My Life with Meher Baba By W. D. Kain An Avatar Meher Baba Trust eBook Copyright © May 2021 Avatar Meher Baba Perpetual Public Charitable Trust, AhmeDnagar M.S. InDia Source: My Life with Meher Baba By W. D. Kain Copyright © 1994 W.D. Kain PHOTOGRAPHS PRINTED BY AZAD HIND STORES (P) LTD. SCO 34, Sector 17 - E, Chandigarh Printed at: Parnami Printing Press, Maheshpur, Panchkula eBooks at the Avatar Meher Baba Trust Web Site The Avatar Meher Baba Trust's eBooks aspire to be textually exact though non-facsimile reproductions of published books, journals and articles. With the consent of the copyright holders, these online editions are being made available through the Avatar Meher Baba Trust's web site, for the research needs of Meher Baba's lovers and the general public around the world. Again, the eBooks reproduce the text, though not the exact visual likeness, of the original publications. They have been created through a process of scanning the original pages, running these scans through optical character recognition (OCR) software, reflowing the new text, and proofreading it. Except in rare cases where we specify otherwise, the texts that you will find here correspond, page for page, with those of the original publications: in other words, page citations reliably correspond to those of the source books. But in other respects-such as lineation and font-the page designs differ. Our purpose is to provide digital texts that are more readily downloadable and searchable than photo facsimile images of the originals would have been. Moreover, they are often much more readable, especially in the case of older books, whose discoloration and deteriorated condition often makes them partly illegible. Since all this work of scanning and reflowing and proofreading has been accomplished by a team of volunteers, it is always possible that errors have crept into these online editions. If you find any of these, please let us know, by emailing us at [email protected]. The aim of the Trust's online library is to reproduce the original texts faithfully. In certain cases, however- and this applies especially to some of the older books that were never republished in updated versions-we have corrected certain small errors of a typographic order. When this has been done, all of these corrections are listed in the "Register of Editorial Alterations" that appears at the end of the digital book. If you want the original text in its exact original form, warts and all, you can reconstruct this with the aid of the "register." The Trust's Online Library remains very much a work in progress. With your help and input, it will increase in scope and improve in elegance and accuracy as the years go by. In the meantime, we hope it will serve the needs of those seeking to deepen and broaden their own familiarity with Avatar Meher Baba's life and message and to disseminate this good news throughout the world. Copy Rights Reserved Copyright © 1994 W.D. Kain I hereby acknowledge with thanks permrssion given by the Avatar Meher Baba Perpetual Public Charitable Trust, Ahmednagar, India to reprint material for which it holds the copyright. 1 This Book is Available AT Azad Hind Stores (P) LTD. Chandigarh PHOTOGRAPHS PRINTED BY AZAD HIND STORES (P) LTD. SCO 34, Sector 17 - E, Chandigarh Printed at: Parnami Printing Press, Maheshpur, Panchkula Introduction The One who has said that He would bring all religions together "like beads on a string" was born in the City of Poona on 25th Feb. 1894. Meher Baba's boyhood was not unusual, though from his very childhood he was alert, gentle and humorous. One day when he was reading the words of the Buddha, the thought - "This is who I am" - charged through him, only to vanish the next moment. He was educated at St Vincent's High School and the Deccan College. One May day in 1913 while bicycling from College to home, he was accosted by Perfect Master Babajan, who embraced him leading to the loss of normal consciousness by Baba. The seed of God Realization had been sown! Babajan once said "Meherwan you will shake the world to its foundation". For nine months after becoming God realised he remained unaware of the physical world. In the following year Baba was drawn to make contacts with Perfect Masters: Narayan Maharaj, Tajuddin Baba, Sai Baba. Sai Baba directed him to Perfect Master Upasani Maharaj of Sakori, where he stayed for 7 years when he was restored to normal consciousness. In 1922 Meher Baba began his Avataric Mission. For two years he recorded his spiritual experiences and in 1925 he started his "Silence" - a lifelong commitment. Formerly he used to write, but later took up the alphabet board, which also was discarded in 1954. In spite of his silence he dictated a lot of discourses including memorable works like God Speaks, The Everything and The Nothing, Listen Humanity etc. In 1931 Baba made his first visit to America via London. During this visit he met Mahatama Gandhi on S. S. Rajputana. This contact of the Mahatama with Meher Baba prompted the III former to observe silence once a week throughout his life. Baba made in all eleven journeys to the West, several of which were around-the-world tours. About these trips Baba had declared that such tours were meant to "lay spiritual cables" between East and West. During Baba's spiritual work, contacts were made by him with God-intoxicated souls - Masts - saints and sadhus during his extensive tours throughout India. The story of the work with Masts is told in "The Wayfarers'' by Dr. W. Donkin. In 1949 Baba entered what He called the New Life. It was a period of "hopelessness and helplessness" for himself and his companions. The New Life led to the last stage of Baba's work: the Free Life. During the period four most important statements were made: The Highest of the High, Baba's Call, The Final Declaration and the Universal Message: "I have come not to teach but to awaken." During this period Baba gave several "sahavas" to his lovers in India and three in Myrtle Beach, USA, in 1952, 56 and 58. The East West Gathering of 1962 was attended by more than 10,000 devotees both from India and abroad. On Jan. 31, 1969 Meher Baba dropped His physical form. Prior to this He had said in 1968:- My work is done. It is completed 100% to my satisfaction. The result of this work will also be 100% and will manifest from the end of September." - Meher Baba IV Acknowledgement I acknowledge with thanks the encouragement meted out to me by the Mandali at Meherazad headed by our Revd. Chairperson of the Avatar Meher Baba Trust - Mani Behn, in the compilation of My Life with Meher Baba, who has all along been guiding the destiny of my wife and myself, for the last so many years. But for the love of Meher Baba's disciples in and around Ahmednagar and a few devoted souls, steeped in the divinity of Baba overseas, I would not have ventured to write even a few lines about the glory of the Highest of the High. There are also persons like Dr. Ravinder Singh who silently pray for us. Baba had stressed that we should not make a promise and having made it, must keep it at all costs. When I promised my American brothers and sisters that I would write about my expe- riences with Baba, little did I know that the faculty of writing, appreciated by Baba and his Mandali, had dematerialized along with the physical exit of Baba from this hemisphere. And to top it all, I have lost to a great extent my memory of names (and sometimes even of faces) of my dear and near ones. I, therefore, humbly apologise for any errors and omissions, that may have occurred in this write-up regarding the sequence of events or mention of names of persons who matter and who deserve to be mentioned in this spiritual account. Most of the faults of the memory can be ascribed to the 1991 accident, when I sustained serious head injury; besides the fact that throughout the dictating of this book I have been thinking and talking about Baba only, with the result that only Baba's name has been etched on my heart (where previously the names of other people were inscribed) like a Cassette overplayed with different music. V I also gratefully acknowledge the permission granted by Revd. Mani Behn, Chairperson of the Avatar Meher Baba Charitable Trust for the publication of this book. Thanks are due to Shri M. R. Vohra and his son - Navneet - who helped in the compilation and proof-reading of this book and to Shri A.S. Prashar and Shri Sahib Kumar for their valuable suggestions and encouragement from time to time: also to Baba lovers at Delhi for their inspiring thoughts. VI My love I am wedded to Baba, because I owe my all to Him. I believe absolutely that I have a mission to give Baba's Message to the world and to express my gratitude to my Master - my God and Guide on the occasion of His Birth Centenary and run a commentary on the God-man's appearance in the world at a time when Humanity was crying for succour, for redemption, for peace and security. My mission has no geographical limits as will be borne out from the account of my World Tour of 1970. My life is dedicated to One who came to Awaken and left to infuse lasting Divine Knowledege in the bosom of ignorant mankind.