History
Before his passing, Meher Baba had made extensive preparations for a public darshan program to be held in Pune, India in the Spring of 1969. Originally the darshan had been planned for Meher Baba's followers in the East and West to see Meher Baba personally. Many in the West had heard of Meher Baba only in the last years of his life while he was maintaining strict seclusion and were hoping to see him for the first time. The darshan had been planned for April–June 1969, but Baba died at the end of January, ahead of the scheduled event. Meher Baba's body was laid in his samadhi (tomb) at Meherabad and was kept viewable to the public for one week, but was interred on February 7, 1969. Meher Baba's mandali decided to proceed with the arrangements for the large darshan despite the physical absence of the host. Baba's secretary Adi K. Irani sent out a circular that read, "God has invited you, and you are free to keep your appointment." Several thousand attended this "Last Darshan," including many hundred people from the U.S.A., Europe, and Australia.
Read more about this topic: 1969 Darshan
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“What you don’t understand is that it is possible to be an atheist, it is possible not to know if God exists or why He should, and yet to believe that man does not live in a state of nature but in history, and that history as we know it now began with Christ, it was founded by Him on the Gospels.”
—Boris Pasternak (1890–1960)
“In nature, all is useful, all is beautiful. It is therefore beautiful, because it is alive, moving, reproductive; it is therefore useful, because it is symmetrical and fair. Beauty will not come at the call of a legislature, nor will it repeat in England or America its history in Greece. It will come, as always, unannounced, and spring up between the feet of brave and earnest men.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“One classic American landscape haunts all of American literature. It is a picture of Eden, perceived at the instant of history when corruption has just begun to set in. The serpent has shown his scaly head in the undergrowth. The apple gleams on the tree. The old drama of the Fall is ready to start all over again.”
—Jonathan Raban (b. 1942)