The spiritual teacher Meher Baba stated that " or the aspirant a life of strict celibacy is preferable to married life, if restraint comes to him easily without undue sense of self-repression.

The spiritual teacher Meher Baba described dualism as consisting of the opposites of experience, which must become balanced before one can go beyond them: " Evolution from the standpoint of the Creator is a divine sport, in which the Unconditioned tests the infinitude of His absolute knowledge, power and bliss in the midst of all conditions.

* 1969 – Meher Baba, Indian guru ( b. 1894 )

* 1925 – Meher Baba begins his silence of 44 years.

* Silence Day ( Followers of Meher Baba )

Other guests included George Bernard Shaw, Albert Einstein, Elinor Glyn, Helen Keller, H. G. Wells, Lord Mountbatten, Fritz Kreisler, Amelia Earhart, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Noël Coward, Max Reinhardt, Baron Nishi, Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Austen Chamberlain, Sir Harry Lauder, and the Indian spiritual teacher Meher Baba.

Meher Baba ( 25 February 1894 – 31 January 1969 ), born Merwan Sheriar Irani, was an Indian mystic and spiritual master who declared publicly in 1954 that he was the Avatar of the age.

The name Meher Baba means " Compassionate Father " in Persian and was given to him by his first followers.

From 10 July 1925 to the end of his life, Meher Baba maintained silence, communicating by means of an alphabet board or by unique hand gestures.

In 1931, Meher Baba made the first of many visits to the West, where he attracted many followers.

Throughout most of the 1940s, Meher Baba worked with a category of spiritual aspirant called masts, whom he said are entranced or spellbound by internal spiritual experiences.

" On 10 February 1954, Meher Baba declared that he was the Avatar ( an incarnation of God ).

Meher Baba at 16 years old in 1910

Meher Baba was an Irani born in Pune, India to a Zoroastrian family.

His early followers gave him the name " Meher Baba ," meaning Compassionate Father.

In 1922, Meher Baba and his followers established " Manzil-e-Meem " ( House of the Master ) in Bombay ( now Mumbai ).

A year later, Baba and his mandali moved to an area a few miles outside Ahmednagar that he named " Meherabad " ( Meher flourishing ).

In 1924, Meher Baba created a resident school at Meherabad that he named the " Prem Ashram " ( in several languages " prem " means " love ").

From 10 July 1925 until his death in 1969, Meher Baba was silent.

Meher Baba said that his silence was not undertaken as a spiritual exercise but solely in connection with his universal work.

From 1925 until 1954 Meher Baba communicated by pointing to letters on an alphabet board.

Meher Baba often signaled the moment " that he would ' break ' his silence by speaking the ' Word ' in every heart, thereby giving a spiritual push forward to all living things.

Meher Baba said that the breaking of his silence would be a defining event in the spiritual evolution of the world.

On many occasions Meher Baba promised to break his silence with an audible word before he died, often stating a specific time and place when this would occur, but according to all contemporary accounts, Meher Baba remained silent until his death.

In the 1930s, Meher Baba began a period of extensive world travel, with several trips to Europe and the United States.

Meher Baba in 1925, the year he began his lifelong silence

After a period of seclusion and fasting Meher Baba ended the New Life in February 1952 and once again began a round of public appearances throughout India and the West.

In October 1954, Meher Baba discarded his alphabet board and began using a unique set of hand gestures to communicate.

The main pilgrimage sites associated with the spiritual teacher Meher Baba are Meherabad, India, where Baba completed the " major portion " of his work and where his tomb is now located, and Meherazad, India, where Baba resided later in his life.

Two of his songs, " There's a Heartache Following Me " and " Welcome to My World ," were favorites of the Indian spiritual teacher Meher Baba, leading Baba follower Pete Townshend of The Who to record his own version of " Heartache " on his first major solo album Who Came First during 1972.

At the end of this sahavas Meher Baba gave the completed manuscript of his book God Speaks to two attending American Sufis, Lud Dimpfl and Don E. Stevens, for editing and publication in America.

Concepts of Meher Baba's philosophy, often including characters resembling Baba, have frequently appeared in works of comic book writer J. M. DeMatteis, including Dr.

According to the book " God Speaks " by Meher Baba, the Sufi words fana-fillah and baqa-billah are analogous to nirvikalpa samādhi and sahajā samādhi respectively.

Sufism Reoriented is the copyright holder and publisher of several books by and about Meher Baba including Meher Baba's most important published book God Speaks: the Theme of Creation and Its Purpose.

* Indian mystic Meher Baba's missing book

* Discourses ( Meher Baba ), a book by Indian religious teacher Meher Baba

* The Trust Online Library Books by and about Meher Baba available to download as PDF files

According to Meher Baba, in the course of evolution sanskaras play a vital role in that they aid in the formation of conscious experience, and thus eventually bring about self-awareness in the human form, but then serve no further purpose.

According to Meher Baba the Avatar appears on Earth every 700 – 1400 years and is ' brought down ' into human form by the five Perfect Masters of the time to aid in the process of moving creation in its never-ending journey toward Godhood.

Time Magazine's 1936 review of God is my Adventure describes the US's fascination with the " long-haired, silky-mustached Parsee named Shri Sadgaru Meher Baba " four years earlier.

In the 1930s and 1940s, Meher Baba did extensive work with a category of people he termed masts, who are persons " intoxicated with God.

Meher Baba stated that drug use was spiritually damaging and that if enlightenment were possible through drugs then " God is not worthy of being God.

On 31 January 1969, Meher Baba died, conveying by his last gestures, " Do not forget that I am God.

Meher Baba's metaphysical views are most notably described in God Speaks.

Most of Meher Baba's followers accept his claim of avatarhood and he is said to be " revered by millions around the world as the Avatar of the age and a God realized being.

The primary focus for followers is living a life Meher Baba would approve of, for example, refraining from the use of psychedelic drugs, including marijuana, and trying to remember God with love.

Three prayers written by Meher Baba, " O Parvardigar ", the " Prayer of Repentance " and the " Beloved God Prayer ," are recited morning and evening at his samadhi in India and are often recited at gatherings.

Elizabeth Chapin Patterson was a devotee of the eclectic Indian religious leader Meher Baba ( born Merwan Sheriar Irani ; his chosen name means “ compassionate father ”), the author, among much else, of Discourses and God Speaks.

* Meher Baba, who stated that he was the Avatar of the Age and God in human form, traveled to the west numerous times in the 1930s and 1950s and had many western followers.

As described by the Indian spiritual teacher Meher Baba, God-intoxicated souls known as masts experience a unique type of spiritual ecstasy: " asts are desperately in love with God – or consumed by their love for God.

The spiritual teacher Meher Baba stated that the subtle body " is the vehicle of desires and vital forces ," He held that the subtle body is one of three bodies with which the soul must cease to identify in order to realize God: " At the end of the Path, however, the soul frees itself from all sanskaras and desires connected with the gross, subtle and mental worlds ; and it becomes possible for it to free itself from the illusion of being finite, which came into existence owing to its identification with the gross, subtle and mental bodies.

Ahmad's followers claim that he had categorically vowed in Anjam-e-Atham not to engage in any more debates, as he judged them ineffective at convincing the religious clergy to reform ( the reason why he had challenged Meher Ali Shah to such a decisive contest in the first place and not to a debate ); rather, he would invoke God for divine intervention by holding such contests or " prayer duels ", which he called Ejazi-Muqabala, or " miraculous contest ", between him and his opponents, primarily Christian missionaries and Muslim scholars and divines.

Ahmadis argue that the condition of oral debate proposed by Meher Ali Shah was an indirect refusal of Ghulam Ahmad's challenge and a deliberate attempt to trap him, for if he had accepted, he would have broken his promise with God by engaging in debates, but if he had declined, it would have been assumed that Meher Ali Shah was victorious and Ghulam Ahmad had withdrawn.

Meher Baba has used the term involution to describe the inner journey of consciousness after transcending the physical or gross state up to the attainment of Self-consciousness, or merging with God.

Meher Baba equated worship of the Satguru with worship of God: " Consciously or unconsciously, directly or indirectly, each and every creature, each and every human being — in one form or the other — strives to assert individuality.

The members of Sufism Reoriented celebrate Meher Baba as the Avatar, the human incarnation of God and the spiritual authority of this age.