How Lord Meher came about: the history of Meher Baba's biography Lord Meher

Bhau Kalchuri at his desk in
Meherazad, 1970

Here is the actual story of how Lord Meher came about.

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In October of 1968, just three months before Meher Baba dropped his body, a close disciple from Hamirpur, Keshav Nigam, suggested that there ought to be a biography of Baba in the Hindi language for the Indian people. Keshav had a publishing company in Hamirpur and had done much important publishing in Hindi for Baba.

The context in which this suggestion was made by Keshav needs to be understood. In 1968, no one was preparing for Baba to drop his body a few months later. Yet many biographies had been written up to this time in Baba's own lifetime — The Perfect Master (1937), Avatar (1947), and The God-Man (1964). However, no biography of Baba had up to this time been written in the Hindi language. Thus Keshav was suggesting that there ought to be. And Baba agreed that there should. But grasp clearly that there is at no time any suggestion by Baba, Bhau, or Keshav, that there needed to be yet another English language biography that was longer than the previous. That idea never came up in Baba's lifetime, and how that idea first arose among his lovers after his lifetime, and then bloomed into fruition as the book Lord Meher we know today, is the story we are telling.

When Baba heard of Keshav's suggestion from his disciple Bhau Kalchuri, who delivered the message, he agreed strongly that there should be. In fact he told Bhau that he (Bhau) ought to write it.

The next day Baba asked Bhau if he could bring him a copy of the Ramayana, the epic poem about Rama's life. Baba specifically wanted the version by Tulsidas.

There may be other westerners like me who are not so familiar with the versions of the Ramayana. As it turns out, the particular version Baba requested Bhau bring to him is indeed relevant to the story, for it says something about what Baba was about to request of Bhau.

There are two main versions of the Ramayana. One is the most ancient, written in Sanskrit by the Hindu sage Valmiki more than two thousand years ago. And then there is a newer version, also in poetic verse, written by Tulsidas in the 16th century in the modern Hindi vernacular. Baba specifically requested Bhau bring him the more modern Hindi version by Tulsidas.

Bhau procured the book by the next day and Baba had him read from it and then told him that he would write better than Tulsidas when he wrote Baba's biography in Hindi. Baba then dropped the subject for the time being.

But a few months later, on January 24, 1969, a week before Baba dropped his body, Baba gave Bhau precise details on the book he wanted him to write. He said it should be in Hindi, written in four poetic meters, and be eight hundred pages long.

Baba dropped his body the following week, and, after recovering from the sense of loss, Bhau began to think of how he could fulfill this wish of Baba's.

Yet again I must briefly interject a moment to give the context, so one can better appreciate the dilemma Bhau was left in. Bhau had come to live with Baba as one of his mandali in 1953, the most recent and final addition to Baba's mandali. In fact Bhau was only 27 when he came to live with Baba. Thus he was the least prepared to tell Baba's life story. He did not even know it beyond the final years.

So Bhau resolved to spend some time in preparation for the Hindi verse book on Baba's life by interviewing Baba's older mandali about their memories. As they told what they could remember, which was much, he took copious notes in Hindi.

Bhau did not, however, travel outside of India for this work. He did not interview people throughout the world beyond India, to gather the other stories you now see in Lord Meher. These were added much later by others. Bhau is quite detailed in his account of where he traveled and who he interviewed, and this is easily accessible.

After two years, Bhau felt he had sufficient material on Baba's whole life. He then decided to write out the story from his notes in a chronological prose form, so that Baba's life would be entirely clear to him before he began to write the verse book. This writing was not intended to be published, but was preparation for the verse.

Meher Darshan, by Bhau Kalchuri

Also, this writing was nothing like the length we see today. Bhau filled nineteen notebooks, but these notebooks are not thick, and would likely have filled one volume — not the numerous volumes it has taken its final shape as due to the help of others later.

Then Bhau wrote the verse Hindi biography Baba had told him to write. He became inspired and wrote it in less than four months. Just as Baba requested, it is written in four poetic meters, and also as Baba requested is just over 800 pages. The book is titled Meher Darshan, and is published by Meher Pukar Press in Hamirpur.

The record of conversation between Meher Baba and Bhau about who would take care of the biography that Bhau would eventually write in poetic verse in Hindi implied that Keshav Nigam would be responsible for handling it. In the early 1980s, financed by Bill Le Page, Keshav published Bhau's Hindi version, entitled MEHER DARSHAN -- MEHER'S BLESSING. (Lord Meher, Vol. 20, p. 6674)

Bhau completed writing Meher Darshan in the Summer of 1972, at last fulfilling Baba's request.

Bhau then had other writing assignments from Baba that he immediately launched upon and completed in quick order, such as The Nothing and the Everything, Meher Roshani, and others, but completed all this writing by the end of 1972.

During that year Bhau was made a Trustee for the Avatar Meher Baba Trust, and his hands gradually grew too busy with Trust work for writing. Thus Bhau's direct participation in writing ended at the end of 1972.

Now, as I said, Bhau had not considered any of his preparatory writing for Meher Darshan to be of any value in and of itself. However, it occurred to a mandali named Feram Workingboxwala, who was quite proud of his command of English as well as his typing ability, and who had done such work for Baba for many years, to approach Bhau with a suggestion. Feram suggested that he would translate Bhau's Hindi prose chronology, that Bhau had written out in notebooks by hand as a blueprint for the verse book, into English and to type it, so long as Bhau would agree to help him.

Bhau thought this suggestion a good one. For western pilgrims who had heard of all the writing he had done, frequently asked him if they could read some, and were disappointed it was all in Hindi. So Bhau agreed to Feram's suggestion.

Bhau had a standing stipulation from Baba about any profits that might come from his books he wrote for Baba. They were to go to his two children, Mehernath and Sheela. Thus Bhau wanted to follow this carefully, in case such a manuscript eventually became something publishable. Thus before giving the Hindi handwritten manuscript to Feram to translate and type, Bhau copyrighted the Hindi version in India so he could maintain ownership. It was copyrighted in Bhau's name in India in 1973.

Feram Workingboxwala translating

documents for Lord Meher

Then Feram went to work translating Bhau's Hindi writing to English and assembling the first typed manuscript that was titled Meher Prabhu, and later translated to Lord Meher (See Prabhu).

Now something must be carefully explained at this point, as some confusion has arisen over the years about exactly how this translation work was done. It took some time to find out the accurate story, from detailed accounts by Bhau himself, and witnesses who explained it to me. It is clear how easily one could be a little confused by it.

Feram was very proficient in English, but his Hindi was only so-so. He was, after all, Zoroastrian and his native language was Gujarati. Bhau, on the other hand, was a native Hindi speaker, and his Hindi was excellent, but his English was never that strong. We must add too that Feram was about to translate Bhau's Hindi handwriting, much of which was done at long stretches with very little sleep. So it was not always easy for Feram, who was not so good at Hindi anyway, to read Bhau's handwriting. And this is why Feram made the offer to Bhau on the condition that Bhau help him. For he saw he would need Bhau to tell him what he had written by hand, and what it meant.

So with Bhau's agreement, in late 1973 Feram Workingboxwala went to work. Now the routine that Feram and Bhau worked out was that Feram would type nearly all day, marking any part of Bhau's manuscript he found difficult to understand. Then, each morning Feram would come to Bhau to have him clarify these parts. Bhau, who knew English less well than Feram, would then try to find English words to express what he meant. Feram would take notes from these points in shorthand, and then return and type them where they went as best he could, and continue on with the translating.

Feram became very generous with his time. He not only translated and typed all Bhau's Hindi handwritten pages of Baba's life, but he also translated numerous pertinent documents from the Gujarati and Marathi and inserted these, increasing the thickness of the manuscript. Feram was largely finished by 1974 or 1975, though he may have continued to translate and type certain documents when asked. The final manuscript compiled by Feram was 2,900 pages.

David Fenster

Eventually this was handed over to David Fenster, an American volunteer who had moved to India to help and work in the Trust in 1975. Fenster in turn continued to type stories from English sources, and to insert these, compiling into the manuscript whatever sources he felt were relevant. With all these hands, the manuscript for Lord Meher reached 4,400 pages.

Bhau then began to search for a publisher for the book, which by then clearly would require several volumes. He first contacted Sheriar Press in Myrtle Beach, S.C. Ann Conlon, then at Sheriar, turned it down, feeling that no one would be interested in reading about every single day in Baba's life. So Bhau then turned to Lawrence Reiter. At this point we need to give a little background on who Lawrence Reiter was.

Lawrence was a man who had come to be trusted by Mani Irani (Baba's sister) with the printing of the photographs they had at that time of Baba. Up to Lawrence's first visit to India in 1973, all printing of Baba's photos had been done by Baba's brother Behram, and his sister Mani was worried for him, as the work was taxing and difficult with his meager working facilities and conditions. Then in 1973 a young man from America, Lawrence Reiter, appeared and approached Mani with the idea that he could take over this responsibility if she liked. He had recently bought a very nice photo enlarger and was learning photo developing. He could provide a service to Baba this way, and at the same time earn a small income from it. Mani was startled by the suggestion because she had just recently been remembering that Baba had said that someone would come who would take over the photo work for her brother. And so she saw Hermes as the person Baba had referred to.

Reiter took over this responsibility, and for most of the rest of his life he continued to do his best to make photos of Baba available. In fact, Hermes additionally scoured India and nearby countries for original negatives of Baba to purchase, in time amassing the largest collection of original negatives of Baba in the world.

Lawrence Reiter

It was Lawrence Reiter, then, that Bhau then in 1979 thought to approach about his book. Lawrence was at first hesitant, as he knew nothing about publishing. However, it began to occur to him that he might be able to learn the art, and when Bhau was persistent, Lawrence finally consented. He also saw that he might be able to find yet another way he could make a living from these books, wondering if he could do them well enough to interest a broader public audience. So in 1979 Lawrence promised Bhau that he would publish all his books, not just Meher Prabhu (the immense and still growing manuscript begun by Bhau eight years earlier) but also the other books Bhau had managed to write by Baba's directive afterward, such as The Nothing and the Everything, and so forth.

Lawrence returned to America and formed his own publishing company in preparation for Bhau's books. He named it Manifestation, Inc. The company was, for many years, not much more than a small dark brown door along a building in North Myrtle Beach with the words Manifestation, Inc. on the outside. I remember visiting him there with my father in the early 1980s. We sat with Hermes squeezed into a tiny room, in uncomfortable upright chairs, surrounded by boxes of books, papers, and photographs. There was nothing fancy about Manifestation, Inc.

Lawrence promised Bhau he would pay two hundred thousand rupees to Bhau's two children, money that he planned to raise and did. He also made arrangements to pay David Fenster, who had by then married Bhau's daughter Sheela and was then Bhau's son-in-law, a good sum to prepare the Meher Prabhu manuscript properly for him, so that it would be ready for editing, design, and publication.

So from 1980-1985 David worked on compiling the manuscript, as well as typing and adding further additions, with other helpers there of course.

Then, in 1985, as agreed between Lawrence and Bhau in 1979, David handed over his best possible compilation of the manuscript to Lawrence to publish in America. Not being wealthy himself, Lawrence had to raise considerable money for this venture, and to do so he had made promises to provide early first printings of the entire set as it came out to those benefactors, at that time planned to be twenty volumes.

Lawrence went to work editing, finding people to proof read, inserting his photographs wherever appropriate, and preparing the files for press. He changed the name from Meher Prabhu to its English translation Lord Meher, or more fully as it finally appeared, Meher Prabhu—Lord Meher: the Biography of Avatar Meher Baba.

Lord Meher, Vol. 1, 1st printing

The first volume, covering Baba's life from 1894–1922, came out, to much excitement, in 1986. For the next four years, Lawrence managed to put out about a volume a year. However by 1990, he ran into a snag.

Lawrence had failed to calculate the full expense it would take to do the work, and the money he had raised by pre-orders proved insufficient. So he soon found himself out of money, and to some extent feeling disgraced, having printed and distributed only the first five volumes.

At this time a Baba lover, Tom Talley, who had enjoyed the books and been following their progress, ran into Lawrence in an office supply store and asked how the work was going. Lawrence explained he was broke and he had lost other people's money. For a time Lawrence struggled just to get by, opening a juice bar for a while, then trying to sell health products.

But there were people watching all this who wanted to see the books completed. The first of these was Duncan Knowles of Sufism Reoriented, who contacted Lawrence and generously offered to do typesetting for the next volume, as he had excellent computer skills. But when Hermes got Duncan's drafts for the first chapters of Vol. VI, in addition to just doing the page layout, Duncan had edited the text, and Hermes didn't agree with the edits. So he and Duncan got into a dispute, and all this came to the attention of Murshid James Mackie — head of Sufisim Reoriented at that time.

Lawrence picks up and Mackie's voice comes over the phone, "Well, what can we do to help?" So Hermes told him one thing that would help a lot would be for the entire typewritten manuscript of Lord Meher to be typed as computer files, and also money, so getting as many pre-orders of the next volumes would be great. Mackie said OK we'll do it.

Of course Lawrence had to ask for Bhau's permission for Sufism's involvement, and Bhau agreed to it if it was the only way the project could continue.

So Hermes sent David Fenster's typewritten manuscript to Sufism and they organized a team of volunteers to type the manuscript as computer files and then mail to Hermes on floppy disks. And Sufism Reoriented pre-ordered a very large number of the upcoming volumes of Lord Meher.

In addition, the Atlanta Meher Baba group donated a computer, a Macintosh, for the project. Hermes also had a friend in the publishing business, John Dietz, and he advised Hermes on desktop publishing and provided fonts that would match the previous volumes of Lord Meher, etc.

In this way, with the help of many people, the remainder of Lord Meher came to light. To save costs, from the sixth volume forward, Lawrence chose to print two volumes at a time, as a single book. And in this way, and with this initial help from Sufism, and other help from numerous Baba lovers who began to come to his aid, Lawrence was able to complete the entire project by 2001.

It should be made clear also that Lawrence had the good luck of having amassed by this time the largest collection of original Baba photo negatives in the world, which he carefully distributed throughout the volumes in as proper points as he could determine from research, which he had been doing for years mostly with the help of Mehera, Mani and Padri. Thus the final set contains about fifteen hundred photos that greatly enhance their biographical interest.

In 1995-96 David Fenster sent Lawrence additional material.

Due to running out of stock on Volume One, and being close to out of stock on Volume Two, Lawrence reprinted Volumes One and Two, also as a combined book, in 1997. This is the only book in the set that is referred to within as Second Edition. No other volumes were reprinted in this way.

In the end, the full release of volumes published by Manifestation, Inc. appeared as follows:

•   Volume One: 1986
•   Volume Two: 1987
•   Volume Three: 1988
•   Volume Four: 1989,
•   Volume Five: 1990.
•   Volumes Six, Seven - Part I: 1994
•   Volumes Seven - Part II, Eight: 1995
•   Volumes Nine, Ten: 1996
•   Volumes One, Two: 1997  (Second Edition)
•   Volumes Eleven, Twelve: 1998
•   Volumes Thirteen, Fourteen: 1999
•   Volumes Fifteen, Sixteen: 2000
•   Volumes Seventeen, Eighteen: 2000
•   Volumes Nineteen, Twenty: 2001

The original five single volumes are the most rare, naturally, containing the most imperfections but also foreword information about the history of the books themselves not contained in any future editions, and are thus in many ways the most collectible.

The Manifestation, Inc. original print edition of Lord Meher is now out of print, no longer printed, and Manifestation, Inc. is no more. However, most of the volumes can still be purchased in Baba bookstores from overstock.

By 2001, Lawrence Reiter was finished with the entire project. He would only live another six years. But before he died he went to work to make preparations for the future protection of the work he had done. The following are some of those steps he initiated.

After the books were complete, Lawrence soon began to grow weary of many people contacting him about where to find a particular quotation in the twenty volumes of weighty tomes. He of course had the Macintosh floppy disks containing the books and could check. But this was far too much to keep up, and his health was failing. While raising this concern to a Baba lover named Wendell Brustman, Wendell suggested there be an online version that people could search themselves, and he volunteered the services of his son Tom Brustman, who lived in California and was skilled in web design. Lawrence liked the idea, and so Wendell went to India and approached Bhau. Bhau agreed, but stipulated that his son-in-law David be in charge of all changes going forward. So with this agreement Lawrence Reiter handed the Macintosh floppy disks containing the text of the book over to Keith Gunn, who was a software developer, who in turn went to work converting the material into html files for the website Tom Brustman was to build for them.

Lord Meher online officially went live in December of 2002. It was carefully designed to conform as closely as possible page by page to the original print edition (which had continuous pages between volumes). This made the online site an excellent resource for people wishing to cite published books. It did not contain more than a handful of the photographs, a project of including them that never came to fruition.

Next, on October 16, 2003, Lawrence Reiter assigned the copyright of the English language translation of Lord Meher, which he had purchased from Bhau Kalchuri in 1979, to the Avatar Meher Baba Trust. The U.S. Copyright date of recordation is June 7th 2004.

At that point Lawrence Reiter was no longer directly involved in Lord Meher, having fulfilled his promise to Bhau Kalchuri.

2005 Indian printing, vol. 1

In 2005, an eight volume Indian edition of the English translation of Lord Meher was released by Meher Mownavani Publications. 

I will say more on new editions of Lord Meher and the changes made in them since the original American printing and original online version in a sequel to this post at a later time. 

For now I wish to end this brief history by extending hearty good wishes to those wonderful souls now departed who gave so much of themselves to bring this epic book to the world for the pleasure of Meher Baba.

* Feram Workingboxwala, whose idea it was to form an English book from Bhau's prose, passed away in India in 1986. Baba said it was his last incarnation.

* Lawrence Reiter, who worked so hard to bring Lord Meher to bookshelves in English, against so many odds, passed away in 2007.

* Bhau Kalchuri, who made this epic possible, passed away and went to his Beloved on October 23, 2013.

• Today David Fenster assumes charge over all changes to Lord Meher.
• The Avatar Meher Baba Trust owns the copyright to the English translation.
• The online website lordmeher.org is copyrighted by Tom Brustman of Gateway Mediaworks.
• Bhau Kalchuri's heirs own the copyright to the Hindi original.

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There is another version of this article at Meher Legacy found here that includes references.