The Word of Words
God in the Beyond-Beyond state is likened to a soundless, shoreless Ocean.
The “Whim” of God for knowledge of Himself (“Who am I?”) manifested as Sound.
This Oceanic Sound is of God and is God and contains, and is, His experience of Power, Knowledge, Bliss.
The emergence of this Sound through what is called the “Om-Point” or Its Creative Utterance produced the worlds of Mind, Energy and Matter.
This Primal Oceanic Sound is the Root of all forms and creatures and men and they are continuously connected with It and derive their life from It.
When one closes one’s lips and expresses sound a “m-m-m” is produced.
This “m-m-m” is the foundation or ground of all spoken words and contains all feelings as when it expresses pain and anguish or joy and happiness, or all thought when expressed during thought and is capable of containing the whole of a question and its answer.
This “m-m-m” is a “drop” of faint sound of the Oceanic Sound, the “M-m-m” or “Word” of God separated from the Ocean by seven shadows of separation.
If the whole physical universe was a huge bell, the sound of it in comparison with Sound of the Oceanic Sound would be as the furthermost point of audibility of an ordinary bell.
This sound-drop is not different from the Oceanic Sound — it is that Ocean and can never be anything but Ocean — but it experiences itself as a drop because of separation.
This separation is not a separation by division, but a separation through impression.
(As words are expressions of this drop-”m-m-m” separated from the Oceanic “M-m-m,” so are sense actions expressions and experiences removed from Oceanic Experience: seeing and seen from Oceanic Sight, hearing and heard from Oceanic Hearing, smelling and scent, tasting and flavour, touching and touch from corresponding Oceanic Faculties.)
This Original Oceanic “M-m-m” is called Brahm-Nad (Sound or “Word” of God) or Unhud-Nad (Limitless Sound or “Word”).
It is continuous and is the eternal Root and continuous Cause of all causes and effects.
It experiences All-power, All-knowledge and All-bliss; but the drop-”m-m-m,” although of the same “substance” and not in any way different from the Oceanic-”M-m-m,” and although continuously connected with it, feels, because of its separation through seven shadows of separation, most weak, most ignorant and most unhappy — even though at times it asserts strength, knowledge and happiness.
In this present age when words, through accumulation and accretion, have become meaningless and all My previous words in the form of Precepts are neglected and distorted, I maintain Silence.
When I break My silence and speak, it will be this Primal Oceanic “M-m-m” which I will utter through My human mouth.
And because all forms and words are from this Primal Sound or Original Word and are continuously connected with It and have their life from It, when It is uttered by Me It will reverberate in all people and creatures and all will know that I have broken My silence and have uttered that Sound or Word.
The effective force of this Word in individuals and their reaction to It will be in accordance with the magnitude and receptivity of each individual mind.
And the reaction will be as instantaneous and as various as the reaction of people in a room through which a cobra suddenly and swiftly passes, when some would nervously laugh, some lose control of their bowels and some feel great courage or reasonless hope and joy.
—Source: In Francis Brabazon, Stay with God, pp. 65–66
When I say that my Manifestation is connected with the breaking of my Silence, people should not expect an outpouring of verbosity. I will utter the Word of Words that will irresistibly impart to those who are ready, the “I-am-God” (Ana’l Haq or Aham Brahma Asmi) state. When you try to speak with your mouth completely closed, a particular sound resembling “Om” is without exception uttered in a certain unfailing uniformity. This is the seventh shadow of the Word of Truth.
My mission is to utter this Word of Truth which will pierce the mind of the world and go to its very heart. It will convey the simple Truth in its utter and indefinable simplicity. It will mark the moment of fulfillment of the Divine Life. It will throw open new gates to Eternity. It will bring new hope to despairing humanity. . . .
—Source: This is an excerpt from a message given out by Baba as the first of twelve birthday messages during His mass darshan tour of Hamirpur and Andhra District, February 1954.The Awakener, vol. 1, no. 4 (Spring 1954), pp. 1–2. http://www.theawakenermagazine.org.
[T]he only thing worthy of hearing is my Word of words.
—Source: Quoted in Mani S. Irani, 82 Family Letters, p. 123
If you were to receive through your hearing just a wave, a single vibration of that “Aadi naad” (original sound), you would lose bodily consciousness. I am that Original Sound. The best and highest of music that you hear and enjoy is but the seventh shadow (shadow of a shadow, of a shadow, etc.) of that “Aadi naad.”
—Source: Meher Vani, p. 10
… I feel very happy to hear music. It reminds me of the first song that was sung ages ago and that song produced this phenomena called the Universe. God will make me soon break my silence and that first original song will be sung again and the world will realize that God alone is real and that everyone of us is eternally one with God.
—Masulipatnam (Andhra Pradesh), February 22, I954
—Source: “Excerpts of Messages by Meher Baba on His Silence (pamphlet); The Awakener Magazine, vol. 5, no. 4 (Second Quarter 1960), p. 36; Lord Meher 12: 4302
I will perform only one miracle — when I speak the One Word — the Divine Word. That will really be a miracle.
—Source: The Awakener Magazine, vol. 2, no. 3 (Special Issue 1955), p. 10
Before the end of this year, God will make me sing the first original Song, and those who love me will be lost in that Song and find me to be in every one.
—Source: The Awakener Magazine, vol. 5, no. 4 (Fall 1958), p. 35
But today I do say this: that the moment I break my silence and utter that Original Word, the first and last miracle of “Baba” in this life will be performed. It will be the miracle as I never have performed. When I perform that miracle, I won’t raise the dead; but I will make those who live for the world dead to the world, and live in God. I won’t give sight to the blind, but will make people blind to illusion and make them see God as Reality.
—Rajahmundry, March 1 and 2, 1954
—Source: The Awakener Magazine, vol. 5, no. 4 (Fall 1958), p. 37
Be ye guided by Love and Truth. This is the simple way that leads to God. Not by the endless maneuvering of alluring illusions, but by loyalty to the Unchangeable Truth can ye hope to be established in Abiding Peace.
When I speak, it will be only one Divine Word; but it will be the Word of words or the Manifestation of Truth. This word will have to be harkened by the heart, and not merely by the mind. It will go home to you and bring you the Awakening.
My Love and Blessings.
—Andhra, March, 1954
—Source: “Meher Baba on His Silence,” The Awakener Magazine, vol. 5, no. 4 (Fall 1958), p. 36.
If you were to ask me why I do not speak, I would say I am not silent, and that I speak more eloquently through gestures and the alphabet board.
If you were to ask me why I do not talk, I would say, mostly for three reasons. Firstly, I feel that through you all I am talking eternally. Secondly, to relieve the boredom of talking incessantly through your forms, I keep silence in my personal physical form. And thirdly, because all talk in itself is idle talk. Lectures, messages, statements, discourses of any kind, spiritual or otherwise, imparted through utterances or writings, are just idle talk when not acted upon or lived up to.
If you were to ask me when I will break my silence I would say, when I feel like uttering the only real Word that was spoken in the beginningless beginning, as that Word alone is worth uttering. The time for the breaking of my outward silence to utter that Word is very near.
—Meherabad, September 29, 1954
—Source: The Awakener Magazine, vol. 5, no. 4 (Fall 1958), p. 38
My Word of words will touch the hearts of all mankind and spontaneously this divine touch will instil in man the feeling of oneness of all fellow beings. This feeling will supersede the tendency of separateness and rule over the hearts of all, driving away hatred, jealousy and greed that breed suffering, and happiness will reign.
—Meherabad, September 30, 1954
—Source: The Awakener Magazine, vol. 5, no. 4 (Fall 1958), p. 38
The Godman neither thinks nor desires. Through Him, the Divine Will flows inevitably into perfect manifestation, passing directly from the spiritual body (which, in the ordinary human being, is not developed) into physical expression. For Him, the superconscious is the normal state of consciousness. He does not convey thought, but Truth, which He either awakens in the individual whom He is helping, through deep, inner experience, or which He transmits directly from the superconscious to the conscious, from the spiritual to the physical, by means of either the physical eye, the physical touch or the spoken word. When He speaks, Truth is more powerfully manifested than when He uses either sight or touch to convey it.
—Source: The Awakener Magazine, vol. 6, no. 3 (Indian Summer 1959), pp. 27–29
I am waiting for the moment when I can break My Silence … when at last the heart of the world can be touched. I am eager for the Word to come out! But I have infinite patience. I know that just that Word can solve everything, for that Word is the source of all words; yet I am so infinitely patient that I go on day after day repeating the same old truths.”
—Source: The Awakener Magazine, vol. 9, nos. 1–2 (1963), p. 19
When the Word of My Love breaks out of its silence and speaks in your hearts, telling you who I really am, you will know that that is the Real Word you have been always longing to hear.
—Source: The Awakener Magazine, vol. 11, no. 1 (1966), p. 28. This source, as well as 82 Family Letters, p. 226, says that Baba gave this message on May 3, 1965.
The Original Naad — celestial music — does not need any tuning of tal or sur.* It is continuous. All worldly music is only the seventh shadow of that Naad …
—Source: The Awakener Magazine, vol. 11, no. 3 (1966), p. 9.
*Tal refers to the element of rhythm or time in Indian music, while sur is pitch. Baba made this comment while musicians were tuning up in preparation for performing for Baba. They were three famous performers: Begum Akhtar (vocal), Shri Golwalkar (sarangi), and Muhammad Ahmed (tabla).
One morning Baba said, “Last night I was very restless. Still I have come to give My love. Ask for only one thing: My love. There is no need for you all to ask for anything as God is here with you. Once I spoke a Word and the creation came into being. Once again I will speak one Word and all will be over. In between there is only silence and love.”
—Source: The Awakener Magazine, vol. 22, no. 1 (1986), p. 66
In order to help you to understand my Final Declaration, and to put an end to your confusion and worry, I want all of you to know that when you saw me dictate on my alphabet board during the meetings at Meherabad, and heard about . . . (t)he breaking of my silence and my uttering the one Word of words: It was said in my own “language” and simultaneously in yours, because when I utter that Word it will be an audible word to you. . . .
—Source: “Clarification to the Final Declaration” in The Life Circulars of Avatar Meher Baba, pp. 43–45
[My] Glorification . . . will be when I break My Silence with the divine Word — THE WORD that will indisputably assert the existence of God, in the mind and heart of man; that will make the world know that God not only exists, but that HE ALONE exists, infinitely and eternally.
—Source: The Life Circulars of Avatar Meher Baba, pp. 96–97
I shall not lay down My body until I have given the WORD to the world.
—Source: The Life Circulars of Avatar Meher Baba, p. 102
God’s first Word was, “Who am I?” God’s last Word is, “I Am God.” And the Word that I the God-Man will utter soon will be the sound of My infinite Silence.
—Source: The Life Circulars of Avatar Meher Baba, p. 133. This message was given for the 41st Anniversary of Baba’s Silence.
“Drown all sound in My SILENCE to hearken MY WORD of words.”
—Source: Mani S. Irani, 82 Family Letters, p. 77; also The Awakener, “Baba Pearls,” vol. 7, no. 2 (Second Quarter 1960), p.11. David Carter’s note: It may be that this quotation would belong better in a chapter on the nature and meaning of silence. It seems to me that we have to concern ourselves with two kinds of silence: the silence we practice in order to hear the Word of words, and Baba’s Silence or, to put it another way, the silence we must practice until we can hear His Silence.
The one WORD full of meaning has produced innumerable meaningless words, and when I utter that WORD, all words will have meaning.
—Source: Mani S. Irani, 82 Family Letters, pp. 83–84
Mani writes: From what He tells us, we will hear His Silence only when He breaks it. The Master Fiddler is here to repair and tune the heartstrings of mankind before He can play the Avataric score, and the world shall dance to the Tune of His making when He gives THE WORD. Hazrat Babajan, who awakened Baba to His Godhood, said of Him: “My beloved Meher! My Son! Some day the whole world will call out ‘Meher, Meher’, all the trees will cry out ‘Meher’, all the birds will sing ‘Meher.’“
And Beloved Baba, what does He say will happen when He breaks His Silence? Baba says:
“THAT WHICH HAS NEVER HAPPENED WILL HAPPEN WHEN I BREAK MY SILENCE.”
—Source: Mani S. Irani, 82 Family Letters, pp. 280–281.
David Carter’s comment: I include this anecdote for I feel that Hazrat Babajan may have been referring here to the Word of Words. This would be an interesting interpretation, tying together the idea of Baba’s being the Avatar with what Baba said about His manifestation and the touching of all hearts. In other words He, Baba, is the Word incarnate (as the Gospel of John says of Jesus) and there will come a time when all the world feels His love and thus recognizes Him as God come into our midst again (as Baba said all would). Because He is recognized as God He is proclaimed as such: “Meher! Meher!” If this is a valid interpretation of Babajan’s meaning, then the name Meher Baba is, in a sense, the Word of Words and the world proclaiming Him might in a certain sense be the Silence’s breaking. But the world proclaiming Him might be better understood as His glorification. If this is the case, then it is better said that He will speak the Word and that the world’s heart, being touched by it and seeing Him to be the Lord, would then shout His name in praise: the Word is spoken and the name of the Word made flesh is echoed back.
. . . All the world, our God-Man tells us, will know Him when He breaks open His silence and gives to it The Word.
—Source: Mani S. Irani, 82 Family Letters, p. 324
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
When an atom is “split” an infinite amount of energy is released. Similarly, when my Silence is broken and I utter the WORD infinite wisdom will be released.
When an atom bomb strikes the earth it causes vast devastation. Similarly, when the Word I utter strikes the universe there will be a great material destruction; but there will also take place a tremendous spiritual upheaval.
—Source: The Everything and the Nothing, p. 76
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 that moment.
Circumstances are converging and fast gathering momentum towards precipitating the right moment, which will come completely unawares — at any time, any hour, any day. That moment is not far away.
— Source: The Awakener, vol. 7 no. 3 (3rd quarter 1961), p. 2
Terms used by Baba to describe the Word of Words:
“the one and the last word of all embracing Divinity”
—Source: Meher Baba in the Great Seclusion (Ahmednagar, 1949), p. 17
“that Word which only God can utter”
—Source: C. B. Purdom, The God-Man, pp. 270–71.