The Muslims believe in one birth only and in one death only. The Christians and the Zoroastrians believe the same. All are right. But Jesus, Buddha, Muhammad and Zoroaster all meant what I mean by real birth and real death. I say, You are born once and die once.
All the so-called births and deaths are only sleeps and wakings. The difference between sleep and death is that when you sleep, you awake and find yourself in the same body. But after death, you awake in a different body. You never die; only the blessed ones die and become one with God.
A discourse on nirvan and nirvikalp was to be read.1 Baba prefaced it by stating:
This is short, but difficult. Those who cannot follow it must not worry. It is nothing but words. Only love counts. If the most unintelligent one can love me as I ought to be loved, he is infinitely more blessed than the most intelligent one who does not know how to love me.
Fana: Fana is the state of unconsciousness. In fana, the soul is unconscious of everything except Self being God. Before the soul loses its human state and gains the divine state of nirvikalp ["I Am God"], it has to experience the vacuum state of nirvan. Nirvan is the infinite vacuum state where the soul is fully conscious of Real Nothing. Nirvan is immediately and inevitably followed by nirvikalp [fana-fillah] where the soul is fully conscious of Real Everything.
Nirvan and nirvikalp are so irrevocably linked and tied together that each one can be said to be the Divine Goal.
False nothing = illusory everything
Real Nothing = neither everything nor nothing
Real Everything = God the Infinite
False nothing leads to false everything, and Real Nothing leads to Real Everything. False nothing is linked to false everything, and Real Nothing is linked to Real Everything. Eventually, false nothing ends in false everything, and Real Nothing ends in Real Everything.
In duality, false nothing is false everything. In Unity, Real Nothing and Real Everything are one.
Baba commented:
If you listen seven times, there is a chance of your beginning to understand; or you might lose yourself in nothing! What is Real Nothing? There is a difference between nothing and Real Nothing. Real Nothing means not even nothing. On the sixth plane, one sees nothing but God, and sees God everywhere; one sees nothing and everything. There is still duality — the seer and the seen. The seer sees nothing but God.
Footnotes
- 1.The explanation of nirvan and nirvikalp was originally dictated to Bhau in October 1956.