 | ||
Meher Baba's missing book, or secret book, is a manuscript that Meher Baba wrote by hand between 1925 and 1926 in Meherabad, India; it has never been published nor seen by the public, and its whereabouts have been unknown since 1958.
In October 1925 Baba ordered the building of a large table, four feet wide and seven feet in length, which became known as the table-cabin. Baba would spend several hours a day writing a book in this small cabin, but did not reveal its contents. He predicted in 1927: "The big book I have written will be the future Bible, Koran, Avesta and Veda, as it will be universally accepted by all castes and creeds. I have stopped writing anything after finishing this great work and hence it has force." The manuscript was sealed in a black box. Meher Baba carried it with him to the West in 1931 and allowed Mahatma Gandhi to read several pages aboard the SS Rajputana. The manuscript was also taken to the United States. It was then brought back to India and put into the care of disciples Ramjoo Abdulla, Sarosh Irani, and Kaka Baria with instructions that it be kept locked in a safe deposit box under their names in a bank in Bombay. The manuscript remained there for the next twenty one years before it was brought back to Baba by Ramjoo Abdulla on Baba's instruction and then disappeared in 1958. On January 25, 1969, just six days before Baba's death, Eruch Jessawala asked Baba, "What about your book?" Baba assured him, "It is in good hands." But he did not convey with whom.
Possible discoveries of portions of the book
In 1998, 39 pages in Meher Baba's handwriting, believed to be penned by him in 1925, were accidentally discovered in India. These have been published as In God's Hand (Sheriar Press, 2000). Later, another 255 page manuscript first discovered in 1969 after Baba's death and believed to be Baba's words, penned in two 1920s style notebooks by an unknown copyist, were discovered to contain several verbatim pages from the 39 hand-written pages. This led to speculation that the notebooks might be a "fair copy" (a clean copy of a corrected draft) of Baba's missing book. However, another view is that the notebooks were written from lectures given by Baba to his disciples on spiritual subjects via chalk and slate during the same period that he wrote the now missing book.