"Love needs to flow, and it needs someplace to flow to..."
Meher Mount
Your Friday photo…
Avatar Meher Baba said of His work contacting masts in India, "the God of love meets the God-intoxicated." This 1936 photo is of Avatar Meher Baba (right) and Mohammed the mast (left) embracing.
The following explanation of Avatar Meher Baba’s love for masts is from Befitting a Fortunate Slave: Meher Baba's Eruch by Davana Brown. Eruch Jessawala (1916-2001) was one of Meher Baba’s closest disciples who often interpreted Baba’s hand gestures and use of the alphabet board. Davana Brown is a resident volunteer at Meherazad and was Eruch’s assistant for 20 years after Meher Baba dropped His physical body.
Thank you to long-time visitor Martha Aubin for suggesting this passage.
“Love needs to flow, and it needs someplace to flow to, and the masts are the channels through which His love flows. ”
One of the most common questions, Davana Brown writes, that came up during pilgrim sessions in Mandali Hall (Meherazad, India) was: “Why did the Avatar go on mast hunts?”
Eruch Jessawala explained about Meher Baba and His travels all over India to make contact with these masts:
“The whole purpose is so beautiful: it is the outpouring of love from the very source of love.
“Love needs to flow, and it needs someplace to flow to, and the masts are the channels through which His love flows.
“He is like a huge reservoir of love that just wants to flow out, and they are the channels most beloved to Him, so He wants to adore them. He wants to worship them, and they want to worship Him.
“He says that He is the slave of the love of His lovers, and these masts are the ones who have become overwhelmed with love for the Lord.
“So He hunts them down and becomes the slave of that love, trying to serve that love. That is what He has told us.”
~Eruch Jessawala, Close Disciple of Meher Baba
Masts (pronounced ‘must’)
According to Meher Baba, the word mast refers to advanced souls on the spiritual path who have an overwhelming experience of God’s presence and who are not conscious of their worldly surroundings. Totally absorbed in God, they no longer are able to function in the world. They are overcome by an agonizing love for God and are drowned in their ecstasy. Only love can reach them. Meher Baba called them God-intoxicated.
Sources
Davana Brown, Befitting a Fortunate Slave: Meher Baba's Eruch, Volume I: By Your Grace Anything is Possible, pg. 418. (Myrtle Beach: Sheriar Foundation) ©2024 Avatar Meher Baba Perpetual Public Charitable Trust, Ahmednagar, India.Bhau Kalchuri, Lord Meher: The Biography of the Avatar of the Age, Meher Baba, Online Edition, pg. 4003, accessed September, 2025. ©Avatar Meher Baba Perpetual Public Charitable Trust, Ahmednagar, India.
Photo: Avatar Meher Baba with Mohammed the mast in 1939. ©Meher Nazar Publications, Ahmednagar, India. Used with permission.