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Meher Baba was an Indian spiritual master who claimed he was an Avatar — God in human form.Merwan Sheriar Irani was born in 1894 in Poona, India, to Irani Zoroastrian parents. His spiritual transformation began when he was 19 years old and lasted for seven years. During this time he contacted five spiritual teachers before beginning his own mission and gathering his own disciples in early 1922, at the age of 27.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. With his mandali , 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.In 1931, Meher Baba made the first of many visits to the West, where he attracted followers. Throughout most of the 1940s, Meher Baba worked with a category of spiritual aspirants called masts, who 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 and still largely unexplained period he called the "New Life".After being injured as a passenger in two serious automobile accidents, one near Prague, Oklahoma in the United States in 1952 and one in India in 1956, 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". Concerned by an increasing use of LSD and other psychedelic drugs, in 1966 Baba stated that they did not convey real benefits. 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 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. In addition he gave practical advice for the aspirant who wishes to attain God-realization and thereby escape the wheel of births and deaths. He also taught about the concept of Perfect Masters, the Avatar, and those on the various stages of the spiritual path that he called involution. His most important teachings are recorded in his principal books Discourses and God Speaks.

His legacy includes the Avatar Meher Baba Charitable Trust he established in India, a handful of centres for information and pilgrimage, as well as an influence on pop-culture artists and the introduction of common expressions such as "Don't Worry, Be Happy." Meher Baba's silence has remained a mysterious issue among some of his followers. Wikipedia  

✵ 25. February 1894 – 31. January 1969
Meher Baba photo
Meher Baba: 113   quotes 21   likes

Meher Baba Quotes

“It is never presumptuous for anyone to hope for realization. It is the goal of creation and the birthright of humanity.”

Meher Baba

Message to Garrett Fort (1936) <!-- Tr p194, also A p26 -->
General sources
Context: It is never presumptuous for anyone to hope for realization. It is the goal of creation and the birthright of humanity. Blessed are they who are prepared to assert that right in this very life.

Hope

“This realisation must and does take place only in the midst of life, for it is only in the midst of life that limitation can be experienced and transcended, and that subsequent freedom from limitation can be enjoyed.”

Meher Baba book Discourses

Source: Discourses (1967), Vol. III, Ch. 1 : The Avatar, p. 11.
Context: CONSCIOUSLY or unconsciously, every living creature seeks one thing. In the lower forms of life and in less advanced human beings, the quest is unconscious; in advanced human beings, it is conscious. The object of the quest is called by many names — happiness, peace, freedom, truth, love, perfection, Self-realisation, God-realisation, union with God. Essentially, it is a search for all of these, but in a special way. Everyone has moments of happiness, glimpses of truth, fleeting experiences of union with God; what they want is to make them permanent. They want to establish an abiding reality in the midst of constant change.
It is a natural desire, based fundamentally on a memory, dim or clear as the individual’s evolution may be low or high, of his essential unity with God; for, every living thing is a partial manifestation of God, conditioned only by its lack of knowledge of its own true nature. The whole of evolution, in fact, is an evolution from unconscious divinity to conscious divinity, in which God Himself, essentially eternal and unchangeable, assumes an infinite variety of forms, enjoys an infinite variety of experiences and transcends an infinite variety of self-imposed limitations. 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. But evolution from the standpoint of the creature, with his limited knowledge, limited power, limited capacity for enjoying bliss, is an epic of alternating rest and struggle, joy and sorrow, love and hate, until, in the perfected man, God balances the pairs of opposites and transcends duality. Then creature and Creator recognise themselves as one; changelessness is established in the midst of change, eternity is experienced in the midst of time. God knows Himself as God, unchangeable in essence, infinite in manifestation, ever experiencing the supreme bliss of Self-realisation in continually fresh awareness of Himself by Himself.
This realisation must and does take place only in the midst of life, for it is only in the midst of life that limitation can be experienced and transcended, and that subsequent freedom from limitation can be enjoyed.

Life , Freedom

“Before he can know Who he is, man has to unlearn the mass of illusory knowledge hehas burdened himself with on the interminable journey from unconsciousness to consciousness.”

Meher Baba

44 : God Alone Is, p. 72.
The Everything and the Nothing (1963)
Context: Before he can know Who he is, man has to unlearn the mass of illusory knowledge hehas burdened himself with on the interminable journey from unconsciousness to consciousness. It is only through love that you can begin to unlearn, and, eventually, put an end to all that you do not know. God-love penetrates all illusion, while no amount of illusion can dim God-love. Start by learning to love God by beginning to love those whom you cannot. You will find that in serving others you are serving yourself. The more you remember others with kindness and generosity, the less you remember yourself; and when you completely forget yourself, you find me as the Source of all Love.

Knowledge

“Give up all forms of parrotry. Start practising whatever you truly feel to be true and justly to be just. Do not make a show of your faiths and beliefs.”

Meher Baba

44 : God Alone Is, p. 73.
The Everything and the Nothing (1963)
Context: Give up all forms of parrotry. Start practising whatever you truly feel to be true and justly to be just. Do not make a show of your faiths and beliefs. You have not to give up your religion, but to give up clinging to the husk of mere ritual and ceremony. To get to the fundamental core of Truth underlying all religions, reach beyond religion.

Faith , Feeling

“God is Love. And Love must love. And to love there must be a Beloved.”

Meher Baba

"The Lover and the Beloved", p. 1.
The Everything and the Nothing (1963)
Context: God is Love. And Love must love. And to love there must be a Beloved. But since God is Existence infinite and eternal there is no one for Him to love but Himself. And in order to love Himself He must imagine Himself as the Beloved whom He as the Lover imagines He loves.

Love , God

“There are no divisions as such, but there is an appearance of separateness because of ignorance.”

Meher Baba

65 : Ignorance Personified, p. 111.
The Everything and the Nothing (1963)
Context: There are no divisions as such, but there is an appearance of separateness because of ignorance. This means that everything is of ignorance and that every one is Ignorance personified.

Appearance

“Remember that the first step in spirituality is not to speak ill of others.”

Meher Baba

7:2506.
Lord Meher (1986)
Context: Remember that the first step in spirituality is not to speak ill of others. All human beings have weaknesses and faults. Yet they are all God in their being. Until they become Realized, they have their imperfections. Therefore, before trying to find faults in others and speaking ill of them, try to find your own weaknesses and correct those.

“Thus every one of us is Avatar, in the sense that everyone and everything is everyone and everything, at the same time, and for all time.”

Meher Baba

Meher Baba’s Call (1954)
Context: I tell you all, with my Divine Authority, that you and I are not “WE,” but “ONE.” You unconsciously feel my Avatarhood within you; I consciously feel in you what each of you feel. Thus every one of us is Avatar, in the sense that everyone and everything is everyone and everything, at the same time, and for all time.
There is nothing but God. He is the only Reality, and we all are one in the indivisible Oneness of this absolute Reality. When the One who has realized God says, “I am God. You are God, and we are all one,” and also awakens this feeling of Oneness in his illusion-bound selves, then the question of the lowly and the great, the poor and the rich, the humble and the modest, the good and the bad, simply vanishes. It is his false awareness of duality that misleads man into making illusory distinctions and filing them into separate categories.

Sense , Time

“It is God Who acts, and God Who reacts. It is He Who scoffs, and He Who responds. He is the Creator, the Producer, the Actor and the Audience in His own Divine Play.”

Meher Baba

"How to Love God" (12 September 1954).
General sources
Context: When I say I am the Avatar, there are a few who feel happy, some who feel shocked, and many who hearing me claim this, would take me for a hypocrite, a fraud, a supreme egoist, or just mad. If I were to say every one of you is an Avatar, a few would be tickled, and many would consider it a blasphemy or a joke. The fact that God being One, Indivisible and equally in us all, we can be nought else but one, is too much for the duality-conscious mind to accept. Yet each of us is what the other is. I know I am the Avatar in every sense of the word, and that each one of you is an Avatar in one sense or the other.
It is an unalterable and universally recognized fact since time immemorial that God knows everything, God does everything, and that nothing happens but by the Will of God. Therefore it is God who makes me say I am the Avatar, and that each one of you is an Avatar. Again, it is He Who is tickled through some, and through others is shocked. It is God Who acts, and God Who reacts. It is He Who scoffs, and He Who responds. He is the Creator, the Producer, the Actor and the Audience in His own Divine Play.

God

“If I were to say every one of you is an Avatar, a few would be tickled, and many would consider it a blasphemy or a joke. The fact that God being One, Indivisible and equally in us all, we can be nought else but one, is too much for the duality-conscious mind to accept.”

Meher Baba

"How to Love God" (12 September 1954).
General sources
Context: When I say I am the Avatar, there are a few who feel happy, some who feel shocked, and many who hearing me claim this, would take me for a hypocrite, a fraud, a supreme egoist, or just mad. If I were to say every one of you is an Avatar, a few would be tickled, and many would consider it a blasphemy or a joke. The fact that God being One, Indivisible and equally in us all, we can be nought else but one, is too much for the duality-conscious mind to accept. Yet each of us is what the other is. I know I am the Avatar in every sense of the word, and that each one of you is an Avatar in one sense or the other.
It is an unalterable and universally recognized fact since time immemorial that God knows everything, God does everything, and that nothing happens but by the Will of God. Therefore it is God who makes me say I am the Avatar, and that each one of you is an Avatar. Again, it is He Who is tickled through some, and through others is shocked. It is God Who acts, and God Who reacts. It is He Who scoffs, and He Who responds. He is the Creator, the Producer, the Actor and the Audience in His own Divine Play.

God

“Once, one has experienced this, one sees oneself in everything that lives, one recognises all of life as his life, everybody's interests as his own.”

Meher Baba

Message at Pickfair, Beverly Hills, California (1 June 1932), as quoted in Life Is A Jest (1974) edited by A. K. Hajra <!-- or 6 January? 1932 Me p100-101 -->
General sources
Context: Life becomes meaningful and all activities are purposeful only on the basis of faith in the enduring reality. … The greatest romance possible in life is to discover this Eternal Reality in the midst of infinite change. Once, one has experienced this, one sees oneself in everything that lives, one recognises all of life as his life, everybody's interests as his own. One is no longer bound by habits of the past, no longer swayed by the hopes of the future — One lives in and enjoys each present moment to the full. There is no greater romance in life than this adventure in realization.

Life

“Don't worry, be happy.”

Meher Baba

Lord Meher http://www.lordmeher.org/index.jsp?pageBase=page.jsp&nextPage=6742, by Bhau Kalchuri, pp. 5770, 5970, 6742. The famous Bobby McFerrin song was based on this phrase often used by Meher Baba.
Variants:
Don't Worry; be Happy! Remember Me; I will help you.
As quoted in Showers of Grace (1984) by Bal Natu, p. 92
Do your best, then don't worry, be happy. Leave the rest to me.
As quoted in The Homeopathic Revolution : Why Famous People and Cultural Heroes Choose Homeopathy (2007) by Dana Ullman, p. 367.
General sources
Variant: Don't worry, be happy.

Happiness

“The book that I shall make people read is the book of the heart, which holds the key to the mystery of life.”

Meher Baba

Part of his public message upon arrival on his second visit to America (19 May 1932).
General sources

Life , People , Books , Reading

“I am the last Avatar in this present cycle of twenty-four, and therefore the greatest and most powerful. I have the attributes of five. I am as pure as Zoroaster, as truthful as Ram, as mischievous as Krishna, as gentle as Jesus, and as fiery as Muhammad.”

Meher Baba

Statement to his women mandali, December 1942, as quoted in Gift of God (1996) by Arnavaz Dadachanji, p. 72.
General sources

Truth

“I am the Avatar of this Age!”

Meher Baba

Source: Lord Meher (1986), p. 6018.

Age

“There is only one question. And once you know the answer to that question there are no more to ask. That one question is the Original Question. And to that Original Question there is only one Final Answer. But between that Question and its Answer there are innumerable false answers.”

Meher Baba

47 : The Question and its Answer, p. 78.
The Everything and the Nothing (1963)

Question , Falseness

“The universe is my ashram, and every heart is my house, but I manifest only in those hearts in which all other than me ceases to live.”

Meher Baba

The Final Declaration (1954)

Universe , Heart , Housing

“Know you all that if I am the Highest of the High my role demands that I strip you of your possessions and wants, consume all your desires and make you desireless rather than satisfy your desires. Sadhus, saints, yogis and walis can give you what you want; but I take away your wants and free you from attachments and liberate you from the bondage of ignorance. I am the one to take, not the one to give, what you want as you want.”

Meher Baba

The Highest of the High (1953)

“God has come again and again in various Forms, has spoken again and again in different words and different languages the Same One Truth — but how many are there that live up to it? Instead of making Truth the vitalbreath of his life, man compromises by making over and over againa mechanical religion of it—a handy staff to lean on in times of adversity, a soothing balm for his conscience or a tradition to be followed.”

Meher Baba

44 : God Alone Is, p. 74.
The Everything and the Nothing (1963)

Life , God , Truth , Religion

“You know that you are a human being, and I know that I am the Avatar. It is my whole life!”

Meher Baba

To Paul Brunton in 1930, as quoted in Meher Prabhu: Lord Meher, The Biography of the Avatar of the Age, Meher Baba, Manifestation, Inc. 1986, by Bhau Kalchuri, p. 1349.
Lord Meher (1986)

Life

“To penetrate into the essence of all being and significance and to release the fragrance of that inner attainment for the guidance and benefit of others, by expressing, in the world of forms, truth, love, purity and beauty — this is the sole game which has intrinsic and absolute worth. All other happenings, incidents and attainments in themselves can have no lasting importance.”

Meher Baba

Discourses (1967) http://discoursesbymeherbaba.org/v2-110.php, Volume II, § The Place of Occultism in Spiritual Life: III, p. 113
General sources

Love , Truth , World , Beauty

“Hopelessness means renunciation of all hopes. Aimlessness means renunciation of all aims. Helplessness means renunciation of all help. No master, no disciple, means renunciation of spirituality. And the New Life I have in mind eventually means absolute renunciation. Therefore, if any one asks you what this New Life is, say, 'Absolute and perfect renunciation.' If they ask, 'Renunciation of what?”

Meher Baba

say, 'Of everything — aims, hopes, help and life itself.
Statement during the New Life period (1949 - 1952), 10:3481
Lord Meher (1986)

Life , Hope , Help , Perfection

“9 : A Journey Without Journeying, p. 11.”

Meher Baba

The Everything and the Nothing (1963)

“The experiences are so innumerable and varied, that the journey appears to be interminable and the Destination is ever out of sight. But the wonder of it is, when at last you reach your Destination you find that you had never travelled at all! It was a journey from here to Here.”

Meher Baba

The Everything and the Nothing (1963)

Travel , Appearance

“Live more and more in the Present, which is ever beautiful and stretches away beyond the limits of the past and the future.”

Meher Baba

p. 5809 http://www.lordmeher.org/index.jsp?pageBase=page.jsp&nextPage=5809
Lord Meher (1986)

Beauty , Past , Future

“Whether men soar to outer space or dive to the bottom of the deepest ocean they will find themselves as they are, unchanged, because they will not have forgotten themselves nor remembered to exercise the charity of forgiveness.”

Meher Baba

64 : Forgive and Forget, p. 110.
The Everything and the Nothing (1963)

Men , Exercises , Forgiveness

“These false answers — such as, I am stone, I am bird, I am animal, I am man, I am woman, I am great, I am small — are, in turn, received, tested and discarded until the Question arrives at the right and Final Answer, I AM GOD.”

Meher Baba

47 : The Question and its Answer, p. 78.
The Everything and the Nothing (1963)

God , Question , Bird , Animals

“The divine Ego, as the basis of Eternal Existence, continually expresses itself; but shrouded in the veil of ignorance, man misconstrues his Indivisible Ego and experiences and expresses it as the limited, separate ego.”

Meher Baba

Meher Baba’s Call (1954)

“True knowledge is that knowledge which makes man after self-realization or union with God assert that his real Self is in everything and everybody.”

Meher Baba

Meher Baba Journal (June 1941), p. 480.
General sources

God , Knowledge

“To gulp down anger is the most courageous act one can perform. One who does it becomes humble.”

Meher Baba

5:1857.
Lord Meher (1986)

Courage , Anger

“The easiest and shortest way to God-realization is through the contact of a Sadguru, which means keeping the company or sahavas of such a Master, obeying him and serving him. This remedy is like a special express train which carries you straight to your destination.”

Meher Baba

Message at Meherabad (31 May 1926)
General sources

God , Way , Training

“To attain union is so impossibly difficult because it is impossible to become what you already are! Union is nothing other than knowledge of oneself as the Only One.”

Meher Baba

"The Lover and the Beloved", p. 1.
The Everything and the Nothing (1963)

Knowledge

“Through endless time God's greatest gift is continuously given in silence. But whenmankind becomes completely deaf to the thunder of His Silence God incarnates as Man.”

Meher Baba

44 : God Alone Is, p. 74.
The Everything and the Nothing (1963)

God , Silence , Time

“Of the 56 God-realised souls on earth, the five Perfect Masters are the most important. And the one who is the highest of all is the Avatar, myself. I come every 700 to 1400 years, and it is undoubtably a very rare and lucky thing for each of you to have the opportunity of loving me individually, since even the Sadgurus long to touch the Avatar physically. When the world is in the grip of pain, misery, suffering and chaos, I manifest myself. Spirituality then reaches its pinnacle, and materialism is at its lowest level. Then again, with the passing of time, spirituality diminishes and materialism increases. From the beginning of time this game has been going on, and it will go on for an eternity.”

Meher Baba

Statement of 3 June 1927, p. 6751.
Lord Meher (1986)

Love , God , Pain , World

“Awaken from your ignorance and try at least to understand that, in the uncompromisingly Indivisible Oneness, not only is the Avatar God, but also the ant and the sparrow, just as one and all of you are nothing but God. The only apparent difference is in the states of consciousness. The Avatar knows that that which is a sparrow is not a sparrow, whereas the sparrow does not realize this and, being ignorant of its ignorance, identifies itself as a sparrow.
Live not in ignorance. Do not waste your precious life-span in differentiating and judging your fellowmen, but learn to long for the love of God. Even in the midst of your worldly activities, live only to find and realize your true identity with your Beloved God.”

Meher Baba

Meher Baba’s Call (1954)

Love , Life , God , Understanding

“As a rule each action of an ordinary person is motivated by a solitary aim serving a solitary purpose; it can hit only one target at a time and bring about one specific result. But with the Avatar, He being the Centre of each one, any single action of His on the gross plane brings about a network of diverse results for people and objects everywhere.”

Meher Baba

63 : The Working of the Avatar, p. 105.
The Everything and the Nothing (1963)

People , Motivation , Time , Personality

“An ordinary physical action of the Avatar releases immense forces in the inner planes and so becomes the starting point for a chain of working, therepercussions and overtones of which are manifest at all levels and are universal in range and effect.”

Meher Baba

63 : The Working of the Avatar, p. 108.
The Everything and the Nothing (1963)

Universe

“The Avatar is always one and the same, because God is always One and the Same, the Eternal, Indivisible, Infinite One, who manifests Himself in the form of man as the Avatar, as the Messiah, as the Prophet, as the Ancient One — the Highest of the High. This Eternally One and the Same Avatar repeats His manifestation from time to time, in different cycles, adopting different human forms and different names, in different places, to reveal Truth in different garbs and different languages, in order to raise humanity from the pit of ignorance and help free it from the bondage of delusions.”

Meher Baba

The Highest of the High (1953)

God , Truth , Time , Help

“The happiness of God-realization is self-sustained, eternally fresh and unfailing, boundless and indescribable. And it is for this happiness that the world has sprung into existence.”

Meher Baba

Message of 1955, in God Speaks : The Theme of Creation and Its Purpose (1973), p. 139.
General sources

God , World , Happiness

“There are always 56 God-realised souls. Now, out of these 56, five are sent out into the world. But in every Avataric period these five become one, thus demonstrating the cycle when the Avatar appears in form. Therefore, the Avatar exists in the heart of these five as one.”

Meher Baba

Statement of 28 September 1938, p. 2324
Lord Meher (1986)

God , World , Soul , Appearance

“Mind working is man, mind working fast is mad, mind slowed down is Mast and mind stopped is God.”

Meher Baba

General sources

God , Madness