[Tavern-Talk] Trust Talk - Addition to Online Library

[Tavern-talk]

Dear Friends,

We’re happy to be able to announce the posting of a rare item on the 
Avatar Meher Baba Trust’s Online Library.

To the best of our knowledge, the earliest independent publication about 
Meher Baba in the English language (apart from newspaper articles) was 
written by Baba’s early disciple Kaikhushru Jamshedji Dastur. In March 
of 1928 Dastur published what could be called a long pamphlet or short 
booklet entitled His Holiness Meher Baba and the Meherashram. The 
thousand copies of the original print run selling out quickly, Dastur 
released a second edition in June of that year, and a third edition in 
August, under the title His Divine Majesty Meher Baba and the 
Meherashram Institute.

Since copies of the first two editions cannot now be located, we have 
prepared a digital version of the third, which you can access at: 
http://ambppct.org/meherbaba/Books_About_Meher_Baba.php#7

The booklet is framed as a general introduction to Meher Baba addressed 
to the English-language-educated Indian reading public in the 1920s. 
Dastur expostulates on the unique role of India in world civilization; 
narrates the story of Baba’s childhood and contact with His spiritual 
Masters; provides a general philosophical introduction to the idea of 
God-realization and the path that leads to it; argues for the importance 
of a spiritual education; and says a few words about the Meherashram 
school, which by that time had shifted its site from Meherabad to Toka. 
Covering a range of topics in a short space, Dastur does not mention the 
Prem Ashram and the spiritual eruption that took place among the boys at 
Meherabad in late 1927 and early 1928. That task was left for Baba’s 
disciple Ramjoo Abdulla in Sobs and Throbs, published in 1929.

K.J. Dastur himself was a colorful character who played a significant 
role during this phase of Meher Baba’s life and work. In 1929, a year 
after his booklet had been published by Sarosh Irani in Ahmednagar, 
Dastur published the first article about Meher Baba to appear in the 
Western press, “His Holiness Sadguru Meher Baba,” in the Occult Review, 
vol. 50, August 1929, pp. 175–78. From 1929 through 1931 Dastur edited 
the Meher Message, a monthly magazine issuing from Nasik, and the first 
periodical publication dedicated to Meher Baba and His cause. Yet 
already Dastur was becoming disaffected from his Master, and by 1932 he 
had metamorphosed into one of His fiercest public critics. Indeed, he 
helped Paul Brunton in the writing of a smear piece, “All Britain Duped 
by Sham Messiah,” published by John Bull magazine in England in May 
1932. (You can find that article reproduced in facsimile in Early 
Messages to the West, pp. 280–81.) In years following, as Lord Meher 
relates, Baba actually provided Dastur, short of cash at the time, with 
financial assistance as Dastur continued in his campaign of Baba’s 
public exposure and denunciation!

No trace of this subsequent breach of relations can be found in Dastur’s 
1928 booklet, however, which stands as an eloquent and often passionate 
encomium to Meher Baba as a Divine Being and exponent of India’s highest 
spirituality. Its publication bears the distinction of an inaugural 
event in the history of the literature of this Avataric manifestation.

Ward Parks
for “Trust Talk”