So again we meet. It was to be so.
Now you both listen very carefully, because for the first time I am taking personal interest in Sufism. I am very serious about the reoriented Sufism, and we must be so honest as to have its result appearing all over the world.
There are three things that always hinder Truth. First is temptation. Very, very few persons can overcome temptation; temptation of money, fame, power, lust and leadership are disastrous, very binding, and very few escape it. Second, vagueness about things. And third, dishonesty.
So the first point is, you must do it [carry out his instructions] faithfully, as if your very life depended on it. Secondly, what I have chalked out you must so arrange as to make it a document. Baba will sign it and get copies printed. It will be common for all the Sufi centers all over the world.
Francis was instructed to go straight back to Australia and inform the Sufi group there that Baba had dissolved their initiations and they were to stop all practices of breathing and chanting mantras, et cetera. He left the same day.
Francis Brabazon had waited years for the chance to meet Baba, and the instant he saw Baba, his heart accepted him as the Ancient One. He declared his wish to stay permanently with Baba, but keeping him in Myrtle Beach for only three days, Baba sent him back to deliver the specified orders, and promised to call him.
Francis wrote of his initial contact with Baba:
This meeting was the culmination of ten years of spiritual study and search for that ideal Guide in whom I could unreservedly place my confidence; that man who, I felt, had mastered every difficulty and obstacle which still confronted me. During the previous ten years, I had studied the methods and practices of the great Sufi schools and had read fairly widely in Vedanta, Buddhism and other systems, including Taoism and Confucianism. In Meher Baba I found that person who not merely knew these things, but was the living embodiment of all these systems and knowledges.
Of course, I knew that Baba had been saying for years that he was God-realized; and I knew that the Sufis and thousands of people everywhere had recognized this claim. But as with Thomas, I had to see for myself.1
Well, I did see; and the cry of the deepest parts of my consciousness had been answered.
Footnotes
- 1.Thomas was an apostle of Jesus who, it was said, often doubted Jesus' words or prophesies, and so was called "doubting Thomas." Current thinking is that the "doubting" appellation was added much later, in the early third century, to discredit Thomas, who stressed the individual's direct relationship to God, rather than through any institution or church.