The Miracle of Grace:
My Road to Avatar Meher Baba
Thomas James Hickey, Ph.D.
(Previously published in Glow International)
I discovered Eastern and Western esoteric thought in the early sixties, although there wasn't anywhere near as much esoteric literature available then as there is now. But I read avidly anything I could find and remember being especially impressed by Aldous Huxley's Perennial Philosophy. Huxley marshaled a lot of evidence in it showing that there is a universal mystical teaching underlying all religions and wisdom traditions. That rang true to me at the time, and it would stick with me. This conviction was deepened later by reading Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa's enlightened experience that all religions are identical in essence.
I also had the distinct experience, which I can still remember vividly, of perusing a book called The Varieties of Mystical Experience in a bookstore and thinking to myself that the real purpose of life was not of this world but could be attained in this world through mystical experience. There and then I knew that I wanted to devote myself to attaining it, although I didn't yet know how. That was in 1964.
In the interim, I frequented the lectures of various yogis and swamis who were coming to the West at the time, but I wasn't taken by any of them. While on a trip to Cambridge in the late sixties or early seventies, I saw a big poster of Meher Baba in someone's window in Inman Square. I immediately felt the outpouring love and knew instantly this was the real thing. But simultaneously I also felt that this kind of love involved a serious commitment that I wasn't ready for. So I thought to myself, Not right now, later maybe,
and I turned away and kept on walking. I forgot completely about this encounter with the Beloved. Baba just smiled from that big picture. He knew he had hooked me, even though I hardly had an inkling of it yet.
Meditation was in the air at the time, and I eventually began hearing good things about Maharishi Mahesh Yogi from people I respected. I found out that he didn't require any change in lifestyle to start his Transcendental Meditation, and one could start without making any heavy commitments. So far so good. I had looked at other teachers who were traveling to the West at the time, but what they were offering was a lot more complicated.
Then, I had the incredible good fortune to get my introductory lecture on TM from Maharishi himself, who just happened to be in the area. My mother saw a notice in the paper that Maharishi was giving an introductory lecture at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, which was only an hour's drive. I was initiated into the practice of Transcendental Meditation three weeks later in Washington, DC, when I returned to graduate studies at Georgetown University.
Transcendental Meditation struck a chord with me, and over time inner peace and began to flower into increasing blissfulness. Although I did not realize it at the time, my initiation into Transcendental Meditation was the beginning of a long and deep relationship with Maharishi and Guru Dev. This relationship would result in my coming to Meher Baba as God Incarnate and the Divine Beloved through the grace and blessings of Guru Dev himself.
Experienced deepened over time, and eventually, I decided that Transcendental Meditation was something I wanted to pursue full time. After completing my doctorate in philosophy at Georgetown Univeristy, I undertook the intensive training required to become a teacher of TM, and Maharishi made me a teacher in 1976. Given my academic background, it was natural that I would take a position at Maharishi International University in Fairfield, Iowa, where I spent several years teaching philosophy in the light of Maharishi's Vedic Science.
One day, while I was researching an article at the library of the University of Iowa Library, a copy of Meher Baba's God Speaks caught my eye. I quickly perused just a bit here and there because my time was limited. I distinctly remember thinking, This is good Vedanta.
But I was on another mission, so I put the book back on the shelf without going deeper, and failed to see Baba's monumental contributions to the subject. I forgot about this second encounter with the Beloved as suddenly as it had occurred. It was now the early eighties.
Anyone associated closely with Maharishi soon learns that he attributes everything to the grace of his master, Swami Brahmananda Saraswati, the late Shankaracharya of Jyotir Math, Himalayas. Maharishi spent the last eleven years with Swami Brahmananda and served as his personal secretary. He was with Swami Brahmananda when he took his mahasamadhi. Before his passing, Guru Dev charged Maharishi to bring the knowledge of a simple meditation program suitable for householders, not just monks and recluses, to the people of the world. This has been Maharishi's lifelong mission. According to Maharishi, Swami Brahmananda is not only his own Guru Dev but also the Guru Dev of all initiated into Transcendental Meditation. Therefore, many who seriously pursue Maharishi's program also develop an inner relationship with Swami Brahmananda, who is affectionately known as Guru Dev.
One day in the fall of 1995, I was rereading a pithy discourse that Guru Dev had given while he was Shankaracharya, which had been recorded by one of his disciples and later transcribed and translated into English. In it he emphasized the importance of having a relationship with God as personal. I thought to myself that I had been following Guru Dev and Maharishi for many years now and felt a close relationship with them. Moreover, I had had all my doubts removed by Guru Dev and Maharishi, and I was both very grateful to them and also quite satisfied with all I had received through their blessings.
Yet, on rereading this discourse, it seemed to me that perhaps a major piece was still missing, even though I knew that Vedanta emphasizes the experiential realization of unity and doesn't place great emphasis on the relationship of devotee to personal God, which is dualistic in nature. Maharishi's program emphasizes the impersonal aspect of Being rather than personal God, and I was familiar with the experience of pure consciousness that Maharsihi describes as Being, the impersonal aspect of God. Yet, I also remembered that Maharishi had said that prior to realizing God, one must pass through the sixth plane of God-Consciousness, in which one sees
God. He mentioned that even though this is a state of dualism and glorified ignorance,
Guru Dev emphasized that it was a state not to be missed. So my interest was piqued. Moreover, I had seen Maharsihi's videotaped lecture, Shaking Hands With God,
in which he said that when one sees the personal God, God appears in the form that one worships.
Guru Dev was not a person of many words, having spent sixty years in silence as a hermit prior to becoming Shankaracharya. So I thought that if he thought it important to mention cultivating a relationship with God as personal, perhaps I should request his guidance in this matter. Therefore, I sincerely asked Guru Dev to show me God, if it was his will. Then I forgot about it and went about what I was doing.
Not long after that I was in a used bookstore with an old friend whose opinion I respected. We were looking a some books in the section on spirituality, and he was pointing out things he liked and thought worthwhile reading. One of the books he singled out was Meher Baba's Discourses. I don't read that much any more and wasn't interested in the other books he mentioned, but something struck me about the Discourses. I thought about buying it right then, but our organization sells books, so I thought that I'd just get a new one wholesale, essentially for the same price as the used one, which was a bit marked up anyway.
When I returned home, I immediately got out the distributor catalog. Yes, our distributor carried Discourses, and the wholesale price was indeed better than the cost of the used one. So I decided I'd just get a new one with the next order went off, probably in about a week.
But then I thought, No, I want to read that book now.
So I went back to the bookstore to get the Discourses. When I got home, I sat down and started reading it. Almost immediately, I was thunderstruck. It was as if I had written the words I was reading, and it seemed that these were my own thoughts I was thinking. Of course, it was impossible to doubt them under these circumstances. This was a very unusual experience that is difficult to describe. Maharishi's program had already removed all doubts from me, and I had stopped asking questions, which is unaccustomed for a philosopher.
But this was a different and deeper dimension of conviction than I had previously experienced. My previous certainty had been that which arises from inner silence, whereas this was an experience of awakening. Only later would I come to find that Meher Baba said, I came not to teach but to awaken.
I didn't realize it yet, but this was Baba's gift of intuitive conviction.
For someone professionally qualified in philosophy, this was even more astounding, because characteristically one is always reading critically, picking the author's brain, as it were, and evaluating along with understanding. Nothing like this was happening with Baba's words, which were being received as my own inner voice speaking to myself. Here, there could be no question of their truth, and nothing could be more intimate to me. It was the experience of immediate and complete conviction, a state in which doubt is simply not possible. I was not being convinced by what I was reading, for I felt that I already owned it.
From that moment Baba's presence became totally alive for me. In that short time span, Baba came to me in that instant, rather than me to him. It seemed clear to me that I was the one who had been getting in the way, and that grace had removed enough of the obstacles I had been throwing up unknowingly for me to get his scent.
I knew nothing about Baba then, however, so I didn't yet suspect that he had revealed that he was the Avatar. But when I read his assertion that he was indeed the Ancient One come again, my reaction was, Of course. What else could he be?
Judging from the stories I've heard about how others have come to Baba, there is something of a miracle in each of them — the miracle of grace. Only later, when I was reflecting how I came to Baba, did I remember asking Guru Dev to show me the personal God if he pleased. I also recalled Maharishi's saying that the role of a spiritual teacher is to introduce one to God. So, first, I thank Maharishi withall gratitude for introducing me to Guru Dev. Then, I bow to Guru Dev for introducing me to Avatar Meher Baba. saying Jai Guru Dev,
and then Jai Baba
. Perhaps this experience of being handed to the Divine Beloved is something like a bride feels when her father gives her hand to her husband-to-be.