1. ComD 2: f. 369. The 30th August 1927 entry covers more than three pages, from the middle of f. 368 to almost the bottom of f. 371.

2. The reference to the Upanishads does not appear in “The Combined Diary” entry but in its source in Chanji’s Diary (ChD 29: p. 27). The Upanishads are famous for their revelation that the soul (Ātman) is one with the Oversoul (Brahman).

3. Some of the contents of this Tiffin Lecture are recorded in abbreviated form in the 30th August 1927 entry in “The Combined Diary” (ComD 2: ff. 368-71). That entry notes that Baba was explaining certain points to “Dastoorji”—that is, K. J. Dastur, who later became the editor of the Meher Message. An edited version of some of this discussion on chaitanya was published in the Meher Message, vol. 2, no. 8 (August 1930), pp. 2-5, in that issue’s installment in a series entitled “Fragments from the Spiritual Speeches of Shri Sadguru Meher Baba,” item 21, “On Chaitanya” (pp. 2-3); the subsequent section 22, “On Miracles” (p. 3), appears to draw on the discussion of that subject as presented on pp. 401-3 below. The contents of item 21 in Dastur’s article were reproduced verbatim in the supplement to Infinite Intelligence, pp. 608-9.

While “The Combined Diary” constitutes the primary diary source and/or analogue for this Tiffin Lecture, at the same time, the Tiffin Lecture contains material absent from the “Combined Diary” entry, and that entry, in turn, has material missing from the Tiffin Lecture. Rough notes in Chanji’s Diary (ChD 29: pp. 31-32) seem to constitute the further source for the version in “The Combined Diary,” but not for the Tiffin Lecture. A note in that same 30th August 1927 entry in Chanji’s Diary alludes to what may be the original human scribe for this present lecture: “In the afternoon, Shree again gave some nice explanations, before Doctor, Dastur, Dad[achanji] & others (vide Dr’s notes)” (ChD 29: p. 33). One gathers from this that Dr. Ghani took notes on that occasion, as he had done for another talk of Baba’s two days earlier (which, again, Chanji specifically mentions in ChD 29: p. 29). Perhaps this present Tiffin Lecture is a write-up based on Ghani’s notes. If so, this is the only instance we know of in which the manuscript “Thursday Tiffin Lectures” has been based on notes taken by anyone other than Chanji. (For more on this point, see also endnotes 8 and 14 below.) (Earlier it was suggested that the Lonavala lecture of 29th November may have been typed by someone other than Chanji; but recent manuscript discoveries have established that Chanji was the original diarist on the basis of whose notes the Lonavala lectures were composed. For further details, see pp. 441-45.)

Another unique feature of this lecture—the last in the “Tiffin Lectures” collection—deserves mention. In its four typed versions (TTL/FF pp. 171-74, TTL pp. 171-74, and TLD/FF: 30-8-27 drafts A and B, pp. 1-4), this lecture of Baba’s differs from all that preceded it in its typography. While the previous lectures were double-spaced with the same double-spacing between paragraphs, this lecture, through its first pages (TTL/FF pp. 171-73, TTL pp. 171-73, TLD/FF: 30-8-27 draft A, pp. 1-2, and TLD/FF: 30-8-27 draft B, pp. 1-3), is single-spaced with double spacing between paragraphs. But the last page in all four typed versions of the lectures (TTL/FF p. 174, TTL p. 174, and TLD/FF: 30-8-27 drafts A and B, p. 4) reverts to the usual double-spacing that prevailed through the 170 pages that came before. (TLD/FF: 30-8-27 draft A, p. 3 is a mixed production, intermingling single with double spacing, though this is not the case with TLD/FF: 30-8-27 draft B, p. 3.)

4. The “Tiffin Lectures” manuscripts (TTL/FF p. 171, TTL p. 171, and TLD/FF: 30-8-27 drafts A and B, p. 1)—like the article entitled “On Chaitanya” in Meher Message cited in the previous endnote—opens with a list of words separated by dashes:

Atma – Self – Purusha

Chaitanya – Thinking – Mind

Prana – Energy

Akash – Matter

The source manuscript for Infinite Intelligence contains many such lists where hyphens or equal signs are used to express various different kinds of relationship. In the four lines above, the hyphens seem to designate equivalence. The editors have, accordingly, replaced them with equal signs.

5. Again, TTL/FF p. 171 and TTL p. 171 present this material merely as a list of items separated by hyphens (TLD/FF: 30-8-27 drafts A and B, p. 1 read similarly):

Chaitanya – Energy – Sanskars – Consciousness of the universe (false consciousness) – Jiva.

Chaitanya – Energy – Self consciousness (true consciousness) Shiva – realized being.

This content makes sense only if the two lists are being contrasted. The “false consciousness” of the “jiva” in the first list is made so by the fact that chaitanya and energy are clouded by sanskaras; in the second case the “Self consciousness” is made possible by the absence of these sanskaras. The editors have adjusted the presentation of the content to express this.

6. TTL/FF p. 172 and TTL p. 172 read: “The sanskars remain as they are, while on the contrary new ones are accumulated viz. the plane Sanskars” (and TLD/FF: 30-8-27 drafts A and B, p. 2 read similarly). The implication here, particularly in the phrase “on the contrary,” seems to be that this process fails on both accounts: on the one hand, the old gross-sphere sanskaras remain undestroyed, while new sanskaras—of the inner spheres—are gathered.

7. The adverbial qualifier “almost” does not appear in the original text of the “Tiffin Lectures” sources, which read: “. . . the sanskars of which viz. the supernatural powers invariably prove their undoing” (TTL/FF p. 172 and TTL p. 172; TLD/FF: 30-8-27 drafts A and B, p. 2 read similarly). The earlier part of the sentence, however, suggests that yogis do succeed in avoiding this pitfall in certain “rare” cases: “It is very rare that a Yogi can go beyond the fourth plane. . . .” The editors have interpolated “almost” to make these two parts of the sentence consistent with each other and to confirm the implication that failure for yogis on the fourth plane is not inevitable.

8. This handwritten word appears only in TLD/FF: 30-8-27 draft A, p. 2, where it has been written in the Urdu script; in TTL/FF p. 172, TTL p. 172, and TLD/FF: 30-8-27 draft B, p. 2 a lacuna appears at this spot. As explained in endnote3 above, this particular Tiffin Lecture may have been based on notes by Dr. Ghani, who, of course, was fluent in Urdu, as Chanji was not. If TLD/FF: 30-8-27 draft A, p. 2 is an original typed draft of this lecture, perhaps this Urdu word was handwritten in by Ghani himself; and if TTL/FF p. 172 was a subsequent copy created on the basis of this as its source, perhaps the mandali who did this copying work could not read the Urdu and left a lacuna in his typescript.

9. A one-sentence version of the content of this paragraph appeared as saying no. 41 in “Sayings of His Divine Majesty Sadguru Meher Baba,” Meher Message, vol. 1, no. 9 (September 1929), p. 1. For further information, see Appendix 5, Table 10, p. 514. In a more expanded form it was published as “Fragments from the Spiritual Speeches of His Divine Majesty Sadguru Meher Baba. (22) On Miracles,” Meher Message, vol. 2, no. 8 (August 1930), p. 3.

10. TTL/FF p. 173, TTL p. 173, and TLD/FF: 30-8-27 drafts A and B, p. 3 read: “. . . which makes him see everything white, while in reality all things are colourless.” Now, it contradicts ordinary human experience to assert that the things of the world are colorless; what the text appears to mean is that true vision interjects no filter between the eyes and the world, which would give what one sees a prevailing tinge or tint. Objects of sight are “colorless” when they appear in their natural colors without a hue or bias superimposed. The editors have emended the text so as to clarify this sense.

11. TTL/FF p. 173 and TTL p. 173 read: “He works towards removing the already put on white spectacles thereby enabling one to see things as they are, that is colour less [sic] or nothing” (TLD/FF: 30-8-27 drafts A and B, p. 3 read similarly).

12. TTL/FF p. 173, TTL p. 173, and TLD/FF: 30-8-27 draft B, p. 3 read: “. . . it is for this reason that a Sadguru looks upon chamatkars with disfavour, and also the practice which lead to that end” (TLD/FF: 30-8-27 draft A, p. 4 reads similarly). The editors have construed the phrase “to that end” to refer to the procurement of these powers or chamatkārs.

13. The remainder of this paragraph, and the two paragraphs that follow, do not appear in the “Tiffin Lectures” versions of this talk; for a full explanation, see the next endnote.

14. This section, like the preceding few sentences (see the previous endnote), does not appear in the “Tiffin Lectures” sources (TTL/FF p. 173, TTL p. 173, TLD/FF: 30-8-27 draft A, p. 4, and TLD/FF: 30-8-27 draft B, pp. 3-4) but has been brought in by the editors on the basis of the account in ComD 2: ff. 370-71. Though the “Tiffin Lectures” and “The Combined Diary” have been relating their own accounts of this same lecture by Baba, in their final paragraphs they part company. Again, this difference may be explicable through the supposition that we are dealing with the notes of two different mandali, Chanji and Ghani (see endnote 3 above). In this edited text we have added the paragraphs from “The Combined Diary” and integrated them with the “Tiffin Lectures” version, since the two bits of material seem to interrelate and follow one to the other.

15. This same analogy (of the hand and the spoon) is developed at greater length in Infinite Intelligence, pp. 344-48.

16. In TTL/FF p. 174, below the conclusion of the typed text, there appear two handwritten lines in Gujarati. For a full discussion of these lines and their significance, see endnote 2 on pp. 584-85 above.