I am the Greatest All-Rounder

“I am the Greatest All-Rounder”tc "“I am the Greatest All-Rounder”"

Meher Baba says:

An Indian cricket team with Nari Contractor as captain went to England to play the Test Match with that country.  Before leaving for England, they met Meher Baba on April 2^nd, 1959 at Guruprasad, Pune and sought his blessings.  Baba re-minisced about his flair for cricket. He lovingly embraced the cricket players and handed each a copy of Life At Its Best and Twenty One fragments and also a message, I am the greatest All-Rounder.  “Embrace me with all your hearts and love and be sure to take my love with you to England.  I bless you.  Don’t be nervouse because of your poor showing with the West Indies team.  If you play with one heart, my love will help you to win atleast one test, and on the whole you will put up a better show than you did with the West Indies.  But all will depend on your love for me.  TAKE MY LOVE WITH YOU AND YOU WILL SHINE WELL.”

Despite an injury to his ribs, Nari Contractor scored eighty four runs for India’s side and the team won!

“Of all games, I love cricket the most, I used to play as a boy.  I was particularly good behind the wickets…I was a member of the junior cricket team of St. Vincent High School which I attended, and I was selected as a wicket keeper even on the senior team.  Ever since my childhood days I was chosen as leader by my schoolmates and whenever there was a quarrel or fight among the students, I was invariably chosen to arbitrate between the quarreling parties.

“When I was a child, children were attracted to me. When I grew up, God was attracted to me. And I became one with God, people all over the world became attracted to me.

After St. Vincent’s High School, I went to Deccan College; and there, too I played many matches.  Once a cricket match was being played on the grounds of the Poona club. Yusuf Baig, the famous all-rounder of those days, was batting.  Yusuf  knew of my ability in wicket-keeping and he challenged me to ‘out’ him.  I accepted the challenge.  Yusuf played the first four balls very carefully, but he stepped out of the place a bit to strike the fifth ball.  That was his undoing, as my throw shattered his wickets and he was out. I won the challenge. Yusuf Baig came over and congratulated me.

“Although now a days I am not playing games, I am still interested in watching matches especially cricket.

“If I happen to pass the grounds near the Maharashtra club or the Deccan Gymkhana, I stop the car and watch the play. Very few important test matches have missed my presence. I have been to Delhi to see the match between the Indian and the West Indies teams.  Last year (1958) I was in Ahmednagar to watch the Ranji Trophy match. The D.S.P (District Superintendent of Police) saw me come into the spectator’s lounge.  By then a crowd collected all around me.  More than seeing the match, they wanted to gaze at me. Just to save the spectators any disturbance, I left early.  I have often explained my visits to witness cricket matches and sitting among crowds intently watching the game has a great spiritual purpose behind it.

“I love children.  When I meet them, I become like a child.  I love to play marbles with them, fly kites and play cricket.  Often when I am driving the car, and if time permits, I find small children playing cricket with a plank as bat and a rubber ball, I ask the car to stop and watch the game with interest.

“I am One with God.  As one with everything and everybody on all levels of consciousness, I live all the respective roles at the same time.”

“In going to England to represent India in the field of sport, you also have the unique opportunity of practicing and of conveying to the people there the great spiritual lessons of concentration and love. When you take the field, and if you play as eleven men with one heart, each enjoying the excellence of performance in another player as he would in himself, whether that player is on your side or on the side of the opposing team, and so eliminating feelings of jealousy, anger and pride, which so often mar the sport, you will not only be entertaining the spectators, but demonstrating the real spirit of sportsmanship.  True sportsmanship is concentrated ability, enlivened with appreciation of the performance of others. And when this is manifested, every one present, both players and spectators, receives spiritual upliftment as well as good entertainment.

Some of you are “all-rounders.”  I am the greatest spiritual all-rounder of all times, because I feel equally at home with saints, yogis, philosophers, cricketers, as well as with so called sinners and scoundrels, I give my blessing that in all your actions you show first the spirit of love.”