
February 23, 2024
Flowers of Love
So many images come rushing to mind when one thinks of Baba’s birthday. When I close my eyes, I see a heavily garlanded and decorated Samadhi. I relive the goosebumps at the thought that Baba was a couple feet away, at the Tin Shed, celebrating His birthday. I picture the twinkle in the eyes of the mandali, especially the women, who, like Gopis, buzzed around Him with child-like, love-filled offerings.
Standing in that long line to reach His tomb, amidst the glorious displays of love, I remember holding a single flower in hand and thinking of Mehera and her garden. Mehera would often say to Baba’s lovers, “Just a single flower, a single petal offered to Baba with love is enough. It’s not the flower. It is our love that He wants.” [1]
It was not every year that Baba let the mandali celebrate His birthday. Some years He was in seclusion and the mood was quiet and restrained. His wish was their command. But when He did allow festivities, the mandali left no stone unturned to celebrate the birth of their Beloved. Feasts, music, processions, ceremonial bathing and washing His feet, garlanding and more.
1925 was the first time that Baba allowed His mandali and lovers to wash His feet on His birthday. About Baba’s feet, Mani said, “Mehera always referred to Beloved Baba’s feet as His lotus feet. When you are looking at a lotus flower, you are looking at a beauty and a purity which remind you of angels. Floating on the surface of a pond or lake, the lotus stands pure and untouched by its surroundings. It is for this supreme quality that in India the lotus is chosen to describe the feet of God in human form.” [2] That year, lovers came from Ahmednagar, Arangaon and Poona to Meherabad. Mehera said, “It is our tradition to make pretty designs with powdered colored chalk on the ground at the entrance of the house, and to hang freshly-made garlands over the doorway on special occasions. So, in the early, early morning I helped with the chalk designs and made the garland for the doorway.” Then, the men lovers washed His feet first. When the women were called, Mehera said, “So we girls, one by one, poured water on Baba’s feet and lightly touched them. Some splashed the water that had touched Baba’s feet on their faces and their eyes.” [3]
While Baba repeatedly reminded His lovers about the futility of ritualistic acts such as garlanding, in His divine sense of humor, He allowed for those very acts to become vehicles of sincere love and praise offered by the lovers. The Beloved in turn received them to please the lovers.
Two years later, for His thirty-third birthday in 1927, once again lovers poured cups of warm water over Him. When the bath was done, Baba dressed in kingly robes to give darshan. A crown of flowers wreathed His head, a beautiful garland adorned His neck and a string of flowers bedecked His arms and wrists. With a flute in His hand, He resembled Lord Krishna. [4] The mandali found such joy in dressing Him up to look like He did in His previous advents!
Yet again, many people came from nearby villages and Ahmednagar. Many brought big garlands for Baba. Such was the reverential outpour that Baba’s body was covered in flowers from neck down! The darshan continued so gloriously that someone cried out, “Look at Baba; what a glorious countenance he has! His face is like a shining sun!” Another person remarked, “Baba’s cheeks are like pink roses!” But all was not as it appeared to the ecstatic lovers. The glow on Baba’s face was not a demonstration of His spiritual stature but the work of a swarm of bees trapped in one of the garlands! Baba ruefully gestured, “My face is swollen and red from the bees’ stings, not because of divine radiance. See what I must endure at the hands of my lovers. They always wish to garland me and I permit it for the sake of their happiness, yet how I suffer. Such is my fate.” The menacing bees did not stop the rest of the program. Baba walked up Meherabad Hill beside a decorated palanquin for a music program. At the insistence of His lovers, He came down the Hill seated in the palanquin. [5]
To this day, birthday celebrations across the world are fragrant with Baba’s presence. For Baba’s seventy-fifth birthday, right after the dropping of His body, the celebration was at an awe-inspiring scale all over India. On Meherabad Hill, the whole village showed up, filling His tomb with garlands of jasmines and roses. “In short,” as Eruch Jessawala wrote in a letter, “it is obvious that the lovers of Baba believe that Baba is in their midst, although His physical presence is out of sight. He seems to have come into their hearts more forcefully than ever before. They feel His presence without seeing Him, and I can quite believe that, because I too feel that way.” [6]
Happy Birthday, Beloved Avatar Meher Baba!
[1] “Gardening with Love,” by Kacy Cook, On Sacred Ground[2] God Brother, by Mani Irani, p.62
[3] Mehera, by Mehera J. Irani, pp. 79-80
[4] In the company of Meher Baba, by M. R. Dhakephalkar, pp. 57-59
[5] Lord Meher, vol. 3, by Bhau Kalchuri, pp. 913-914
[6] 82 Family Letters, by Mani Irani, p.348