Avatar Meher Baba
Meher Baba giving Darshan, Ahmednagar, India, 1954.
A Brief Biography
Merwan Sheriar Irani, known as Meher Baba, was born in Poona, India, on February 25, 1894, to Persian parents. His father, Sheriar Irani, was of Zoroastrian faith and a true seeker of God. Merwan went to a Christian high school in Poona and later attended Deccan College. In 1913 while still in college, Merwan experienced a fateful meeting with Hazrat Babajan, an ancient Muslim woman revered as a Perfect Master. Babajan gave Merwan God-Realization and made Him aware of His high spiritual destiny.
Eventually, Merwan was drawn to seek out another Perfect Master, Upasni Maharaj, a Hindu who maintained an ashram in Sakori. During the next seven years, Maharaj gave Merwan “gnosis” or divine knowledge, preparing Him for His role as Avatar of the Age.
Merwan’s spiritual mission began in 1921 when he drew together His first close disciples. It was these early disciples who gave Him the name Meher Baba, which means “Compassionate Father.”
After years of intensive training of His disciples, Meher Baba established Meherabad, a colony near Ahmednagar, India. Here, the Master’s work included a free school where spiritual training was stressed, a free hospital and dispensary, and shelters for the poor. No distinction was made between the high castes and the Untouchables; all mingled in common fellowship through the inspiration of the Master. To his disciples at Meherabad who were of different castes and creeds, He gave training in moral discipline, love for God, spiritual understanding, and selfless service.
Meher Baba told his disciples that from July 10, 1925, He would observe silence. He maintained this silence until the end of His life, January 31, 1969. His many spiritual discourses and messages were dictated by means of an alphabet board. Much later the Master discontinued the use of the board and reduced all His communication to hand gestures unique in expressiveness and widely understood.
Meher Baba traveled to the United States six times, first in 1931, when He met His early Western disciples. His last visit to the U.S. was in 1958 when He and His disciples stayed at the Meher Spiritual Center established for His work at Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
In India as many as one hundred thousand people have come in a single day to seek His Darshan or blessing—some who journeyed from all over the world to spend a few days, even a few hours, in His presence.
An important part of Meher Baba’s work through the years was to contact and personally serve hundreds of those known in India as “masts.” These are advanced pilgrims on the spiritual path who have become spiritually intoxicated from direct awareness of God. For this work, He traveled many thousands of miles to remote places throughout India and Ceylon. Other vital work included the bathing of lepers, washing the feet of thousands of poor, and distribution of grain and cloth to the destitute.
Meher Baba asserts that He is the same Ancient One, come again to redeem humanity from the bondage of ignorance and to guide individuals to realize their true Self which is God. Meher Baba is acknowledged by His many followers all over the world as the Avatar of the Age.
Rural Highway 62, approaching from the East—the accident site is at the top of the rise.
Meher Baba's Accident in America
On May 24, 1952, near the small town of Prague, Oklahoma, Avatar Meher Baba endured a severe automobile accident. With Him and sharing in His sacrifice were several of His closest disciples, including His most cherished and beloved Mehera.
Meher Baba explained that this accident would “result in benefit to the whole world." He said on other occasions that it would be necessary in His mission as Avatar to undergo this Self-sacrifice. Baba was seriously injured as a result of the accident—two bones of His lower left leg, His left arm at the shoulder, and His nose were broken. He also suffered severe injuries in His mouth caused by the dentures He was wearing.
The date of this event was foretold by Meher Baba many years earlier. At Harmon-on-Hudson, during His first trip to America in 1932, He gave Elizabeth Patterson a small pink wildflower telling her to always keep the flower and write down the date—that someday she would know the meaning. It wasn't until years after the accident that Elizabeth rediscovered the flower He had given her that day. She had placed it in a family bible and wrote next to it the date, "May 24, 1932," exactly 20 years before the fateful day she would be driving Baba when the accident occured.
'Switzerland, 1952' Painting by Charlie Mills of Meher Baba in Switzerland, three months after the Oklahoma accident.
The following account of Meher Baba’s accident was excerpted from the article "Meher Baba's Accident in America" by Jeff Maguire, originally published in ‘The Broken Down Furniture News,’ and reprinted by permission of the author. Portions of the article were based on research and writings by Julia Ross, David Fenster, Adele Wolkin, Kitty Davy, C. B. Purdom, Filis Frederick, and Philip Lutgendorf.
On the morning of May 24, 1952, Anthony Joseph Palmieri was driving east on Oklahoma Highway 62 with Billie Hanson, who would soon be his wife, and her mother, Jane Hanson. Anthony had lost both legs in the Korean War. That day he was driving for the first time a new, specially equipped Mercury sedan. The two-lane highway was slick from rain that had fallen the night before. About 10:00 a.m., at a spot that is nearly the geographical center of the United States, their car was climbing a rise where, according to Anthony, a mail truck was blocking the right lane. He pulled around the truck and into the path of an oncoming blue Nash with South Carolina license plates.
As the Mercury sped towards the Nash, a collision unavoidable, Jane cried out, "Please God, don't let us die!" She had no idea that at that moment God, in the human form of Meher Baba, was stretching out his hand to point at her car. As Anthony applied the brakes, the Mercury spun across the road and the Nash smashed head-on into its side. Anthony, Billie, and Jane were unhurt.
As with all occurrences in the life of Meher Baba, the Godman, this "accident" was anything but an accident. In a circular sent out to His lovers on New Year's Day, 1949, Meher Baba had warned of a great personal disaster to Himself. On August 15 of that same year, he again foretold of a personal disaster. On June 28, 1951, he added that He would "in the natural course of events, be facing physical annihilation as well, without actually seeking it."
In 1952, Baba made arrangements to visit the West. He arrived in Myrtle Beach on April 20, and on May 20, most of the men Mandali who had accompanied Him left in advance for Meher Mount, at Ojai, California, to prepare for Baba's visit there.
It rained the following day. The cars transporting Baba's party were not loaded until the sun broke through, at 2:30 p.m. Elizabeth Patterson, driver and owner of the Nash, was behind the wheel, ready to go when Baba asked if she had her insurance policy with her. She didn't but said she knew where it was at her home. Baba told her to stop on the way and get it. She packed it at the top of her suitcase.
Baba sat in the Nash beside Elizabeth. Mehera, Meheru, and Baba's sister, Mani, were seated in the back. Following them was a station wagon driven by Sarosh Irani with passengers Dr. Goher Irani, Kitty Davy, Delia DeLeon, and Rano Gayley. They spent the first few days driving and sightseeing, spending nights in Columbia, South Carolina, and Murphy, North Carolina.
On May 23, they spent the night at the Pond Crest Motor Court in Ozark, Arkansas. Baba and the Eastern women stayed at the motel and dined on bread and milk. Sarosh and the Western women were sent out to a small restaurant. The next morning they arose early as usual, and Baba again sent Sarosh and the Western women out to eat while he stayed with Mehera, Meheru, Mani, and Goher.
Kitty Davy would later write, "I think of Baba, knowing what was to happen before the day was over, spending the last few hours with that small, close group whom He had known since they were children and who had loved Him for so many years; finding in their presence the comfort and love He so much needed in that fateful hour."
After breakfast, the group stood waiting in front of the motel for Baba's signal to get into the cars. But Baba delayed the departure, standing for a long time on His doorstep. Kitty remembers, "He was sad, withdrawn and unusually still." There were no last-minute questions, no hurry to be off. Finally, after 10 minutes, He walked to the car with the Eastern women. As He had many times before, Baba admonished Sarosh to follow closely and not lose sight of the lead car. Referring to an occasion earlier in the trip when He had been forced to wait for the station wagon in the intense heat, Baba warned that this should not happen again. When Sarosh asked if his group might stop along the way for drinks, Baba answered, "Yes, but do not linger."
They had driven only a short distance when Baba had Elizabeth stop the car. He got out and paced up and down the right side of the road without explanation. Delia DeLeon remembered, "He seemed very depressed and haggard. He walked ahead with His head bent, seeming very far away."
Later, Sarosh and his passengers stopped in a small town for coffee and cokes. "We then put on speed to meet Baba at the appointed place," Delia recalled. "We could see no sign of His car and were beginning to get worried. It was about 10:05 a.m. We heard an exclamation of alarm from Sarosh. We turned our heads to the right. At first, we could not take in what had happened; we could not see clearly from the car. We saw people standing 'round Baba who seemed to be lying on the ground. The women were lying in various directions. Sarosh exclaimed, 'Oh, God, there's been an accident!' With lightning speed, we jumped out of the car and rushed forward. The anguish of that moment is unforgettable … Baba's face with blood pouring from His head, the extraordinary expression on Baba's face, His eyes just staring straight ahead as if into unfathomable distances. He made no sound or sign … just lay there motionless… . Elizabeth was in the car, doubled over the wheel. Her first question had been, ‘Is He alive?'"
The rain that had made the road so slippery also blessedly made the road's shoulder soft and muddy, cushioning the impact of Baba and the Indian women. Delia placed her pillow beneath Baba's bleeding head. (The blood-stained pillow, unlaundered, remains displayed at the Meher Spiritual Center in Myrtle Beach.) The farmer whose home was in front of the accident heard the terrible sound of the collision and rushed to assist. He lovingly covered the victims with his own blankets. The farmer's wife was made so distraught by the sight of the victims that she retreated back inside her house.
The first car to pass was that of a man who was taking his wife to the Prague Clinic, seven miles away, to have a baby. He summoned a pair of ambulances to the scene.
Seven miles east of the accident site, Dr. Ned Burleson was making his rounds at the clinic he had founded and maintained since 1950. The first person brought into the clinic was Elizabeth, who had a broken arm and eleven broken ribs. Mehera's injuries were the most critical of all. In 1970, Dr. Burleson said she had suffered "the worst skull fracture I've ever seen. Like an egg you've dropped on the floor." He hadn't expected her to live.
Of the others in the car with Baba, Meheru’s wrists were both broken, while Mani, who'd been sleeping at the time of the accident, sustained only minor injuries.
Dr. Burleson was picking particles of glass out of Mehera's frontal bone when Dr. Goher rushed in and frantically urged him to come and see about Baba. "They were saying 'Baba this, Baba that.' I didn't know what they were talking about…and barely heard Dr. Irani because of the concentration on what I was doing."
When Dr. Burleson finally got around to attending to Baba, he was most surprised: "As soon as I came in the doorway, he starts grinning at me and smiling away, so I figured he can't be too badly hurt! ...I was also astounded to find that he did not speak or make any sound denoting discomfort. I assumed that he could not, but was soon informed that he did not speak because of a willful act. I knew we were going to have to give him a general anesthetic…to set his fractures and I suspected that he would say something at that time, but he didn't."
In a message Baba dictated on June 13, He said, "The personal disaster, for some years foretold by me, has at last happened while crossing the American continent, causing Me, through facial injuries, a broken leg and broken arm, much mental and physical suffering. It was necessary that it should happen in America. God willed it so."
Why was it necessary that it happen in America? Perhaps a clue lies in a statement Baba made 20 years before: "America forms the best foundation for the spiritual upheaval I will bring about in the near future. America has tremendous energy, but most of this energy is misdirected. I intend to divert it into spiritual and creative channels."
Dr. Burleson wrote of Baba the next year: "The most attractive quality of his personality that first day was the way he would look at me with those big brown eyes as if he were reading my mind. Later I determined that the most astounding quality was that something which made it possible for him to receive such profound devotion and loyalty from so many fine and educated people. That quality cannot be forced. Such devotion can only be possible because he deserved it or earned it.”
Years later Elizabeth Patterson, who had received the small pink flower twenty years before, said, "Through the experience of sharing Baba's suffering to a degree, I feel my life, instead of being nearly cut off, was extended for a purpose; the gift of the little flower was grace from the Master to be treasured in the heart."
The gift of the flower, like the accident itself, was but one tangible thread of the Beloved's compassion…one thread in the vast invisible tapestry that sustains the Universe.