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The Beloved Archives - Meher Baba Archival Foundation

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The Beloved - Part 3 - THE MEANING OF DEATH
REAL EDUCATION
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REAL EDUCATION

Meher Baba photographed in a Maharashtrian dress in Toka in 1928.

Meher Baba had not spoken for one and a half years. On January 1, 1927, he stopped writing as well and started using an alphabet board to convey what he had to say. On the first day of May the same year, Baba opened the Meher Ashram, on the outskirts of Arangaon. This was a school for boys to provide secular and spiritual education. This school was later shifted to Meherabad. It had started with ten boys: 4 Brahmins, 3 Mahars (untouchables) and 3 Marathas. In the later years, reminiscing on the school and its activities, Baba had commented: "This school known as 'Meher Ashram' was started as a small day school for the boys of the adjoining village of Arangaon. After some time it was turned into a regular boarding school that housed more than a hundred boys. Efforts were made to collect them from various cities and different countries. One of the mandali was sent to England for that purpose. None came from the West, but a number of boys from Iran did join the Meher Ashram. "My first aim was to arrange for teaching the boys English through their various vernaculars, by standards set up in the University of Bombay. Having accomplished this, I began to spend all of my time, day and night, on the general welfare and spiritual upliftment of the boys."

When Hazrat Babajan visited the school to see "the place of my child" it was a great event. But Baba indicated that this visit made it necessary for him to move the ashram from Meherabad to the village of Toka. The transference was completed within fifteen days. During the Toka stay Baba was very close to the boys and he did whatever they desired, at times undergoing immense suffering. During this period the boys were engaged in meditation as well, getting up early in the morning for that purpose.

"This was also the period when I carried out one of my longest continuous fasts, which lasted five and one half months (November, 1927 ?April, 1928). Once during this period I took nothing but a few sips of water for more than twenty?eight days. The remainder of the time I lived on cocoa in milk taken once in twenty?four hours."

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