
February 24, 2023
Celebrating the One God
In February 1922 in Pune, Meher Baba’s birthday was celebrated simply by His earliest disciples. There was singing, a delicious meal, arti, and a spirit of festivity and love. One disciple, Gulmai, gave Baba a thin gold chain with Zoroaster’s portrait in a locket.
At that time, Baba had not said He was the Avatar, the same God who came as Zoroaster. But a year later, in 1923, He arrived at the house of a dear lover, Sohrabji Desai, whose sister Baimai had been bedridden for years due to a severe leg fracture. When she saw Meher Baba for the first time, she “rose to meet [Him] and, with tears in her eyes, stood for the first time in years.” After that, she gradually regained her ability to walk. During that visit, Baba said to the family, “I am your Zoroaster!”[I]
But Baba was not only Zoroaster. A few years later, in 1928, the women Mandali celebrated Baba as Krishna. Traditionally on Krishna’s birthday, His lovers rock a picture of Him in a small, decorated cradle. The women decided to rock Baba instead! They made a large makeshift cradle—out of a sheet they hung from the rafters and adorned with a cascade of flowers. Baba gamely agreed to get in and let His gopis swing Him—but because the sheet was old and worn (like most possessions in the ashram), slowly Baba began sinking. “What is this?” He asked, and he laughed with the women as He distributed prasad and greeted them one by one.[II]
Others, too, recognized Baba as Krishna, although sometimes not so readily. In 1942, lawyer and politician Kishan Nigam was given a few books and photos of Baba by one of His lovers. In disgust that Baba claimed to be Krishna, the Lord of Nigam’s heart, Nigam threw the photos into the mud of the street to be trampled on by passers-by. But over the next two years, Nigam felt compelled to follow some of Baba’s orders, and then to read the book Avatar which Meher Baba personally sent to him. Nigam came to recognize Baba as that same Lord, “my only Divine Beloved who had been conducting my life unknown to me.”[III]
But Baba was not only Krishna and Zoroaster. For His birthday in 1934, He fulfilled the ardent request of His devotee Sampath Aiyangar to spend His birthday in Madras.[IV] His Madras lovers were ecstatic, celebrating the day with music, artis, and darshan programs, delighting in Baba’s company. Aiyangar had two daughters who joined the festivities. One of them asked for Baba to be dressed as Lord Shiva, and He agreed. The other daughter then asked that He be dressed as Lord Krishna, Christ, and Prophet Mohammed as well. And He was.
Lovers of these forms of God, too, found them in Baba. Back in 1927, a young Muslim boy named Abdulla Rokneldin Pakravan arrived to see Baba but refused to bow down to Him because of Abdulla’s orthodox beliefs. Soon after, Abdulla described his change of heart during an ecstatic experience: “The visions of [Baba’s] glorious face made me hear a voice within me declaring, ‘Remove your shoes; you are on holy ground.’”[V] Years later, on Baba’s last visit to America in 1958, another boy, eight-year-old Charles Haynes, stood outside of the Lagoon Cabin waiting to meet Baba with no idea who Baba was or what to expect.[VI] Curious, he leaned around the person in front of him and peeked into the cabin. And Jesus was there, looking back at him.
During His birthday in 1934, Baba said this: “Where there is love there is Oneness and there can be no question of any particular religion or caste or system, superiority or inferiority, and touchability or untouchability. But to realize this natural quality permanently, one has to submit to the greatest law of God, which is love … ”[VII]
Baba’s last birthday in His physical form was on February 25, 1968. In Ahmednagar as in so many parts of the world, it was celebrated with a torrent of happiness, love and devotion for God in our midst. A great parade with over 30,000 people took place, complete with “25 decorated bullock carts, two bands, three drumming parties, two groups of lezim dancers, a party of sword acrobats, a prancing white horse, fireworks, several bhajan groups … a qawaali group … and a flower-covered open jeep that carried a lighted life-size painting of Baba.”[VIII]
And, for that final birthday, Baba’s brother Adi was inspired with the determination that people of every religion take part in the procession. So that last crush of celebration while Baba was in physical form was just how it should have been: Muslims singing with Hindus singing with Zoroastrians singing with Buddhists singing with Christians, all celebrating the birth, the eternal existence of the everlasting and ever-coming God.
[i] Lord Meher, Online Edition, by Bhau Kalchuri, p. 443[ii] Mehera Meher, by David Fenster, p. 213
[iii] My Life Story with Avatar Meher Baba, by Keshav Narayan Nigam, p. 14
[iv] Lord Meher, Online Edition, by Bhau Kalchuri, p. 1590
[v] Lord Meher, Online Edition, by Bhau Kalchuri, p. 898
[vi] Video of Charles Haynes, 1970s, Irwin Luck Interview Series
[vii] Meher Baba Calling, Eighth Edition, Copyright Avatar Meher Baba Perpetual Public Charitable Trust
[viii] Lord Meher, Online Edition, by Bhau Kalchuri, p. 5321