Everything we see is an illusion — a dream. Underlying this Illusion, unseen, is Reality. The Reality is what we call “God.” Meher Baba, in speaking about God, says this:
It is truly said that God has no beginning and no end. Think this over. If He had no beginning, what was there before God? The answer is God. You cannot in imagination reach where no beginning was. The answer can only be God. What will be there after billions of years? God. Always God. This means that in eternity there is no time. Nothing has ever happened, and nothing ever will happen. There is no time factor. Billions of years ago you were; today, you are here, ever afterwards you will be. Today, all that is happening is not happening, although this does not appear to be so now. When one has experience of eternity, one knows that God is. To say that God was, is, and will be, is wrong. All eternity is now present at this moment. So I say, God IS. Sourced from Lord Meher online edition, page 3603, “Three Incredible Weeks”.
On this same theme, an observer reports a meeting between Meher Baba and a meditation group in California in 1952:
“After five minutes of meditation, Baba spoke through His interpreter, saying how happy He was to be there. Baba is so vibrant and alive that many felt they knew what he was going to say even before the interpreter spoke. Baba gave a beautiful message on Love, and a most graphic description of this life being but a dream state, saying:
‘All this is nothing but a dream. When you are asleep, you find yourself talking, enjoying, sometimes you weep, sometimes you are happy, but when you are awake, you realize the pain and joy that you felt in the dream were nothing but a dream.’
‘Even this is a dream—your sitting with me. The noise of the buses and street cars, this place, the whole city, all of this is nothing but a dream…’
‘Suppose tonight, in a dream, you see Baba sitting beside you and explaining ‘Don’t get entangled in all of this, it is nothing but a dream’ then you’d question me saying ‘Baba, how could it be a dream? I have so many joys and sorrows. I see so many people around me. I see you, how could it be a dream?’ The next day you wake up and you realize that Baba appeared to you in a dream and said it was but a dream.
‘Even now, at this moment, I tell you that you are dreaming. But how does your mind react? You say, “Baba is with us, how could everything be a dream?” Then I say, “When you realize Reality, when you are wide awake after Realization, you will realize all that I said is true, it was all nothing but a dream.” Sourced from The Awakener Magazine, Vol 5, No 2, page 14.
Lest one imagine that the creation is God’s infinite jest, in which people are pawns, Baba dispels this imagining thus:
“Who says God has created the world? We have created it by our imagination. God is supreme, independent. When we say He has created this illusion, we lower Him and His infinity. He is beyond all this, and only when we find Him in ourselves and our day-to-day lives will all our doubts vanish. Then we will not even have to think about Him. We will have spontaneous Knowledge. We Become.
“Just as you are now a man, you do not have to even think whether you are a man or a woman. Do you ever ask yourself if you are a man or a woman? The answer is no because you have become a man. So when we become God, then only do all our doubts vanish. Otherwise it is just talk, reasoning, logic and theory. I give my love to you all.”