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

THE MAN 413even those who have been with him day and night, and are near him during his seclusions. I was once told byRamjoo that years ago Baba informed some of the mandali that he proposed to speak, and brought a numberof them to a distant place, which they reached after days of strenuous walking. When they arrived he madeeach stand around him at a distance of fifty feet or more with their backs to him, he standing in the center; atthe clapping of his hands they were to turn to him and he would speak. He clapped his hands, they turned,but heard nothing. He smiled and beckoned them to him. Why had he not spoken? they asked. He said, 'Doyou not know I am always speaking?' Indeed, he has said that 'the voice of intuition is my voice'.Is it not terrifying that Baba should have maintained silence all these nearly forty years? For silence is theabyss, or the very edge of the abyss. In the ordinary way in silence we come dangerously near the gap ofmeaninglessness, in which nothing has a name or a rightful place. To me it is astonishing that a man shouldlook into the darkness so long, and should live; it shrouds Baba with the deepest mystery, a word I haveconstantly used.Unless it is the Word, in Baba's sense, the noise that breaks the silence is ignorance. When he breaks hissilence, he says he will speak one Word, which will 'go to the world as from God, not as from a philosopher,it will go straight to its heart'. Why the Word is not yet uttered we do not know, except that he is waiting forthe moment. It will mean much, for after all these years of silence he will be bound to speak to the point.Indeed, he says, his Word will reverberate for seven hundred years. He has to choose the time because of thedanger of men hearing what exceeds the possibility of what they are able to hear: it might destroy thebalance of mankind. In Francis Brabazon's Stay with God the following statement by Baba is contained:When I break my silence and speak, it will be this Primal Oceanic 'M-m-m' which I will utter through myhuman mouth.And because all forms and words are from this Primal Sound or Original Word and are continuouslyconnected with it and have their life from it, when it is uttered by me it will reverberate in all people andcreatures and all will know that I have broken my silence and have uttered that Sound or Word.The effective force of this Word and their reaction to it will be in accordance with the magnitude andreceptivity of each individual mind.And the reaction will be an instantaneous and as various as the reaction of people in a room throughwhich a cobra suddenly and