2019 STUDY PROGRAM

THE EARLY MEHERABAD DISPENSATION
Meher Baba's Discourses during the First Flowering of the Meherabad Ashram, 1925 - 1931

At the 2019 Study Program we surveyed the broader sweep of the extant available early literature, some of it published and some of it still in manuscript form, from the thirty-nine pages handwritten by Meher Baba in 1925 through to the inauguration of His Western tours in 1931. During most of this period Meher Baba was residing at His great ashram in Meherabad. Apart from “The Book,” the preponderance of this discourse material comes to us as records of talks and lectures, mostly to the mandali, sometimes to visitors, and for a short time to the boys of the Meher Ashram school. Since what He said was not yet being published at that time, Meher Baba could speak freely, not needing to couch his message in terms acceptable to an international audience, articulating themes and perspectives of immediate relevance to the spiritual life that he was bringing to birth among these close circles of His intimate Indian associates in the inaugural phases of His universal work. Nothing like this early material can be found in Meher Baba’s later writings. It is a priceless treasure, vastly expanding and enhancing our understanding of His greater “darshana” or message to the world.