THE GOD-MAN The Life, Journeys and Work of Meher Baba with an ...

Part I Chapter 1THE PREPARATION1894-1922This will be found a strange book, all the more strange because the story that it tells has notreached its end. It is the story of a man whose life will appear incomprehensible, a life in which thecontradictions of normal values and actions are prominent; for this man says, 'I am God'. He choosesneither to speak nor write, nor does he seek even to get followers in the ordinary sense of the word.The story will arouse controversy, and I have no doubt that it will be misunderstood. I have written,however, soberly and plainly, though many will think that what I tell outrages common sense.The title 'Perfect Master' by which Meher Baba, the subject of this book, is known means one whohas himself reached the goal to which he directs others: one who, pointing to God, has himselfrealized God. Meher Baba, however, is more than Perfect Master, for by his own declaration he isAvatar or God-Man, that is to say, one who comes from God as the Awakener.My object in these pages is to give an account of this man as I know him and as his companions andfriends have spoken to me about him, to record his messages and declarations, and to explain what Ithink to be his significance.Meher Baba 1 is Merwan Sheriar Irani, born at Poona, India, in 1894. Merwan's parents, as hissurname declares, were Persians. His father was Sheriar Mundegar Irani, born in Khooramshah, avillage in Persia, in the year 1858, the son of the keeper of the Zoroastrian tower of silence, whichbelonged to his native village. The family was poor, and Sheriarji's mother died when he was five;the boy spent his days with his father looking after the place to which human corpses are brought tobe devoured by vultures. 21 Meher' means 'mercy', or in Persian 'sun', and is the name by which he was called as a child, 'Baba'means 'father'.2 These Persian towers of silence, dakhma, are built always on the outskirts of towns. TheZoroastrians believe this method of disposing of the dead to be the least harmful to the living.