Meher Baba’s Suffering and His Silence
The silence that Meher Baba observed was at the heart of his Universal Work and caused him much suffering. Mehera used to recall how much Baba had loved to talk, joke, and sing prior to taking silence on July 25, 1925, and she remembered hearing his beautiful voice. In a number of the quotes here, Baba states that his suffering will come to an end when he breaks his silence.
I have suffered much and will have to suffer much more till I break My Silence.
—Source: “Baba Pearls,” The Awakener Magazine, vol. 10, no. 1 (1964), p. 19. http://www.theawakenermagazine.org
“Only Jesus Christ knew what Baba knows — how to suffer.”
“No one is more eager than I to break My Silence. As soon as I break My Silence everything will go easily.”
—Source: The Awakener Magazine, vol. 9 (East-West Gathering), nos. 1-2 (1963), p. 9. http://www.theawakenermagazine.org
All religions of the world proclaim that there is but one God, the Father of all in creation.
I am that Father.
I have come to remind all people that they should live on earth as the children of the One Father until My Grace awakens them to the realization that they are all one without a second, and that all divisions and conflict and hatred are but a shadow-play of their own ignorance.
Although all are My children, they ignore the simplicity and beauty of this Truth by indulging in hatreds, conflicts and wars that divide them in enmity, instead of living as one family in their Father’s house. Even amongst you who love Me and accept Me for what I am, there is sometimes lack of understanding of one another’s hearts.
Patiently have I suffered these things in silence for all My children.
—Source: The Awakener Magazine, vol. 9 (East-West Gathering), nos. 1-2 (1963), p. 34. http://www.theawakenermagazine.org
Baba said that now Francis [Brabazon] was with Him, he knew how much Baba suffered. Baba continued, “And the end of all suffering would be the giving of the Word; that would be the release for Me!”
—Source: The Awakener Magazine, vol. 9 (East-West Gathering), nos. 1-2 (1963), pp. 36-38. http://www.theawakenermagazine.org
Baba asked Dr. Deshmukh to recite some Sanskrit verses. After he had finished reciting them, Baba explained: “I have left the Paratpar State (Beyond-the-Beyond State) and come down to your level. In that Paratpar State there is no binding; there is absolute freedom, absolute existence. What a sublime state it is! One in a billion has such an experience of the Beyond State. From that state I have come down and I feel bound in you.
“This suffering is terrible. In me, I am free. When I break my Silence, a great push will be given to humanity. Even stones shall start dancing. After that I shall be in Bliss for 700 years.”
—Source: H. P. Bharucha, “Guruprasad Glimpses, 1963,” inThe Awakener Magazine, vol. 9, no. 3 (1963), p. 26. http://www.theawakenermagazine.org
Again and again, God takes human form to suffer for His creation. I am that One. Like you, I also have a body and mind and so I feel hunger and thirst, etc. But I also have the Universal Body and the Universal Mind, and therefore your individual suffering is nothing compared to My eternal, universal suffering! I have Infinite Knowledge. I do not have to use My Mind in order to know — I just know. I use My Infinite Knowledge. But although I have Infinite Bliss and Infinite Power, I do not make use of them. If I were to make use of the Bliss that is at My beck and call, how could My suffering be “suffering”! And of what benefit would it be to mankind? I also do not use My Infinite Power. If I were to use it, how would I remain helpless? I remain infinitely helpless because while having Infinite Power at My command, I do not use it! I shall use it only when I break My Silence to give a Universal Spiritual Awakening. And when I drop this body I shall use My Bliss for 700 years till My next Advent.
—Source: The Awakener Magazine, vol. 9, no. 4 (1964), pp. 15-16. http://www.theawakenermagazine.org.
Pp. 156-158 in 82 Family Letters covers this same quote. Extra material there may not be in this account.
Turning to one lover, Baba asked, “Do you actually know that I am God?” He replied, “No, Baba.” Baba said, “When I break My silence, My suffering will come to an end and the world will know and feel that I am God. My suffering is physical, mental and spiritual. The breaking of My silence will mark the beginning of My glorification. My work will then have been done. I shall live for one year after breaking My silence and then I shall drop this body.”
—Source: H. P. Bharucha, “Six Days in Paradise” (1st to 6th May 1965, Poona, India), in The Awakener, vol. 11, no. 1 (1966), pp. 26-27. http://www.theawakenermagazine.org
One lover asked Baba, “How is the pain in your neck?” Baba replied, “Infinite. It is both physical and universal. When I break My silence, it will vanish.” A lover said to Baba, “When will You break Your silence?” Baba said, “I am also eager to break My silence and then I shall be free and the world shall also be free of oppression. My observing silence for so many years is not for nothing. When I break My silence the impact will be universal. No one knows how I am suffering. My suffering is not only physical but also mental and spiritual. There is a great difference between your mental and spiritual suffering and mine. My mental suffering is very intense and is because of the pseudo saints that abound in the world today. My spiritual suffering is because I know I am free in myself but bound in you.”
—Source: The Awakener Magazine, vol. 11, no. 1, pp. 30-31. http://www.theawakenermagazine.org
Kity Davy wrote: Baba seemed a little restless at Lugano. The weather was cold and wet and it was suggested to him that we leave two days earlier, going on to Paris, or returning to spend two days in the mountains. Baba eventually decided on Paris. The next morning came the news that the French President had been shot. Baba called all in and spoke for some time in Hindustani to the boys and after this, to us in English. His agents, he said, were working quickly and he would have to arrange one of two things. Either there would be a world war or he could take on the suffering himself and avoid such a catastrophe, and then there would only be minor troubles among the nations. He would let us know the next day. Some felt upset to think of their beloved Baba having to suffer for the world in this manner. Some wept on the spot; others were drawn to ask that they might share in this suffering, to which Baba replied we all would do this if we were working for him.
He had already told us that he would be very ill for two weeks before speaking; they arranged for July 1932 in the U.S.A., and this was to mean more suffering. Suffering physically seems to be a preliminary with Baba before some special mission. His figure changes; his stomach extends. This I have witnessed on two different occasions. After the work is done, the figure takes on its normal proportions.
—Source: Kitty Davy, “Baba’s First World Tour, 1932,“ in The Awakener Magazine, vol. 12, no. 1 (1967), p. 23. http://www.theawakenermagazine.org
Baba today told his group of disciples that whether the long-awaited end of material bondage and the beginning of spiritual freedom which he has of late repeatedly emphasized as drawing near comes by the end of this April or at some other time, there are four events which must come to pass before he finally drops his body; four incidents which must occur as preordained by God. “It is an absolute certainty,” he explained, “that before leaving my body I will have to face universal humiliation, apparent universal defeat and violent death, culminating in Universal Divine Glory. By ‘violent death’ I mean that I will suffer great physical violence preceding the glorious victory of Divine Truth, and this violence endured by my body will ultimately be the cause of my physical death. The manifestation of the Divine Truth will go hand in hand with the breaking of my silence. . . .
From “Baba’s Declaration,” March 21, 1953
—Source: The Life Circulars of Avatar Meher Baba, p. 22
My Silence must break. There is no escape for it.
I shall not lay down My body until I have given the WORD to the world.
Of My own I shall not break My Silence; Universal Crisis will make Me do so. When the Crisis will reach its absolute culmination, it will make Me utter the WORD at the moment.
. . . As I am the PIVOT of the Universe, the full pressure of the universal upheaval will bear on Me, and correspondingly My suffering will be so infinitely overwhelming that the WORD will escape from out of the Silence.
—Source: The Life Circulars of Avatar Meher Baba, p. 102
. . . Baba says that the strain of His seclusion has told upon His health very badly. He also says that wherever He will be, His strict seclusion will continue till He breaks His Silence. [1961]
—Source: The Life Circulars of Avatar Meher Baba, p. 110
Avatar Meher Baba directs me to let all His lovers (Easterners) know that He will give Darshan in Poona for only 6 days from 1st May to 6th May, 1965, despite His very weak health.
Baba says that His Universal Work has increased many fold and His Universal Suffering has also increased proportionately, and this is now telling greatly upon His physical health. But Baba also says, “This body will not drop till one year after I break My Silence. What could be more glorious than My suffering for all humanity!”
Besides the continuous pain in His hip-joint and His inability to walk freely, He has had since the last many months, pain in the cervical spine, i.e., in the nape of the neck and extending down to the shoulders. Of late the pain has become intense.
The point of view of the doctors who have been attending Baba recently, is that He should NOT give Darshan at all in May. Notwithstanding their opinion, Baba wants to give His Darshan to His lovers. And so the doctors have urged Baba to at least restrict the days and hours of Darshan, and not to allow His lovers to approach Him too closely in order to avoid any jerky movement to His neck caused inadvertently.
ALL THOSE ATTENDING THE DARSHAN PROGRAMME SHOULD CAREFULLY NOTE AND ABIDE BY THE WISHES OF BABA, AS UNDER:
. . . (9) Baba wishes His lovers, when they approach Him, to receive in silence the Love which He will give them through His Silence.
—Source: The Life Circulars of Avatar Meher Baba, pp. 129-131
You must have received by now the recent Circular of Baba’s statement given on August 13 [1959], which gives us, if not a glimpse, a glimmer of the work He has set Himself to do by October end and the odds that He has set up to work it through….
For us this Circular was hardly unexpected, as in Poona (on 7th Aug. [1959]) Baba told the disciples gathered at Guruprasad, that August, September and October [1959] are to be the most crucial months when He will be burdened infinitely with His universal work; that due to pressure of this work He will be most tired physically and mentally; and that this will be the period He has often spoken of, the period of His helplessness and humiliation – and if by October [1959] His physical body remains intact, there will follow the breaking of His silence and His glorification.
—Source: Mani S. Irani, 82 Family Letters, p. 56
“Baba’s Seclusion” — one lap of it is over, another begins. The 1960 lap began on 1st July and, as far as it concerns our limited perception, seemed to flow in a routine of unusual serenity . . .
And so the months wove on in a familiar “seclusion pattern” when — on 5th October [1960] — the atmosphere changed . . .
Not only was Baba’s health affected, He had severe pain. I, with those who witnessed the weeks of suffering Baba underwent, witnessed Baba’s own words in a discourse, “You are Bliss itself. To make you aware of it, I come amongst you and suffer infinite agony.” And more than once Baba told us, “The pain is bad, but the extent of my work being done is good!” . . .
The change was in more ways than one, in that it was also what might be called an ‘interlude’ before His beginning the second lap of Seclusion which seems more secluded than ever in His withdrawing from all outward activity. To give you some idea of this second phase I couldn’t do better than quote from Eruch’s wonderful letter to a Baba-lover in India, dated 21st December [1960]:
“ . . . Beloved Baba has wished me to make quite clear to whomsoever I write, that henceforth He will not pay any attention to any correspondence, will not see anyone whom He does not call on His own. And, even if He were to go to Poona or elsewhere in 1961, He will continue to remain in Seclusion till such time that His Silence is broken. . . .”
—Source: Mani S. Irani, 82 Family Letters, pp. 88-90
Baba has announced that this summer’s [1963] stay of three months at Guruprasad will be dotted with musical programs fixed for every Sunday afternoon from 3 to 6 o’clock . . .
This, Baba told us, will give Him some much-needed relaxation after the intense inner work He has been doing in Meherazad since the last three months — working with Kaikobad and often by Himself in the seclusion of His room, and which work He will carry on with doubled intensity on returning to Meherazad. When we plead with Him not to thus tax His health, He says He cannot afford to be kind to Himself — there is not much time left and He wants to break His Silence by the end of this year. He added “When I break my Silence my Presence will flood the world, and even an inanimate thing like a stone will feel my Love”!
—Source: Mani S. Irani, 82 Family Letters, pp. 156-158
We who are with Baba, are understandably not excited when the Beloved pinpoints a time when He says He will break His silence. Those concerned most with Him, are somehow least concerned about when He will break it. But at this time, Baba has so often been saying that it will be in nine months’ time that I feel I must record it here. Baba has compared the nine months before His silence ends, to the gestation period when the child is carried in the mother’s womb. Baba said, “Wherever we turn we find depression, confusion, conflict. It is nothing but a sign of my soon breaking silence and releasing a fresh dispensation of Truth. After I return to Meherazad, there will be an increase in pain and suffering, mental torture and chaos, the world over. It will be a reflection of the suffering I will undergo during the nine months, reaching its height at the time of ‘delivery’ (the breaking of my Silence). Then will come the Birth, when both “mother and baby” will get relief.”
—Source: Mani S. Irani, letter of 12 June 1963, in 82 Family Letters, pp. 164-165
I have suffered much and will have to suffer much more till I break my silence.
—Source: from Meher Baba’s message on His 70th birthday (1964), in Mani S. Irani, 82 Family Letters, p. 183
. . . [Baba said] to Dr. Harry Kenmore at Guruprasad last summer [1964]: “I carry the universal burden, and I suffer physically, mentally and spiritually. My physical suffering is seen by those around me. My mental suffering is intense, infinite. As for my spiritual suffering, it is ad infinitum. When I break my silence, it will be the end of suffering.”
—Source: Mani S. Irani, 82 Family Letters, p. 217
Baba tells us He has come to release the flood of Truth; that it will be released when He breaks His Silence. We can imagine His Silence as the Dam that is holding in this full and absolute flood, this stupendous conservation of Truth force, that must not be released before the time of His giving is right, which will be when the season of our receiving is ripe. And as the moment draws near and the growing decades of time that the Dam of His Silence has endured press on it with increasing urgency, we see the strain telling upon His physical health. We recall His telling us at different times and in different words how difficult it is NOT to reveal Himself; and we realize to what perfection He wears the guise of imperfection, that we might one day be perfect in Him.
—Source: Mani S. Irani, 82 Family Letters, p. 263
[M]y mental and spiritual suffering will end only when I break my silence.
—Source: Quoted in Mani S. Irani, 82 Family Letters, p. 278
On the 13th October [1968] some local workers and a few from other places were called to Meherazad to hear this new circular (Life Circular no. 70) informing Avatar Meher Baba’s lovers all over the world of His decision to give them His darshan next year from 10th April to 10th June [1969] in Poona.
Baba said: “No doubt you people and my lovers everywhere have been wondering why, when my period of intense Work in seclusion has finished, I have still not allowed my lovers to see me.
“The strain of that 18 months’ Work was tremendous. . . . The strain was not in the work itself although I was working on all planes of consciousness, but in keeping my link with the gross plane. To keep this link I had to continuously hammer my right thigh with my fist. Now, although my health is good, and I would like to fulfill immediately the longing of my lovers to come to me — many to see me for the first time — it will yet take some time for all traces of the strain to disappear and for me to be 100% fit to see them all. . . .
“This is the time for my lovers. The time for the world’s crowds to come to me will be when I break my Silence and Manifest my Divinity.”
—Source: Mani S. Irani, 82 Family Letters, p. 328
Beloved Avatar Meher Baba wishes all His lovers to know that His three years of intense work has shattered His health.
In spite of this He has invited His lovers from all over the world to come to Him for His darshan next summer [1969], for it is the time for them to come to Him and receive His Love.
It is the time; and the place, Guruprasad, Poona has been fixed.
But with the present condition of His health, how beloved Baba will give His darshan to the thousands who will come, yet remains to be determined; but it will be. He will give His darshan.
This darshan, Baba says, will be the last given in Silence — the last before He speaks His world-renewing Word of words.
—Source: Mani S. Irani, 82 Family Letters, p. 335
. . . A day before dropping the body, even while the movement of His fingers brought on a renewed spasm, Baba told us, “All this, all that I have been through all along, has been a preparation for the Word — for just the One Word!” And with a quizzical smile He added “Just imagine!”
—Source: Mani S. Irani, 82 Family Letters, p. 346
My manifestation as the Avatar of the time will be of short duration. This short period will, in quick succession, cover my humiliation, the breaking of my silence, my glorification and my violent physical end. Everlastingly with all the divine bliss within me, I eternally suffer for one and all — thus I am crucified eternally and continually for all.
During this short period, my Word of words will touch the hearts of all mankind, and spontaneously this divine touch will instil in man the feeling of the oneness of all fellow beings.
—Source: Quoted in C. B. Purdom, The God-Man (1964), p. 275
. . . I declared in Meherabad [in the Final Declaration] that there will be the destruction of three-fourths of the world, that a strange disease will attack my body, that I shall suffer humiliation, that I shall break my silence and speak one Word, the Word of words, that there will be my glorification, and that finally I shall drop my body when I shall be stabbed in the back. . . .
—Source: Quoted in C. B. Purdom, The God-Man (1964), p. 278
We would often question Meher Baba about His long silence, asking Him when He intended to break it and one day in 1954 in answer, He just dropped His alphabet board and said, “From now on I will not use the board.” We thought this was a hint that He might be about to break His silence but the days passed without incident except that He then started to communicate by using finger gestures. All He would say, referring to His silence, was, “What a binding it is” . . .
—Source: Eruch Jessawala, The Ancient One (ed. Naosherwan Anzar), p. 101
I am fed up with this board and my silence, and I must break my silence soon.
—Source: The Awakener Magazine, vol. 5, no. 4 (Fall 1958), p. 37. http://www.theawakenermagazine.org
My outward silence is no spiritual exercise. It has been undertaken and maintained for the good of others. I bind myself with silence, that when I break it mankind will realize what real freedom is.
—Source: The Awakener Magazine, vol. 12, no. 2 (1968), p. 13. http://www.theawakenermagazine.org
With reference to His silence, [Baba] gestured, “Do you know how fed up I am with this silence? I long for the moment when I shall break it, and give the Word to the world. You all put your grievances to me but who will hear mine? You say, ‘Baba, you have anubhav — experience of the Infinite trio-nature of God’* — but then my grievances and complaints are also Infinite!”
—Source: Bal Natu, Glimpses of the God-Man, vol. 3, p. 124.
* The triune nature of God in Hinduism is Sachchidananda—infinite existence, infinite consciousness, and infinite bliss
Charles Purdom wrote: [In 1962] Baba repeated the statement that he had to prepare himself “for the urge to break my silence. It will take about a year.” He went on to say that “next year” means “next year,” and that for the first time he took the responsibility for his promise. “I cannot bear to keep the word within.”
—Source: C. B. Purdom, The God-Man (1964), p. 3692.