Agents 1

AGENTS

Meher Baba

Higher spirits are actually Agents of God with powers and certain duties. They have physical forms in order to work in the world according to the directives issued by the Perfect Masters.

2 June 1925, Meherabad, LM2 p720

Those who return after Realisation are Perfect Masters, and they have Agents. One who is here controls the whole universe of Agents. Perfect Masters control the whole universe, and yet they remain aloof. They are in the ocean, in the descent and ascent, in reincarnation, everything and everyone, and yet aloof. Now the Emperor, who is head of all Masters, controls all, also the Masters.

Now Agents are of two types: with form, and without form. Agents are between descent and man. How do Agents work? This is most interesting. The Agents without form have no connection with other Agents, because they have not undergone the process of evolution. But they are powerful. They have no mind, no desire, no form, but they are spirits, and exist, and are like sparks. One who gets Illumination can see them, even with their eyes. Here, now, are so many. They have no mind, yet can hear and see, because they feel. What they do is whatever they see and hear. Through feeling they pass it on to the unconscious ocean. What they report comes up to the point of creation, the point after ascent. So that message goes to the Perfect Masters. Everything these millions of Agents see or hear goes to the Perfect Masters.

The Agents in bodies with minds (with form) are not Perfect, but powerful. There are different types: Avtad, Abdal, Afreed and Afsoony. The first type, Avtad, are those who receive messages and give messages, like wireless operators, to the Perfect Masters. The second type, Abdal, are those who can disappear at will, or appear thousands of mile away with external bodies. But how do they disappear? The form dissolves in a twinkling of an eye and appears somewhere else. To do what? When these Avtads send messages to Perfect Masters, it passes through the second form, Abdals, and if in any of the messages something is serious, the Abdal goes there.

I will give an example. Once, in the time of Piran, a Perfect Master, some of his disciples were coming to India from Arabia in a small boat. The boat was on the point of capsizing. The Avtad at once sent messages to Piran, and the Abdals appeared there and saved the boat. Piran knew all this, but even before his ordering, the Abdals had done it. Piran began to bleed, and the other disciples who were with him asked why he was bleeding, and so he told them.

Now you know what the Avtads and Abdals do. The real work is done by Afreed and Afsoony. The man you saw today by the Shalimar gate was an Avtad. Avtads always appear mad. Afreed and afsoony appear sane. I will show you one of the Afsoony before returning to Bombay - most powerful. He can even create forms. Yet they (the Afsoony) are not Perfect. Only one thing is real: the infinite ocean of love. All else is illusion. This ocean of love can be attained through love, and by loving the Perfect Master you are loving the ocean. I receive billions of messages every day, but let them pass over me. Only important messages I deal with myself...

So you are all one with the ocean, but yet separate...

Jesus only once explained about Agents to his disciples.

20 April 1933, Kashmir,
HM p459-462

While thus working I leave my physical body, which would be dead to all feelings of touch, and I would not feel it even if the body were hammered or cut up. But I draw a boundary all around, of a radius of fifty yards, so that none can come in. Anyone trying to cross the boundary line would drop dead instantaneously. That's why I told Kaka to keep watch at a distance of one hundred yards. When I work like this, meetings are held where spirits, my Agents, attend in numbers, unseen by the common eye, but sometimes visible and audible.

About his seclusion at Fallenfluh
12 July 1934, Fallenfluh, Switzerland, Aw 16:2 p9

When I work like this, a meeting of large numbers of my Agents is held, but you cannot see them with your Gross eyes. Sometimes, though, you can hear a rumble like boot steps.

12 July 1934, Fallenfluh, Switzerland, LM6 p1901

When I work universally, through Agents, mind being universal, it is linked up with every individual mind... even with advanced minds, who are my Agents. And so in every part of the world I am present and working through Agents. That is why, at times, while speaking to one person, my mind is working elsewhere. People have seen and marked me stopping suddenly in the midst of conversation, as if absent and away from the spot, and engrossed in something else...

Q. How do the Agents know?

Baba: Only those who are on the fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh planes, and who are conscious of me, know under and for whom they are working physically. And this knowledge they have through the medium of their Subtle and Mental bodies. One in Rishikesh never saw me but knows me. They cannot see me physically. But their Subtle and Mental bodies being detached from the Gross, they see my Subtle body, which is similar to my Gross. And the consciousness of the planes they are in makes their spirits know the individual behind my Subtle body. So they know that they work under me, whose Subtle body they see, and which is similar to my physical form. They also know that I am one with the infinite.

For example, while I am sitting here, my Agents are working in India, Persia, Africa, and so on. This very moment they see my Subtle body, all at the same time, in the different planes. Because the messages they send are sent through the Mental plane, where there is only the will to do a thing, and instantaneously it reaches the desired spot...

Q: How do they become Agents?

Baba: Mostly due to past connections with me. Those connected with me in past lives become Agents. Those deeply connected become members of the Circle.

1930s, A p31-33, also HM p462-463

Qutub in Sufism means Center. That Center controls the whole universe through his Agents. Meetings are held, but these meetings cannot be seen with the physical eye.

The Agents who control the Gross only are called Abdals. They are capable of changing their bodies. The Urdu word badal means change. Abdal, therefore, is one who can change.

7 February 1937, Rahuri, LM6 p2091 Also Aw 16:2 p42

There are... certain people who are Agents of the Saheb-e-Zaman (Avatar). These Agents are holders of definite and distinct offices. Just as the Christ-state, the Nabuwat-e-Mohammedi (or whatever name it is known by) is actually the office held by each Saheb-e-Zaman, so these states of the Agents are distinct offices held by certain souls who carry out important work for each Saheb-e-Zaman. On the death of one Agent, his office is automatically filled by a successor. For just as there is always a Saheb-e-Zaman or a Saheb-e-Waqt, so there are always his Agents.

Baba explains that there are three types of Agent:

1. Direct Agents, who are very few. There is one in Europe, one in Asia, one in America, one in Africa - one in fact on almost every important continent. These Direct Agents receive instructions directly from the Saheb-e-Zaman.

2. Indirect Agents, who are few, and who receive instructions from the Direct Agents.

3. Borrowed Agents, who are many, and who receive orders from the Indirect Agents.

The principal Agents are always on the fourth plane, and through the powers that they wield on this plane, they act for the Saheb-e-Zaman. They may even do miracles for the Saheb-e-Zaman, since the Saheb-e-Zaman himself almost never performs miracles. For if he wishes to do so, he must, at the time of doing the miracle, actually station himself on the fourth plane. These Agents are on the fourth plane only because of the necessity of using certain of its powers for the work of the Saheb-e-Zaman. They are not in the position of those on the spiritual Path, who when they reach the fourth plane may use its powers for good, or may misuse them, and so fall back to a very primitive state of evolution.

from notes dictated by Meher Baba, before 1948, W p373

...Certain masts and certain salik-like pilgrims are known as spiritual chargemen... Such a man sees to the spiritual and material welfare of the place of which he is spiritual chargeman. The spiritual chargeman of a small place is a mast, but in a large place he is a salik-like pilgrim, and in some centres of peculiar importance the chargemanship is in the hands of both a mast and a salik-like pilgrim. This system, whereby a mast or a salik-like pilgrim is often the spiritual chargeman of a particular city or district, is peculiar to India, and in other countries there are spiritual Agents.

from notes dictated by Meher Baba, before 1948, W p37

Perfect Masters, who control and direct the spiritual and material welfare of the universe, usually do so through their Agents, who are scattered in different parts of the world, and who hold different spiritual jurisdictions in accordance with their spiritual status. Some of these Agents from the higher planes are vaguely conscious of the source of directions and orders that they carry out. But the majority of those from the lower planes are unaware of the source of directions and orders, which they implicitly and automatically carry out.

SB p40

Much of the work of the Divine Incarnation is often done through his Agents, who carry on the duty entrusted to them by the Incarnation. The Agents may be on the Gross plane or on the inner planes. If they do not have a Gross body, they are invisible to ordinary people. They help people in their ascent through the planes. Some Agents fulfill the purpose of the Divine Incarnation unconsciously. They do not know consciously whence their impetus or inspiration comes. Other Agents consciously receive instructions from the Avatar and knowingly and voluntarily carry out these instructions.

1956? Be p15

Abdals are those who change their forms, but appear at one place at a time. Abdals are either male or female in form. Very rarely you find an Abdal in a woman's form. If an Abdal does appear in a woman's form, she does not change to a male form, but always appears as a woman, changing from one female to another depending upon what duty the Qutub assigns to her. She may appear as an old woman, a young woman, a smiling woman, a miserable woman. An Abdal does important work, but mostly in the male form. If a male, he does not appear in a female form. The Avtad is always of a male form, and does odd jobs for the Perfect Master.

1965, Guruprasad, Poona, HM p461
Also see Book Two: Agents

Agents Book Two

Index - Book One