Shri Meher Baba's 43rd Birthday Message at Nasik

(Read by Mr. R. K. Sarosh Irani, February,1937)

The incident of birth is common to all life on earth. Unlike other living creatures which are born insignificantly, which live an involuntary life and which die an uncertain death, physical birth of human beings connotes an important and, if they are extra circumspect about it, perhaps a final stage of their evolutionary progress. Here onwards, they are no longer automatons, but masters of their destiny, which they can shape and mould according to will. And this means that human beings, having passed through all the travails of lower evolutionary processes, should insist upon the reward thereof, which is 'Spiritual Birth' in this very life, and not rest content with a promise in the hereafter.

No sooner one recoils on himself and is eagerly anxious to elicit replies to interrogative intro- spection 'Whither and Whence', surely, such a one may be said to have had 'Spiritual Birth'. This poise of mind once gained, it automatically and unknowingly brings about a re-adjustment of material surroundings, and the man finds himself in harmony and at peace with the world. Conservatism, intolerance, pride and selfishness will be shed off. Everything will put on a new meaning and assume a purpose. Sinner and saint will appear to be waves, differing in size and magnitude, on the surface of the same ocean, a natural outcome of forces in the universe, governed by time and causation. The saint has neither the pride of place, nor the sinner the stigma of eternal degradation. Nobody is utterly lost and nobody need despair.

My panacea to the worried world is the effort on its part to get an answer to the question 'Whither and Whence'. The knowledge that all have the same beginning and the same end, with life on earth a happy interlude, will go a long way in making the Brotherhood of Man a reality on earth, and this, in turn, will strike at the root of narrow communalism and rigid nationa1isms, which mean wars and economic exploitation. I bless you all for the realization of this, the aim of life.

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