) is an old-time BL who was once an initiate of Sufism Reoriented. He says Bhau gave him the nickname Viveshwar, which means “Ruler of the World.” —KC
Disclaimer – The following thoughts are my own. I am not aware of precedents for what I am about to assert in anything recorded from Meher Baba or any of his Circle members (Mandali). If there are such precedents, I would be interested in hearing about them. I believe these thoughts to be consistent with what Meher Baba has asserted about his Manifestation, and if that is not true, I would like to hear about that as well. I know that such consistency, if true, does not make this view of mine in any way canonical. It’s simply my view. There are undoubtedly other views which have been brought forward or will be brought forward which will prove to be equally or more valid.
In his highly interesting riff about Maya, Avatar Meher Baba talks about how his work is time-critical because of the hold that Maya has on our minds, individually and collectively. I believe that Meher Baba’s Manifestation is also time-critical and staged through time, for the same reason, and I don’t think this is a mechanical evolution, i.e., I don’t think we can foresee certain fixed periods in which certain aspects will reach critical mass. I think it’s more like the development of a living being, in which the whole evolution can be held up by arrested development in one area, and so forth, and this depends on what we, the conditioned beings do or don’t do both individually and collectively.
In his discussion of Maya, Meher Baba also talks about how, in bringing about a change, he necessarily has to cycle successively through the nodes of necessary development, focusing on this individual or vibratory level, and then another related one, and so forth, to bring about the kind of change that necessarily (1) includes everybody, (2) can be tolerated by the individuals and groups involved, and (3) is the stable basis of further change. It is my belief that this principle also applies to Meher Baba’s Manifestation as well.
All of the above is back-story, please, and here’s the meat of my argument: I believe that the Manifestation of the Avatar is a wave of structural and evolutionary change that emanates from the Godhead, and works its way down through all the vibratory levels of Creation, beginning with the 6th Plane and the Archangelic Sphere, and then working gradually and sequentially down through the Planes and Spheres through time, relentlessly and with absolute purity of effect, leaving absolutely nothing behind in its wake but a completely reordered and radically purified Creation. This is what is called technically a devolutionary process, but in terms of severity of effect, the Manifestation of God’s Avatar, is truly the Mother of all possible Devolutions, and it will be, as the Master has said, something that the world has never seen before, when it finally bombs out of the astral plane into the gross world, literally dragging all the shades and ghosts of the astral world into this world, in the literal enactment of what the Christians foresee as the Day of Judgment.
Are we freaking out yet? Are we, perhaps, hyperventilating and blocking on alternate breaths? There’s absolutely nothing that we as individuals can do about this, whether its true or not, so what would be the point of a pseudo-Christian phreak-out about it? Let’s back-track and consider why my observations of events support my theory.
So immediately after Meher Baba’s Mahasamadhi [yogic term for dropping the body –KC], there was little perceived change from His Manifestation, because the Mental Sphere is so far away for most of us. But through time, we find that our world is becoming less and less predictable, and more and more vulnerable to vast and chaotic change emanating from completely unforeseeable events, that in previous cycles of time, could not be foreseen to have any effect at all. The recent absolutely disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, which has completely destroyed a major planetary biosphere, is a salient case in point.
So what I perceive happening is the loss of the causal links that held the world together, and made it function in a connected, albeit thoroughly defiled way, because both the causal seeds of those causal chains in the mental world, and increasingly through time, the energy component of the causal links, have been eaten out from under the phenomena as they appear in the world. I believe that appearances without causality, in the case of an individual, would be considered madness. In the world, what we see is also increasing mad, is it not?
One of the effects of this, and this is why Meher Baba has said, “Hold my Daaman to the very end,” is that our own effect on the world becomes heightened, for good or ill, when appearances have become these shells devoid of inherent causality of their own. We’re not impacted by all this chaos if our minds and intentions belong to the author of it. If we try to dope our way through this on our own, however, the world becomes increasing treacherous for us as the “Day of Judgment” approaches, and it is clear to me that it is absolutely possible to drop Meher Baba’s Daaman completely as the situation becomes more critical, more intense, and more result-loaded through time, and we can count on this kind of evolution.
Because, you see, there is causality there behind the Manifestation, but it’s God’s causality, not the world’s decrepit old causality, and not the personal causality that we’ve learned to depend on either. So it becomes just like the Mandali around Baba, we won’t know from day to day what new demand will be placed, what new project will suddenly be afoot, or what hidden fault of our own will be turned up for all to see at the drop of any given hat. All we can know is that we can finally hold on to Baba’s Daaman if we are 100% devoted to that. God will not test us beyond our fundamental capacity. He never does that, because very basically, he is on our side, and he does want each one of us to prevail against Maya in this.
Back-tracking yet again, to consider more detail: In my great-grandfather’s generation in New England, the houses were framed with whole tree trunks with mortise and tenon joints, which allowed the joint to be held firmly by a single pointed wooden peg driven through it with a sledge hammer, so that the pointed part protruded out of the secure joint. Then, if it was necessary to take that structure down to move it, for example, the men went up into the frame, and pounded all those pegs out, and then carefully, carefully got out of dodge, hitched the ridge pole to a team of horses, and then could easily drag the whole structure down, disassemble it on the ground, and take it, piece by piece to its new site.
So this is what we’re living in the midst of: structures in which Baba’s agents have already removed the pegs in the joints, and which can come down from any given breath of wind. This entire Avataric cycle is essentially a purifying cycle. We can’t rely on the continuance of existing forms, and in general, the more time-hallowed they are, the more likely they are to fall. So what’s stable? Baba’s Daaman. That’s about it.
When just before Amartithi last, Baba appeared to me in a dream, and told me not to go to Fo Guang Shan again, and I obeyed him, this completely changed my entire experience and my entire presence in the world, as well as online. In the middle of many other changes, I rediscovered the greatest gifts that had ever been given to me, and which I had forgotten; A strand of Meher Baba’s hair that was given to me by his brother Jal, and the name Viveshwar that was given by Bhau. This was a radical re-ordering of my entire mind and my entire life, and I believe that these kinds of immediate radical rewards for coming to Baba or coming back to Baba will be more frequent and even more radical as time goes on. As things become more chaotic and disorganized, it will also be up to us blessed ones to increasingly witness to our relationship with the Master, and to bring others to Him, so that there will be a remnant left over from the Day of Judgment to take this planet and its human race forward on a wonderful new life established on the manifested power of God. So be it, and so be it, and so be it, Amen.
Avatar Meher Baba ki Jai!
Viveshwar