MEHER SPIRITUAL CENTER
Meher Baba's Home in the West
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Meher Baba's Birthday
February Newsletter 2021
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“On this anniversary of my birthday, I give you my blessings for the deathday of your false selves and for the birthday in me of your one True Self.”
Meher Baba
Lord Meher Online, pg. 4790
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Dear Meher Center Friends & Family,
Happy Baba’s Birthday from Meher Center! This newsletter contains a video and two articles about this most special day. Also, please join us for our evening Birthday program—for more information and to RSVP, click the flyer at the bottom of the newsletter.
In Baba’s love and service,
Buz Connor
For Meher Center board and staff
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Meher Baba in Nasik and Rahuri |
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In this original silent footage from 1937, Meher Baba celebrates His birthday in the holy city of Nasik, and Rahuri where He also had His ashram. We see exquisite garlanding, dances, music, and a birthday feast for all. Many of the Eastern and Western Mandali are present, along with Meher Baba's mother Shireen Mai.
Video, 09:08
With permission from Avatar Meher Baba Perpetual Public Charitable Trust
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The Quiet of February 25th
By Jamie Keehan
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Meher Nazar photo collection |
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During the late 1960’s, Meher Baba’s birthday was celebrated lavishly and lovingly across the world. Thousands of poor people were fed. Multiple buildings were dedicated. There were endless parades and performances and prayers. In 1965, Hyderabad celebrated for seventy-one days—one day for each year of Baba’s life. In 1967, the New York group’s public gathering was broadcast by radio to 125 different countries.
On Baba’s birthday in 1966, a husband and wife from Andhra Pradesh unexpectedly arrived at His home in Meherazad. The couple had experienced the festivities in their own state, and couldn’t imagine how much greater they must be right there in Baba’s physical presence.
They walked into the epicenter of that worldwide love and celebration, and everything was quiet.
Meher Baba Himself had spent that birthday as He usually did the last few years of His life. At 5 a.m., the hour of His birth, His close disciples came to His bedroom. They shouted, “Avatar Meher Baba ki Jai!” together seven times—proclaiming His presence, His victory. They said His prayers, voicing the attributes of God, asking for forgiveness and love. And then they got a hug or a greeting from Him, and spent the day together, quietly: reading the cards received from His lovers throughout the world, enjoying a poem or skit under the homemade decorations that festooned the hall.
I think those mornings are one of the reasons I’ve so loved the celebration of Baba’s birthday on the Center these past few years: the sleepy-eyed walk from Dilruba with other pre-dawn stragglers; the bright welcome of Baba’s house and moving together into His room; saying the prayers shoulder-to-shoulder by His bed; singing Happy Birthday. And, in that quiet, receiving our own greeting from Him.
But there are few external forms that stayed the same throughout Baba’s life, and His birthday is no different. From 1937, when He served 10,000 poor people and fed His Eastern and Western lovers; to 1939, when He rose at 2 a.m. to seek out a few God-intoxicated souls; to 1958, when hundreds of love-drunk sahavasees formed an impromptu procession around His car; to the times when He forbade any of His lovers to recognize His birthday at all. After those few consistent years of celebration in Meherazad in the 1960’s came the ultimate change: when in 1969, on His birthday according to the Zoroastrian calendar, His body was seen for the last time, covered in His tomb to the same cry of “Avatar Meher Baba ki Jai!”
That day at Meherazad in 1966, Baba welcomed the couple from Andhra Pradesh, though He was seeing very few people. But then Eruch told them, "Although Baba is residing at Meherazad, He is actually with all His lovers, presiding at His programs wherever they are held. That is why Baba sent them the message: 'I shall be present among you all who gather in my love.' Therefore, you should hurry back to your hometown, so as not to miss being in His presence!" *
Those final years, Baba created an external atmosphere of simplicity, of familiarity, of intimacy around His physical form on His birthday. But as always, the form was just the shell of the truth. What Eruch told this couple is the same thing that Baba said in His cable to Myrtle Beach on His birthday in 1967, during one of those mornings at Meherazad: “I am wherever my lovers are.”** And so this year, like every year, wherever we are on the 25th of February, we can celebrate the birth of Baba’s real presence: His constant, quiet intimacy in our hearts.
*Lord Meher Online, pg. 5209
**Lord Meher Online, pg. 5263
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The Miracle of His Descent
By Preeti Hay
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Every child is a miracle. But can you imagine the miraculous extent of the descent of the Avatar into the world? The stars align perfectly, and the earth readies herself to receive her long-awaited creator. The universe chooses the most auspicious time, the perfect parents and the right place. Despite the overarching magnitude and meaning of such an event or perhaps because of it, the birth of the Avatar and the occurrences leading up to it assume a fairy tale like character: rich with dreams, visions, and divine light.
When Meher Baba’s father Sheriarji was a wandering dervish in search of God, he heard a divine voice, “He whom you seek, He whom you wish to see, His attainment is not destined for you. Your son, it is your son who will attain it, and through your son–you.”* Years later, because of a series of unprecedented events, Sheriarji found himself married to Shireen, twenty-five years his junior. In 1894 before the birth of her second child, Shireen was glowing in anticipation. Throughout her pregnancy, Shireen had beautiful dreams that she shared with her mother. On the morning before Merwan was born, Shireen had a vision. She saw a glorious person, like the sun, sitting on a chariot. Few people pulled the chariot, while tens of thousands were gazing at his divine radiance. She saw herself in the procession. After narrating this propitious dream that promised the birth of a great soul, she fell asleep. The dawn broke over Poona skies and the God-Man was born.**
Starting from the time of Zoraster, the revelation of divine light preceded the Avatar’s arrival. Zarathustra’s mother Doghduyah was touched by God’s light from the moment she conceived. So strong was this light that people turned their lamps off at her arrival! In a dream she saw ferocious wild animals come out of a dark cloud. They surrounded an infant but were unable to tear him apart. He turned his head to her and said, “The good God is my friend, do not have any fears.” She then saw a white mountain descend from heaven and destroy the dark cloud. From within it came a youth in shining white garments. He held the child and said, “Nothing bad will ever happen to Him, He will be a prophet of God.” Zoraster’s Advent was seen as the appearance of bright light into a world that most needed it. Nothing bad happened to him in the clutches of danger imposed by King Darun Suran and the priestly classes of His times. His mother learned from a wise man that the youth in her dream was Angel Gabriel.
While Jesus’ mother Mary was promised in marriage to Joseph, she was visited by an old man who said, “Fear not, for you have found grace and mercy with the Lord. I have been sent to announce to you that you shall bear a son and call him Jesus. He will be great because he shall be called the Son of the Highest.” Then suddenly, the old man transformed into Angel Gabriel. Across time, the very same Angel Gabriel appeared to Amina, the mother of Prophet Mohammad telling her that she would give birth to a Prophet of God. This dream was accompanied by an earthquake, lightning, abundant rainfall in a famine-stricken area where vegetables grew again.
Queen Maha Maya, the mother of Gautama Buddha, was visited by a white elephant in her dream. He circled around her three times and laid a white lotus at her feet that was present even after she awoke. When her husband King Sudhodana summoned sixty-four brahmans to interpret the dream, they all confirmed that this meant the arrival of the one predicted in many holy books. But they also warned, he would have to make a choice to either lead a normal life and become a universal monarch or retire from the world and become God’s Prophet.
Opposition is inevitable in the work of the Avatar. Opposing figures who have posed threats to the birth or early life of the Avatar have been known to be more apparent in some advents. Krishna’s uncle Kansa heard a divine voice that the eighth child of Devaki would slay him. Thus, Kansa imprisoned Krishna’s biological parents, Devaki and Vasudeva. When Devaki was pregnant (in prison) with this opportune child she had a vision of the forthcoming child who guided them through the upcoming series of miraculous events that would rescue him from prison and take him to the Gokul where he would be safe. In Gokul, charming Krishna grew up revealing His divinity amidst His famed mischief.***
According to one telling of the Ramayana, the gods pleaded with Brahma to help with their dilemma regarding the ten-headed monster Ravana who through penance had achieved invulnerability. When King Dasharatha performed a sacrificial fire to invoke the gods for a son, Vishnu decided to incarnate as a human because only a human (not a god) could slay Ravana. A huge supernatural being rose from the holy fire, adorned with all the auspicious marks. He offered a holy fruit that was split amongst the wives of Dashratha. Queen Kaushalya, who ate half of the fruit, gave birth to Prince Rama who bore the Srivatsa mark on His chest identifying Him as Vishnu.****
How awe-inspiring it is to think of the Avatar’s recurring descent as being part of the unfathomable, original whim. The journey that the very first soul made to realise itself, and continues to make for the sake of love. Baba said, “I am that Ancient one—Zarathustra, Rama, Krishna, Buddha, Jesus, Muhammad. But how will you know that I am the Adi Purush (Supreme Power)? Rare are those who have the fortune to know me. So do one thing. Leave the thought of understanding me altogether. Love me, obey me, that is all.”*****
*Lord Meher, pg. 132
**Lord Meher, pg. 146
*** References: Birth Stories of the Prophets, By Dede Khan
****Valmiki’s Ramayana
***** Lord Meher, pg. 4016
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