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.

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

In Love With Meher Baba described Townshend's spiritual leanings.

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.

Meher Baba, who described himself as the Murshid of Murshids, first received Murshida Rabia Martin as His follower, and agreed to guide her and her Sufi group.

The Indian spiritual teacher Meher Baba states, " Out of a number of practices which lead to the ultimate goal of humanity – God-Realization – Bhakti Yoga is one of the most important.

Pir Meher Ali Shah accepted the challenge to such a contest, provided that first an oral debate take place between him and Ghulam Ahmad on the issue of his claims.

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.

This remains a point of contention between the followers of Ghulam Ahmad and those of Pir Meher Ali Shah.

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

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.

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.

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.

The spiritual teacher Meher Baba proposed that there are six planes of consciousness that must be experienced before one can attain God-realization on the seventh plane: " Each definite stage of advancement represents a state of consciousness, and advancement from one state of consciousness to another proceeds side by side with crossing the inner planes.

The term spirit occurs in this sense in ( to name but a few ) Anthroposophy, Aurobindo, A Course In Miracles, Hegel, Ken Wilber, and Meher Baba ( though in his teachings, " spirits " are only apparently separate from each other and from " The Spirit.

The Oirata language, ( closely related to Fataluku ) and the unrelated Kisar, a trade language ( also locally known as Yotowawa or Meher ), are spoken here.

Some of the known and recognized writers, poet and dramatists from the region are Chaitanya Das, Pataraja Padman Singh, Maharaja Udit Pratap, Maharani Asha Kumari Devi, Rama Chandra Raiguru, Brajaraj Singhdeo, Bira Bikram Deo, Lai Rudra Madhab Deo, Gadadhar Mishra, Parsuram Mund, Dr. Someswar Behera, Kaviraj Prayagdutta Joshi, Anup Singhde, Prof. Bhubaneswar Behera, Prafulla Kumar Rath, Akhila Nayak, Bharat Majhi, Parameswar Mund, Dr Dola Govinda Bisi, Dr Hare Krushna Meher, and others.

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.

According to Meher Baba, the consciousness of the soul in duality first goes through the long process of evolution of form, then, upon reaching the human form, consciousness enters the process of reincarnation, and finally reaches the process of involution, which culminates in God-realization.