Early Life
Meher Baba was an Irani born in Pune, India to a Zoroastrian family. His given name was Merwan Sheriar Irani. He was the second son of Sheriar Mundegar Irani, a Persian Zoroastrian who had spent years wandering in search of spiritual experience before settling in Poona (now Pune), and Sheriar's young wife, Shireen.
His schoolmates nicknamed him "Electricity." As a boy he formed "The Cosmopolitan Club," which was dedicated to remaining informed in world affairs and giving money to charity. Money was raised by donations and sometimes by gambling, e.g. betting at the horse races. He had an excellent singing voice and was a multi-instrumentalist and poet. Fluent in several languages, he was especially fond of the poetry of Hafiz, Shakespeare, and Shelley.
In his youth, he had no mystical inclinations or experiences, and was "ntroubled as yet by a sense of his own destiny..." He was more interested in sports, especially cricket, and was co-captain of his high school cricket team. Baba later explained that a veil is always placed over the Avatar until the time is right for him to begin his work. At the age of 19, during his second year at Deccan College in Poona (now Pune), he met a very old Muslim woman, a spiritual master named Hazrat Babajan, who kissed him on the forehead. The event affected him profoundly; he experienced visions and mystical feelings so powerful that he gave up his normal activities. He began to beat his head against a stone to maintain, as he later put it, contact with the physical world. He also contacted other spiritual figures, who (along with Babajan) he later said were the five "Perfect Masters" of the age: Hazrat Tajuddin Baba of Nagpur, Narayan Maharaj of Kedgaon, Sai Baba of Shirdi, and Upasni Maharaj of Sakori.
Upasni helped him, he later said, to integrate his mystical experiences with normal consciousness, thus enabling him to function in the world without diminishing his experience of God-realization. In 1921, at the age of 27, after living for seven years with Upasni, Merwan started to attract a following of his own. His early followers gave him the name "Meher Baba," meaning Compassionate Father.
In 1922, Meher Baba and his followers established "Manzil-e-Meem" (House of the Master) in Bombay (now Mumbai). There Baba began his practice of demanding strict discipline and obedience from his disciples. A year later, Baba and his mandali moved to an area a few miles outside Ahmednagar that he named "Meherabad" (Meher flourishing). This ashram would become the center for his work. In 1924, Meher Baba created a resident school at Meherabad that he named the "Prem Ashram" (in several languages "prem" means "love"). The school was free and open to all castes and faiths. The school drew multi-denominational students from around India and Iran.
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