True spiritual mastery is achieved through complete self-emptying and devotion.
"Becoming the sandals worn on the Master's feet"
Avatar Meher Baba Ki Jai
Dr. Abdul Ghani Munsiff
Baba's boyhood friend, physician, lyricist of the Song of the New Life
โSocratesโ
Abdul Ghani Munsiff, known to all as Dr. Ghani, was born in Poona in 1894, the same year as Meher Baba. His family lived as neighbors of Merwan's family in Butler Mohalla for almost fifteen years, and the two boys were playmates and later classmates in high school and college. Baba called him his langoti dost, a friend from earliest childhood.
After college Ghani became a homeopathic doctor, married and opened a dispensary on Sandhurst Road in Bombay. He was also appointed an honorary magistrate (munsiff) in a small claims court, which is how he came to be called Dr. Abdul Ghani Munsiff. In 1920, after losing touch with Merwan for more than seven years, he met him again at Munshiji's house in Poona and slapped him on the back like an old chum, not knowing that his friend was now revered as Meher Baba. Among Baba's early companions Ghani was considered the most intelligent, and he was nicknamed Socrates because of the size of his head.
Baba advised him to sweep his own dispensary for six months. The practice did not prosper, and on 12 July 1922 Ghani closed it for good and took a room at Manzil-e-Meem, Baba's ashram in Bombay. In later years he lived mostly in Lonavla, joining Baba at Meherabad, on tours and wherever he was called. In 1932 he accompanied Baba to England, Switzerland and America. He also wrote a biography of Hazrat Babajan and the memoir Twenty Years with Meher Baba.
In October 1949, at the age of 56, Ghani set out with Baba as one of the companions of the New Life. He had helped Don draft the New Life conditions, and he was given the duty of keeping a daily diary. By late October he had composed the Song of the New Life in Hindi, starting from a couplet dictated by Baba, and then translated it into English. Physically he was the least fit of the companions, and on the walk to Sirur Baba had him hold one end of his walking stick and led him the rest of the way. In January 1950 Ghani chose to continue the New Life from his home in Lonavla.
At the meeting in Hyderabad on 28 June 1951 Ghani read out Baba's Declaration and its explanation, and he was working on a book from points Baba had dictated to him. On 20 August 1951 he died in Poona after a heart attack, at the age of 57, repeating Baba's name until the end. In his tribute Baba said: "Of the many things I have had to renounce and to suffer in this New Life, the passing of Ghani is among the greatest. That big head of his was truly a treasure-house in which wisdom and wit were blended to perfection."
โGhani, you should visit me whenever you come to Poona. I will always be happy to see you when you come back here.
โ To Ghani when they met again at Munshiji's house in Poona in 1920, after more than seven years apart
โYour abuse brought me here. It was sweeter than nectar to me! Compared to words of appreciation and praise from hypocrites, curses from my lovers are much sweeter!
โ On finding Ghani asleep beside Walvan Lake at Lonavla, where he had gone to drown himself after cursing Baba, June 1936
โDon't worry, Professor Ughansi; I am always with you, and you are very dear to me.
โ Embracing Ghani after he broke his year-long milk fast within six days, Rahuri, April 1937
โThe song composed by Ghani is excellent. Not only has it incorporated the conditions and requirements of the New Life, but it also contains poetic beauty as well.
โ On the Song of the New Life, at Belgaum, 1949
โNever for a moment think that I will ever forget you and the work that I am bent upon for you! Though you have not understood me up till now, a day will come when you will thoroughly understand your greatest friend in this world.
โ From Baba's letter to Ghani of 14 January 1924, written a week before he called the mandali to Bombay and told Ghani and Ramjoo that his earlier promises could be considered unfulfilled.
โYou have failed me. โฆ but I shall not fail you. โฆ Disobey, if you wish. Remember, I love you all the same, under any circumstances. You are the same old Doctor to me, a chum of the key-holder to this universe.
โ Meherabad, early 1934. Ghani had broken Baba's orders (perhaps the one against drinking alcohol); Baba said the first words to his face and wrote the rest to him after he left.
โYou always picture yourself as the downtrodden, unfavourite, forlorn and forgotten lover of Baba. But the real state of affairs is quite the opposite. Baba knows, the world knows โ at least the mandali's world knows โ that you are Baba's favourite disciple โ his childhood friend and his lifelong companion. Your wit and humour touch his sense of humour as no one else's. You are to him, what Chiko [Chicot] the Jester was to King Louis [Henry] of France.
โ Reply sent through Vishnu on 14 June 1941, while Baba was at Ajmer, to a letter in which Ghani described his difficulties in Bangalore, where he was running the Meher Baba Journal office.
โYou are worthy of being my childhood friend.
โ Meherabad, May 1943. When Baba asked for 25 men to fast on water for seven days for his work, Ghani, who always grumbled at the mention of a fast, was the last to raise his hand.
In 1920, while travelling with Baba and Baily from Poona to Bombay, Ghani was told that the train would not reach Bombay and would have to go back from Neral. He laughed it off as a dream Baba had just woken from. At Neral the passengers learned that floods had cut the line ahead, and the conductor announced that the train was returning to Poona. Incidents like this slowly turned Ghani's levity into faith.
When Ghani complained that his Bombay dispensary was not doing well, Baba advised him to sweep it and keep it clean himself for six months instead of having a servant do it, promising that he would prosper both materially and spiritually. Ghani obeyed, but the practice only lost more money. Baba then told him to give up the dispensary and live with him. On 12 July 1922 Ghani closed it for good and moved into Manzil-e-Meem. That, Lord Meher notes, was the kind of success Baba had meant.
On one of the first marches of the New Life in 1949, Ghani, unused to exercise of any kind, looked about to collapse when Sirur was still a third of a mile away. Baba came to him, had him hold one end of Ghani's own walking stick and follow blindly without thinking of the distance, and led him on. After a rest Ghani felt refreshed and walked on.
Ghani was a chain smoker and a habitual tea drinker. When he moved into Manzil-e-Meem in July 1922, Baba ordered him not to smoke more than six cigarettes or drink more than four cups of tea a day. A few days later Baba noticed smoke coming out of Ghani's room for a long time, opened the door and found that Ghani had fashioned a two-foot-long cigarette. "Baba, you told me I could smoke six cigarettes a day," Ghani said, "but you didn't mention the size!" He had used the same reasoning to drink his four cups of tea from a huge mug. Baba laughed, but from then on restricted him to six standard cigarettes and four normal-sized cups.
In 1936 Ghani was living in Lonavla with his wife, four daughters and a son. A dishonest moneylender had taken some of his property by fraud, and when that man and his wife were murdered on the same day, Ghani was falsely accused. He became so depressed that on the night of 3 June he drank heavily and went to drown himself in Walvan Lake. Sitting on the bank, he cursed Babajan, Upasni Maharaj and Meher Baba for not helping him, and then fell asleep in the cool breeze. That same night Baba became restless, and early next morning he drove from Meherabad with Adi Sr. and Nilu to Lonavla, where they found Ghani asleep by the lake. Ghani murmured, "Baba, I have abused you so much ... Yet you love me so much!" Baba replied that his abuse had brought him there and was sweeter than nectar, for curses from his lovers were much sweeter than the praise of hypocrites. Ghani burst out weeping, and Baba embraced him and kept him at his side for the next few days.
On 12 March 1937 Baba found Ghani studying a book on how to read people's minds; Ghani admitted that he meant to go to Japan and earn a lot of money. Baba agreed to give him the power in return for half of his earnings, provided that he lived on milk for one year, and christened him Professor Ughansi, "the Lazy One." A formal agreement was drawn up at Rahuri on 16 March and signed before the mandali. Ghani began the fast on 1 April, but within two days he complained that his sweat and breath smelled of milk. Baba had a funeral bier built, and on 20 April he dressed Ghani in gunny sacking and a straw turban, had him recite the Fatiha, and had the men carry him around the Rahuri ashram, declaring that now Ghani would not die as foreordained. Ghani broke the fast within six days and told Baba, "You are Perfect God and very, very shrewd! May God save one from a God like you!" Baba laughed silently and embraced him.
Twenty Years with Meher Baba
Ghani's memoir of his two decades with Meher Baba, first published in Meher Baba Journal in 1940 and later issued as a book by Meher Era Publications, Poona (1975, 114 pp.). It is a main source for his life with Baba.
Hazrat Babajan
A biography of the Perfect Master Hazrat Babajan by Dr. A. G. Munsiff, published by Meher Era Publications, Poona (1st printing 1981, 72 pp.; 2nd printing 1998, 120 pp.).
The Spiritual Hoax of Lt. Colonel M. S. Irani
A pamphlet Ghani published in Bangalore in 1940, after Colonel M. S. Irani's lectures there, defending Baba and answering the Colonel's accusations one by one (Lord Meher, p. 2073).