Meher Baba

Meher Baba
Meher Baba in 1945
Born
Merwan Sheriar Irani

(1894-02-25)25 February 1894
Pune, Bombay Presidency, British India
Died31 January 1969(1969-01-31) (aged 74)
Meherabad, Ahmednagar, Maharashtra, India
Other namesThe Awakener
Notable workGod Speaks, Discourses
Main interests
Religion, metaphysics, aesthetics, ethics
Websiteavatarmeherbabatrust.org
Signature

Meher Baba (born Merwan Sheriar Irani; 25 February [O.S. 17 February] 1894 – 31 January 1969) was an Indian spiritual master who said he was the Avatar, or God in human form, of the age.[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 awaken to consciousness of their own divinity, and to realise the absolute 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]

  1. ^ Kalchuri (1986) p. 2324
  2. ^ 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.
  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.
  6. ^ 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.
  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).
  9. ^ a b Encyclopedia of World Religions. Encyclopædia Britannica, Incorporated. 2006. p. 706. ISBN 978-1-59339-491-2.