A collection of teachings of Meher Baba
Meher Baba taught the pre-eminence of love as the surest means to find God and one’s true self.
Religion has an outer shell or form, its shariat, and an inner heart, its tariqat. The outer forms may differ considerably; but the inner heart of each religious tradition is always the same central theme of love for God. Anyone who goes beyond the outer form to find the inner heart of his or her religion can truthfully say they no longer belong to any religion but that all religions belong to them.
In an answer to questions as to his own religion, his response was that he belonged to one but rather all belonged to him.
In response to those who questioned how he would convey his message if he remained silent, he replied, “I have come not to teach but to awaken”, and at another time he said, “You have asked for and been given enough words – it is now time to live them.”
True renunciation is to renounce the mental and emotional attachments which prevent one from experiencing the all-pervasive presence of God.
One may become attached to ascetic practices as much as to the practices of indulgence, and that anything that focuses attention on the self keeps one from the awareness of God. That which we understand to be our ‘self’ is a false self, a mental construct generated by the innumerable impressions gathered through the process of the soul’s evolution.