BIRTHDAY MESSAGE
February 25th, 1954
"I am never born. I never die. Yet every moment I take birth and undergo death. The countless illusory births and deaths are necessary landmarks in the progression of man's consciousness to Truth—a prelude to the Real Death and Real Birth. The Real Death is when one dies to self; and the Real Birth is when, dying to self, one is born in God, to live forever His Eternal Life consciously.
"I give you all my Love and Blessings for the Real Death and the Real Life."
MEHER BABA
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- The Awakener Magazine celebrated the 60th Birthday of “The Awakener,” “Shri Avatar Sadguru Meher Baba,” on February 22, at the editorial offices, 167½ East 115th Street, New York City. All our subscribers within the New York radius were invited and about forty people were present to celebrate this real "Holy-day," the birth of the Avatar in the midst and for the sake of the suffering humanity. Baba sent us the Birthday Message quoted above, which was read, together with the Birthday Remembrance by Darwin Shaw (see page 28) then a birthday "bhajan" card, cake, and tea were served. We all had a few minutes together of silent meditation on the Master, and there was a strong sense of his Love-Presence with us. It was also a sort of birthday for the Awakener Magazine, as we are now one year old.
- Members of Sufism Reoriented in San Francisco celebrated the birthdays of both Baba and their Murshida, Ivy Duce, which fall on the same day, February 25, by opening their service with a prayer given to them by Baba, and then followed with the reading of a chapter from the second volume of the Discourses.
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