"All narrowness limits love." - Avatar Meher Baba
Meher Mount
AVATAR MEHER BABA washing the feet of and bowing down to the poor in Wadia Park, Ahmednagar, India, in 1954.
In the time of a world pandemic, protests against ongoing racism and social injustice, economic disruption, and human rights violations, the divisions in our society are all the more evident.
During another tumultuous time in world history, World War II (1939-1945), Avatar Meher Baba gave a series of talks or discourses to political leaders in India and to His followers all over the world. The following is an excerpt from those discourses: [1]
“All narrowness limits love. In India, as well as in every other part of the world, humanity is breaking itself into narrow groups based upon the superficial and ultimately false differences of caste, creed, race, nationality, religion or culture: and since these groups have been long accustomed to separative distrust and fear, they have indifference, contempt or hostility towards each other. All this is due to ignorance, prejudice and selfishness: and it can only be mended by fostering the spirit of mutuality which breaks through artificial isolationism, and which derives its strength from the sense of the inviolable unity of life as a whole.”
Meher Mount – as a universal spiritual center dedicated to Avatar Meher Baba – welcomes everyone.
Avatar Meher Baba set the example when He cared for the untouchables in India and cleaned their latrines, bowed down to the poor and lepers, and stood up to walk across the room to greet Black visitors in the 1950s American South. [2]
His close disciples included individuals from all over the world with a wide variety of racial, cultural, and religious backgrounds, and with different sexual orientations and identities.
Avatar Meher Baba embraces us all.
AVATAR MEHER BABA embracing Mohammed, a mast. Pronounced "must," the Sufi term mast refers to a God-intoxicated soul on the spiritual path. (Source: MN Publications, 1939)
References
[1] Bhau Kalchuri, Lord Meher: The Biography of the Avatar of the Age Meher Baba, Appendix B: 1942 Discourses, pg. 5431, Online Edition accessed June 12, 2020. (c) Avatar Meher Baba Perpetual Public Charitable Trust.
[2] Charles Haynes, Meher Baba, The Awakener, “Mastery in Servitude,” pp. 69-71. (N. Myrtle Beach, SC: The Avatar Foundation, Inc.) (c) 1989 Charles Haynes.