DISCOURSES & TALKS BY MEHER BABA

 

LONGING FOR REAL BLISS

 

 

20 August 1929

 

 

Someone asked, "But how can we acquire the desire for the company of saints?"

 

Baba replied, "By killing all desires except one — longing for real bliss. Thus only by longing for bliss will you have the chance to come in contact with a Perfect Master and then, as I said before, his sahavas, his contact and his service will do the rest. You will gain real bliss."

 

Someone else asked, "But how do we earn that opportunity? All of us cannot think of God and have the intense desire for real bliss."

 

Baba explained at length:

 

Naturally, this depends on one's sanskaras. There is a course of experience through which every being must pass to realize God. Suppose an ordinary person who has no thought of God or desire for real bliss gives something to charity out of his philanthropic nature and feelings for the poor. This is a good deed, and due to that and his mercy for those suffering, he is helped inwardly and progresses. His kind and generous mentality enables him to progress further and further until a time comes when the desire for real bliss is created. The desire for bliss is born in him automatically. This desire leads him to a Sadguru and, by thus reaching the Original Source of everything, he is eventually able to attain bliss. But before achieving this state of being able to create a desire for real bliss, he has to pass through a succession of experiences, both good and bad.

 

Amplifying this point, Baba continued:

 

In fact, there is nothing such as happiness and misery, virtue and vice, or good and bad. Only bliss exists! The experiences of happiness, misery, virtue, vice, good and bad are nothing. But they are the necessary stepping stones on the course to higher things which, though illusory, everyone has to pass through.

 

Only the Sadguru can alter, divert, or destroy this "course." That is, he can change the course of a person's destiny. This automatically occurs once a person comes in contact with such a Master.

 

Unless all the experiences and sanskaras of this course are wiped out totally, there is no chance of Realization for the disciple; and only a Perfect Master can do that.