The Bawa Muhaiyaddeen Fellowship
Online Library
Where Does the Path to God Begin
A short talk given by M. R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen from Questions of Life, Answers of Wisdom Volume 2.
Crisi Beutler: For one who wishes to know
God, where does the path to God begin? And what is that path
like?
M. R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen: The path to God
is very easy. Think of a little baby-he has no world in him, no differences, no
anger, no selfishness, no envy. He has nothing of that state. He shows equality
toward all; he will go to everyone. He will smile at everyone. Anyone can kiss a
baby. Isn't a baby like that?
A baby begins as a cell. After it takes a
form and comes out, the baby acts out everything. By the time the child is three
years old, he will imitate whatever both of you did earlier in your sexual play.
If you were on all fours, he will imitate that. If you were on two legs, he will
imitate that. Whatever state you were in-if you behaved like a cow, he will act
like a cow. If you acted like a donkey, he will show you what a donkey does.
If you look with wisdom, you will be able to see the baby imitating
every act you performed. Even though he did not actually see you doing these
things, he has an awareness of them all. He will show the way you kissed. He
will bite the nose in the same way you nibbled at the nose. He will scratch the
way you scratched. The way you tickled, the way you walked, the way you lay face
down or face up or on your back-he will disclose every act of yours as if in a
photograph. The baby is saying, "Look at this foolishness, O world! Look at this
ignorance!"
Then he will look up at the sky and smile, saying, "I used to be up there.
Now I have come here." The baby will smile and talk to God and His angels and
the heavenly beings. But here (in the world), he will be acting out your antics,
telling God, "They did this; this is how they did it, etc." Like that, he will
tell in detail the entire history of the parents, while speaking to God in his
own language, "Ooom, aang, oong."
The baby will speak the language of
those who come to visit you-the monkey-man, the dog-man, the cat-man-all your
friends, your relatives, your neighbors, and your loved ones. He will speak all
languages-the language of the birds, snakes, reptiles, jinns, fairies, and
angels-trying to explain all these things to you in his own language. But all
the while the baby will also be conversing with God. He speaks God's
language.
That same state must exist within us again, toward the end of
our life. That baby's state, God's state, must come at the end. The original
baby is God's baby, the baby that reveals and explains wisdom. Those baby
qualities and actions must be there in the end. But the time in between babyhood
and the end-that is hell. It is the story of the world that is in you now, and
that is what the baby is trying to show you.
So if, at the end, you can regain that same state of babyhood that was in you at birth, if you can regain those same qualities, then you will commune once again with God. You will embrace everyone, as a baby does, showing the same love for all without any differences. Only that infant state will earn you the right to speak with God. That is the quality we start off with, and we must end up with the same quality.