Politics

POLITICS

Book Two

"Politics, social welfare, economics, et cetera, are but different facets of the same one substance - spirituality - because each of these are included in the Knowledge of the One. Spirituality includes everything - politics, economics, ethics, social welfare, civics, and all other kinds of service. Just as the rays of the sun are not different from the sun, so also, each of these divisions is but a different branch of the Same Eternal One.

"Thus indirectly, from the point of spirituality, I always play my part in all these things, and I say so, and I always make others do so. The difference is only this: that whereas the ignorant one experiences Maya, and wants 'this and that' in Maya, the Dnyani (one who has realized God) views even Maya as an expression of God and experiences it as such."

Meher Baba, 1 November 1932,
in a letter to Mahatma Gandhi,
translated from Gujerati,
LM5 p1735-1736

"... He gave the following explicit instructions to all his disciples: '1. They should be above party politics and should bear malice and ill-will towards none...'"

Naosherwan Anzar, "The Beloved" p54, c. 1940

"Although I am in everyone and in everything, and my work is for the spiritual awakening of all mankind, I am always aloof from politics of any kind. My disciples and devotees should continue as before to abstain from taking part in political activities or discussion."

Meher Baba, circular letter,
1 January 1949
"Practical Spirituality with Meher Baba"
by John Grant, p 3

"The Fiery Free Life which, as God ordained, has commenced from November 15th [1952], makes me plunge into my Divine Mission of bringing the Life in the Truth to everyone, without allowing it to be limited or colored by the illusions of duality. As the Divine Life embraces in its Being one and all, including even the members of the animal and vegetable kingdoms, and since from the moment of the attainment of Manonash (annihilation of the limited, finite mind), I have attained complete unity with that immeasurable and illimitable Divine Life, I cannot and will not identify myself with any caste, creed, religion or political party.

From my point of view, all religions are great; but God is greater. In the same way, all political parties are, in their own way, noble, at least in their consciously accepted objectives. But the claims of the Undivided and Indivisible Life are irresistibly supreme, and, as such, greater than those of any party, howsoever noble. Therefore, I love and adore all religions; but I am of no religion. Nor do I seek to establish another religion or add to the numberless illusions that divide man against man. No religion was ever intended to be anything more than the gateway to God as Truth; but every religion, in the course of time, has been converted into a veil, obstructing the undimmed perception of the One Truth.

As soon as the Truth of direct inner Realization is intellectualized and formulated, it gets enmeshed in creeds and dogmas. These creeds and dogmas have a tendency to bind the soul in the very attempt to emancipate it. They cover the Truth in the very act of seeking to express it. This comic tragedy reveals itself in the retrospective analysis of all the world religions bestowed on man. But it is not inevitable, if man is invariably vigilant and remains unwaveringly loyal to the inner perception of the inexpressible but unchangeable spiritual Truth, which ever affirms itself as the One, All-Embracing Life Divine, at once indivisible and illimitable."

Meher Baba, message entitled "Religion and Politics"
November? 1952, LM 11-12 p3980

Index - Book Two