by Meher Baba

Introductory note by Devanando Otfried Weise:

Dear friends,
while visiting our friend Verena recently we came to talk about the message posted here about the mischievous chicken of the Iranian-Indian spiritual master MEHER BABA. It is taken from his book THE NOTHING AND THE EVERYTHING, which we published in German in our TABULA SMARAGDINA VERLAG in May 1999. At that time we had known Meher Baba for many years and, above all, we had come to love him. In his writings we enjoy the unique synthesis of Iranian/Persian Sufi mysticism, exemplified here by Jalāl ad-Dīn Rūmī, with the Indian enlightenment philosophy of the Vedas, which we learned firsthand as sannyasins from OSHO Rajneesh.

Even at the time when I was still teaching as a geographer at the University of Giessen, the Near East and India had been my special field of country studies, which is why numerous long research trips took me to Iran and India for field work. On this occasion I also immersed myself in the unique culture of these countries. It can be said quite clearly that the cradle of our occidental culture is located there.

When looking for a logo for our videos I remembered the mentioned book and accordingly chose the name NILINFINIT: nil = zero, nothing (from Latin nihil) and infinit = infinite, i.e. everything.

Verena had told us that she often meets people who do not progress more or less continuously on the path of expanding their consciousness, but at times, in some cases more often, withdraw into the old, i.e. society, religion, the system, the matrix, seeking refuge and protection, before they dare to take the next step towards independence and personal responsibility. This is not a mistake, but for many the only possible method. They do it just like the mischievous chicken/chick from Meher Baba's message, which comes out from under the hen several times and then quickly seeks shelter with her again. The mostly young people leave the protection of e.g. the family and are blinded and shocked by the rough world of the competitive society, in which they cannot stand it for long, so overwhelmed they feel. They then come back, gather new strength and courage and dare to take the next step outside.

We also know this from adults who, for example, were revolters as adolescents and young adults and broke out of the confining doctrine of a religion and documented this publicly in their actions and works. Despite many years of independence, they flee back into the dogmatic confinement of another religion, from whose representatives they expect material advantages, i.e. security. But who once enjoyed the freedom under the sun unbound, will never forget this and again and again take new attempts.

I do not want to give a full interpretation of the equally descriptive and profound text here and trust that our readers will intuitively feel whether it is worthwhile for them to go deeper. I can guarantee, however, that it is immensely worthwhile.

There is one point I would like to make. It is about the part where the hatched chicken is hungry and is asked to eat "imagination." This corresponds to the way people think. They think imagination, they imagine how the world should be because of their learned patterns of behavior, their preconceptions of what is or is not possible, and their conditioning inculcated by parents, teachers, pastors, and society as a whole. In this enormously restrictive and unfree way the human being lives in a world of illusion and lie until enlightenment/awakening. Everything is only imagined! Based on this he/she develops a personality = mask, the ego, which covers, veils his/her true being and the world. The person doesn't even know who he/she is. This artificial product ego must disappear one day, so that man realizes his/her true SELF, the SOUL. In the message, the mischievous chicken eats its falso self = the ego. Only then it realizes that it is ALL, EVERYTHING - KNOWLEDGE, POWER and SOUL. Humans discover that they are immortal SOULs and that they live as energy in a symphony of energies.

here the text by Meher Baba: