Saturday, October 27, 2012

Baba on Religion

Below are several randomly ordered excerpts of statements made by Meher Baba on religion, lifted from his principle biography Lord Meher 1986 print edition.

Worldly service is religion's business for the enhancement of self.
The effect of love is the renunciation of self at every step.
How incomparably difficult is this Path of Love!
It is so infinitely easy that it is not easy at all! (6627)

The religion of those in the contact of a Sadguru or Avatar is to obey him. This is the highest type of religion. (991)

Religion as the Parsis practice it today has nothing in it. All the original teachings of Zarathustra were buried and destroyed; (1352)

God is beyond religion, beyond love. (5976)

The real meaning of religion is to know God, to see God and to be one with God. Everything else about religion is an exercise in rites and rituals. (809)

There are two who do not care about religion – a materialist and a God-Realized person. (873)

God can be seen. No matter what religion or faith a person may adhere to, once the veil of illusion is lifted by the Guru he sees God. The only difference lies in the means adopted to remove the veil. (724)

My wish is religion and my wish is shariat; and he who obeys it obeys the shariat and fulfills the tenets of his religion. (617)

To me all religions are one. (598, 4698)

I consider all religions equal, as they are all different paths to realize the one God! (1559)

I belong to no religion; all religions belong to me. (4112, 4341)

If Zarathustra were born again in this material world, he would find it difficult to recognize his own religious tenets, as practiced by the present day followers of his creed. The same is true of all religions. The Muslim mullahs, Hindu pundits, and Zoroastrian dastoors and Christian priests have mutilated the original religion for their own selfish ends. (430)

Who gave all these different religions? The Avatars! Why have they done so? To establish principles for people and to bring people to the point where their faces are turned toward God. (990)

I know what sort of instruction these priests give, as I myself studied in a Catholic school. Priests and dasturs are truly hardheaded! These days there is too much stress everywhere on religion. Religion is the root cause of all strife, both internal and external, and is the cause of all wars in the world. (1100)

Here, to obey me is the best religious act you can perform, and by doing so you will free yourself from all the bondages of the customs and rites of religion. (1130)

To me all religions are equal and the wrangles over religious dogmas and practices are mere exercises in futility. Still, a person should have respect for the religious faith of another and it should not be hampered in any circumstance. On the contrary, all traditionalists, or strong believers in their faith and religious practices, should be accorded all facilities. It is desirable to encourage them. (829)

My teachings are not like any religion or philosophy. If you are looking to anything for close similarity, it would be a synthesis of Sufism, Zoroastrianism and Vedantism. (6232)

Cults and religions have no importance. Love holds the key. Do your duty but have the thought at the back of your mind that all this is Maya [unreal], and Baba is the only Truth. (5741)

Qawaalis are not religious but spiritual songs. They are devotional songs and have nothing to do with religion. Like the Christian mystics, each one of whom was my gem, each was a lover of God – Jesus was their theme. (5424)

Every religion and religious book states that God is. God IS. People believe it. You, too, believe in His existence. Despite all this, only rarely does one resolve firmly to see God. Rare is the one who says: "I will see God at any cost", even at the expense of renouncing his home, family and all else. (5740)

This is the Kali Yuga! See the horror done in the cause of religion. Look at the massacres born out of ignorance and cruelty occurring between Hindus and Muslims, all for the sake of religion. At the same time, many false prophets have appeared and hypocrisy is rampant. People now want religious doctrines to suit their own ideas of life, and the crafty leaders who observe all this and fulfill their wishes find thousands of followers. (818)

I have declared several times before that I have come to abolish ceremonies, all formal and set religious rites and rituals, and that I am above all religions! (6079)

You are free to follow your religion if you want, but it will lead you nowhere. Spirituality is an entirely different thing, and unless you become like the dust under the Master's feet, there is no hope for salvation. (4704)

I allow vegetarians to follow their own diet and non-vegetarians to eat meat; I do not interfere with any custom or religion. When faced with love for God these matters have no value. Love for God is self-denial, mental control and ego annihilation. (3779)

Attachment to the rigid forms of external expressions of love to God not only limits the love itself but creates separative divisions between one religion and another. Therefore the rituals and ceremonies often bind the soul to ignorance and illusory separateness and become an obstacle to real illumination. (3999)

Therefore, I love and adore all religions; but I am of no religion. Nor do I seek to establish another religion or add to the numberless illusions that divide man against man. No religion was ever intended to be anything more than the gateway to God as Truth; but every religion, in the course of time, has been converted into a veil, obstructing the undimmed perception of the One Truth. . . They cover the Truth in the very act of seeking to express it. This comic tragedy reveals itself in the retrospective analysis of all the world religions bestowed on man. But it is not inevitable, if man is invariably vigilant and remains unwaveringly loyal to the inner perception of the inexpressible but unchangeable spiritual Truth, which ever affirms itself as the One, All-Embracing Life Divine, at once indivisible and illimitable. (3980)

The aim of life is to realize God. How? By making the highest ideal of religion our conduct in life. This noble ideal is love. Only the way of love is the best and easiest path; it means to love only God and none besides Him. (1536)

Mukti – liberation from all future births and deaths – is not possible without surrenderance to a Perfect Master. The outer forms of religions, their rites, ceremonies and shariat, are bindings, and religion itself is a prison. (1074)

I have been saying that no damage to religion is as great as that done by the priest class. (stated to Gandhi, 1447)

Be religious; it is good. But eventually you have to go beyond the shariat – the traditional rituals of religion. (1429)

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