MEHER BABA

To the 1960's generation in the West, Meher Baba is best known as the guru of Pete Townshend, guitarist/songwriter of the rock band The Who.  In India, however, Meher Baba is best known as the Silent Avatar.

Baba was born Merwan Sheriar Irani on February 25, 1894.  He led a normal childhood, showing no strong inclination toward spiritual matters.  When he was 19 years old, though, he had a brief contact with the Muslim holy woman Hazrat Babajan which resulted in a spiritual transformation in him lasting seven years.  

During this time, he contacted four additional spiritual figures whom, along with Babajan, he called the five Perfect Masters.  One of the masters, Upasni Maharaj, was with him the whole time, until Baba began his public work.  The name Meher Baba means Compassionate Father in Persian, the name given to him by his first followers.

From July 10, 1925 until the end of his life, Baba maintained silence, communicating by pointing at letters on an alphabet board, or by unique hand gestures.  With his circle of disciples, called mandali, he spent long periods in seclusion, during which he often fasted.  At other times, he conducted wide-ranging travels, public gatherings, and works of charity, including working with lepers, the poor, and the mentally ill.

Baba's many visits to the West began in 1931, during which he attracted many followers.  Throughout most of the 1940s, he worked with a category of spiritual aspirant called masts.  These were people he said were entranced or spellbound by internal spiritual experiences. 

Beginning in 1949, he traveled incognito throughout India in what he called The New Life.  Then on February 10, 1954, he declared that he was the Avatar (an incarnation of God) of the age.  On July 10, 1958, he released what he called his Universal Message.

After being injured as a passenger in two automobile accidents, one in the United States in 1952 and one in India in 1956, his capacity to walk became seriously limited.  Six years later, in 1962, he invited his Western followers to India for a mass darshan. a form of Hindu worship, that he called The East-West Gathering.

Concerned by the increasing use of LSD and other psychedelic drugs around the world, Baba wrote in 1966 that such things did not convey real benefits to the individual.  This was what drew Pete Townshend to him, who admitted to him that The Who used drugs. 

Despite deteriorating health, Baba maintained what he called his Universal Work, which included fasting and seclusion, until his death on January 31, 1969. His tomb-shrine in Meherabad, India has become a place of international pilgrimage.