The Mighty Beloved
By Francis Brabazon
The Great Darshan, Poona, 1969
I am amazed and filled with joy to discover that the Beloved I have been serving for many years is truly a mighty Beloved.
Of course, I have known all along that he was God. But there are so many Gods. There is the God which people see in a shape of illusion such as a sunset or a mountain view or a symphony, or whose hand is seen in one’s not getting caught in a rainstorm or obtaining a good job: no doubt a very comfortable and profitable God to have—well worth a Christian candle or some Hindu incense—but not a God to whom one would offer one’s life. There is the God who rules the shining planes of consciousness: but sight of him would blind one. And the God who is beyond the planes is unknowable except by his own Grace. And he is extremely careful to whom he gives that Grace.
So when Beloved Baba used to tell us that he was God, I used to think, “Yes, Baba you are God alright—the One God and all the Gods—but what good is that to me?” In fact I used to get so fed-up with him being God that I wished he wasn’t. Or I wished he was a sort of Old-Testament God for whom I could slaughter some fat lambs or a spotless young bull in return for some added acreage. I got so tired of his being so much God that I wrote a song about it and sang it to him. It goes something like, “If only you were a bit less God, a bit more Man, I wouldn’t feel so much like someone upside down in a garbage can.”
But Baba wasn’t going to become more Man just for my sake, so I had to settle for him as the divine Beloved—one whom I could serve sometimes, instead of thinking about myself all the time. After all, although he is God, and sometimes is a Man, being one’s own and the world’s Beloved is his main job. Others can become as much God or as much Man as he, but only Baba is more beloved than any other beloved. And is infinitely worth serving.
But now a great problem arises. How to serve the One who is All-beloved, for whatever one does with love is done by him. And all that is done for the Beloved is done by the Beloved. And so one arrives at the painful conclusion that the Beloved alone exists—which means that oneself doesn’t. And that’s a terrible predicament to find oneself in—for one is still there!
(to be continued)
-http://www.avatarsabode.com.au/1969/index.htm
Photo source – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Francis_Brabazon,_Bill_Le_Page_Meher_Baba.jpg
