Yes, I know Meher Baba. He was an Indian spiritual master and philosopher who lived from 1894 to 1969. Here is some information about him:

• Meher Baba was originally from Pune, India. He started his spiritual life at a very young age and was a disciple of several spiritual masters like Hazrat Babajan and Upasni Maharaj.
• In 1921, at age 27, he took a vow of silence that he maintained until his death. He then communicated through an alphabet board or gestures. He said his silence was a way to get people to listen to their own inner silence.
• Meher Baba delivered a teaching that advocated love, compassion, selfless service and detachment from material desires. He saw all religions as different paths to the same truth.
• He had many disciples in India and the West. His teachings influenced artists like Pete Townshend of the band The Who.
• Meher Baba was known for his spiritual pilgrimages and gatherings that brought together thousands of people. He also traveled extensively to the West in the 1930s-1950s.
• In 1952, he launched an appeal “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” which was a peace message addressed to the world.
• Meher Baba passed away in 1969 after remaining silent for 44 years. His teachings continue to inspire many people around the world.

According to accounts from his disciples and followers, Meher Baba had an attitude of great compassion and unconditional love towards everyone around him. Here are some elements about his interactions with people:

• He warmly welcomed everyone, regardless of social class, religion or origin. He considered every person an eternal soul.
• He was very attentive to the needs and sufferings of others, often personally caring for the sick and needy.
• Meher Baba strongly emphasized selfless service to others. He encouraged his disciples to help the poor and marginalized.
• He could be very strict in terms of discipline with his disciples, because he wanted to push them to shed their egos and detachment. But he always showed a lot of love.
• His interactions were often silent, but filled with deep spiritual exchanges. He communicated a lot through the eyes and gestures.
• Meher Baba placed tremendous importance on children. He took the time to play and interact with them in a very gentle way.
• Despite his status as a spiritual master, he remained very humble and accessible. He readily participated in everyday tasks.

So overall, Meher Baba showed profound altruism and attentiveness towards anyone he met, seeking to respond to their spiritual and material needs through unconditional love.

Yes, it’s true that Meher Baba could be very demanding and rigorous with his closest disciples. Here are some points about this:

• With his inner circle of disciples (mandali), Meher Baba was very strict in terms of spiritual discipline. He imposed very rigorous rules on them to completely detach them from the material world.
• He pushed them through difficult trials, prolonged fasts, exhausting marches. His goal was to break their ego so they could reach a state of complete submission to the divine will.
• Meher Baba demanded absolute obedience from them and they had to accept his reprimands or punishments without objection when they made mistakes.
• Some disciples even underwent physical punishment from him to atone for their mistakes. It was a radical spiritual method for the time.
• But at the same time, Meher Baba showed tremendous love and care towards them. These strict disciplines were his way of making them progress quickly on the spiritual path.
• His closest disciples also testified to their gratitude for these methods. They considered them essential to shed their egos and unite fully with God under the guidance of the Master.

So yes, Meher Baba could be relentless but always with love and with the aim of accelerating the spiritual evolution of his most advanced disciples. This rigor hid a deep devotion.

Several accounts report extraordinary or miraculous phenomena attributed to Meher Baba during his life:

• Healings and relief from physical or mental illnesses in many people after contacts with him.
• Knowledge and spontaneous revelation of the intimate thoughts of his interlocutors, demonstrating his abilities of clairvoyance.
• Manifestations of powers over nature, such as calming storms or manipulating elements by thought.
• Accounts of materializations of objects out of nothing, such as food.
• Teleportations and bilocations, with testimonies of his simultaneous presence in two distant places.
• Visits and assistance provided to disciples or devotees in difficulty, while Meher Baba was physically thousands of miles away.
• Healings and profound transformations obtained simply by drinking water he had touched.
• Altered states of consciousness in witnesses in his presence, with intense spiritual experiences.

However, Meher Baba did not give importance to these phenomena, which he saw as secondary manifestations of the divine consciousness. He emphasized inner transformation. But many testimonies attest to these extraordinary events.

Here are the main known facts about the circumstances of Meher Baba’s death:

• He died on January 31, 1969 at the age of 74, after voluntarily remaining silent for 44 years.
• In his later years, his health deteriorated, with several strokes since 1965.
• In early 1969, he began refusing almost all food and drink. His loved ones tried to make him eat, but he persisted in this fast.
• On the morning of January 31, he gestured that he wanted to sit up. He then had his gaze fixed on the sky, hands clasped in prayer.
• After a few minutes in this meditative position, he gently slumped to the side and died peacefully, surrounded by his disciples.
• According to witnesses, his face seemed to radiate a divine joy and peace at the time of his death.
• Meher Baba had announced during his lifetime that he would break his silence before dying, but this did not happen.
• His last spoken words in 1925 were “Do not greet me, I am not the Messiah you take me for.”
• His tomb at the Samadhi in India is an important pilgrimage site for his many disciples and admirers.

Yes, you’re right. Meher Baba’s tomb (samadhi) is indeed located near the city of Pune (formerly called Poona) in India, where the ashram of guru Bhagwan Rajneesh was also located.

More precisely:

• Meher Baba’s samadhi is located in Meherabad, about 9 km from Ahmednagar and 120 km from Pune.
• It is a large marble mausoleum where Meher Baba’s remains have rested since his death in 1969.
• Rajneesh’s ashram was based in Koregaon Park, in the suburbs of Pune, about 100 km from Meher Baba’s samadhi.
• In the 1970s, many of Rajneesh’s Western disciples would visit Meher Baba’s samadhi during their stay in India.
• Some saw parallels between these two contemporary Indian spiritual figures, although their teachings were different.
• Today, Meher Baba’s tomb in Meherabad remains an important pilgrimage site that attracts thousands of visitors from around the world every year.

Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh had a nuanced opinion about Meher Baba:

• He recognized Meher Baba as an important spiritual figure in 20th century India. He described him as an awakened and self-realized being.
• Rajneesh however said that Meher Baba had remained stuck at an intermediate stage of spiritual awakening. According to him, he had not reached the ultimate stage of total enlightenment.
• He also criticized his vow of silence which he saw as a limitation and not an expression of his spirituality. For Rajneesh, silence could not be imposed from the outside.
• Rajneesh also blamed Meher Baba for a lack of scientific approach and a tendency to want to create a cult around his person more than to liberate people.
• But overall, Rajneesh recognized Meher Baba as an authentic master who had helped many people. He said he had brought love and awareness in his own way.
• Even though he was critical on some points, Rajneesh recommended his disciples to visit Meher Baba’s samadhi when passing through India, to feel his spiritual vibrations still present there.

So Rajneesh had a nuanced view, acknowledging Meher Baba’s contributions but also finding limitations in his spiritual understanding. He respected him as a master in his own way, although different from his own approach.

Meher Baba’s teaching places some importance on body awareness and ethics, but these are not the central elements:

• He encouraged a healthy and balanced lifestyle, with moderate eating and physical exercise. The body was seen as an instrument for spiritual evolution.
• Techniques like yoga and meditation were used to develop body awareness and feelings. But this was not the main goal.
• Meher Baba emphasized detachment from physical desires and mastery of the senses rather than listening to the body. Celibacy was encouraged among his disciples.
• On the ethical level, he advocated values of universal love, honesty and non-violence. But again, this was secondary compared to the quest for God.
• He criticized religious rituals and rigid morals, advocating instead an individual spiritual journey based on love.
• Meher Baba focused essentially on awakening the divine consciousness within oneself and union with God. The body and ethics were only relative supports for this quest according to him.

So overall, the bodily and ethical dimension exists but remains peripheral, with Meher Baba emphasizing transcendence of the self through love and letting go rather than immanent work.

Here are some famous quotes from Meher Baba:

“Love until you become Love.”

“I have nothing to teach but love. Whoever has understood me has understood everything.”

“I am the Ancient One, I am the Most New Eternal, I am the Lord God Almighty, I am the Ancient Uncreated.”

“Do not seek God in temples. He is in you and with you and you are all temples of God.”

“There is a point in the soul that is neither flesh nor body, where the earth ceases to be earth and the sky ceases to be sky.”

“The Real is what remains when everything has been denied.”

“You imagine that God is far from you, yet in fact He is in you.”

“The goal of life is to love. Love is the goal, love is the way.”

“Talking much leads to anger. Being silent leads to serenity.”

“Pure and unadulterated love is the highest of all human achievements.”