Books like God Speaks

My daughter called this book "epic." That's a good way to start to intimate what kind of work this is: a clear look at "the big picture." Meher Baba's "God Speaks" is the description of the journey of the soul throughout all the realms of the cosmos, told as simply and directly as such can be done. This is the book that inspires the idea of Pete Townshend's song from "Tommy," the "Amazing Journey."Avatar Meher Baba describes God as a limitless, shoreless ocean and each soul as a "drop soul" of that ocean. Each soul passes through the experiences of all beings: emerging in the gaseous state, and proceeding through the mineral; plant; fish; insect reptile and bird; animal; and human states. This is evolution guided by the soul's growth according to the patterns of experience (impressions, _sanskaras_) that the soul acquires. Evolution is driven by consciousness. At the human level we have the opportunity to engage in spiritual evolution, which Meher Baba calls "involution." In human involution one enters on the spiritual path of seven planes. The first subtle planes are the basic practices of spirituality. The fourth plane is a transitional point between planes three and five in that at this level soul's acquire psychic and magical abilities which one must renounce in order to advance. Plane five and six are the mental planes. Plane five is the plane of the mind; plane six is the heart's mental dimension. The struggle of the soul in plane 5 is to conquer lust; in plane six, to conquer greed, in plane seven, to subdue anger. Saints dwell in the fifth, sixth, and seventh planes. Beyond that is the total return, the re-emerging into Godhood with its infinite power, knowledge, and bliss. This is the ultimate goal of life: to reenter the one Oversoul and re-unite with God. In this vision, heaven and hell are not places, but states of being. Put more simply, the path is love. God created according to His own "whim," the whim to know Himself. This "whim" is an act of God seeking to love Himself and to be known by humankind loving God.This is not a lonely journey as many spiritual masters -- and especially the Avatar -- are available for contact, support, and guidance, including power to give a spiritual push to the aspirant. Although all together the book consists of 313 pages, it's just the first 153 pages that include Meher Baba's text. The supplements including notes from Baba's teachings and footnotes explaining many of the concepts in terms of Sufism, especially the poetry of 14th-century Sufi master Hafiz.As indicated on page 30, in many ways Meher Baba's text explicates Jelaluddin Rumi's famous poem titled "The Ascending Soul:"I died as a mineral and became a plant,I died as a plant and rose to animal,I died as animal and I was man.Why should I fear? When was I less by dying?Yet, once more, I shall die as man to soarWith angels blessed; but even from angelhoodI must pass on; all except God doth perish.When I have sacrificed my angel soul,I shall become what no mind e'er conceived.Oh, :et me not exist! For Non-existenceProclaims in organ tones, 'To Him we shall return!'"God Speaks" also offers 11 charts diagramming the details of the journey and correlating terminologies from Christian mysticism with Hindu Vedanta and Sufism, the three registers in which the book is set.