The Truth the Avatar reveals is always one and the same, but the expression of that truth changes according to the customs, culture, and times in which the Avatar manifests. During this present Avataric advent, scientific progress — the backbone of our modern technological society — had reached such an amazing level of sophistication, that it was necessary for Avatar Meher Baba to specifically address it. But not only did Baba make numerous comments on science, He reoriented science!
What a marvelous thing Baba has done. He took the key scientific concepts of His day and utilized them to reveal the deeper spiritual truths. He masterfully reoriented these scientific truths by incorporating them into His cosmology. In God Speaks and the Discourses He weaves these different scientific concepts into one integrated vision of God.
The Truths of Science Cannot Be Ignored
We live in a modern world created by scientific understanding. Science has so permeated our lives that it is impossible to live a life that is independent of it. The fruit of science is technology. Electric lights, automobiles, jet planes, telephones, computers, and modern medicines are a few examples of the technologies that have only existed since the beginning of this Avataric advent.
One cannot make use of these technologies and not believe in science. As a result, we believe in things we cannot see or know. We believe in molecules, atoms, and electrons, even though the average person has never seen any, nor understood the theories involved. However, everyone sees the results of the application of scientific theories, and thus no one doubts the truths which science has discovered. Therefore, everyone places a certain amount of faith in science.
Furthermore, science has developed to such an extent that man can now play god. Man can create altered species of life forms through genetic engineering, a task that previously required thousands if not millions of years of evolution. Stem cell research promises in the near future the ability to regrow damaged organs. In the past, religious faith was an integral part of healing, but now such faith is largely irrelevant. Patients heal through surgery or by simply swallowing pills. Computers have been programmed to perform specific tasks demonstrating an artificial intelligence that is equal to or greater than human intelligence. Science has demonstrated the ability to create artificial intelligence inside a computer that is almost equal to human intelligence. Scientists have brought the power of the sun down to earth, in the form of nuclear energy. Human beings can travel to the moon and other planets, which were once worshipped, thus in a sense conquering former gods.
Not only does science perform functions that previously were in the domain of religion, it also accounts for mysteries that religions previously explained. Science goes so far as to explain the beginning of the universe and how life began, thus replacing the creation myths found in all world religions. The more science explains the mysteries of life, the more faith we place in it, and accordingly less faith in religious dogma. In this way, science is encroaching on the religious and spiritual domains. By the time Meher Baba began His mission as Avatar, science had already made the old religions obsolete.
But science’s domain is only the physical world. Science cannot provide spiritual understanding and inspiration, which the old religions had attempted to provide. Thus belief in science is not enough to provide a meaning for life connected to an ultimate truth.
The combination of religion’s obsolescence and science’s inability to address spiritual issues is perhaps one of the prime reasons for the need of this Avataric advent. A new vision of God was needed, a vision in which science and spirituality go hand in hand.
Avatar Meher Baba fulfilled that need by incarnating in human form and presenting to humanity a new vision of God. Meher Baba has given the world the most “scientific” understanding of spiritual realities that the world has ever known. Principally in God Speaks, but also in the Discourses, The Nothing and the Everything, and Infinite Intelligence, Baba puts forward His cosmology, describing the theme of creation in a very detailed scientific format, even including technical charts and diagrams and utilizing the scientific language of the day. Let’s see how.
The Sciences of the Day
In the early 20th century, when Meher Baba began His mission as Avatar, the new scientific theories of the day clashed with traditional religious beliefs, particularly those of Western religions. But Baba tells us there is no real conflict. “The so-called conflict between religion and science arises only when there is no appreciation of the relative importance of these two types of knowledge”[i]
The principal sciences in Baba’s time were Darwin’s theory of evolution, Einstein’s theory of relativity, and Freud’s theory of the unconscious. It is these three sciences that Baba particularly reoriented.
Darwinian evolution proclaimed that humans, and all of life, slowly evolved from one species to the next. Thus, according to evolution, Adam and Eve never existed, and this challenged the Bible’s notion that God created man and woman on the sixth day of creation.
Likewise, Einstein’s theory of relativity led to the theory of the Big Bang, which also disputed the notion that God created heaven and earth. Instead of being God’s creation, the universe, according to the Big Bang, sprang out of a single point and expanded over billions of years, forming galaxies of stars and planets, and eventually life.
Freud’s theory of the unconscious presented a challenge to religion’s notions of good and evil by revealing that humans are not rational moral creatures, but rather driven by unconscious instinctive urges that need to be mitigated by cultural restraints. Freud even went so far as to invent his own explanation of how religions were formed, relegating God to simply an imagined father figure, to be worshipped as a means of relieving guilt.
These are the particular sciences that made religion obsolete.
Evolution and God’s Hand in the Game
Evolution is the one science that continues to pose the greatest challenge to religion. It strikes at the heart of the Bible’s creation myth, debunking the story of Adam and Eve, which is the foundation for the major western religions. Even 150 years after Darwin published his theory of evolution, religious people still passionately dispute the notion that we humans are the result of a long series of evolutionary stages and the descendents of apes.
Yet, Meher Baba, God incarnate, did not resist the theory of evolution. Rather, He fully embraced it. Evolution became the backbone of Baba’s cosmology. In God Speaks, Baba’s definitive work, His cosmology can be summarized as a description of the soul’s journey through evolution, reincarnation, and involution. But the evolution described by Baba, the evolution that is important, is not the biological evolution of forms, but rather the evolution of consciousness. As Baba states, “The whole of evolution, in fact, is an evolution from unconscious divinity to conscious divinity….”[ii]
Regarding biological evolution of forms, Meher Baba explained in God Speaks, “The evolution of gross forms is but a by-product in the universal factory of the evolution of consciousness”[iii]. So Baba did not discount the scientific theory of biological evolution, but relegated its importance to being secondary to the soul’s evolution of consciousness. He thus embraced evolutionary theory and extended its function in the physical realm to the spiritual realms as well.
Baba stated: “The usual theories of evolution advanced by scientists are based only upon intellectual data. They never do justice to God's hand in the game.”[iv]
When describing “God’s hand in the game,” Baba revealed important details concerning evolution, which science has yet to realize. For example, one of the criticisms of science is that it looks upon evolution, and therefore life, as being mechanical, accidental and random, thus lacking purpose. Such an outlook makes life meaningless. But Baba explained that this is not the case. “…the driving force of evolution … is not mechanical but purposive,”[v] He said. And what is the purpose of evolution? Baba explained: “The history of evolution is the history of a gradual development of consciousness. The fruit of evolution is full consciousness, which is characteristic of man.”[vi]
Another fundamental operation Baba revealed is that a new species emerging in an evolutionary sequence is the result of the impressions of experiences of a previous species. Or as Baba said, “this next medium or form is always created and moulded of the consolidated impressions of the last species of form….” [vii] This differs from biology’s view that a new species is the result of random mutations.
In addition, Baba extended the scope of evolution, stating that it is really the soul’s consciousness that evolves. “… the soul evolves more and more consciousness simultaneously with the evolution of the higher and higher species of forms.” [viii]
Thus we see that Baba embraced the concept of evolution and extended it, revealing that the real evolution is the evolution of consciousness, leading to the eventual goal of God-Consciousness.
Freud’s Theory of the Human Mind
Freud, the father of modern-day psychology, went beyond challenging religion; he denounced it completely when he stated that belief in God was simply an illusion. But Meher Baba did not denounce the major concepts that Freud put forth. On the contrary, as with evolutionary science, Baba embraced many aspects of Freudian theory and then reoriented these concepts into His own spiritual framework. And whereas psychology opened doors to the understanding of one’s psyche, Baba extended these psychological concepts to the ultimate, utilizing them to reveal the deepest spiritual realities. He did so by making extensive use of Freudian psychology’s terminology and by extending two revolutionary concepts made popular by Freud, the unconscious mind and the ego structure of mind.
Although Meher Baba did not directly address Freud by name, He did address modern-day psychology per se, which at that time (circa 1940) was Freudian based. In the Discourses, Baba confirmed psychology’s assertions. He stated, “Modern psychology has done much to reveal the sources of conflict [within the mind]….” [ix] After affirming psychology, He extended its mission, indicating what must be focused on next: “…it has yet to discover methods of awakening inspiration or supplying the mind with something which makes life worth living. This indeed is the creative task facing the saviors of humanity.” [x]
The Unconscious Mind
In Freud’s time, the dominant belief was that people could exercise conscious control over their actions. Freud, however, suggested that such free will was a delusion. According to his revolutionary theory of the unconscious, many of our actions are controlled by the unconscious, a layer of the mind that contains subconscious desires we are not aware of. These desires compel one to act in ways that are not determined by one’s conscious thoughts.
Baba embraced this revolutionary concept of the subconscious mind. Using the image of an iceberg, He stated: “only a small portion of the real ego becomes manifest in consciousness in the form of an explicit ‘I,’ and the major portion of the real ego remains submerged in the dark and inarticulate sanctuaries of the subconscious mind.”[xi]
In harmony with Freud, Baba stated that “the roots of the ego are all in the subconscious mind in the form of latent tendencies; and these latent tendencies are not always accessible to explicit consciousness.” [xii]
Another aspect of Freud’s theory of the unconscious mind addressed conflicts caused by the repression of experiences, which, he explained, are stored in the unconscious mind and cause neurotic behavior. In order to resolve these conflicts, he emphasized the importance of becoming aware of these repressed experiences through analysis, specifically through analysis of dreams.
Baba also addressed conflicts in the mind. “The mind rarely functions harmoniously because it is mostly guided and governed by forces in the subconscious, and few persons take the trouble to attain mastery over these hidden forces that direct the course of mental life.” [xiii]
To resolve the conflicts, Baba suggested a process similar to Freudian analysis:
The conflicts which turn upon ordinary things are rarely even brought to the surface of consciousness. Instead they cast a shadow on one’s general feeling about life as if from behind a screen. Such conflicts have to be brought to the surface of consciousness and frankly faced before they can be adequately solved…. On such occasion an attempt should be made to analyze the mental state through deep introspection, for such analysis brings to light the hidden conflicts concerning the matter. [xiv]
So we see that Baba validated the use of some sort of analysis to become aware of the unconscious. Baba then extended the notion of the unconscious mind well beyond the psychology of the individual. He connected consciousness and unconsciousness to the ultimate, the Divine. He explained that consciousness and unconsciousness are not just characteristics of humans, but are also characteristics of God.
The whole purpose of creation is, in fact, for unconscious God to become conscious of Himself. And a person’s becoming aware of his own unconscious mind is the same as becoming aware of God. Baba said that the state of perfection, “the conquest of the unconscious by the conscious is complete, and the person continuously dwells in the full blaze of Illumination or as one with Illumination. He becomes Illumination itself.” [xv]
Thus, the individual’s consciousness is one and the same as God’s consciousness. What needs to change is what the individual is conscious of. An individual must shift consciousness away from the ego, and refocus it on God.
The Ego
The other important aspect of Freud’s work was his theory of mind, in which he proposed that the psyche is divided into three parts: the id, ego, and superego. The “id” (completely unconscious) contains the drives and those things repressed by consciousness; the “ego” (mostly conscious) deals with external reality; and the “superego” (partly conscious) is the internal moral judge or the conscience.
In Freudian psychology, the ego gives one a sense of identity. The ego also mediates among the id, the superego and the external world. Its task is to find a balance between primitive drives, morals, and reality, while satisfying the clamoring of the id and superego.
Baba fully embraced the term “ego” and provided clarity to its role in the mind’s structure. However, He used the term in a somewhat different way, in that He did not separate the psyche into three separate parts, as Freud did.
Baba affirmed that the ego does give one a sense of self and explains why such an organizing structure is necessary:
The psychic energy would be caught up endlessly in the multitudinous mazes of dual experience and would all be frittered away and dissipated if there were no provisional nucleus to take stock of all acquired experience and bind together the active tendencies born of the relatively independent and loose instincts inherited from animal-consciousness…The formation of the ego serves the purpose of giving a certain amount of stability to conscious processes and also secures a working equilibrium which makes for a planned and organised life .[xvi]
In addition, Baba affirmed that the ego’s role is to resolve conflicts. He said, “The explicit ego which finds its manifestation in consciousness is by no means a harmonious whole; it can and does become an arena for multitudinous conflicts between opposing tendencies.” [xvii]
Baba then extended the purpose of resolving conflicts by telling us that the goal of becoming aware of unconscious desires is not just to eliminate conflicts within the mind, but to root out desires in order to annihilate the mind’s entire ego structure. The ego, though necessary for functioning as a human, becomes the greatest impediment on the spiritual path and must be eliminated. He said, “The goal of lasting happiness shines forth fully only when the limited ego, with all its desires, finds its complete and final extinction.” [xviii]
Desires and Sanskaras
While Baba did not refer to the id per se, when explaining how desires come about, He introduced a similar term, sanskaras, or impressions. Sanskaras, Baba explained, are the result of experience. Every experience makes an impression upon the mind. These impressions are then stored in the mind. As in Freud’s description of the id, these sanskaras, or impressions, remain unconscious, and as with the id, Baba said, “…impressions express themselves as desires…” [xix]
It is these impressions gathered during the evolutionary process and human lifetimes that remain dormant in the unconscious mind. Baba asserted that humans must become conscious of these unconscious desires to become free of them, as part of the process of dismantling the structure of the ego.
For Freud, the goal of becoming conscious of the unconscious is therapeutic. Baba raised the goal from therapeutic relief to spiritual advancement, and ultimately God Realization. But in order for consciousness to become aware of the unconscious, the ego must be slimmed down and eventually eliminated. Baba said, “The disintegration of the ego culminates in realising the Truth.” [xx]
Thus we see that Baba embraced Freudian concepts of the ego and the unconscious mind, and then extended them to the ultimate — Divine truth.
Einstein’s Theory of Relativity
Although Einstein’s theory of relativity did not directly challenge religion, it did offer a dramatically different perception of the universe. Einstein’s theories state that space and time are not absolute. Space can bend and contract, time can be made to slow down, and matter can be turned into energy. Gravity is the result of space bending around a mass.
Although Einstein’s theories were beyond the average person’s understanding, nevertheless they were proven true to mankind in a most convincing and dramatic way. When the world witnessed the release of the tremendous energy of two atomic bombs used by the United States to end World War II, no one could doubt the truth of Einstein’s theories, because his work had laid the scientific foundation for these bombs.
Einstein’s description of the fabric of the universe demonstrated that his knowledge of the underlying forces of the universe and the topology of time and space surpassed any vision religion could offer.
However, Meher Baba did offer a vision that incorporated Einstein’s concepts. As He did with the other sciences of the day, He then extended the concepts, connecting them to the deeper spiritual realm.
E = mc2
Einstein’s famous theory states that energy inside an object is equal to its mass times the velocity of light (the fastest speed an object can move) squared. Baba’s cosmology confirmed that matter and energy are indeed equated, in the sense that one can be converted into the other. In the Discourses Baba states: “Form is solidified energy…” [xxi]
Baba revealed that during the first stage of the spiritual path, a pilgrim no longer experiences the world around him as being made of form, or matter; rather, he experiences the subtle world, a world comprised of energy. The subtle world makes up the first three planes of the seven planes of higher consciousness. On the lower subtle planes, the pilgrim experiences energy in the form of dazzling sights and sounds. As he progresses further onto higher planes, he has more direct experience of energy. Access to energy allows him to perform miracles. And eventually, as an aspirant progresses even further into the subtle sphere, he experiences himself as energy personified. Thus one transmutes completely from matter into energy.
Nuclear Power and Spiritual Powers
Shortly after the spectacular demonstration of atomic bombs in 1945, which ended World War II, Baba placed the new source of energy, nuclear energy, into its proper perspective. In God Speaks, written in 1953-54, Baba directly addressed nuclear energy, and explained that it is only a gross reflection of the higher spiritual energies of the subtle world.
Referring to an imaginary scientist similar to Einstein, who at this point had captured the world’s attention, Baba said:
Even when this gross-conscious scientist in the gross world is conscious of the highest possible gross aspect of Energy, he is not at all conscious of that Energy in its nascent state, which is only of the domain of the subtle world and which can only be experienced and controlled by the subtle conscious human soul, and which can never, under any circumstances, be experimented with or experienced by any gross-conscious human being. Therefore, when this gross-conscious scientist in the gross world on earth is conscious of the highest possible gross aspects of nuclear energy, he is actually fully conscious of only one of the highest gross aspects of energy of the domain of the subtle world. [xxii]
Thus, no matter how great the energy discovered by a scientist in the gross world, it is only a faint gross reflection of subtle energy.
All energy, in the gross and subtle worlds, is derived from the power of the fourth plane, the plane of infinite energy. Baba said, “On the fourth plane the soul is fully conscious of infinite energy. It is the very same infinite energy which is the shadowy aspect of that infinite power of God. Here the soul is equipped with full power and is even capable of raising the dead and of creating new forms and worlds breathing with life. On the fourth plane there are no occult powers. They are divine powers.” [xxiii]
The pilgrim on the fourth plane, now the personification of energy, is able to create gross forms, and even life as God Himself creates. But possessing that power holds great risk. For if one on the fourth plane misuses that power, they lose all of their consciousness and revert back to stone form.
To illustrate the intensity of the power of the fourth plane, and its horrendous danger if misused, Baba compared the situation to that of the aforementioned imaginary scientist of the gross world.
Let us compare then a subtle-conscious human soul on the fourth plane … with a great scientist of repute in the gross world. The latter, being fully conscious of the gross plane, by sheer dint of effort and much investigation into the fields of the science of energies, fully realizes the possibility of releasing tremendous energy through certain experiments….
If the scientist succumbs, therefore, to this overweening desire, which is now at its zenith, and is thereby directed for his selfish ends to misuse the power that he controls in the form of one of the highest aspects of energy, he then consciously leads himself to attempt to explode the most deadly weapon in his control — more powerful than, say, the latest hydrogen bomb. [xxiv]
Thus possession of great power, whether achieved through science or through spiritual advancement, creates great risk.
The Big Bang
Einstein’s theories were so fundamental in explaining space, time, and gravity that they served as a foundation for additional theories. Most important was the Theory of the Big Bang, which describes the creation of the universe.
The concept of the Big Bang derived from Einstein’s theory of general relativity, particularly the portion describing the curvature of space-time. The Big Bang theory states that the universe began as a collapsed single point of the utmost density, called a singularity. This singularity, a single point, contained all time, space, and energy from which the entire universe sprang.
Therefore, before the universe began, there was only this almost infinitely dense primeval point. At the moment of the Big Bang, space and time rapidly inflated. In a very short amount of time, an exceedingly hot plasma of sub-atomic particles emerged. Over millions of years, these particles cooled down, forming atoms that eventually became stars. Over many more millions of years, stars coalesced into galaxies.
Baba did not directly use the term the Big Bang, but He did explain the beginning of creation in an almost identical manner. When doing so, He used the term, the Whim.
Using an image very much like the Big Bang’s springing out from a point of singularity, Baba explained how creation sprang out of a single point of Nothingness. The universe, space, time, and all physical objects came out of this point and expanded ad infinitum.
As stated in God Speaks, “All that is latent as the Nothing in the Beyond State II of the Infinitude of God as the Everything is expressed and manifested through a most finite point in the infinitude of God. This point is called the ‘creation point’ or the ‘Om point.’”[xxv]
As in the Big Bang theory, the creation, which comes out of Nothingness, expands to create the universe. As Baba said, “when the most finite Nothing gets projected as Nothingness through the most finite creation point … [it] gradually expands ad infinitum and manifests apparently as infinite Nothingness or as infinite Creation.”[xxvi]
What caused the universe to come into existence? The Big Bang theory offers no reason. Baba explained that it is simply a whim. But unlike the Big Bang, which has no purpose, the Whim has a divine purpose, and that is for God to know Himself. Baba explained,
The cause which led the most finite Nothing, latent in the infinite Everything, to manifest itself as infinite Nothingness, is the original cause called the “CAUSE.” This Cause is just nothing but the WHIM or lahar of God. This original whim can also be called the first “WORD” uttered by God—“WHO AM I?[xxvii]
Thus Baba’s extension of the Big Bang, reveals that the whole purpose of creation is God’s attempt to answer His question, “Who am I?” so that God may know who He is.”
Chart
Correlations Between
Meher Baba’s Cosmology and Major Scientific Concepts
The chart below links various scientific concepts to events in Baba’s cosmology. The events are represented on a timeline starting with the Whim, moving through evolution, human form, and involution, and ending with God Realization.
Whereas each science deals with only one event along the timeline, Baba’s cosmology is a single overarching vision. That is because the truth itself is one. But when the truth is projected onto the physical world, the One becomes the many. Therefore, each science, in attempting to explain the physical, offers only a slice of the truth. Baba, on the other hand, working from oneness, unites these various concepts into a single unified vision.
What a marvelous thing Baba has done. He took the key scientific concepts of His day and utilized them to reveal the deeper spiritual truths. He masterfully reoriented these scientific truths by incorporating them into His cosmology. In God Speaks and the Discourses He weaves these different scientific concepts into one integrated vision of God.
The Truths of Science Cannot Be Ignored
We live in a modern world created by scientific understanding. Science has so permeated our lives that it is impossible to live a life that is independent of it. The fruit of science is technology. Electric lights, automobiles, jet planes, telephones, computers, and modern medicines are a few examples of the technologies that have only existed since the beginning of this Avataric advent.
One cannot make use of these technologies and not believe in science. As a result, we believe in things we cannot see or know. We believe in molecules, atoms, and electrons, even though the average person has never seen any, nor understood the theories involved. However, everyone sees the results of the application of scientific theories, and thus no one doubts the truths which science has discovered. Therefore, everyone places a certain amount of faith in science.
Furthermore, science has developed to such an extent that man can now play god. Man can create altered species of life forms through genetic engineering, a task that previously required thousands if not millions of years of evolution. Stem cell research promises in the near future the ability to regrow damaged organs. In the past, religious faith was an integral part of healing, but now such faith is largely irrelevant. Patients heal through surgery or by simply swallowing pills. Computers have been programmed to perform specific tasks demonstrating an artificial intelligence that is equal to or greater than human intelligence. Science has demonstrated the ability to create artificial intelligence inside a computer that is almost equal to human intelligence. Scientists have brought the power of the sun down to earth, in the form of nuclear energy. Human beings can travel to the moon and other planets, which were once worshipped, thus in a sense conquering former gods.
Not only does science perform functions that previously were in the domain of religion, it also accounts for mysteries that religions previously explained. Science goes so far as to explain the beginning of the universe and how life began, thus replacing the creation myths found in all world religions. The more science explains the mysteries of life, the more faith we place in it, and accordingly less faith in religious dogma. In this way, science is encroaching on the religious and spiritual domains. By the time Meher Baba began His mission as Avatar, science had already made the old religions obsolete.
But science’s domain is only the physical world. Science cannot provide spiritual understanding and inspiration, which the old religions had attempted to provide. Thus belief in science is not enough to provide a meaning for life connected to an ultimate truth.
The combination of religion’s obsolescence and science’s inability to address spiritual issues is perhaps one of the prime reasons for the need of this Avataric advent. A new vision of God was needed, a vision in which science and spirituality go hand in hand.
Avatar Meher Baba fulfilled that need by incarnating in human form and presenting to humanity a new vision of God. Meher Baba has given the world the most “scientific” understanding of spiritual realities that the world has ever known. Principally in God Speaks, but also in the Discourses, The Nothing and the Everything, and Infinite Intelligence, Baba puts forward His cosmology, describing the theme of creation in a very detailed scientific format, even including technical charts and diagrams and utilizing the scientific language of the day. Let’s see how.
The Sciences of the Day
In the early 20th century, when Meher Baba began His mission as Avatar, the new scientific theories of the day clashed with traditional religious beliefs, particularly those of Western religions. But Baba tells us there is no real conflict. “The so-called conflict between religion and science arises only when there is no appreciation of the relative importance of these two types of knowledge”[i]
The principal sciences in Baba’s time were Darwin’s theory of evolution, Einstein’s theory of relativity, and Freud’s theory of the unconscious. It is these three sciences that Baba particularly reoriented.
Darwinian evolution proclaimed that humans, and all of life, slowly evolved from one species to the next. Thus, according to evolution, Adam and Eve never existed, and this challenged the Bible’s notion that God created man and woman on the sixth day of creation.
Likewise, Einstein’s theory of relativity led to the theory of the Big Bang, which also disputed the notion that God created heaven and earth. Instead of being God’s creation, the universe, according to the Big Bang, sprang out of a single point and expanded over billions of years, forming galaxies of stars and planets, and eventually life.
Freud’s theory of the unconscious presented a challenge to religion’s notions of good and evil by revealing that humans are not rational moral creatures, but rather driven by unconscious instinctive urges that need to be mitigated by cultural restraints. Freud even went so far as to invent his own explanation of how religions were formed, relegating God to simply an imagined father figure, to be worshipped as a means of relieving guilt.
These are the particular sciences that made religion obsolete.
Evolution and God’s Hand in the Game
Evolution is the one science that continues to pose the greatest challenge to religion. It strikes at the heart of the Bible’s creation myth, debunking the story of Adam and Eve, which is the foundation for the major western religions. Even 150 years after Darwin published his theory of evolution, religious people still passionately dispute the notion that we humans are the result of a long series of evolutionary stages and the descendents of apes.
Yet, Meher Baba, God incarnate, did not resist the theory of evolution. Rather, He fully embraced it. Evolution became the backbone of Baba’s cosmology. In God Speaks, Baba’s definitive work, His cosmology can be summarized as a description of the soul’s journey through evolution, reincarnation, and involution. But the evolution described by Baba, the evolution that is important, is not the biological evolution of forms, but rather the evolution of consciousness. As Baba states, “The whole of evolution, in fact, is an evolution from unconscious divinity to conscious divinity….”[ii]
Regarding biological evolution of forms, Meher Baba explained in God Speaks, “The evolution of gross forms is but a by-product in the universal factory of the evolution of consciousness”[iii]. So Baba did not discount the scientific theory of biological evolution, but relegated its importance to being secondary to the soul’s evolution of consciousness. He thus embraced evolutionary theory and extended its function in the physical realm to the spiritual realms as well.
Baba stated: “The usual theories of evolution advanced by scientists are based only upon intellectual data. They never do justice to God's hand in the game.”[iv]
When describing “God’s hand in the game,” Baba revealed important details concerning evolution, which science has yet to realize. For example, one of the criticisms of science is that it looks upon evolution, and therefore life, as being mechanical, accidental and random, thus lacking purpose. Such an outlook makes life meaningless. But Baba explained that this is not the case. “…the driving force of evolution … is not mechanical but purposive,”[v] He said. And what is the purpose of evolution? Baba explained: “The history of evolution is the history of a gradual development of consciousness. The fruit of evolution is full consciousness, which is characteristic of man.”[vi]
Another fundamental operation Baba revealed is that a new species emerging in an evolutionary sequence is the result of the impressions of experiences of a previous species. Or as Baba said, “this next medium or form is always created and moulded of the consolidated impressions of the last species of form….” [vii] This differs from biology’s view that a new species is the result of random mutations.
In addition, Baba extended the scope of evolution, stating that it is really the soul’s consciousness that evolves. “… the soul evolves more and more consciousness simultaneously with the evolution of the higher and higher species of forms.” [viii]
Thus we see that Baba embraced the concept of evolution and extended it, revealing that the real evolution is the evolution of consciousness, leading to the eventual goal of God-Consciousness.
Freud’s Theory of the Human Mind
Freud, the father of modern-day psychology, went beyond challenging religion; he denounced it completely when he stated that belief in God was simply an illusion. But Meher Baba did not denounce the major concepts that Freud put forth. On the contrary, as with evolutionary science, Baba embraced many aspects of Freudian theory and then reoriented these concepts into His own spiritual framework. And whereas psychology opened doors to the understanding of one’s psyche, Baba extended these psychological concepts to the ultimate, utilizing them to reveal the deepest spiritual realities. He did so by making extensive use of Freudian psychology’s terminology and by extending two revolutionary concepts made popular by Freud, the unconscious mind and the ego structure of mind.
Although Meher Baba did not directly address Freud by name, He did address modern-day psychology per se, which at that time (circa 1940) was Freudian based. In the Discourses, Baba confirmed psychology’s assertions. He stated, “Modern psychology has done much to reveal the sources of conflict [within the mind]….” [ix] After affirming psychology, He extended its mission, indicating what must be focused on next: “…it has yet to discover methods of awakening inspiration or supplying the mind with something which makes life worth living. This indeed is the creative task facing the saviors of humanity.” [x]
The Unconscious Mind
In Freud’s time, the dominant belief was that people could exercise conscious control over their actions. Freud, however, suggested that such free will was a delusion. According to his revolutionary theory of the unconscious, many of our actions are controlled by the unconscious, a layer of the mind that contains subconscious desires we are not aware of. These desires compel one to act in ways that are not determined by one’s conscious thoughts.
Baba embraced this revolutionary concept of the subconscious mind. Using the image of an iceberg, He stated: “only a small portion of the real ego becomes manifest in consciousness in the form of an explicit ‘I,’ and the major portion of the real ego remains submerged in the dark and inarticulate sanctuaries of the subconscious mind.”[xi]
In harmony with Freud, Baba stated that “the roots of the ego are all in the subconscious mind in the form of latent tendencies; and these latent tendencies are not always accessible to explicit consciousness.” [xii]
Another aspect of Freud’s theory of the unconscious mind addressed conflicts caused by the repression of experiences, which, he explained, are stored in the unconscious mind and cause neurotic behavior. In order to resolve these conflicts, he emphasized the importance of becoming aware of these repressed experiences through analysis, specifically through analysis of dreams.
Baba also addressed conflicts in the mind. “The mind rarely functions harmoniously because it is mostly guided and governed by forces in the subconscious, and few persons take the trouble to attain mastery over these hidden forces that direct the course of mental life.” [xiii]
To resolve the conflicts, Baba suggested a process similar to Freudian analysis:
The conflicts which turn upon ordinary things are rarely even brought to the surface of consciousness. Instead they cast a shadow on one’s general feeling about life as if from behind a screen. Such conflicts have to be brought to the surface of consciousness and frankly faced before they can be adequately solved…. On such occasion an attempt should be made to analyze the mental state through deep introspection, for such analysis brings to light the hidden conflicts concerning the matter. [xiv]
So we see that Baba validated the use of some sort of analysis to become aware of the unconscious. Baba then extended the notion of the unconscious mind well beyond the psychology of the individual. He connected consciousness and unconsciousness to the ultimate, the Divine. He explained that consciousness and unconsciousness are not just characteristics of humans, but are also characteristics of God.
The whole purpose of creation is, in fact, for unconscious God to become conscious of Himself. And a person’s becoming aware of his own unconscious mind is the same as becoming aware of God. Baba said that the state of perfection, “the conquest of the unconscious by the conscious is complete, and the person continuously dwells in the full blaze of Illumination or as one with Illumination. He becomes Illumination itself.” [xv]
Thus, the individual’s consciousness is one and the same as God’s consciousness. What needs to change is what the individual is conscious of. An individual must shift consciousness away from the ego, and refocus it on God.
The Ego
The other important aspect of Freud’s work was his theory of mind, in which he proposed that the psyche is divided into three parts: the id, ego, and superego. The “id” (completely unconscious) contains the drives and those things repressed by consciousness; the “ego” (mostly conscious) deals with external reality; and the “superego” (partly conscious) is the internal moral judge or the conscience.
In Freudian psychology, the ego gives one a sense of identity. The ego also mediates among the id, the superego and the external world. Its task is to find a balance between primitive drives, morals, and reality, while satisfying the clamoring of the id and superego.
Baba fully embraced the term “ego” and provided clarity to its role in the mind’s structure. However, He used the term in a somewhat different way, in that He did not separate the psyche into three separate parts, as Freud did.
Baba affirmed that the ego does give one a sense of self and explains why such an organizing structure is necessary:
The psychic energy would be caught up endlessly in the multitudinous mazes of dual experience and would all be frittered away and dissipated if there were no provisional nucleus to take stock of all acquired experience and bind together the active tendencies born of the relatively independent and loose instincts inherited from animal-consciousness…The formation of the ego serves the purpose of giving a certain amount of stability to conscious processes and also secures a working equilibrium which makes for a planned and organised life .[xvi]
In addition, Baba affirmed that the ego’s role is to resolve conflicts. He said, “The explicit ego which finds its manifestation in consciousness is by no means a harmonious whole; it can and does become an arena for multitudinous conflicts between opposing tendencies.” [xvii]
Baba then extended the purpose of resolving conflicts by telling us that the goal of becoming aware of unconscious desires is not just to eliminate conflicts within the mind, but to root out desires in order to annihilate the mind’s entire ego structure. The ego, though necessary for functioning as a human, becomes the greatest impediment on the spiritual path and must be eliminated. He said, “The goal of lasting happiness shines forth fully only when the limited ego, with all its desires, finds its complete and final extinction.” [xviii]
Desires and Sanskaras
While Baba did not refer to the id per se, when explaining how desires come about, He introduced a similar term, sanskaras, or impressions. Sanskaras, Baba explained, are the result of experience. Every experience makes an impression upon the mind. These impressions are then stored in the mind. As in Freud’s description of the id, these sanskaras, or impressions, remain unconscious, and as with the id, Baba said, “…impressions express themselves as desires…” [xix]
It is these impressions gathered during the evolutionary process and human lifetimes that remain dormant in the unconscious mind. Baba asserted that humans must become conscious of these unconscious desires to become free of them, as part of the process of dismantling the structure of the ego.
For Freud, the goal of becoming conscious of the unconscious is therapeutic. Baba raised the goal from therapeutic relief to spiritual advancement, and ultimately God Realization. But in order for consciousness to become aware of the unconscious, the ego must be slimmed down and eventually eliminated. Baba said, “The disintegration of the ego culminates in realising the Truth.” [xx]
Thus we see that Baba embraced Freudian concepts of the ego and the unconscious mind, and then extended them to the ultimate — Divine truth.
Einstein’s Theory of Relativity
Although Einstein’s theory of relativity did not directly challenge religion, it did offer a dramatically different perception of the universe. Einstein’s theories state that space and time are not absolute. Space can bend and contract, time can be made to slow down, and matter can be turned into energy. Gravity is the result of space bending around a mass.
Although Einstein’s theories were beyond the average person’s understanding, nevertheless they were proven true to mankind in a most convincing and dramatic way. When the world witnessed the release of the tremendous energy of two atomic bombs used by the United States to end World War II, no one could doubt the truth of Einstein’s theories, because his work had laid the scientific foundation for these bombs.
Einstein’s description of the fabric of the universe demonstrated that his knowledge of the underlying forces of the universe and the topology of time and space surpassed any vision religion could offer.
However, Meher Baba did offer a vision that incorporated Einstein’s concepts. As He did with the other sciences of the day, He then extended the concepts, connecting them to the deeper spiritual realm.
E = mc2
Einstein’s famous theory states that energy inside an object is equal to its mass times the velocity of light (the fastest speed an object can move) squared. Baba’s cosmology confirmed that matter and energy are indeed equated, in the sense that one can be converted into the other. In the Discourses Baba states: “Form is solidified energy…” [xxi]
Baba revealed that during the first stage of the spiritual path, a pilgrim no longer experiences the world around him as being made of form, or matter; rather, he experiences the subtle world, a world comprised of energy. The subtle world makes up the first three planes of the seven planes of higher consciousness. On the lower subtle planes, the pilgrim experiences energy in the form of dazzling sights and sounds. As he progresses further onto higher planes, he has more direct experience of energy. Access to energy allows him to perform miracles. And eventually, as an aspirant progresses even further into the subtle sphere, he experiences himself as energy personified. Thus one transmutes completely from matter into energy.
Nuclear Power and Spiritual Powers
Shortly after the spectacular demonstration of atomic bombs in 1945, which ended World War II, Baba placed the new source of energy, nuclear energy, into its proper perspective. In God Speaks, written in 1953-54, Baba directly addressed nuclear energy, and explained that it is only a gross reflection of the higher spiritual energies of the subtle world.
Referring to an imaginary scientist similar to Einstein, who at this point had captured the world’s attention, Baba said:
Even when this gross-conscious scientist in the gross world is conscious of the highest possible gross aspect of Energy, he is not at all conscious of that Energy in its nascent state, which is only of the domain of the subtle world and which can only be experienced and controlled by the subtle conscious human soul, and which can never, under any circumstances, be experimented with or experienced by any gross-conscious human being. Therefore, when this gross-conscious scientist in the gross world on earth is conscious of the highest possible gross aspects of nuclear energy, he is actually fully conscious of only one of the highest gross aspects of energy of the domain of the subtle world. [xxii]
Thus, no matter how great the energy discovered by a scientist in the gross world, it is only a faint gross reflection of subtle energy.
All energy, in the gross and subtle worlds, is derived from the power of the fourth plane, the plane of infinite energy. Baba said, “On the fourth plane the soul is fully conscious of infinite energy. It is the very same infinite energy which is the shadowy aspect of that infinite power of God. Here the soul is equipped with full power and is even capable of raising the dead and of creating new forms and worlds breathing with life. On the fourth plane there are no occult powers. They are divine powers.” [xxiii]
The pilgrim on the fourth plane, now the personification of energy, is able to create gross forms, and even life as God Himself creates. But possessing that power holds great risk. For if one on the fourth plane misuses that power, they lose all of their consciousness and revert back to stone form.
To illustrate the intensity of the power of the fourth plane, and its horrendous danger if misused, Baba compared the situation to that of the aforementioned imaginary scientist of the gross world.
Let us compare then a subtle-conscious human soul on the fourth plane … with a great scientist of repute in the gross world. The latter, being fully conscious of the gross plane, by sheer dint of effort and much investigation into the fields of the science of energies, fully realizes the possibility of releasing tremendous energy through certain experiments….
If the scientist succumbs, therefore, to this overweening desire, which is now at its zenith, and is thereby directed for his selfish ends to misuse the power that he controls in the form of one of the highest aspects of energy, he then consciously leads himself to attempt to explode the most deadly weapon in his control — more powerful than, say, the latest hydrogen bomb. [xxiv]
Thus possession of great power, whether achieved through science or through spiritual advancement, creates great risk.
The Big Bang
Einstein’s theories were so fundamental in explaining space, time, and gravity that they served as a foundation for additional theories. Most important was the Theory of the Big Bang, which describes the creation of the universe.
The concept of the Big Bang derived from Einstein’s theory of general relativity, particularly the portion describing the curvature of space-time. The Big Bang theory states that the universe began as a collapsed single point of the utmost density, called a singularity. This singularity, a single point, contained all time, space, and energy from which the entire universe sprang.
Therefore, before the universe began, there was only this almost infinitely dense primeval point. At the moment of the Big Bang, space and time rapidly inflated. In a very short amount of time, an exceedingly hot plasma of sub-atomic particles emerged. Over millions of years, these particles cooled down, forming atoms that eventually became stars. Over many more millions of years, stars coalesced into galaxies.
Baba did not directly use the term the Big Bang, but He did explain the beginning of creation in an almost identical manner. When doing so, He used the term, the Whim.
Using an image very much like the Big Bang’s springing out from a point of singularity, Baba explained how creation sprang out of a single point of Nothingness. The universe, space, time, and all physical objects came out of this point and expanded ad infinitum.
As stated in God Speaks, “All that is latent as the Nothing in the Beyond State II of the Infinitude of God as the Everything is expressed and manifested through a most finite point in the infinitude of God. This point is called the ‘creation point’ or the ‘Om point.’”[xxv]
As in the Big Bang theory, the creation, which comes out of Nothingness, expands to create the universe. As Baba said, “when the most finite Nothing gets projected as Nothingness through the most finite creation point … [it] gradually expands ad infinitum and manifests apparently as infinite Nothingness or as infinite Creation.”[xxvi]
What caused the universe to come into existence? The Big Bang theory offers no reason. Baba explained that it is simply a whim. But unlike the Big Bang, which has no purpose, the Whim has a divine purpose, and that is for God to know Himself. Baba explained,
The cause which led the most finite Nothing, latent in the infinite Everything, to manifest itself as infinite Nothingness, is the original cause called the “CAUSE.” This Cause is just nothing but the WHIM or lahar of God. This original whim can also be called the first “WORD” uttered by God—“WHO AM I?[xxvii]
Thus Baba’s extension of the Big Bang, reveals that the whole purpose of creation is God’s attempt to answer His question, “Who am I?” so that God may know who He is.”
Chart
Correlations Between
Meher Baba’s Cosmology and Major Scientific Concepts
The chart below links various scientific concepts to events in Baba’s cosmology. The events are represented on a timeline starting with the Whim, moving through evolution, human form, and involution, and ending with God Realization.
Whereas each science deals with only one event along the timeline, Baba’s cosmology is a single overarching vision. That is because the truth itself is one. But when the truth is projected onto the physical world, the One becomes the many. Therefore, each science, in attempting to explain the physical, offers only a slice of the truth. Baba, on the other hand, working from oneness, unites these various concepts into a single unified vision.
Future Sciences
By reorienting the three specific sciences of His day — Darwin’s theory of evolution, Freud’s theory of the unconscious, and Einstein’s theory of relativity — Meher Baba may have in effect reoriented the entire field of science. In the future, when new scientific discoveries are made, they too will need to be converted into higher spiritual truths. The work that Baba did may have laid a foundation for reorienting sciences even before they come into existence. And this may be the greatest aspect of Baba’s reorientation of science.
For example, string theory, a new branch of physics that has come into existence since Baba dropped His body, is attempting to unite Einstein’s relativity with quantum mechanics. In doing so, it is proposing that there are eleven dimensions. That means that there are seven extra dimensions in addition to the four dimensions of time-space (one dimension of time and three dimensions of space). Could these seven extra dimensions be reflections of the seven higher planes?
The computer science of artificial intelligence, which has also emerged since Baba dropped His body, has demonstrated the ability to create intelligence inside a computer. Its advancement has led a few scientists to speculate on a radically new theory, one that looks upon the entire universe as one large processing computer that “thinks.”
Although this notion of the universe as a thinking process may sound absurd, it may not be so far fetched. For Baba explained that the entire physical universe, all energy and matter, comes out of the infinite mind, and it is indeed the result of thinking. He said:
Mind begets energy and matter. Without mind there can be neither energy nor matter. Energy is derived from mind and is continually sustained by it; it cannot subsist without mind, latent or manifest. Matter depends upon energy and cannot remain matter without energy, latent or manifest.[xxviii]
In Baba’s newly found writings published as Infinite Intelligence, and also in Bhau Kalchuri’s book The Nothing and the Everything, based upon points dictated by Baba, a major theme is that the entire universe is the product of God’s thinking. For example, Baba stated that the “Infinite Intelligence produces the universe through Its Infinite Thinking …” [xxix] And furthermore, “The universe is made up of thoughts; thus the universe is the production of thinking.” [xxx]
If science is to understand Meher Baba, and to recognize that the universe is indeed created out of mind, it will need to expand its notion of what mind and thought are. Science will need to see intelligence in its many different expressions. From this new perspective, not only will intelligence be seen existing in humans and in computers, intelligence will also be seen existing in the very foundation of the physical universe. (For more on this topic, see my article “Is Evolution God’s Thinking?” in the Glow International, August 2006. This article compares the evolutionary process to artificial computer intelligence, demonstrating that they are really one and the same process. Therefore, the evolutionary process can be viewed as an act of God’s thinking.)
Conclusion
Although science has done much to reveal the truths of the physical world on its own, science does not give meaning to life, and in fact it tends to make life meaningless. Freud reduced humans to psycho-sexual beings, and according to him faith in God was merely a delusion. Evolution presented life as an accident and humans as the descendants of apes. And the Big Bang implied that the entire existence of the universe is meaningless.
But as we have seen, this lack of meaning in science did not stop Meher Baba from utilizing these scientific concepts in His cosmology. Rather, Baba embraced these concepts and extended them, describing their functioning in the spiritual realms. In doing so, He restored proper meaning to these concepts, explained the purpose of life, and inspired individuals to live the spiritual life. Also, He demonstrated that sciences’ truths are really just a reflection of the higher spiritual truths. Thus, the truths of modern science need not distract one’s attention away from God or diminish one’s faith in God.
Nor should science be rejected. Baba stated, “It is a mistake to look upon science as anti-spiritual. Science is a help or hindrance to spirituality according to the use to which it is put. Just as true art expresses spirituality, so science, when properly handled, can be the expression and fulfillment of the spirit.” [xxxi]
In the battle of ideas, Baba engaged modern-day scientific theories and forced them to surrender to their rightful place in His cosmology. This victory is another testimony of His perfection.
[i] Meher Baba, Discourses (North Myrtle Beach, SC: Sheriar Foundation, 1987), p. 98.
[ii] Ibid., p. 201.
[iii] Meher Baba, God Speaks: The Theme of Creation and Its Purpose. 2nd ed., rev. and enl. 1997. (Walnut Creek, CA: Sufism Reoriented), p. 23.
[iv] Sparks of the Truth From Dissertations of Meher Baba. A Version by C. D. Deshmukh, (North Myrtle Beach, SC: Sheriar Press, 1988) p. 25.
[v] Discourses, p. 224.
[vi] Ibid., p. 17.
[vii] God Speaks, p. 13.
[viii] Ibid., p. 14.
[ix] Discourses, pp. 164-65.
[x] Ibid.
[xi] Ibid., p. 168.
[xii] Ibid.
[xiii] Ibid., p. 163.
[xiv] Ibid., p. 164.
[xv] Ibid., p. 21.
[xvi] Ibid., p. 161.
[xvii] Ibid., p. 168.
[xviii] Ibid., p. 14.
[xix] Ibid., p. 10.
[xx] Ibid., p. 165.
[xxi] Ibid., p. 248.
[xxii] God Speaks, p. 61.
[xxiii] Ibid., p. 44.
[xxiv] Ibid., pp. 61-62.
[xxv] Ibid., p. 170.
[xxvi] Ibid., pp. 77-78.
[xxvii] Ibid.
[xxviii] Meher Baba, Life at Its Best, (Walnut Creek, CA: Sufism Reoriented, 1957), p. 38.
[xxix] Meher Baba, Infinite Intelligence, (North Myrtle Beach, SC: Sheriar Foundation, 2005), p. 12.
[xxx] Ibid., p. 315.
[xxxi] Discourses, pp. 21-22.
