In Madras, Baba gave this message to the congregation:
What is wrong with the world today and with India in particular? Such, and allied, questions are bound to arise in thinking minds, but the answers are not altogether honest and straight. The diagnosis given and the remedies adopted have all been biased and one-sided; the whole situation stands hopelessly vague and undetermined.
The crux of the situation lies in the correct understanding and reinterpreting of the ancient word “religion.” The West has very little of religion, and whenever we hear of it, it is subservient to politics, or at best a handmaid of material life.
The East is suffering from an overdose of religion, and, consequently, it is desperately hankering for a material antidote thereto. Religion in the West is synonymous with scientific progress, which is destructive in its manifestation. In the East, and particularly in India, religion, instead of establishing the Kingdom of God on earth, has gone underground in the guise of crude ceremonies, rude rituals and dead dogmas.
–Lord Meher (First Ed), p3159