DISCOURSES & TALKS BY MEHER BABA

SWAMI  VIVEKANANDA  WRITINGS

14th October, 1922

Baba then told Ghani to bring a particular passage from Swami Vivekananda's writings, which Ghani read:

The only true teacher is he who can convert himself, as it were, into a thousand persons at a moment's notice. The only true teacher is he who can immediately come down to the level of the student — transfer his soul to the student's soul, see through the student's eyes, hear through his ears, and understand through his mind.

Only such a teacher can really teach and none else. All these negative, breaking-down, destructive teachers that are in the world can never do any good.

Baba elaborated upon Vivekananda's words:

Suppose a teacher holding an M.A. [Master of Arts] degree teaches children the alphabet. Necessarily, he has to come down to the level of his students and read, write and repeat the ABCs along with them. Only then will he be able to teach and impart his knowledge to them and gradually bring them up to his own level. If he does not bring himself down from the great heights he has attained, his labors on the students would be wasted. Similarly, a Perfect Master brings himself down to the level of ordinary mankind and, in the course of time, imparts his Knowledge to his fellow man.

Take the case of the Prophet Muhammad himself: When his enemies proved unrelenting and his life was in danger, he actually fled from Mecca and took refuge in Medina. The greatest Spiritual Master of the time behaved like an ordinary man when confronted with such a crisis.

This is the reason why it is only the Sadguru who can make others like himself. It is impossible for majzoobs and masts to do this, as they are so drowned in their divine bliss that they are even unconscious of their bodies. When their state is like this — oblivious to the universe — how can they realize others?

Lord Meher On-line page 353-4

Lord Meher Vol.2 p.441