"I belong to no religion..." - Avatar Meher Baba

Your Friday photo is in honor of this season when much of the world celebrates the birth of Jesus…

Avatar Meher Baba said God incarnates in human form every 500 to 1400 years. Each incarnation is referred to as an Avatar. Past incarnations include Meher Baba, Muhammad, Jesus, Buddha, Krishna, Rama, and Zoroaster.

“The Avatar is always One and the Same, because God is always One and the Same, the Eternal, Indivisible, Infinite One…the Highest of the High,” Meher Baba explained.

“This Eternally One and the Same Avatar repeats His manifestation from time to time, in different cycles, adopting different human forms and different names, in different places, to reveal Truth in different garbs and different languages…” [1]

“I belong to no religion. Every religion belongs to Me. My personal religion is My being the Ancient Infinite One, and the religion I impart to all is Love for God, which is the truth of all religions.

This Love can belong to all, high and low, rich and poor. Every one of every caste and creed can love God. The one and only God who resides equally in us all is approachable by each one of through love.

Religion, like worship, must be from the heart. If instead of creating churches, fire-temples, mandirs and mosques, people were to establish the House of God in their hearts for the Beloved God to dwell supreme, my work will have been done.

If, instead of mechanically performing ceremonies and rituals as age-old customs, people were to serve their fellow-beings with the selflessness of love, taking God to be equally residing in one and all and knowing that by serving others they are serving me, my work will have fulfilled. ”

— Avatar Meher Baba [2]

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Sources

[1] The Silent Master, Meher Baba, pg. 45, (c) Irwin Luck, 1967. Quotations from Meher Baba with permission of the Avatar Meher Baba Perpetual Charitable Trust, Ahmednagar, India.
[2] The Message of Meher Baba, “Truth of Religion,” Meher Baba Publications, pg. 5. (c)Avatar Meher Baba Perpetual Public Charitable Trust, Ahmednagar, India.
[3] Photo: Avatar Meher Baba. (c)Meher Nazar Publications, Ahmednagar, India.

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"The inaudible sound is from heart to heart..."

Your Friday photo is in honor of Silence Day, July 10th.

Silence Day is when followers of Avatar Meher Baba keep silence for 24 hours.

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“Those who have been in his presence know that Baba communicates through his silence. What proceeds from him is beyond words, does not need words, could not be contained in them. The inaudible sound is from heart to heart; silence that penetrates mind and heart.”

— C.B. Purdom, Author of The God-Man

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Avatar Meher Baba began His silence on July 10, 1925. He said that His silence was not undertaken as a spiritual exercise, but solely in connection with His universal work.

After Meher Baba started His silence, He communicated by writing on a slate board.  After that, He pointed to letters on an alphabet board to spell out words. Later, He used a series of hand gestures that were interpreted by His close disciples.

He kept silence for 44 years until He dropped His body on January 31, 1969.

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Photo

Avatar Meher Baba, Bangalore, India, sometime between October 1939 to April 1940. Photographed by Bhaiya Panday. MSI Collection. Used with permission.

Quote

C.B. Purdom, The God-Man: The Life, Journey and Work of Meher Baba with an Interpretation of his Silence and Spiritual Teaching, Second Edition, second printing with corrections (2010), Avatar Meher Baba Trust eBook, June 2011, pg. 410. ©1964 C.B. Purdom, ©Meher Spiritual Center, Inc.

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