Chapter V State of God Man

God to Man and Man to God
The discourses of Meher Baba
Edited by C. B. Purdom
London, Victor Gollancz LTD, 1955

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THE STATE OF THE GOD-MAN

OF ALL THE OBJECTS of human
knowledge, God is supreme, but mere theoretical study of God
does not take an aspirant far towards knowledge of the
purpose of human life, though it is better to study God than
to be ignorant about his existence. He who seeks God
intellectually is in a better state than a skeptic or an
agnostic. But better than to study him through the intellect
is to feel for God, though the feeling for him is much less
than experience. However, even experience of God does not
yield the true nature of divinity, because God as the object
of experience remains different from and external to the
aspirant. The true nature of God is known only when the
aspirant attains unity with him by losing himself in his
Being. Thus, it is better to study ‘God than to be ignorant
about him: it is better to feel for God than to study him;
it is better to experience God than to feel for him; and it
is better to become God than to experience him.

The supreme certainty

The state of God-realization is not
marred by doubts, which cloud the minds of those in bondage.
To be in bondage is to be in a state of uncertainty about
“whence” and “whither”; the God-realized are at the heart of
creation where the source and end of creation are known. The
God-realized knows himself to be God as surely as a man
knows himself to be a man. It is for him not a matter of
doubt, belief, self-delusion or guesswork; it is a supreme
and unshakable certainty, which needs no external
corroboration and remains unaffected by contradiction
because it is based upon self-knowledge. Such spiritual
certainty is incapable of being challenged. A man thinks
himself to be what in reality he is not; the God-realized
knows what in reality he is.

God-realization is the goal of
creation. All earthly pleasure is a shadow of the eternal
bliss of God-realization; all mundane knowledge is a
reflection of the absolute truth of God-realization; all
human might is but a fragment of the infinite power of
God-realization. All that is noble, beautiful and lovely,
all that is great and good and inspiring in the universe, is
an infinitesimal fraction of the unfading and unspeakable
glory of God-realization.

The price of
God-realization

The eternal Bliss, the Absolute
Truth, the Infinite Power, and the Unfading Glory of
God-realization, are not to be had for nothing. The
individualized soul has to go through the pain and struggle
of evolution and reincarnations before it can inherit this
treasure, and the price it has to pay, for coming into
possession of it is its own existence as a separate ego. The
limited individuality must disappear if there is to be
entrance into unlimited existence individuality which is
identified with a name and form creates a veil of ignorance
before the God within; for this ignorance to disappear the
limited individual has to surrender his limited existence.
When he leaves not a vestige of his limited life, what
remains is God. The surrender of limited existence is the
surrender of these~ firmly rooted delusion of having a
separate existence. It is not the surrender of anything real
but of the false.

Two aspects of the
God-man

When a person is crossing the inner
planes and proceeding towards God-realization he becomes
successively mentally detached from the physical, subtle and
mental worlds as ‘well as from his own physical, subtle and
mental bodies. But after God-realization some souls again
descend and become conscious of the whole creation as well
as of their physical, subtle and mental bodies. They are
known as God-men. God as God is not consciously man; and man
as man is not consciously God: the God-man is consciously
God and man.

By becoming conscious of the
creation, the God-man does not suffer deterioration in his
spiritual status. What is spiritually disastrous is not mere
consciousness of the creation, but the fact that the
consciousness is caught up in creation because of sanskaras
and is consequently submerged in ignorance. In the same way,
what is spiritually disastrous is not mere consciousness of
the bodies but identification with them owing to the
sanskaras, which prevent the realization of the ultimate
reality.

The soul in bondage is tied to the
worlds of forms by the chain of sanskaras, which creates the
illusion of identifying the soul with the bodies. The
disharmony within consciousness, and the perversions of the
will arise out of sanskaric identification with the bodies,
and are not merely due to consciousness of the bodies. Since
the God-man is free from sanskaras, he is conscious of being
different from his bodies, and uses them as instruments for
the expression of the divine will in its purity.

The changing shadow of God cannot
affect God-consciousness

The God-man knows himself to be
infinite and beyond all forms. He remains conscious of the
creation without being caught in it. The falseness of the
phenomenal world consists in its not being understood as an
illusory expression of the Infinite Spirit. Ignorance
consists in taking the form as the thing. The God-man is
conscious of the true nature of God, as well as of the true
nature of creation without consciousness of duality, because
for him creation is the changing shadow of God. The God-man,
therefore, remains conscious of creation without loss of
God-consciousness. He continues to work in the world of
forms for the furtherance of the primary purpose of
creation, which is to create self-knowledge or
God-realization in every soul.

The God-man works through the
universal mind

When the God-man descends into the
world of forms from the impersonal aspect of God, he knows,
feels and works through the universal mind. For him there is
no longer the limited life of the finite mind, no longer the
pains and the pleasures of duality, no longer the emptiness
and vanity of the separate ego. He is consciously one with
all life. Through his universal mind, he not only
experiences the happiness of all minds, but their sufferings
too; and since most minds have a preponderance of suffering,
the suffering of the God-man, because of the condition of
others, is greater than his happiness. Though his suffering
is so great, the bliss of the God-state which he constantly
enjoys supports him so that he remains unmoved by
it.

The merely individualized soul is
without access to the infinite bliss of the God-state
because affected by sanskaric happiness and suffering
through identification with the individual and limited mind.
The God-man does not identify himself even with the
universal mind. He enters the universal mind for his mission
in the world, uses it for his work without identification
with it, and thus remains unaffected by the suffering or the
happiness which comes to him through it. He dispenses with
the universal mind when his work is done; but while working
in the world through the universal mind, he knows himself to
be the eternal God.

The God-man is not affected by
suffering

Even when the God-man comes down
into duality for his universal work, he is not separate from
God. In his condition as man, he is on the level of men and
eats, drinks and suffers as they do, but as he retains his
Godhood, he experiences peace, bliss and power. Though
Christ suffered on the cross, He knew that everything in the
world of duality was illusion and in his suffering was
sustained by union with God.

As God, the God-man sees all souls
as his own; he sees himself in everything, for the universal
mind includes all minds. The God-man knows himself to he one
with all other souls in bondage. Although he knows himself
to be identic~al with God and thus eternally free, he also
knows himself to be one with the souls in bondage and is
thus vicariously bound: though he experiences the eternal
bliss of God-realization, he also vicariously experiences
suffering through the bondage of other souls. This is the
meaning of Christ’s crucifixion. The God-man is continuously
being crucified, as He is continuously taking birth. In the
God-man, the purpose of creation has been realized, and he
has nothing to gain of added bliss by remaining in the
world; yet he retains his bodies and uses them for
emancipating souls from, bondage and helping them to attain
God-consciousness.

Even while working in the world of
duality, the God-man is in no way limited by the duality of
“I” and “Thou” which is swallowed up in all-embracing Divine
Love. He has consciously descended from the state of seeing
nothing but God to the state of seeing God in everything.
His dealings in the world of duality not only do not bind
him, they reflect the pristine glory of the sole reality
which is God, and contribute towards freeing others from
their state of bondage.

God to Man and Man to God
The discoures of Meher Baba

Chapters

1 – The New
Humanity
2 – The Search for God
3 –
God
– Realization
4 –
Aspirants
and God Realized Beings
5 –
The
State of the God Man
6 – The
Work of the God Man
7 – Avatar
8 –
9

A short
history of the book

1967 expanded release of God to Man and
Man to God entitled The Discourses (Online
edition)