THE GOD-MAN The Life, Journeys and Work of Meher Baba with an ...

Part II Chapter 2THE PERFECT MASTER'The real conviction is when one becomes God'(1)As a man, Meher Baba is a Perfect Master. It is necessary to examine this because the term is unknown inthe West, though familiar in the East from the writings of the Sufi mystics, Indian poets and philosophers.'Perfect Master' is Sadguru in Sanskrit, and Qutub in Persian, an equivalent in English being 'Man-God'. It isapplied to one who has attained self-knowledge, who has gained mastery over his nature and achieved unionwith Reality. In a psychological sense such a man lives on the central axis of his being and is in control inevery situation; he is master over himself, which is more than to be master of a technique. To put it inFreudian terms, a Perfect Master is an unrepressed man, without the guilt feeling that drives to evil andmultiplies defects in even the best of men, for he is free from unconscious fantasies and disorders, being infull possession of himself.How Baba became a Perfect Master we know from the story I have told in the previous pages. He did notattain it by study or the cultivation of an aptitude or the development of a skill, or because he set out to do so.Suddenly at the age of nineteen his life at college was interrupted and apparent disorder brought into it. Hedid not understand what was happening and his parents thought he was going out of his mind. Yet he was notplunged into unconsciousness, but brought into such heightened consciousness that he was blinded byecstasy. He could explain nothing and outwardly became helpless, though his inner awareness was intenseand his sense of freedom overpowering. After two years he became partly aware of his surroundings, but foran entire period of nine years he was virtually out of normal life. He had to realize that he was not what hehitherto had thought himself, and at the end he knew himself inwardly and was able to act free from illusion.