DISCOURSES & TALKS BY MEHER BABA

 

REALIZATION OF A PERFECT MASTER'S CIRCLE

 

 

 

 Late November, 1927

 

One evening in late November, Baba gave this discourse to the mandali and students regarding Realization of the members of a Perfect Master's circle:

 

A Perfect Master forms a circle of twelve men and two women who have the necessary minimum amount of spiritual sanskaras to their credit. And at the same time their respective positions are also allotted in conformity with their spiritual sanskaras, with one of them [the chargeman] becoming a Master himself at the appointed time. Once the circle is formed, the real striving of the individual souls is put to a stop. No new material sanskaras are contracted thereafter.

 

For a few centuries, through a few lives, the balance of material sanskaras is spent while the spiritual sanskaras remain intact. This is called prarabdha [divine destiny]. During these three or four lives, the progress in spending away the prarabdha is gone through as a group by the whole circle. However, it is without their knowledge of having been collected in a joint and common bond, since their very formation is made without their being aware of it. Their unconsciousness of their great spiritual progress remains until the end. Even the circle's formation and working are carried on automatically until the chargeman's Realization.

 

In spite of colossal preparation, Gautama the Buddha was perfectly unaware of his condition during the spending of the last prarabdha in his early years when he led the life of a royal prince [in Nepal]. But when the moment arrived, Gautama discarded all the regal tinsel and worldly grandeur about him and soon attained his Realization and became Buddha. 

 

When, after God-realization, the Master returns to the gross plane, he finds his companions still entangled in their respective prarabdha spending. It is then that his great work begins. In a secret manner, the Master arranges affairs and undergoes various sufferings and strivings so that the different prarabdhas are spent. Once their sanskaras are spent, all the members of his circle attain God-realization at one and the same moment, though their prarabdhas widely differ in quantity and quality. This phase of a Master's working is the greatest and the most difficult, in comparison to which even the giving of a huge push to the whole universe toward Truth is effortless.

 

Besides his spiritual work, the physical hardships he has to undergo in connection with finishing the prarabdha of the circle are no less strenuous. He personally undergoes such physical actions necessary in bringing about a joint and clear balance sheet of material sanskaras of the circle. Hence, although he is a Perfect Being [free] and requires no binding or actions, he seemingly has karma and does karmic acts, but they are deeds without binding.

 

He may observe fasts, penances or silence, according to the respective necessities of the individual prarabdhas of the circle.

 

During this period of the Perfect Master's preparation of his circle members, those who are in the circle remain perfectly in the dark about their divine advancements until the very end when the light is suddenly switched on. In the twinkling of an eye, the indescribable, unimaginable and unthinkable internal change takes place with a seemingly insignificant external gesture from the Master — perhaps by a word or deed. Exactly how the Master manages to dispose of the differing individual prarabdhas collectively cannot be divulged, since those who are not in the circle, but think themselves to be so, would be misled into committing such actions as would make them suffer terribly.

 

This much is certain: Those who are in the circle do not acquire new material sanskaras whatever they do, even if they commit the worst actions, for which the Master has to suffer. The connections are so formed that all the new material sanskaras of the connected ones automatically pass to the Master, who does away with them. Hence, even if those of the connected ones commit the worst possible crimes, there would be no change regarding their divine upliftment at the right moment.

 

But the real beauty lies in obeying and following the Perfect Master to the letter in spite of knowing oneself to be in his circle, as it considerably helps him in the great task which he does for all the circle members' sake. The Master's orders and instructions should be held as the very gospel and law even in matters of everyday life — to eat with a will when he orders or remain without food to the last. In fact, to exercise a complete submission to his super-will should be the only goal one should have. It saves a great disappointment after the Experience, when the greatest services done for the Master fade into insignificance at the gigantic favor he has done for the one concerned.

 

 

 

Lord Meher On-line page 864-5

Lord Meher Vol.3 page 985-7