“I will be with you all who gather for My birthday to celebrate My being among you. I am wherever My lovers are. I give my love blessing to each of my lovers.”
— Avatar Meher Baba
AVATAR MEHER BABA in Andhra, India, in 1954. (Colorized by Jim Kirkpatrick) Courtesy of Meher Nazar Publications, Ahmednagar, India.
On February 25th, Avatar Meher Baba’s birthday is celebrated at Meher Baba centers, gatherings, in homes, and in hearts around the world.
In honor of Meher Baba’s Birthday, here’s a delightful story shared by Mani S. Irani, Meher Baba’s sister and close disciple, in the Family Letters in 1963. In her letter, Mani is referring to long-time disciple Feram Workingboxwala.
The excerpt from the Family Letters:
Feramroj, an old Baba-lover who is one of the main pillars that sustains Baba’s office at Ahmednagar, is a thin man whose looks belie his age and whose serious demeanour fails to hide his inexhaustible store of wit.
One of Adi’s* helpmates for years, he always has his nose to the grindstone of Baba-work. On Baba’s Birthday this year [1963], the deluge of telegrams and cables to Baba came from all over the world and lasted for nearly a week!
This has been too much for the small and meagerly staffed Telegraph Office [T.O.] at Ahmednagar, and an extra rush of work for Feram who was kept legging it to the T.O. all day long for confirmation or correction of the speedily deciphered contents, or to check the accuracy of the reply-paid forms.
Feram’s note to Meherazad** spoke volumes and I can't help reproducing it here:
"My dear Eruch***, the local T.O. is in a hustle and bustle, as also, I hear, the Poona T.O. Even Bombay is wondering who Meher Baba is, because for an individual this rush of cables and telegrams is unprecedented.
“The local T.O. is hard pressed and the clerk told me that for the last few days they are dealing only with ‘Meher Baba’. So much the better, as their sanskaras+ will be lessened.
“Even with my over-growth of hair on the chin, I was sirred and stooled (meaning I was addressed as 'Sir' and offered a stool to sit on, which is a rare honour for a shirt-pant-sandalled individual as I am). But I am not flattered because I have had no rest! However I look forward to better days."
“I have come to sow the seed of love in your hearts, so that in spite of all superficial diversity which your life in illusion must experience and endure, the feeling of oneness through love is brought about amongst all the nations, creeds, sects and castes of the world.”
— Avatar Meher Baba
Notes
*Adi K. Irani (also known as Adi Sr.) was Meher Baba’ secretary. **Meherazad, India, was Meher Baba’s final home. He lived there with His mandali, close men and women disciples. ***Eruch B. Jessawala was one of Meher Baba’s closest disciples and primary translator of Meher Baba’s gestures and use of the alphabet board. +Sanskaras: (Vedanta) Impressions. Also impressions which are left on the soul as memories from former past lives, and which determine one’s desires and actions in the present lifetime.
Sources
Bhau Kalchuri, Lord Meher: The Biography of the Avatar of the Age Meher Baba, Online Edition, pg. 5263, accessed February 18, 2025. (c)Avatar Meher Baba Perpetual Public Charitable Trust.
Mani S. Irani, 82 Family Letters to the Western Family of Lovers and Followers of Meher Baba, page 160. (Myrtle Beach, SC: Sheriar Press, Inc.) (c) Avatar Meher Baba Perpetual Public Charitable Trust, Ahmednagar, India.
In this montage of images, Avatar Meher Baba is using hand gestures and an alphabet board to communicate after He started keeping silence.
About His silence, Meher Baba said:
“If you were to ask me why I do not speak, I would say I am not silent, and that I speak more eloquently through gestures and the alphabet board.
“If you were to ask me why I do not talk, I would say, mostly for three reasons.
“Firstly, I feel that through you all I am talking eternally.
“Secondly, to relieve the boredom of talking incessantly through your forms, I keep silence in my personal physical form.
“And thirdly, because all talk in itself is idle talk. Lectures, messages, statements, discourses of any kind, spiritual or otherwise, imparted through utterances or writings, is just idle talk when not acted upon or lived up to.”
Meher Baba’s Silence
Avatar Meher Baba began His silence on July 10, 1925. He said that His silence was not undertaken as a spiritual exercise, but solely in connection with His universal work.
After Meher Baba started His silence, He communicated by writing on a chalk slate board. After that, He pointed to letters on an alphabet board to spell out words. Later, He used a series of unique hand gestures that were interpreted by His close disciples.
Meher Baba kept silence for 44 years until He dropped His body on January 31, 1969.
He asked His followers to keep silence each year for 24 hours on Silence Day, July 10.
“Now, go out and see the view and try to love Baba through nature. This is all due to my love. This whole creation, this nature, all the beauty you see, all came out of me.”
And as the group was leaving, He added, “And take me with you.”
Jeanne Shaw, who was with Meher Baba that day, was particularly moved by His last comment to take Him with her. She described her feelings and her precious experience that day in her diary.
On Easter Sunday in 1933, Avatar Meher Baba was traveling in Rawalpindi (now in Pakistan) with a group of His On Easter Sunday in 1933, Avatar Meher Baba was traveling in Rawalpindi (now in Pakistan) with a group of followers.
He visited a Christian chapel with the group and remarked:
“All worship returns to Me. The sigh within the prayer is the same in the heart of the Christian, the Mohammedan or the Jew. They are all indivisibly longing for the same God.”
In January 1965, Avatar Meher Baba’s niece, Shireen Irani (now Bonner) traveled from London with her father, Adi Irani (who was Meher Baba’s brother and known as Adi Jr.), and her mother Franey to Meherazad, India, for Meher Baba’s darshan (His blessing).
At that time, Shireen was seven years old, and according to accounts in Lord Meher, was quite intelligent and precocious.
Shireen asked, "’Baba, I know we are born again and again, but you are God; so how is it that you get born?’"
Amartithi — January 31st — marks the day in 1969 when Avatar Meher Baba dropped His physical form. Followers around the world gather to celebrate this day. Why? Here is a sample of personal reasons given by some of Meher Baba’s followers.
“Throughout the ages men have been deeply involved in the struggle for peace and happiness. It is this struggle that lands them into chaos and misery. If men were only to become conscious of the fact that peace and happiness are not to be fought for but to be sought for within oneself, they would abandon their fighting and be at peace with themselves and the world.” - Avatar Meher Baba
Avatar Meher Baba embarked on a phase of His work known as the New Life on October 16, 1949.
“Baba ends His Old Life of cherished hopes and multifarious activities, and with a few companions begins His New Life of complete renunciation and absolute helplessness…,” Meher Baba declared.
Meher Baba and His 20 companions, including four women, wandered from place to place begging for food. While begging Meher Baba wore a green turban and a white kafni (robe) and walked barefooted. He had an ochre-colored satchel and carried a brass pot in the right hand.
“While almost all are puzzled by Baba’s New Life, they are also fascinated by it,” said Bal Natu, a close follower of Meher Baba.
Merwan Dubash shares stories about his childhood and teen years of being with Avatar Meher Baba.
Through Merwan's stories that describe simple acts of reading the newspaper aloud to Meher Baba or playing card games with Him, we get a glimpse of the intimate daily contact with God in human form.
Take a moment now to watch these videos that make you feel as if you are in Meher Baba’s presence.
The following article along with four photographs of Meher Baba were published in the Los Angeles Times on Wednesday, August 1, 1956. Meher Baba, who was staying at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, met with the press on July 31st to answer questions. The article appeared at the top of the front page of the local news section of the Times.
Whether you’re a dedicated bird watcher or a novice, there’s something about being at Meher Mount. You want to grab a pair of binoculars and go see what birds you can find.
And if you’re a photographer, you are always looking for opportunities to capture their beauty on camera.
February 25th marks the birthday of Avatar Meher Baba, born Merwan Sheriar Irani in Poona (now Pune), India on February 25, 1894. Every year on this auspicious day, followers of Meher Baba gather to celebrate His Advent.
This birthday message was given by Meher Baba for His 75th birthday in a family letter dated January 26, 1969, just days before He — the deathless one — dropped His physical form on January 31, 1969.
On January 31, 1969, Avatar Meher Baba — God in human form — dropped His physical form. Even though, in hindsight, Meher Baba had given hints to His close disciples (mandali) that He would leave His body, they were surprised and grief stricken.
This story takes place soon after Meher Baba dropped His body, and the mandali were dealing with their heartache. Mani S. Irani, Meher Baba’s sister, shares an incident that helped her with her grief.
The fact that one cannot live without water means water is life. In the Sanskrit language this is literally so. Another word for water is ‘life’. Jivanum.
Meher Baba spelled out, “Within you is dirty water too, and I have also to take it out, to make room for the fresh water of my love. Thus, in different ways, I am taking out the dirty water from everyone. I am training you, so that you may one day dive deep into my Ocean and obtain the treasure.”
With gestures… you know when Baba would look into your eyes and do the gestures. Though I was a very little child, I used to understand Baba because his eyes used to speak to our hearts.
He tells me, “Do you know how much trouble I have to take to make this water?”
