Does anyone see something historical in such discussions? These are the same kinds of debates that go on about the New Testament, the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and the Epistles and Acts.
Like Lord Meher, the gospels were written after Jesus' death (or resurrection or disappearance as you wish). They were posthumous, written by witnesses of Jesus' life, or those who heard from witnesses. Like Lord Meher, there is debate on their translations, on their authorship, on their being changed, on various versions, and on their accuracy.
But let's stop a moment. Was all this necessary? Unlike the life of Jesus, where we have absolutely nothing written by Jesus or about Jesus in his lifetime, we have boundless contemporaneous resources from Baba's own lifetime. In fact we have so much material from his life that the task of going through it and digitizing and promulgating it may take hundreds of years. Hence we are in the exact opposite situation, it would seem, from the gospel writers. We didn't have to travel and gather posthumous accounts and write them down after Baba' death, as Bhau began in 1969.
The irony of this struck me one day. Why did we create a 'gospel' of Meher Baba to argue over? Would it not have made more sense to do real historicity, with references to extant sources from his life? We have Baba's books, earlier biographies, mountains of correspondences, numerous contemporaneous journals and diaries, magazines, newspaper articles, and so on and on -- filling rooms, I am told?
Were we stupid? Did we write a gospel from second and third hand sources after the fact when we didn't have to? Were we writing a 'gospel' out of habit rather than necessity, and producing in the process something problematic to argue about over the ages? And it occurred to me, what if the joke's on us? The gospel writers had to do what they did, and so we can forgive such imperfections. But we did, seemingly, by not recognizing we were in an altogether new situation, where such 'piecing together' of recollections of a life that had passed was a redundant chore.
And for a few days this was my thought. All the arguments over Lord Meher were gratuitous. We had created our own problem, unnecessarily, by making a posthumous gospel out of the age old habit of doing so. We were arguing over nothing at all.
But then something struck me. It is true that we have so much contemporaneous letters and journals and films and photos from Baba's life, in fact more, we are told by the archivists that are currently laboring in vaults to curate it, that it could take a hundred years or more just to see what we have - let alone make it available. And it is true that future scientific historians will be rather unimpressed with Lord Meher, due to its many controversies and lack of citations. How long will it be before they (those cautious historians) present a 'true' 'historical' 'referenced' biography?
If you step back and think about it, the answer is never. Instead, if Baba remains important to the world, and we Baba lovers are betting that He will, for we believe He was the Avatar, what we will get in a hundred years or so from scientific historians will be as dry and impenetrable, as full of contradictions, or scientific but imperfect guesses, as any other major personality historians have tried to unravel. There will not be a book, but volumes of books, whole encyclopedias, so varied in approach, so dense in their referencing, that it will be unreadable.
And what of heart? What kind of inspiring 'story' or 'epic' will such historians present to us? None. For it is not the job of historians to write like Kazantzakis, to fictionalize for the sake of beauty. Their interest will be 'sources' and 'counter-sources' and winning small debates among their peers.
Sure there may be inspired semi-fictionalized novels of his life. In a hundred years. But then we will have so many that one will have to choose his 'Baba' from all those competing in the market place, based on his favorite 'story weaver.'
Now let us return to the gospels. Say what you like about them, either love them or leap into the controversies that surround them, but one cannot find in our Western Civilization a book that has done more to move hearts, to inspire art, to teach ethics from the mouth of Jesus, as the Bible. The Bible is a book of the heart first, and only secondly a book of historical certainty. One who loves the Bible even loves its uncertainties, for they are a window into mysteries and hours of musing possibilities. The gospels are meant to inspire, to tell the story of the perfect life, and they continue to inspire millions with their stories, as they have for two millennia. And that is a vital purpose, as the Quran performs for Muslims, the Baghavadgita for Vedantists, the Avesta for Zoroastrians, and Bhau Kalchuri's Meher Darshan for Hindu lovers of Baba of Andhra Pradesh and other places.
What will historians in a century or two give to mankind that can perform such a role for Baba? They cannot as it is not their job. Their job is to probe and debate, to make scientific arguments for one source over another, in a soul-wrecking search for highest plausibility, as if plausibility of a factoid can inspire. Nowhere in the methods of the historian exists the creative license to write a story whose real purpose is to inspire, to give a picture of the man, to convey 'what it was like' even when it might not have been exactly that way. The heart cares for what moves it deeply, not whose arguments are in fashion today, to be overturned by a new fashionable 'fact' tomorrow.
The brilliance of Lord Meher, then, is not in its perfection, something it adorably lacks, but in its power to tell Baba's story. Even if it was written not just by Bhau, but with the aid of those he appointed to improve or change it at will, it came first from the heart and mind of Bhau, who was a contemporaneous mandali. No future 'historical biography' will be able to say that of itself.
Below is a photo recently taken of Mehernath Kalchuri (Bhau's son) displaying all the notebooks Bhau complied in the early 1970s that would be used for Meher Darshan and later Lord Meher.
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| Mehernath Kalchuri with notebooks displayed used for Meher Darshan and subsequently Lord Meher |
A gospel is something that is absolutely true. Nothing in the world of ordinary men is absolutely true, and such truth is not within mortal reach. But a gospel is a truth in a second sense, in that the feelings it has the power to inspire are true.
Lord Meher, I now believe, will always be a treasure of inspiration, a book one can pick up to puruse or study the life of Meher Baba, and get a true feel of how it was to be around him. I don't think any future book, no matter how poetic, or factual, will ever take its solitary place -- as our only gospel of the life of Meher Baba. All others will undoubtedly add to that rich source, and some may inspire (some) more. And certainly many will sharpen our 'facts' about Baba's life (while also opening new controversies at the same time) and be a source of inspiration to those who have that bent of mind. But for many Lord Meher will never be surpassed as a book written out of love, for the sake of love, about the Master of love.
The great thing about Lord Meher is we have it now. And there are many things in it that are not in any other book. It is the best 'we' collectively could do in the time it was done. For indeed it took many hands and volunteers. Had it not been written and published when it was, we would have had to wait a hundred years for anything close - not in our lifetime - and would have been robbed of the chance to see the panorama of his sweeping epic life. Maybe we will have a 'better' multi-volume epic book of its kind, but it can never have the stamp of a mandali like Bhau, nor be scrutinized and approved by Eruch, Mani, and others that were present. And searching the sources may unearth more questions than answers, more contradictory accounts than settled ones, and the sweetness and majestic story will undoubtedly be lost in such morass.
Hence I have answered my question in an unexpected way. The joke is not on us. We have produced a gospel that people can reap inspiration and fury from for ages to come; yes we created a gospel, if not the gospel truth. A book with the power and authority to inspire in a way that no future book is likely to. And for those savvy the 'issues' of imperfection only add to the joy of reading it, just as many gospel commentators only gain more inspiration from their debates. I for one adore Lord Meher, warts and all, and maybe as much for its warts. For it was written with so much love. And certainly not a word of it was meant to deceive.
Note: Photo by Clive Adams used with permission.
It always impressed me that the four gospels of the Bible were written from four distinct points of view. Reading all four views gives a more holistic view. It's somehow like the example of the various spectacled eyes looking at the same white ball. The mind rationally integrates the four views linearly, but the heart adds in the cubistic/stereoscopic effect that trully enriches the experience of what one reads.
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