Soon after he was born, the boy was abandoned by his mother and found wrapped in cloth in a rubbish dump by a sweeper, who gave the child to a barren woman who longed to have a child. The woman adored him as if sent from God and cared for him as her own son. At the age of only ten years old, Chhota Mastan was overwhelmed by God's love and became a mast. He left home at age ten and wandered naked to parts unknown in India until he gained sainthood. During one contact, Baba put his coat on Chhota Mastan, but the next morning they found he had given the coat away to someone and was again utterly naked.
In Bellary, Baba contacted a mast called Shah Mastan , whose abode was hidden in a cemetery amidst a vast forest. Baba and the mandali went in search of him in the cemetery on the night of a new moon, which according to superstition is dangerous. People fear that a person could easily get lost in a graveyard on such a night. After searching for hours in the darkness without a trace of the mast, they persuaded a tonga driver, who claimed he knew where the mast hid, to guide them through the cemetery. All night they searched, but they did not find the mast until morning, even though he had apparently been in the cemetery the whole time.
Baba also went to Bijapur, on 24 November 1941, where he contacted Kuanwala Baba , a mast who lived on top of a large pile of municipal rubbish.
A young man named G. S. N. Moorty was a staunch Brahmin. His father was the editor of an English monthly journal, and Moorty once happened upon old issues of The Meher Message and Meher Baba Journal in his father's library. He was drawn to Baba's words and pictures, but he did not believe him to be an Avatar. On the 23rd of November, in response to a letter from Moorty requesting a message for a booklet in honor of Gita Jayanti (the day when the Bhagavat Gita was given to Arjuna), Baba sent this message (and even signed it):
“”The greatest need of humanity today is love — love divine which is pure and selfless, which awakens man to the proper sense and understanding of his real duty in life, [which is] to find true happiness in giving, not receiving; in serving and not in being served; and in willfully participating in the sufferings of others more than in their happiness.
My mission in life is to kindle that divine spark of love in all.
Fourteen years were to pass before G. S. N. Moorty had the opportunity of meeting Baba in Meherabad, after which he became his devoted lover. Chanji met Baba in Dharwar on the 25th and received instructions for finding accommodations for Baba and the group in Satara.
