Meher Baba

Meher Baba
Meher Baba
	Meher Baba in 1945
Born	Merwan Sheriar Irani; 25 February 1894; Pune, Bombay Presidency, British India
Died	31 January 1969 (aged 74); Meherabad, Ahmednagar, Maharashtra, India
Other names	The Awakener
Philosophical work
Main interests	Religion; metaphysics; aesthetics; ethics;
Notable works	God Speaks; Discourses;
Website	avatarmeherbabatrust.org
Signature

Meher Baba (born Merwan Sheriar Irani; 25 February 1894 – 31 January 1969) was an Indian spiritual master who said he was the Avatar, or the total manifestation of God in human form.^[1]^[2]^[3] A spiritual figure of the 20th century,^[4]^[5] he had a following of hundreds of thousands of people, mostly in India, with a smaller number of followers in North America, Europe, South America, and Australia.^[2]^[6]^[7]

Meher Baba's map of consciousness has been described as "a unique amalgam of Sufi, Vedic, and Yogic terminology".^[8] He taught that the goal of all beings was to become conscious of their own divinity, and to realise the oneness of God.^[2]^[9]

At the age of 19, Meher Baba began a seven-year period of spiritual transformation, during which he had encounters with Hazrat Babajan, Upasni Maharaj, Sai Baba of Shirdi, Tajuddin Baba, and Narayan Maharaj. In 1925, he began a 44-year period of silence, during which he communicated first using an alphabet board and by 1954 entirely through hand gestures using an interpreter.^[9] Meher Baba died on 31 January 1969 and was entombed at Meherabad. His tomb, or "samadhi", has become a place of pilgrimage for his followers, often known as "Baba lovers".^[6]

^ Discourses, 7th edition, 1987. pp. 268-9 "This new influx of the creative impulse manifests, through the medium of a divine personality, an incarnation of God in a special sense-the Avatar... Being the total manifestation of God in human form, He is like a gauge against which man can measure what he is and what he may become. He trues the standard of human values by interpreting them in terms of divinely human life."
^ ^a ^b ^c Anthony, Dick; Robbins, Thomas (1975). "The Meher Baba Movement: Its Affect on Post-Adolescent Social Alienation". Religious Movements in Contemporary America. United States of America: Princeton University Press. pp. 479–514. doi:10.1515/9781400868841. ISBN 978-1-4008-6884-1.
^ Sedgwick, Mark (2016). "Introduction". Western Sufism: From the Abbasids to the New Age. Online: Oxford Scholarship Online. ISBN 9780199977642. The most important less Islamic tendencies were represented by Meher Baba, an Indian understood to be an avatar, and by Pak Subuh, an Indonesian guru.
^ Samuel, Geoffrey; Johnston, Jay, eds. (2013). "The Subtle Body in Sufism". Religion and the Subtle Body in Asia and the West: Between Mind and Body. New York: Routledge. p. 179. ISBN 978-0-415-60811-4. It would be useful, however, to highlight the views of just four major figures of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries – Inayat Khan, Meher Baba, Javad Nurbakhsh, and Robert Frager.
^ Billington, Ray (1997). Understanding Eastern Philosophy. United States of America, Canada: Routledge. p. 20. ISBN 0-415-12964-8. This period ended with the emergence of a number of dynamic spiritual leaders in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries: Ramakrishna, Vivekananda, Sri Aurobindo, Gandhi, Meher Baba; this was a period of increasing apperception of Hinduism in the West.
^ ^a ^b Bowker, John (2003). The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions. Online: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780191727221. The Baba's tomb at Meherabad is now a centre of pilgrimage. While it has attracted several thousand people in the West since the 1950s, the overwhelming majority of 'Baba lovers' are still to be found in India.
^ Sovatsky, Stuart (2004). "Clinical forms of love inspired by Meher Baba's mast work and the awe of infinite consciousness" (PDF). The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology. 36 (2): 134–149. Archived (PDF) from the original on 3 September 2021. Retrieved 15 December 2020. He remained in silence after 1925, made several teaching tours throughout Europe and America and drew a following of many hundreds of thousands worldwide who believed him to be an avatar, the most mature of saints in the Indian terminology.
^ Sovatsky, Stuart (2004). "Clinical forms of love inspired by Meher Baba's mast work and the awe of infinite consciousness" (PDF). The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology. 36 (2): 134–149. Archived (PDF) from the original on 3 September 2021. Retrieved 15 December 2020. His elaborate map of consciousness (formulated in the 1930s and 40s), a unique amalgam of Sufi, Vedic, and Yogic terminology, can be found in his Discourses (1967/2002) and God Speaks (1955/2001).
^ ^a ^b Encyclopedia of World Religions. Encyclopædia Britannica, Incorporated. 2006. p. 706. ISBN 978-1-59339-491-2.

[1] Discourses, 7th edition, 1987. pp. 268-9 "This new influx of the creative impulse manifests, through the medium of a divine personality, an incarnation of God in a special sense-the Avatar... Being the total manifestation of God in human form, He is like a gauge against which man can measure what he is and what he may become. He trues the standard of human values by interpreting them in terms of divinely human life."

[:22-2] Anthony, Dick; Robbins, Thomas (1975). "The Meher Baba Movement: Its Affect on Post-Adolescent Social Alienation". Religious Movements in Contemporary America. United States of America: Princeton University Press. pp. 479–514. doi:10.1515/9781400868841. ISBN 978-1-4008-6884-1.

[3] Sedgwick, Mark (2016). "Introduction". Western Sufism: From the Abbasids to the New Age. Online: Oxford Scholarship Online. ISBN 9780199977642. The most important less Islamic tendencies were represented by Meher Baba, an Indian understood to be an avatar, and by Pak Subuh, an Indonesian guru.

[4] Samuel, Geoffrey; Johnston, Jay, eds. (2013). "The Subtle Body in Sufism". Religion and the Subtle Body in Asia and the West: Between Mind and Body. New York: Routledge. p. 179. ISBN 978-0-415-60811-4. It would be useful, however, to highlight the views of just four major figures of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries – Inayat Khan, Meher Baba, Javad Nurbakhsh, and Robert Frager.

[5] Billington, Ray (1997). Understanding Eastern Philosophy. United States of America, Canada: Routledge. p. 20. ISBN 0-415-12964-8. This period ended with the emergence of a number of dynamic spiritual leaders in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries: Ramakrishna, Vivekananda, Sri Aurobindo, Gandhi, Meher Baba; this was a period of increasing apperception of Hinduism in the West.

[:3-6] Bowker, John (2003). The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions. Online: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780191727221. The Baba's tomb at Meherabad is now a centre of pilgrimage. While it has attracted several thousand people in the West since the 1950s, the overwhelming majority of 'Baba lovers' are still to be found in India.

[7] Sovatsky, Stuart (2004). "Clinical forms of love inspired by Meher Baba's mast work and the awe of infinite consciousness" (PDF). The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology. 36 (2): 134–149. Archived (PDF) from the original on 3 September 2021. Retrieved 15 December 2020. He remained in silence after 1925, made several teaching tours throughout Europe and America and drew a following of many hundreds of thousands worldwide who believed him to be an avatar, the most mature of saints in the Indian terminology.

[8] Sovatsky, Stuart (2004). "Clinical forms of love inspired by Meher Baba's mast work and the awe of infinite consciousness" (PDF). The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology. 36 (2): 134–149. Archived (PDF) from the original on 3 September 2021. Retrieved 15 December 2020. His elaborate map of consciousness (formulated in the 1930s and 40s), a unique amalgam of Sufi, Vedic, and Yogic terminology, can be found in his Discourses (1967/2002) and God Speaks (1955/2001).

[:02-9] Encyclopedia of World Religions. Encyclopædia Britannica, Incorporated. 2006. p. 706. ISBN 978-1-59339-491-2.

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