Stand With Gaza

Eleven Chronological Stages in the Progress from the Original State of God, to after the dropping of the body of a Perfect Master

1. (State 1 in TSOG) God in the Beyond Beyond State. God’s original state. Same as Sound Sleep. This state is entirely beyond any human conception. In this original state of God, even the prospect of consciousness is inconceivable.

2. (State 2A in TSOG) God in the Beyond State. God state before the Creation, before the soul (which is God) begins its journey. In the Beginning, when the Whim surges, both the unconscious and the conscious substates manifest simultaneously. It doesn’t matter that there is no realized “inhabitant” yet in the conscious substrate. The laws and the forms they create are latent in this Beyond State and when the Whim surges, they become attributes of the Universal Mind. According to these laws the subtle and the gross take form. In EOP they appear as lenses that are formed after Time and Space condition Perception. But Time, Space and Laws are just conditioning of Perception, they do not take any form. But when they manifest they form the percept. My colleague Stelios Karvias correctly points out that it is important to keep 2A, 2B, and 2C as one whole state because it is the tension of A towards B that brings about State 3. See The Ten States of God. It is this state that asks "Who Am I?"

3. (State 3 in TSOG) God as Emanator, Sustainer and Dissolver.

4. (State 4 in TSOG) God experiences Itself as the first three semi-gaseous, not quite physical, forms. “It is so very infinitely shapeless and substanceless, matterless and formless that it cannot lead one even to imagine that it is gross. Yet this form is the very first gross form that emerges simultaneously as if in three prongs, as the first three of the foremost seven "gas-like" forms.” This three-pronged semi-gaseous form is what scientists term the Quark. These first three forms have no evolution. Evolution begins with the fourth gas-like form in State 5 below.

5. 
   (State 5 in TSOG): God experiencing Itself in Evolution, from the fourth gas-like form (hydrogen atom is the seventh) up to monkey, whereby God as soul acquires consciousness. Baba has it that consciousness starts very gradually from the first gaseous states. In atom form it is almost nil. “Evolution begins with the fourth gas-like form.” Hydrogen is the 7th gas-like form and is the first to have an electron.
   

6. (State 6 in TSOG): God experiencing Itself as a human being in reincarnation, fully conscious but not yet on the spiritual path – trapped entirely in Maya with entirely material interests.

7. (State 7 in TSOG): God experiencing Itself as a human being on the spiritual path, still with a physical body, but with exotic internal experiences beyond ordinary gross experience. Less Maya, but still Maya.

8. (State 8 and 2B in TSOG):  Majzoobiat. In this state only God (or Self) is experienced, and not the Illusion. Maya is wiped out for that soul. This is the same as State 2B below.(State 9 in TSOG):  A person experiencing a state between Majzoob and Salik.

9. (State 2C and 10 in TSOG) State of God experienced by the living embodied Perfect Master or the Avatar while he is in a physical body on Earth, who takes experience of Reality and the Illusion at the same time in order to help emancipate souls.

10. 
    (2B and State 8 in TSOG) Fourth Journey, Vidnyan or Shambhala. State that the Avatar and all God-realized souls pass away into when they die. 4th Journey. Eternal Bliss. Power, knowledge, bliss but not used. God experiences Himself, but not the Illusion. For perfect masters substate 2B comes chronologically after substate 2C. It is the resting place of the masters, the Gray Havens in LOTR. Same as Majzoob State. From the point of view of the Majzoob, even in a body, there is no time and no journey. (Source)
    
    

"He returns to the door from which he first came out, although in his journey he went from door to door." (GS, p.170)

Seeing, experiencing, and thinking in I.I.

Seeing, experiencing, and thinking are all the same thing in the Intelligence Notebooks. 

Jamshed (Infinite Intelligence) is in the most seeing (thinking) state.

Intelligence Notebooks, p. 116

Jamshed (Infinite Intelligence) having received the Infinite enformed subtle and gross body opposite his eye (thinking) sees (experiences, thinks) his Infinite enformed shadow (universe, Imagination) through that from.

Jamshed's eye sees means Infinite Intelligence's mind thinks. Jamshed, his eye, and his seeing, are all one and the same. 

Intelligence Notebooks, p. 119

Only the one who is thinking, the one who is seeing, is real. 

Intelligence Notebooks, Folio 2, p. 7

 

Red Dead Redemption 2 Ruined Gaming Forever

The Folk Religion of the Meher Baba Followers in America

A folk religion is a set of spiritual beliefs and practices particular to a community and not affiliated with any major religion or religious institution.

Baba lovers deifying each other

The Meher Baba community in America is currently a classical case of a folk religion. Here I wish to itemize its principal beliefs and practices that can only be explained in terms of folk religion, as they are not found anywhere in Baba’s own teaching — and in fact he spoke against many of them.

The motivations of a folk religion are psychological. Practices and beliefs emerge from a community because they satisfy some basic psychological need or because they are carried over from past traditions. Folk religions have no centralized authority, they arise from the community naturally and are based on repetition and imitation.

Some of the psychological needs that motivate folk religions in general, and the Meher Baba folk religion in particular, are the need for blessings, for a sense of belonging, for a sense of protection, and a desire to know the future to prevent harm to oneself.

These needs are met in the Baba community by:

1. A focus on astrology, palmistry, and reference to psychics
2. A focus on dreams and visions
3. Channeling, also known as theurgy
4. Thoughts of death of loved ones in terms of ‘joining Baba’ in an afterlife
5. Belief in Baba as an ascended master that can be contacted to give blessings and protect you
6. Performing Dhunis and other rituals
7. Habitually using phrases picked up from Indians and normalized, such as saying “kindly” before a request
8. Adamantly not teaching their children what Baba taught, and usually not knowing themselves
9. Ranking people according to money
10. Obsessing on dead mandali
11. A belief in Atlantis and forbidden archeology
12. Hating Christianity and Islam
13. A naive insistance on Bible conspiracies
14. Obsessing on their own members

Am I implying there is something wrong with a folk religion. No. It is inevitable that folk religions evolve where there is no strong central authority -- as in the Baba world. 

But it explains the practices and beliefs that don't come from Baba's teachings or suggestions. And so it solves a mystery.

It also answers the question of why the above things don't interest me. I tend to focus on what Baba taught, on his teachings. I get pleasure from that. I can't even imagine following the practices and beliefs of a group that is inventing beliefs and rituals as it goes along and expecting people to follow out of ordinary herd instinct, or out of anxieties or desires they are expected to have. I don't share those anxieties or desires.

There are two alternatives to fitting into a folk religion. One is joining an organized religion and the other is to become a mystic. I have always approved of religion for what it tries to do, but could never personally belong to one. Just like I don't think I could fit into any large corporation. I'm kind of doomed to follow the personal path of a mystic. One could say it picked me more than I picked it. I fell into it by default because my interest in truth was greater than my interest in local approval. But most people will never feel that interested in truth. This leaves religion and folk religion as the only choices for most. And then there are people who aren't drawn to either and simply pursue ordinary things of the world.

Moon River

On August 2020 at Atterbury Theatre, Pretoria, South Africa Amira Willighagen came out of Covid lock-down briefly to perform her streaming show This is My Dream. She was only 15 years old. Below she performs Moon River from Breakfast at Tiffany's accompanied by world-renowned South African classical and jazz pianist Charl du Plessis.

Red Dead

Old Town Road

Westward the Women

I would not have heard of Westward the Women had my daughter not told me about it. It was made in 1951 from a story by Frank Capra.

The story takes place in 1851. The working men of Whitman's Valley, California are discontented, as there are no women. Roy Whitman, their employer, tries to prevent his men from leaving by traveling to Chicago to recruit women willing to embark on the arduous journey to California in order to marry. 

Roy hires wagon master Buck Wyatt to lead a convoy of 140 women across the arduous wilderness. He predicts only 2 in 3 women will survive the tortuous trek. 

From a time when women were still valued and honored, Frank Capra crafts this masterly yet often brutal story. I hope my grandson will grow up to direct a remake.

Reaction to "Unshaken" (RDR2)

Unshaken is a song by American singer-songwriter D'Angelo. It was produced by Daniel Lanois, who wrote the track with D'Angelo and Rocco DeLuca. The song was written for the original soundtrack to the 2018 video game Red Dead Redemption 2. The words are based on the teachings of Paramahansa Yogananda.

D'Angelo in 2012, who passed away in
2025 at the age of 51.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/_vKmF8jeBTI

Norina Matchabelli's Channeling of Meher Baba

Norina Matchabelli 

In the 1940s some followers of Meher Baba in New York believed that Baba channeled "thought-transmissions" through a disciple named Norina Matchabelli, famous for the perfume brand as well as her time in the early 20th century as a famous stage and silent screen actress who went by the name Maria Carmi. During stage performances, including in Carnegie Hall, Matchabelli would enter a trance-like state, and the voice that spoke through her relayed Baba's messages, she said. But, according to fellow disciples Kitty Davy, Margaret Craske and Rano Gayley, Baba at one point remarked that Norina's claim that he was speaking through her in these public lectures were not his way of working, but that her talks did help his work anyhow. (Donkin's diary, 30 April 1943.)

 Lord Meher, online edition, Page 2410 - Footnote (retrieved May 19, 2026)

Maria Carmi in her silent screen days

Jiang Xueqin’s Most Embarrassing Prediction Exposed

Baba’s religion, folk religion, and tariqa

I wish to sketch out roughly the relationship between mystical scholarship, religion, and folk religion in the future of the Baba World.

1. Baba Tariqa
2. Baba Folk Religion
3. No Organized Baba religion

Baba’s manifestation among the masses will be slower than after Buddha, Jesus, or Mohammad. This is the meaning behind his saying he came to bring about the “slowest of all revolutions.” 

It really only officially gets kick-started in 2039 (in 14 years) when he predicted philosophers will come to pay homage at his tomb, as if some great mystery had been solved. 

What me and Christina and Stelios are doing now is the start of that revolution. Especially me, because I write. I have as much education as Joseph Campbell, an MA degree in my subject. Joseph Campbell earned his Master of Arts degree in medieval literature, specializing in Arthurian studies. So he was basically self-taught and invented his own field of mythological studies.

My MA was in philosophy, specializing in idealism, and my main reading was of Meher Baba.

In a mystical school, there are three things:

1. Official source texts (Baba’s books he himself copyrighted and signed, plus I.I. Folk religion is based on oral transmission and gets fused with other beliefs)
2. A teacher student lineage (That has to start somewhere so it starts with me and Brabazon. Clearly Ward Parks is not in this line as he published mock-Baba-books, not his own. And he is a precritical thinker with no training in idealism or even philosophy. He is a person who thinks he knows more than he does. He’s a real intellectual, but one who doesn’t know there are fields he doesn’t know. He did not leave a body of his own work.)
3. The focus is on spiritual transformation or the passing of esoteric knowledge (The focus of folk religion is on healing, protection, and blessing.)

So my written works and recorded talks are the very start of the new lineage.

But it is different than in the past. In the time of Shankara and Arabi there were already the established religions of Hinduism and Islam. They were already old.

So it is easy to spell out the relation between religion and mystical schools then.

Sufi mystical paths (tariqas) existed and were coalescing into formal orders before the time of Ibn Arabi. While Ibn Arabi revolutionized Islamic metaphysics with his teachings on Wahdat al-Wujud (Unity of Being), the organizational framework of the tariqa was already being established.

So this is like our time. 

“Orthodox Islam” came first.

Organized Sufi schools developed centuries after the beginnings of Islam.

Here’s the rough timeline:

• Islam begins in the 7th century CE with Muhammad in Arabia.
• Early Muslim communities focused on the Qur’an, worship, law, and theology.
• What people later called “orthodox” Islam — especially Sunni traditions based on Qur’an, Hadith, and early scholars — formed during the first few centuries.
• Sufism emerged gradually as a mystical/spiritual movement within Islam.
• Formal Sufi orders (tariqas) such as the Qadiriyya, Naqshbandiyya, and Shadhiliyya mostly appeared between the 11th and 13th centuries.

So historically:

1. Islam itself came first.
2. Orthodox Sunni and Shia traditions developed early.
3. Organized tariqa schools developed later as spiritual traditions inside Islam.

That said, many Sufis argue that the spiritual teachings behind the tariqas go back to the Prophet Muhammad himself, even if the formal institutions and lineages were organized later.

Thus it is not a question of which comes first, the mystical part develops within the formal religion. It is not a set of separate sects of a religion. 

I’m sure the same is true of Hinduism and Advaita. These schools arise within the broader recognized religion. This is the same as me calling myself a Baba lover in my writing.

However, there is a big difference. Baba followers hate religion. So a formal orthodoxy can’t really form, with set customs or beliefs or even a canon of texts. The effect of this is that what I call “the Baba world” for lack of a better name, begins as a set of folk beliefs. 

This is why it was so confusing talking to Ben after writing about my vision for the future of the Meher Center. His mind is full of beliefs that have no solid source (such as Baba’s words or rational arguments), but are beliefs that are simply appropriated from the local religious culture, by word of mouth, and that fulfill certain basic psychological needs among the adherents.

So that is neither a religion nor a tariqa line. It is folk religion. It is deeply felt folk belief. This explains why he could neither quote Baba nor explicate a logical argument for anything he said. 

It had something to do with believing the Center had “good bones.” This is clearly an expression he heard somewhere. It implies a kind of metaphysical substantiveness. This is totally contrary to Baba’s teaching. Metaphysical bones are not in any serious tradition except materialism, and even there the idea is blurry. Baba teaches that the word is apparent, not substantive. And the Meher Center is no exception.

Anyone who studies Baba will know this. Anyone who relies on hearsay from the local community will not.

So in this unusual circumstance, where the Baba “leaders” in America are more concerned with cultural concerns like environmentalism and gender issues than theological matters, the tariqa lines are bound to evolve first. For there is no orthodox opinion to act as an umbrella. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but the result will be like in my paper What I Now Think the Future of the Baba World in the West Is, where I describe the Baba world as breaking apart into very small but cooperative camps sharing notes and exchanging guest speakers at conferences.

This is a kind of hodgepodge of folk religions, with occasional intertwined mystical elements. 

It is out of these where true tariqa schools are bound to emerge, formed out of necessity by the few outliers with a real interest in science and mysticism and a respect for Baba’s books. 

A quick word about of books

The Ward Parks Baba-book inventions are liable to be the cause of great confusion in the future, perhaps as serious as the Suni-Shia schism or the Catholic-Orthodox schism. A separating of ways. For while these have their origin in Baba’s words, they were not set aside by him in his lifetime. But such books were liable to be assembled eventually. 

For me the canon is simple. It includes five books:

1. God Speaks
2. Intelligence Notebooks
3. Discourses
4. Beams
5. The Everything and the Nothing

Worthwhile adjuncts are Lord Meher, The God-Man, The Nothing and the Everything by Bhau, Stay With God by Brabazon, and Evolution of Perception and Evolution of Perception Re-Explained by me.

Everything else read at your own risk.

I included myself in this list not because I’m exceptional, but because I’m alone and seminal. The publication of The Evolution of Perception preceded even that of Infinite Intelligence.

So its place is secure. Just as Stay With God and The Nothing and the Everything are secure.

The Meher Center

The Meher Center, where I grew up and about which I talk a lot, is a very special case and relevant to this discussion of the relation between folk religion, tariqa, and any orthodox Baba religion that might form.

It is important because it openly identifies itself as what Baba said he didn’t want, an organization. It refers to itself as a “religious organization,” and quite incongruously a “non-sectarian religious organization.” That means it’s a religious organization that does not endorse or prefer any religion or religious belief, but carries Baba’s name on it.

So, it’s like “The Meher Baba college of comparative religion.” Yet the Center does not engage in discussions or seminars in comparative religion. So looking at Baba’s words carefully — and ignoring the local folk beliefs about the Center — it is a good example of something earmarked for dissolution when its initial purpose is exhausted. I have already assembled those quotes in my paper: Baba tried to get them to give up their desire for a Center for him, but after being badgered he relented. 

Consider just this quote from that article: 

I do not wish to limit myself or bind myself with any such thing. I create things on a firm foundation and then pull them down.

Baba was literally responding to the original suggestion of the Meher Center. Even Baba’s use of the phrase “full foundation” reflects my friend’s reference to the Center having “good bones.”

I bring this up because it again shows the trajectory things appear to be moving in. They are moving away from a centralized organization, and toward a multi-polar religious movement.

And therefore, there is likely not to be an orthodoxy ever established, which would be unprecedented. 

The conclusion of all this is very obvious, and conforms to Baba’s own words on his movement. People are free not to leave their birth-religion. Baba said there are enough religions, not that there are too many. He said he would bring “the great and recognized religions and creeds of the world” together as beads on one string, not form a new religion.

This leaves only one possibility. There will be folk religions with no central authority, operating cooperatively but autonomously. And there will be “the great and recognized religions and creeds of the world.” 

This is what one can reasonably base on Baba’s words. Local popular beliefs may vary. The main completing popular belief among followers close to the Meher Center is that the Center will grow so much in some undisclosed time in the future, that people will have to be turned away. And then an undefined “they” will “make it a religion.” And that will be the end of the “good ol’ days.” None of this has any basis in anything Baba ever said.

It is a syncretic idea that combines Christian apocalyptic literature with terms Baba used like “break my silence” and “this Avataric manifestation will be the greatest.” 

The concerns of folk religion and mysticism are different

The concerns of adherents of folk religions include wanting blessings, protection, and the ability to know the future. This is why you get palmistry, tarot cards, astrology, and psychic healing. These are bodily concerns. They are different from the concerns of mystics, which have to do with knowledge and salvation.

So it is up to the mystic to be patient and understanding of the folk belief adherent, and not the other way around.

This would be the source of a distinction between tariqa strains emerging from Baba’s words and folk religion. For occult practices such as divination and divining games have basically no support in Baba’s teaching, unless unreasonably stretched.  

Folk religion is supported by the psychological needs of the group.

Tariqa is supported by scripture and reason.

Overlaps will occur. But the line is not hard to discern. They are very different interests and concerns. They are for very different places on the path.

Constantine tried to reach out to representatives of different schools to try to find unity in ideology. No one would wish to do that, or have the authority or influence to do that, today.

So there will only be “family resemblance” between groups. One will have to artificially come of with terms to include more than one, such as groups that accept Baba’s avatarhood. Or groups that believe some of his words and not others.

There is no fix for this. Those with administrative roles on the Center like Preeti, do not have time to study Baba’s words. The focus will be solely on managing the behavior of adherents to the folk religions.

The things I talk about here will become obvious clear and present issues in 20 years, and not much before then. This is due to Baba’s prediction about 70 years and the death of the baby boom.

Even if the Meher Center tries to exert influence then, it has no religious opinion, so would not be able to do so. It will be forced to disband or turn into something else. 

Consistency

All that I’ve said and written on this subject has been consistent. There won’t be a Baba orthodoxy, or a centralized church. Rather there will be diversity and a certain amount of chaos. You can either have unity in orthodoxy or chaos in diversity. This time Baba will allow chaos in diversity. 

The Baba lovers cannot sit down and discursively figure any of this out. Therefore, they have contradictory visions. They picture that ‘everyone will come’ to Baba, yet there will be ‘no established religion or teaching.’ Masses will flood to the Meher Center, but the Meher Center will not be for any one opinion about Baba, nor exert control over groups, and will not even show the slightest interest in theology. The unity they envision will be caused by what?

The Baba lovers near the Center don’t get it that their belief that the Center is so sacred, so much so it needs an archive, will not be a universal opinion. It is the opinion of a group of geriatrics who don’t even like young people, and make fun of them and all the things they like. 

What is the difference between these names?

Meher Spiritual Center

Avatar Meher Baba Perpetual Public Charitable Trust

Only one has the name “Baba” in it. One manages his tomb. The other is a “retreat for renewal.” A cheap resort. What is spiritual renewal? When do you know when you are getting it? 

The thinking is New Age, not spiritual.

I have been remarkably consistent on all this. In my paper The Religiology of the Baba World I concluded that by rejecting religion the Baba lovers wound up creating folk religions. I wrote there:

It’s very ironic. Because Baba lovers have over the years repeated a trope that goes, “They’re gonna make it a religion.” And they sigh like it is an unavoidable travesty that an undefined ‘they’ will stupidly do this in the near future. The irony is that this ‘they’ that these Baba lovers dread is themselves.

By the time Baba returns in 650 years, his lovers will wish he had established a formal religion, for they will be exhausted by arguments, no matter how well-intentioned those arguments are liable to have been. 

And I said the same in my video The Baba World - Chris Ott Talk 3: The Future of the Baba World. For I described a multi-polar Baba world of the future, in line with the multi-polar geopolitical new world that will gradually unfold. 

I am proud that I have at least been consistent on these points, even if I turn out to be wrong.