From the collections of the Trust archives, a wide variety of items associated with Meher Baba’s advent and life as man are being shared here digitally. The process of making digital copies and preparing them for presentation is ongoing and new selections will be updated as materials are made ready.
The written word played an important part in Meher Baba’s advent and daily life. When Baba wanted to hear the newspaper read out, he would gesture, “Let’s have the bogus news.” When He wanted to hear letters from His lovers, He would sometimes gesture, “Let’s have the real news!”
In response to “the real news”, which flowed in daily, Baba’s letters and messages to and from his followers, although personal and often quite specific to the individuals, nevertheless reflected not only his Love for His lovers but also his keen interest in their lives. This can be seen in great detail in the correspondence and other materials digitally available here from the Trust’s archival collections.
BROWSE COLLECTIONS | ABOUT THE ARCHIVES
| • Heart Talk Archives | In the earliest days, Baba wrote letters in his own expressive handwriting. Later, after he mainly stopped writing, he would dictate them as well as giving points for letters, etc. to be written on his behalf. Earlier the Trust Archives shared selected letters in a special emailed series called Heart Talk. Those documents are available here. |
| • Adi K. Irani Document Collection | The core document collection of the Archives are the files kept by Baba’s secretaries (both F.H. Dadachanji and Adi K. Irani, Sr.). Literally hundreds of thousands of sheets of paper. It consists mainly of correspondence but also includes other types of documents. As they are archivally preserved, scanned and catalogued they can be accessed here. |
| • Diaries and Manuscripts | Some of Baba’s close ones recorded experiences of life with him in diaries as well as manuscripts for eventual publication. Some of those from the Archives are found here. |
| • Pamphlets | This section provides searchable reproductions of some of the thousands of printed publications by and about Meher Baba, starting with the many small pamphlets printed by individuals, groups and organisations during the span of Baba’s lifetime and beyond. |
| • Archival Photographs | This section shows those Baba (and related) photographs which are held in the Archives and do not belong to other collections. |
| • Family Trees | In this section, the Archives is compiling and preserving family trees for Beloved Meher Baba and His close ones. |
| • Documents in Baba’s Handwriting |
A special gallery of documents from the Adi K. Irani Collection handwritten by Baba Himself. The documents were found in the papers kept by Baba’s first secretary, Chanji, in a section of his files labelled “Manuscripts”. To read more about these documents click here and then follow the link at the end to see the documents themselves. |
| • Baba’s Passports | This section shows many of the passports and other travel documents that Avatar Meher Baba used to journey abroad throughout His lifetime. |