Gems from Meher Baba

“The Avatar awakens contemporary humanity to a realization of its true spiritual nature, gives liberation to those who are ready, and quickens the life of the spirit in his time.”

"The Avatar appears in different forms, under different names, at different times, in different parts of the world. As his appearance always coincides with the spiritual birth of man, so the period immediately preceding his manifestation is always one in which humanity suffers from the pain of the approaching birth. Man seems more than ever enslaved by desire, more than ever driven by greed, held by fear, swept by anger. The strong dominate the weak; the rich oppress the poor. Large masses of people are exploited for the benefit of the few who are in power. The individual who finds no peace or rest, seeks to forget himself in excitement. Immorality increases, crime flourishes, religion is ridiculed. Corruption spreads throughout the social order. Class and national hatreds are aroused and fostered. Wars break out. Humanity grows desperate. There seems to be no possibility of stemming the tide of destruction.
 

"At this moment the Avatar appears. Being the total manifestation of God in human form, he is like a gauge against which man can measure what he is and what he may become. He trues the standard of humanity by interpreting them in terms of divinely human life.

"He is interested in everything, but not concerned about anything. The slightest mishap may command his sympathy; the greatest tragedy will not upset him. He is beyond the alterations of pain and pleasure, desire and satisfaction, rest and struggle, life and death. To him, they are equally illusions which he has transcended, but by which others are bound, and from which he has come to free them. He uses every
circumstance as a means to lead others towards Realization." 

"The greatest romance possible in life is to discover this Eternal Reality in the midst of infinite change. Once one has experienced this, one sees oneself in everything that lives, one recognizes all of life as his life, everybody's interests as his own. The fear of death, the desire for self-preservation, the urge to accumulate substance, the conflict of interests, the anger of thwarted desires, are gone. One is no longer bound by the habits of the past, no longer swayed by the hopes of the future. One lives in and enjoys each present moment to the full. There is no greater romance in life than this adventure in Realization."

"To lead men and women to the heights of Realization, we must help them to overcome fear and greed, anger and passion. These are the result of looking upon the self as a limited, separate, physical entity, having a definite physical beginning and definite physical end, with interests apart from the rest of life, and needing preservation and protection. The self in fact is a limitless, indivisible, spiritual essence, eternal in its nature and infinite in its resources."

"When man realizes this state of Divine Consciousness, he finds himself in everyone and sees all phenomena as forms of his own Real Self. The best and also the easiest process of overcoming the ego and attaining the Divine Consciousness is to develop love and render selfless service to humanity in whatever circumstances we are placed."

"Consciously or unconsciously, every living creature seeks one thing. In the lower forms of life and in less advanced human beings, the quest is unconscious; in advanced human beings, it is conscious. The object of the quest is called by many names—happiness, peace, freedom, truth, love, perfection, Self-realization, Godrealization, union with God. Essentially it is a search for all of these, but in a special way. Everyone has moments of happiness, glimpses of truth, fleeting experiences of union with God; what they want is to make them permanent. They want to establish an abiding reality in the midst of constant change.

"It is a natural desire, based fundamentally on a memory, dim or clear as the individual's evolution may be low or high, of his essential unity with God; for every living thing is a partial manifestation of God, conditioned only by its lack of knowledge of its own true nature. The whole of evolution, in fact, is an evolution from unconscious divinity to conscious divinity, in which God Himself, essentially eternal and unchangeable, assumes an infinite variety of forms, enjoys an infinite variety of experiences and
transcends an infinite variety of self-imposed limitations."

“In the long run each one of us is searching for a deep inner sense of satisfaction and peace, a feeling of being contained in some presence which is trustworthy and loving, for a spontaneous understanding and response to our innermost needs. Above all we need to be ourselves and to be accepted completely for ourselves.” 

Love has to spring spontaneously from within; it is in no way amenable to any form of inner or outer force. Love and coercion can never go together; but while love cannot be forced upon anyone, it can be awakened through love itself. Love is essentially self-communicative; those who do not have it catch it from those who have it. Those who receive love from others cannot be its recipients without giving a response that, in itself, is the nature of love. True love is unconquerable and irresistible. It goes on gathering power and spreading itself until eventually it transforms everyone it touches. Humanity will attain a new mode of being and life through the free and unhampered interplay of pure love from heart to heart.