2012

People keep telling me something is about to happen. I hear it everywhere. It's definitely not just Baba lovers. It's not just Christians. It's ubiquitous in the media. Glenn Beck just dedicated a show to it, and Steven Colbert just dedicated a show to Glenn Beck's show. The History Channel, of all places, features more shows on Nostradamus than Napoleon, more documentaries on how the world might end tomorrow than on how it began. They should change the name of that show. They should call it The Tomorrow Channel.

There certainly are a lot of signs that things are getting tentative, like the economy that totters like a ball on a stick.

And have you seen the trailer to the new movie from the makers of The Day After Tomorrow?

What is it about 2012? Is Baba going to break his silence? From all I can gather, there is nothing to it. Every calendar is cyclical. Each year December ends and January begins. In the case of the Mayan baktun ending on December 21, 2012, a better analogy is the end of November. From what little I can gather, the Mayans didn't associate anything particularly important with the end of this baktun. José Argüelles did. Of course I could be wrong. But what can't be denied is the heightened sense of expectation - of something about to happen. I'll tell you one piece of trivia about 2012 that made my eyes pop. Norina Matchabelli was famous for her role as the Madonna in a German pantomime play called Das Mirakel (The Miracle). It was also a famous movie starring her and directed by Max Reinhardt. That film opened in Germany on December 21, 1912. Oh, but in case I forget, I also happen to share a birthday with her husband Prince Georges V. Matchabelli - July 23. What the heck is going on? Well what did Baba say about the end of days? Unfortunately, Baba's words can be used to make nearly any argument you like. In his final declaration given 1954 Baba said,

"During this short period, my word of words will touch the hearts of all mankind, and spontaneously this divine touch will instill in man the feeling of the oneness of all fellow-beings. Gradually, in the course of the next 700 years, 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."

But in late 1968 Baba said something a little more ominous:

"Jesus said: 'Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.' I say: 'Father, pity them for they know not what will happen.'" (Meher Baba, Lord Meher, print edition, p. 6557)

Keep in mind though that Baba could have been referring to the imminent dropping of his body, as this is what Jesus was referring to - his crucifixion. I have noticed that one thing people do is they take their own expectations and they read those expectations into Baba's words. I now try to be watchful of that habit in myself. There is one misconception, that Baba's advent marks the end of a cycle of cycles. Rather it is the next.

"My next advent, after I drop this body, will be after seven hundred years, and that will mark the end and the beginning of a cycle of cycles."

But in the end, Baba was a bringer of good news.

"When I come again after seven hundred years, the evolution of consciousness will have reached such an apex that materialistic tendencies will be automatically transmuted into spiritual longing, and the feeling of equality in spiritual brotherhood will prevail. This means that opulence and poverty, literacy and illiteracy, jealousy and hatred, which are in evidence today in their full measure, will then be dissolved through the feelings of the oneness of all men. Prosperity and happiness will then be at their zenith."