After a sovereign dies and before succession is assured, the intervening period poses uncertainty. This state of affairs can be perilous, as the status quo abhors disruption and loves continuity.
We are now in a great spiritual interregnum signified by Meher Baba, the Avatar/ Prophet of the age, having dropped his body in 1969 but who will remain largely incognito until the Perfect Masters assume a public role in revealing his destiny. This period, according to Baba, is about 100 years long. Baba has explained that it is as if he is still physically alive during this time period, that he indeed continues to reign as the sole spiritual sovereign. And he has explained that this is why his lovers- his very close ones, those privileged to have come within the orbit of his grace, should hold fast to him and not be allured by claimants and impostors to his throne.
This time period, this Great Interregnum, which has about 50 years left before it is over, is a most special and perilous time. This period is preliminary to the Avatar/ Prophet’s public manifestation. This is a time of quiet conviction on the part of his lovers, who remain loosely organized and relatively unknown to the general public. It is during this time period that a personal relation to the Avatar is most possible by forging and renewing a connection with him through remembrance. This time period is the greatest opportunity to develop an unmediated relationship to the Avatar- because it is as if he is still physically alive, and because he represents the sole functioning of God in the universe.
This Great Interregnum only really applies to those with the great fortune to have already come into the orbit of the Avatar/ Prophet. The world is not even aware that the King of kings has come and is now seemingly gone. The world will come to recognize that the long anticipated return of the Christ has happened only long after the fact, and only when the time is right- that is when the requisite suffering compels man to turn to God.
The coming fifty years represents the mounting suffering and despair required to bring the world to the feet of the Avatar. Baba has said that this manifestation of the Avatar will be the greatest, that he will be regaled as the universal Avatar; but that this will only happen through the greatest suffering.
The world will have to give up the many false gods to once again embrace the One God, the King of kings; chief among these false gods is the goddess Progress, the idol that has incited more blasphemy than all the others combined. Scientific materialism and the worship of technology in the service of greed is cooking the planet like fabled cannibals boiling colonialists in a giant pot.
We are cooking ourselves to death, until suffering and despair compels us to cry out for Mercy.