Foreword

According to Meher Baba's wish, we are publishing the whole of this unique Diary, which covers the period of September 11 to September 30th, 1954, during the "last meetings" at Meherabad, Ahmednagar, India, of Baba's disciples and workers with Him, in one issue of The Awakener, and bringing it out as soon as possible. To do this, we are skipping our regular Winter issue with its varied editorial content, to devote all our pages to this "New New Testament" of the Master's last days. It is the combined effort of Charles Purdom, noted writer, former editor of Everyman Magazine, and author of "The Perfect Master," a biography of Meher Baba; and of Malcolm Schloss, noted mystical poet and writer, who passed away on his return from India, on October 7th, after completing this diary and on the very day Baba gave up using His alphabet board, which Baba termed “very fortunate.” We are deeply grateful to both men for recording so faithfully these tremendous days for us, who were not there.

Introduction

 Between September 7th and September 10th, 1954, seventeen Western men, disciples and devotees of the Perfect Master, Meher Baba, arrived in Bombay. They came from Europe, Australia and America. Their ages ranged from 25 to 80. Their occupations varied widely. There were several literary men; a petroleum chemist, an interior decorator; an importer and exporter; a postal officer; a luggage instructor; a buyer for an antique shop in London; a town planner; an economist. On September 11th, we set out for Ahmednagar in two buses which had been chartered by Meherji Karkaria and Nariman Dadachanji, two of Baba's intimate disciples from Bombay, who also accompanied the Western group to Ahmednagar. There we met two more devotees from England who had arrived earlier.

It had been planned for the Western visitors to stay in the houses of a number of Baba's disciples in Ahmednagar, but Baba finally concluded that it would be better and easier for them and for Him to have them all together under one roof. So He decided on an unprecedented move. Upon the Hill at Meherabad was the large two-story stone house which had served