| Avatar Meher Baba: His Life |
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Meher Baba, the Avatar. “Meher Baba” means “Compassionate Father.” It is the name given to their spiritual Master by a group of disciples in the early 1920s when signs of his spiritual status first became apparent. Today, many thousands of people from every religious tradition regard Meher Baba as the one long awaited — the Prophet, the Buddha, the Christ, the Messiah of this age. Most commonly in India he is referred
to as the “Avatar,” a Sanskrit word meaning “descent of God.” next
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Meher Baba,
Meherabad, 1925 |
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Youth and spiritual awakening. Merwan Sheriar Irani was born to Zoroastrian parents in Poona, a city on the Deccan plateau of India, on 25 February 1894. Though his father had been a dervish or seeker of God, Merwan led a normal childhood until, during his first year of college at the age of 19, he encountered Hazrat Babajan, a centenarian Muslim saint who was one of the five Sadgurus or Perfect Masters of the age. With a
kiss on the forehead, Babajan initiated Merwan into the state of God-Realization. He was then inwardly prompted to contact the other four Perfect Masters — Sai Baba of Shirdi, Upasni Maharaj of Sakori, Narayan Maharaj of Kedgaon, and Tajuddin Baba of Nagpur. With the help of Upasni Maharaj, Merwan brought the experience of God’s transcendent Oneness down into the domain of duality or creation, thus establishing himself in spiritual perfection. next
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Meher Baba's
family portrait |
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Meher Baba,
Quetta, 1923 |
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| 1920s: Meher Baba’s Silence. By 1921 Merwan was recognized as a Perfect Master and started to gather his first disciples. After several years of their intensive training, he established Meherabad, an ashram community near Ahmednagar (120 kilometers northeast of Poona). Here his work embraced a free school where spirituality was stressed and a free dispensary and hospital with shelter and food for the poor. On 10 July
1925, Meher Baba began observing silence, which he maintained for a period of nearly forty-four years. His silence was not undertaken as a spiritual exercise, since he was Perfection itself. Rather, it was a limitation that he assumed for the benefit of all creation. For many years, he “spoke” to others by pointing to letters on an alphabet board which a disciple would read out. In 1954, however, he gave up the alphabet board, communicating thereafter through his own system of hand
gestures unique and beautiful in their expressiveness.
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Meher Baba, using
the alphabet board on
May 19, 1932 |
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Meher Baba, 1950s
making the silence
gesture. |
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