From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Meher Baba

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search

Meher Baba 20th century

Meher Baba in Nasik, India 1937

Name:

Merwan Sheriar Irani

Birth:

February 25, 1894 (Pune, India)

Death:

January 31, 1969 (Meherazad, India)

School/tradition:

Sufi, Vedanta, Mystic

Main interests:

Religion, Metaphysics, Aesthetics, Ethics

Influences:

Hazrat Babajan, Upasni Maharaj

Signature:

Meher Baba, born Merwan Sheriar Irani (February 25, 1894 – January 31, 1969), was an Indian guru of Persian descent. Educated at the St. Vincent's High School in Pune, India, as well as Deccan College, he led a normal school life, showing no particular inclination toward spiritual matters. At the age of 19, a short contact with an old Muslim holy woman Hazrat Babajan marked the beginning of his spiritual awakening. Baba was hailed as "Parvardigar" (God as the Almighty Sustainer) by the Indian fakir Sai Baba of Shirdi in 1915. ^[1] He received help from three more spiritual masters, including Upasni Maharaj, who he said revealed to him his spiritual identity as "The Ancient One" in 1921.

Baba lived and traveled in company with a circle of close disciples ("mandali"), both men and women, from whom he demanded absolute obedience. He and the mandali voluntarily assumed a life of extreme simplicity. From 1925 to the end of his life, Baba remained silent, communicating with an alphabet board or by gesture. Baba spent long periods in seclusion, often fasting, but he would intersperse these periods with wide-ranging travels, public gatherings, and works of charity, including working with lepers, the poor, and the mad. He gave many discourses, which have been collected by his followers.

In 1931 he made the first of many visits to the West. During these travels, a number of western mandali joined him. In the 1940s, along with selected mandali, he traveled incognito about India, in what he called "The New Life." On February 10, 1954, Baba declared that he was the Avatar (an incarnation of God). ^[2]

After two automobile accidents, one in the U.S.A. in 1952 and one in India in 1956, his capacity to walk became seriously limited. In 1962 many western followers were invited to meet his Indian mandali in a series of meetings called The East-West Gathering. In 1966, Baba addressed the spreading problem of drug misuse in the West, discrediting its alleged spiritual benefits. After a year of being completely confined to a wheelchair, Meher Baba died on January 31, 1969. Meher Baba's samadhi (tomb-shrine) in Meherabad (outside Ahmednagar, India) has become a place of pilgrimage.