May the Light of His Silence Break In Every Heart!
Remarks on the Golden Jubilee
of Meher Baba’s Amartithi
January 30–31, 2019
Excerpts from Murshida Conner’s introductory remarks at three gatherings commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of Meher Baba’s Amartithi, his physical passing in 1969. The programs were held at the Sufism Reoriented Sanctuary in Walnut Creek, California.
A Note about the Jubilee Year
The significance of a fifty-year anniversary is recognized in many spiritual traditions. In biblical times, the “year of jubilee” was proclaimed by the joyous sound of the ram’s horn, the juba. It celebrated the completion of a full season of work and growth: seven times seven, or forty-nine, years. According to the Old Testament book of Leviticus, “You shall consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout the land.” (Leviticus 25:10) The jubilee was a holy year of universal pardon: slaves and captives were freed, debts were forgiven, and the slate was wiped clean for everyone. In the Catholic tradition, a jubilee year is symbolized by the unsealing and opening of the “holy door” of the major basilicas so that all pilgrims may freely enter. The jubilee, then, is understood to be an important cusp between the end of an old cycle and the beginning of a new one. It celebrates a milestone in the manifestation of God’s infinite love and mercy. The gates of paradise are opened wide, and we are invited to cross the threshold into a new age.
The programs opened with the singing of a Universal Prayer:
May the light of his Silence break in every heart!
Let there be peace and love among all beings of the Universe!
Meher Baba said, “When the Word of my love breaks out of its silence and speaks in your hearts, telling you who I really am, you will know that that is the Real Word you have been always longing to hear.”[1]
At this fiftieth Amartithi, the golden anniversary of Baba’s physical passing, we celebrate the advent of the great Kalki Avatar. We rejoice in the full release of the brilliant, cascading force of his divine Manifestation, now descending with breathtaking speed from the Realm of Silence into the heart of every atom and particle to awaken all to life’s unity and ineffable divine beauty. Baba declared, “The time has now come for the real revelation of the Infinite in the Universe.”[2]
We now bear witness to a singular moment of Creation, never before seen in all the billions of cycles and yugas that have gone before, a moment Sri Aurobindo recognized as “the Hour of God”.
For ages upon ages moons have slipped aside,
Earths were born and died in this vast sea of Creation.
Now, suddenly, a Divine Transformation!
Something that has never happened,
Only here it’s suddenly happened –
The goal of every incarnating soul.
And now, like a great symphony,
We’ve reached the turning point!
The Lord of Creation has sent us in a new direction.
Suddenly the chrysalis unfolding!
Currents of divine force lifting and integrating!
Our awareness expanding!
Divine Grace suddenly descending!
O Perfect Mirror! O World of Perfection!
O Realm of Silence! O Eternal Presence!
Now suddenly new!
O Beloved, we have found You
In the whirling waves of stardust
When least expected,
At the hour ordained.[3]
“May the light of his Silence break in every heart!” This is Baba’s Manifestation. We might paraphrase his statements this way:
I break my silence
That you may know me in silence.
I break each temporary form
That you may find me
At the silent center of all forms.
In this stillness
Beyond words, beyond thoughts,
Is perfect balance, perfect Love.
To enter this stillness is to realize me.
To surrender to this stillness is to feel
The fires of my love that burn away all else.
Stillness is my gateway and Perfect
Love my terrain.
In silence you know me and join me
As the timeless perfect Love, Light, and Power
At the center of all that lives.[4]
One who dwells in this realm says, “The chatter of talk and speech are part of your world. In mine, there is eternal silence. This silence sings, this emptiness is full, it lacks nothing. You cannot know my world until you are there. No particular thought can be mind’s natural state, only – silence! Not the idea of silence, but silence itself.”[5]
Baba said, “Only in internal Silence is Baba found – in profound inner Silence.
. . . Drown all sound in my Silence to hear my Word of Words.”[6]
When the light of his Silence breaks in your heart, then
All sounds, all voices become His Voice,
Music and thunder and the cry of birds,
Life’s babbles of her sorrows and her joys,
The cadence of human speech and murmured words.
All things become wonder-tones and themes of You.
Immortality awakening in mortal things made new!
A secret harmony steals through the blind heart,
And we know all grows beautiful because You are![7]
Meher Baba said, “Ages ago, I performed one great miracle, the miracle of the whole Creation. I will perform one more miracle when I speak . . . the greatest miracle of all times will happen!”[8]
The day before his passing fifty years ago, even as spasms rocked his body, Baba turned to Dr. Donkin and gestured, “All this, all that I have been through all along, has been a preparation for the Word – for just the One Word!” And with a quizzical smile, he added, “Just imagine!”[9]
Today we commemorate Meher Baba’s incomparable life, his tireless work, his unstinting sacrifice, his unbounded love, and his great Miracle, the world-renewing Word of Words.
His Second Word resounds today!
Our Lord declares his work is done.
The mind-made world has passed away;
The God-made world at last has come!
In mortal hearts, immortal bliss captures Nature by surprise.
And Earth, receiving Heaven’s kiss, grows unexpectedly divine.
Bliss and pain in Truth unite; fear and falsehood disappear.
And we, embodied living Light, know the ordained hour of God is here![10]
And as the light of his silence breaks within your heart,
You will know with unshakable certainty that
You are born to love the living God.
You have come here on Earth to become His love,
To know and to serve the Divine in each and in all.
You were born to share the treasure of this birth,
To manifest this purest divine love here upon the Earth.
Give all of self, and He will revealHimself in all.[11]
Me her Baba said, “Things that are Real are given and received in silence. . . . Through endless time, God’s greatest gift is continuously given in silence.” He said: “[My silence] is a call from the Silence of unfathomable Divinity. Invite that Divinity into your hearts so that you may become permanently established in the immortality of universal life, which is vastly different from the persistence of limited individual life. The ego-life has a beginning and an end; when you jump across the abyss of duality, you join the Truth, which is beginningless and endless.”[12]
In the unitary realm,
Mind is hushed in white wide and endless light,
Heart a solitude of peace, of peace – and pure delight!
Senses unsnared by touch and unused for sound or sight,
Body an untethered point in vast infinities white.
I am the one Being’s sole immobile Bliss.
No one am I, I who am all that is.[13]
In this stillness, where the ego and lower mind are annulled,
We know true freedom, limitless freedom,
Like a breeze coming from an Ocea of freedom,
Freedom born of honoring the One True Self,
Freedom born of emptiness,
Now filled with God Himself –
Limitless livingness,
Freedom![14]
When the light of his Silence breaks in your heart, what counts now in the world are silent actions, prompted by the heart. Existing at the center of every current of life is a silent, golden, flowing force that impels union. When complete union with all beings and things in Creation is found, one enters the realm of Silence.
At each step along the way, the personal experience of successive unions at many different levels is felt and known as love. Each time it occurs, boundaries dissolve, and the joy of expanded love fills the mind and heart with a new level of beauty, a broader, fuller force of life, and a revitalized aspiration to dissolve more boundaries, to experience a fuller love, to at last enter a realm of perfected Love. Then you may wish to consecrate your everyday life more and more fully to God – to offer up all you know and feel, all you have, and all you are on His altar of transformation.
And no sooner do you begin
Than you become, than you will feel
Freedom lifting you, freedom,
Like a breeze coming from an ocean of freedom.
When you lay down your life at His feet
You feel freedom,
Freedom in accepting every task at hand,
To obey the Beloved’s every wish and command,
This is Freedom –
When you lay down your life at His feet
And join Him in His Divine perfect Silence.[15]
It is not through words that Baba and enlightened masters give what they have to give. In the silence of your perfect surrender, their love, which is always silent, can flow to you – to be yours always to keep and to share. “Surrender” here means learning to yield to life’s most fulfilling process, the guiding force that leads to all growth, real maturity, beauty, and understanding; such surrender means surrendering to Love. In this way, you beautify your life with sweet contentment. Accepting all He gives, wanting only Him, abiding in His love, happiness is yours eternally.
True happiness, joy, and light delight are at the core of the divine lila — God’s play, Creation’s eternal dance. At every Amartithi a recording is played of one of Meher Baba’s favorite songs, “Begin the Beguine”. Baba’s long-standing order was to have this light, lilting love song played at his passing, and fifty years ago, following Baba’s wish, Mani played the recording seven times. Tonight our dancers begin our program with this lovely melody that evokes the eternal lila of lover and Beloved, longing and reunion.
[1] Lord Meher (online edition, 2018), 5142.
[2] Lord Meher, 3169.
[3] “Suddenly New”, song from Limitless Sahavas suite, unpublished musical work, Sufism Reoriented, 2018.
[4] From the libretto of The Highest of the High, An Oratorio in Praise of Meher Baba, Sufism Reoriented, 1986.
[5] Nisargadatta Maharaj, I Am That, tr. Maurice Frydman (Durham, NC: Acorn Press, 1997).
[6] The Awakener, Vol. 22, no. 1, 1986, p. 75; Lord Meher, 4638.
[7] “I Who Am All That Is” (adapted from poetry of Sri Aurobindo), song from Limitless Sahavas suite, unpublished musical work, Sufism Reoriented, 2018.
[8] Adapted from Lord Meher, 3828, 3467.
[9] Lord Meher, 5397.
[10] “Love Awakes In Matter Now”, song from Limitless Sahavas suite, unpublished musical work, Sufism Reoriented, 2018.
[11] “You Will Become Me” (adapted from poetry of Norina Matchabelli), song from Limitless Sahavas suite, unpublished musical work, Sufism Reoriented, 2018.
[12] Meher Baba, Life at Its Best, 23.
[13] “I Who Am All That Is” (adapted from poetry of Sri Aurobindo), song from Limitless Sahavas suite, unpublished musical work, Sufism Reoriented, 2018.
[14] “Limitless Sahavas” (adapted from quotations of Meher Baba and Mani S. Irani), song from Limitless Sahavas suite, unpublished musical work, Sufism Reoriented, 2018.
[15] Ibid.
