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Armageddon, Anyone?

By Ann Conlon

Do you anticipate Armageddon with glee and certainty? Do you look avidly for signs of impending doom? And if such signs aren't clear, can you twist world events to suit your hopes for Armageddon? Yes, your hopes. The easy way out.

This is a phenomena that arises every once in a while, mostly when a new generation of Baba lovers discover Meher Baba's Final Declaration ("three-quarters of the world will be destroyed") and don't bother to read the clarification of that declaration: "it was said in my own language alone." In other words, we can't understand it. But some people keep trying, overlaying it with their own personal fears and -- extraordinarily -- with their own cockeyed desires.

What is it that is so exciting about anticipating Armageddon? Aren't the dangers present in today's world enough to deal with without using our imaginations to add to them? A case in point: recently, a fundamentalist minister in Florida called for attacks on Muslims. These days, that's not terribly unusual and most times it's just talk. But this time, some Baba lovers grabbed hold of that and started expressing fear of an attack on Baba lovers in South Carolina. After all, they claimed, South Carolina isn't that far from Florida. I still can't find any logical connection between the two. But I can guess at Meher Baba's reaction to such talk. It would probably be the same as it was in an event cited by Delia DeLeon, in which Baba commented, "If you can't help in a situation, then don't make it worse by getting hysterical."

Maybe the reason that anticipation of Armageddon consumes some Baba lovers is that they're tired of the world, tired of life's ups and downs, unwilling to, as Baba said, "live an ordinary life in the world." Certainly, they show signs of hating the world. And that's really strange. When one western follower said something like that to Baba, he replied, "The world is worthy of your love. After all, I made it." I expect that, if they really thought about it, those who hate the world or just fear it would realize that the world is just fine; it's some of the inhabitants who make it scary and sometimes awful. And what good would it do to conjure up Armageddon and put an end to it all when it wouldn't really be an end? We'd just have to come back and do it all over again.

So wouldn't it be better to just get on with our lives, dealing with the hard times the best we can and at the same time loving the world for all the beauty and love Meher Baba poured into it? It would seem a shame to turn down such a gift of beauty from him simply because we have distorted it with our own fears.