God Speaks: The Theme of Creation and Its Purpose is the principal book by Meher Baba, and the most significant scripture used by his followers. It covers Meher Baba's view of the process of creation and its purpose and has been in print continuously since 1955.
Overview God Speaks is Meher Baba's most significant published book. Kenneth Lux, Ph.D. writes: "God Speaks is Meher Baba's major book and it is famously difficult. But not only is it Baba's major book, it is his only book. All other books by Meher Baba, such as the Discourses and Listen Humanity, are not written as books, as God Speaks is, but are collections of essays and messages."Kenneth Lux. The Love Street Lamppost, July/October 2005
While Meher Baba declared "I come not to teach, but to awaken" and did not prescribe intellect as a path to perfection, in God Speaks Meher Baba goes deeper into the subject of metaphysics than other Indian spiritual masters. In his book Mastery of Consciousness, Allan Y. Cohen, Ph.D. writes that Meher Baba's "explanations of the creation, purpose, and evolution of the universe may be the most explicit ever written."Mastery of Consciousness, Allan Y. Cohen, Ph.D., Harper & Row, New York, 1977, p. 21 In a review of God Speaks, oriental scholar Walter Evans-Wentz, the original English translator of The Tibetan book of the dead, wrote: "No other Teacher in our own time or in any known past time has so minutely analyzed consciousness as Meher Baba has in God Speaks."Evans-Wentz, Walter, The Uniqueness and Paramount Value of God Speaks, 1955 Book review
God Speaks takes a strictly nondualist approach in explaining the universe and its purpose, carefully clarifying and syncretising terms as it takes the reader through the spiritual journey of the atma (soul) through its imagined evolution, reincarnation, and involution, to its goal, its origin, of Paramatma (Over-soul). The journey winds up being one from God-unconscious ("Beyond Beyond State of God") to God-conscious ("Beyond State of God"). Cohen summarizes, "In elaborate detail he explains the universe is an arena where infinite existence, identifying with the apparently limited soul, becomes more and more conscious of its oneness with itself as the Over-Soul.
Birth of consciousness According to God Speaks, in the evolution of consciousness, before the Soul has any consciousness of anything or itself, there is an infinite, impressionless unconscious tranquil state. Meher Baba calls this state the Eternal Beyond-Beyond State of God (or Paratpar Paramatma), which has no experience of Self, nor of any of its Infinite latent attributes. Latent in this Infinite state is the undifferentiated and unmanifested Everything. Meher Baba says that the state of the man's consciousness during sound sleep is literally the same original divine sound sleep state of God. Synopsizing this concept in God Speaks biographer Charles Purdom writes, "In the beginningless beginning, in the beyond the beyond, God Is in absolute sound sleep.
Meher Baba writes that in Everything is also included the Nothing. Latent in Paramatma is the First Urge, which is expressed by the question "Who Am I?". This First Urge at one finite but unlimited point becomes manifest as the "Om Point" or the "Creation Point". Through this point the Nothing gradually appears as the shadow of the Everything and this appearance starts expanding ad infinitum. Simultaneously with the manifestation of the First Urge, the infinite Soul, in a tremendous shock, experiences its very first gross impression as it identifies itself with the projected Nothingness. In this experience, the first illusory separation (sense of separate identity) takes place in the undifferentiated. The Soul, still not conscious of its true Self, becomes identified with its projected shadow through this very first impression, thus initiating the illusion of duality.Mastery of Consciousness, Allan Y. Cohen, Ph.D., Harper & Row, New York, 1977, p. 21
To make this first event more approachable to understanding, Baba gives the metaphor of an Infinite ocean and a drop of that ocean.Charles Haynes, Ph.D. Meher Baba, The Awakener, Avatar Foundation, Inc., 1993, p. 7 In this metaphor, Paramatma (a vedantic term, for which Meher Baba says Over-soul would be the closest western equivalent) is likened to an infinite and limitless ocean. Any drop of this ocean (the drop signifying the individuated soul) is the ocean itself, since no differentiation between drops has yet been conceived. If we liken the manifestation of the First Urge as the imagined separation of one drop from the ocean, then the infinite ocean comes to look upon itself through this drop as merely this most finite, most limited drop of the infinite and unlimited ocean. It is important to keep in mind that here Meher Baba is using metaphor and analogy to explain changes in God's imagination and the development of consciousness and that he is not describing a metaphysical ocean or literal drops in any sense. As Charles Purdom writes, "The 'ocean' is a symbol, no more.Evans-Wentz, Walter, "The Uniqueness and Paramount Value of God Speaks", 1955 Book review
Development of consciousness Evolution The very first forms which the indivisible Soul's consciousness identifies its eternal Self with, according to Meher Baba, are seven gaseous forms (the seventh of which is Hydrogen, according to a footnote).God Speaks, The Theme of Creation and Its Purpose, by Meher Baba, Dodd Mead, 1955, 2nd Ed., 1975. p. 77 Yet since these are very abstract forms, beyond ordinary human understanding, for the sake of convenience, the first form which consciousness associates itself with is described as the stone-form. Through the medium of this form the individualized soul, experiencing impressions related to the kingdom of stones, associates itself with the stone. When all impressions arising from this association have been experienced and exhausted, the soul dissociates itself from that form and associates with the next stone species. When the whole range of impressions through all stone species have been exhausted, the soul starts associating itself with forms of the metal kingdom, and so forth through evolution. In all, seven major leaps are mentioned in this evolutionary process in consciousness: from stone, to metal, to vegetable, to worm, to fish, to bird, to animal and finally to human.God Speaks, The Theme of Creation and Its Purpose, by Meher Baba, Dodd Mead, 1955, 2nd Ed., 1975. Part II, Initial Urge and the Journey of Evolving Consciousness pp. 8-27
Meher Baba describes an unfolding geometric schema of forms. In the stone and metal forms, consciousness asserts itself through a recumbent, folded-up position in the gross world, with no voluntary motion. In the vegetable forms, increased consciousness asserts itself through a vertical position and is depended on soil and rock to hold an upright position. In the worm forms (in which Meher Baba includes for his own purposes all worms, insects, reptiles and amphibians) an animate experience is reached, with voluntary movement, but in a creeping and now horizontal manner. In the fish form, consciousness asserts itself as a creature with voluntary movement in water, but still in a horizontal manner. In bird form consciousness is enriched by identifying itself with a form capable of flight and maintaining a slightly erect position. In (quadruped) animal form, an increasingly erect position is experienced, with much more developed attributes. When the human form is reached, consciousness is fully developed and asserts itself through the ideal medium in a fully upright stance.God Speaks, The Theme of Creation and Its Purpose, by Meher Baba, Dodd Mead, 1955, 2nd Ed., 1975. p. 28-30
Since in God Speaks there is no mention of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, the progression must be seen as a progression in consciousness rather than in biological linearity. Meher Baba's explanations do not come to disprove any scientific discoveries of biological evolution, but rather examine a different side of the process.
Throughout this process, every time the soul associates itself with a particular form, it collects through this medium impressions of the gross world. When the impressions through association with a particular form have been exhausted, the soul dissociates from that form. Yet the collected impressions must be further experienced and for this the soul associates with the next most developed form. So when the human form is reached, although consciousness is fully developed, it has a store of impressions that still need to be experienced. While the soul is no longer in search of a better medium, it has to go through numerous human forms, until these impressions gathered through evolution are weakened and finally exhausted.God Speaks, The Theme of Creation and Its Purpose, by Meher Baba, Dodd Mead, 1955, 2nd Ed., 1975. pp. 12-33.
Reincarnation
Through the entire process of evolution, the soul has been consciously identifying itself with the evolving gross body (sharir), yet, unconsciously, it has also been identifying itself with the evolving subtle and mental body (pran and mana). The subtle sphere refers to energy, or prana, a gross aspect of which is nuclear energy. In the book it is also referred to as the life-giving energy, or the breath of God. The mental sphere refers to the domain of instincts, feelings, and eventually also of thoughts and desires. When the human form is reached, along with the gross body, the subtle and mental bodies also reach full development and although they remain unconscious, the soul indirectly works through them in the corresponding spheres.
When the human body dies, the soul retains and further experiences the collected impressions through its identification with the subtle and mental bodies, until it associates with the next human form and takes apparent birth in it. During the interval between death and birth, the soul experiences intensively an unfolding of the impressions collected, so depending on what quality these impressions have been of (virtue or vice, good or bad), the consciousness of soul experiences either a heaven state or a hell state. After most impressions have been exhausted, a certain temporary equilibrium is reached and the soul is ready to associate itself with the next human form. The process of the soul's successive association with human forms is called reincarnation.
Baba's use of the word "reincarnation" does not correlate with what is described as "transmigration of the soul" in Theosophy and certain other esoteric schools of thought. For Meher Baba the soul does not actually 'migrate' because it doesn't go anywhere, since it is eternally within the Over-soul and has nowhere to go. Rather, for Meher Baba, "reincarnation" refers only to identification and dis-identification with forms conceived in illusion, i.e. "the involuntary process of intermittent association and disassociation of consciousness."
During reincarnation consciousness tries to liberate itself from the burden of collected impressions. Yet, since it tries to achieve this by associating itself with impressions opposite from the previously accumulated ones, it gets further entangled in accumulating fresh impressions. Thus the soul experiences itself in a seemingly endless succession of human lives, as a man or a woman, as rich or poor, strong or weak, beautiful or ugly, black or white, in various places, religions, castes etc. It is only after numerous apparent births and deaths, that the range of human experience starts to get exhausted. In this way the soul starts dissociating itself from the gross world, enabling its consciousness to become aware of the subtle sphere. Purdom, Charles B., The God-Man: The Life, Journeys & Work of Meher Baba with an Interpretation of His Silence & Spiritual Teaching, (1964), George Allen & Unwin, London
Perfection of consciousness
Involution