MEHER VANI

ANNUAL MEHER PREM MELA OPENS

By Arun Dixit

“Today the urgent need of mankind is not sects or organized religions, but Love. Divine Love will conquer hate and fear. I have come to awaken in man this Divine Love”, said Meher Baba, in his first public darshan in Delhi in 1952. He reached Delhi on the morning of November 29, 1952. After attending to the poor, Meher Baba, who was observing silence by then for over two decades, had set out for contacts with ‘ masts’ who, according to tradition, are god intoxicated souls. Public Darshan was given at six places in Delhi. On December 2, 1952, Darshan programme was held at the Theosophical Society Hall and at the Delhi University a day later on December 3, 1952.

Commemorating the visit, Meher Prem Mela is on December 1, 2 and 3 at the Meher Baba Centre in the Tughlakabad Institutional Area. This is an annual event for the past several years and it is a big draw for followers of Meher Baba from all over the country.

Hailed as the Avatar and the Highest of the High, Meher Baba, was born as Merwan Sheriar Irani in Pune on Feb 25, 1894, of Persian parents. His father, Sheriar Irani, was of Zoroastrian faith and a true seeker of God. Merwan went to a local Christian high school and later attended the Deccan College. When he was 19, while still in college, Merwan experienced a momentous event . . . a meeting with Hazrat Babajan, a Mohammedan woman, who was in her nineties, and one of the five Perfect Masters of the Age. Babajan gave him God-Realization and made him aware of his high spiritual destiny.Eventually, he was drawn to seek out another perfect master, Upasni Maharaj, who lived at Sakori, close by to Shiridi.

During the next seven years, Maharaj gave Merwan “gnosis” (divine knowledge). Thus, Merwan attained spiritual perfection. His spiritual mission began in 1921 when he drew together his first close disciples. It was these early disciples who gave him the name Meher Baba, which means “Compassionate Father.”

After years of intensive training of his disciples, Meher Baba established a colony, now called Meherabad at Arangoan village near Ahmednagar. Here, the Master’s work embraced a free school where spiritual training was stressed, a free hospital and dispensary, and shelters for the poor. No distinction was made between the high castes and the untouchables; all mingled in common fellowship through the inspiration of the Master. To his disciples at Meherabad, who were of different castes and creeds, he gave a training of moral discipline, love for God, spiritual understanding and selfless service.

Meher Baba told his disciples that from July 10, 1925 he would observe Silence. He maintained this Silence until the end of his life on January 31, 1969. His many spiritual discourses and messages were dictated by means of an alphabet board initially and through hand gestures unique in expressiveness and understandable to many.Meher Baba traveled to America six times, first in 1931, when he contacted his early Western disciples. His last visit to America was in 1958 when he and his disciples stayed at the Center established for his work at Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

An important part of Meher Baba’s work through the years was to contact and personally serve hundreds of those known in India as “masts.” These are advanced pilgrims on the spiritual path, who have become spiritually intoxicated from direct awareness of God. For this work he traveled many thousands of miles to remote places throughout India and Sri Lanka. Other vital work was the washing of the lepers, the washing of the feet of thousands of poor, and the distribution of grain and cloth to the destitute.

Meher Baba asserts that he is the same Ancient One, come again to redeem humanity from the bondage of ignorance and to guide individuals to realize their true Self which is God. Meher Baba has said he has come not to teach but awaken, not to establish any cult, society or organization, not even to establish a new religion. “The religion that I shall give teaches the Knowledge of the One behind the many. I shall bring about a happy blending of head and heart. I shall revitalize all religions and cults and bring them together like beads on one string”.