Meher Baba (Compassionate Father) was an Indian spiritual master and Mouna (Silent Master).
India
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Meher Baba - the Avatar:
Notes by the author: There was an element of disbelief in the "western" and other
people about Mehers Baba assertion that he was an Avatar (an incarnation of God).
But when we look closely, his path was based on Bhakti, divine Love or Love of God.
His work on masts and lepers, his simplicity, his demands on obedience etc. show this.
And we can see many cases in this series of such saints that claimed 'I am God'.
The reason is that, in this path of Love, the culmination is a dissolution of oneself
in the unlimited Ocean of Love, and here a fusion of oneself with God is experienced.
We see many such statements from Jesus Christ:
"As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you."
Saint John of the Cross, in his 'Dark Night of the Soul'
poems is a clear exponent:
...
Oh, night that joined Beloved with lover,
Lover transformed in the Beloved!
...
All ceased and I abandoned myself,
Leaving my cares forgotten among the lilies.
Meher Baba - "I have come not to teach, but to awaken":
Merwan Sheriar Irani was born in 1894 in Pune, India, to Irani Zoroastrian parents.
His spiritual transformation began when he was 19 years old, when he met an aged Muslim woman,
locally revered as a saint, named Hazrat Babajan, who kissed him on the forehead.
The event affected him profoundly and led to a quick realization of God.
After that he contacted other spiritual figures, who, along with Babajan, he later said
were the five "Perfect Masters" of the age, namely Tajuddin Baba, Narayan Maharaj,
Sai Baba of Shirdi, and Upasni Maharaj.
Upasni Maharaj, he later said, helped him to integrate his mystical experiences
with normal consciousness, thus enabling him to function in the world without
diminishing his experience of God-realization.
From July 1925 to the end of his life, Meher Baba maintained silence,
communicating by means of an alphabet board or by unique hand gestures.
With his mandali (circle of disciples), he spent long periods in seclusion,
during which time he often fasted. He also traveled widely,
held public gatherings and engaged in works of charity with lepers and the poor.
During the 1920s, Meher Baba opened a school, hospital and
dispensary at Meherabad., all three free and open to all castes and faiths.
This ashram would become the center for his work.
In 1931, Meher Baba made the first of many visits to the West, where he attracted followers.
On his first trip to England in 1931, he traveled on the SS Rajputana,
the same ship that was carrying Mahatma Gandhi, who was sailing to the second Round Table
Conference in London. Baba and Gandhi had three meetings onboard,
one of which lasted for three hours.
In the West, Meher Baba met with a number of celebrities and artists,
amongst them Gary Cooper, Charles Laughton, Tallulah Bankhead, Boris Karloff,
Tom Mix, Maurice Chevalier, Ernst Lubitsch and others.
Throughout most of the 1940s, Meher Baba worked with a category of spiritual aspirants
called masts (God intoxicated), whom he said are entranced or spellbound by internal spiritual experiences.
Starting in 1949, along with selected mandali, he traveled incognito about India in an
enigmatic period he called the "New Life".
After being injured as a passenger in two serious automobile accidents,
his ability to walk became severely limited. In 1962, he invited his Western
followers to India for a mass darshan called "The East–West Gathering".
Despite deteriorating health, he continued what he called his "Universal Work",
which included fasting and seclusion, until his death on 31 January 1969.
His samadhi (shrine/tomb) in Meherabad, India, has become a place of international pilgrimage.
Meher Baba gave numerous teachings on the cause and purpose of life,
including teaching reincarnation and that the phenomenal world is an illusion.
He taught that the Universe is imagination, that God is what really exists,
and that each soul is really God passing through imagination to realize
individually his own divinity.
Reference:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meher_Baba
Videos:
Powerful Avatar Meher Baba 1955 message to disciples
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inXwzjgkwqM
Universal Message in 1958:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBPyz6903PA