Silence Day

Of all the events in Meher Baba's life, it is the day that he began his lifetime of silence that is perhaps most remembered by posterity. In this post, I've looked at the transits on that day, July 10th 1925, and there are two that stand out:

• transiting Saturn's conjunction with his natal Moon
• transiting Uranus's conjunction with his natal Mercury

Let me say from the outset that all my comments about Meher Baba and his natal chart are from an exterior viewpoint, meaning the way the world perceived his actions. In no way am I trying to delve into what Meher Baba was thinking or feeling. Neither I nor humanity, then or now, can comprehend his interior life. In Astrology, the Moon represents the public and, in a natal chart, its placement and aspects reflect the way a person responds to the public and how it in turn perceives him (or her). Saturn represents limitation and so the transit of this planet across his natal Moon aptly reflects the restricted way in which Meher Baba could now react to humanity and how it turn would perceive him.

Mercury represents communication and the conjunction of transiting Uranus with Meher Baba's natal Mercury again aptly reflects the sudden and drastic change in the way he communicated. His mandali (close followers) thought that he would maintain this silence for perhaps a few days or weeks. None suspected that it would last for the rest of his life. The annotated chart that I've attached to this post highlights the heavy aspects to his natal Moon and reminds us how defining this silence was on the world's perception of his Avatarship.

The Awakener

Astrotheme's natal chart for Meher Baba

Looking at Meher Baba's natal chart, I was suddenly struck by the dominating position of Uranus in 15d20m of Scorpio conjunct the MC in 15d54m. Uranus is often referred to as The Awakener. Here is one description of the planet's influence (link):

The great Awakener, Uranus represents the principle of change and transformation that eventually pushes us beyond the confines of the Saturnian ego and beyond the images and symbols of any particular culture. Uranus constantly challenges our preconceptions and our limited, secure way of thinking and living. As the great Awakener, Uranus opens the way to a global, truly Aquarian age of one humanity. It breaks down old patterns of thought and behaviour, and helps us realise that we can be more, that a next step in human evolution is possible.

The above quote aptly sums up Meher Baba's impact on the planet. Not surprisingly, there are many references to Meher Baba as The Awakener. The Awakener Magazine, conceived and edited by Filis Frederick during the years 1953-1986, was produced with the direct approval of Meher Baba and was dedicated to spreading His message of Love and Truth. All 67 issues can be found on this website.

There were 67 issues of the The Awakener magazine

Charles Hayne's 1989 book is titled MEHER BABA THE AWAKENER and is described as "drawing primarily on Meher Baba’s own explanations of the Avatar’s life and work, this book explores the dynamics of his universal awakening of love", a free electronic version of this book is available here at the Avatar Meher Baba Trust Library.

I use the free astrological program Astrolog to generate my charts but I found that to reproduce the Astrotheme chart, I needed a time of 5:09am. I know Astrolog is be unfailingly accurate so I can only suppose that Astrotheme has calculated its chart on that later time. The differences between the charts for the two times are only minor but it still disturbs me. I'll try to get to the bottom of the discrepancy. For the time being, I'll use the Astrolog chart calculated for 5:09am which also includes Chiron which is not shown in the Astrotheme chart.

Meher Baba's chart created using Astrolog

Additional information (entered on Meher Baba's birthday 25th February 2018): the widely circulated version of his chart has been calculated for 23:39 on February 24th UNIVERSAL TIME. AstroDatabank gives this additional information: Bob Mulligan quotes his family and his disciples, obtained when Mulligan visited India in 1976: February 25, 1894, 5:00 AM Madras time (minus 5 hrs 21 min = February 24, 23:39 GMT). This is curious because Madras time is listed and that city is on the east coast of India (13° 5' 0" North, 80° 17' 0" East) and quite distant from Poona. Madras, now known as Chennai, currently has a time zone of UTC+05:30. Poona, now known as Pune, is in the same time zone so that's no problem. What about time zones back in 1894?

The following information sheds a little more light on the situation:

Historical Indian Time Zones 

Bombay, Calcutta and Madras Time 

India currently has just one time zone, Indian Standard Time. Indian Standard Time (IST) is 5 hours and 30 minutes ahead of GMT . It has not always been the same. 

Railway Time or Madras Time 

India's Time Zones were first established in 1884. Originally there were two time zones, Bombay Time and Calcutta Time. In the very early days of railways in India, local time was observed at each large city, in common with practice in most other countries at the time. Because of their importance as commercial and economic centres, Bombay Time and Calcutta Time assumed special importance. They were followed for many official purposes in the late 19th century (Bombay Time from 1884), effectively forming two time zones for British India. 

Calcutta time was 5 hours, 30 minutes, and 21 seconds in advance of GMT, while Bombay Time was 4 hours and 51 minutes ahead of GMT. Many railway companies, however,  standardised on using Madras time as being in between Bombay and Calcutta times, and often this, rather than Bombay time, was used in Indian timetables from the late 1880s onward. 

Bombay continued to have a different time (39 minutes behind IST) until 1955. IST, which is GMT plus 5.30 hrs, came into existence in 1905. In certain time-zone maps, IST is also designated E*. With India's western and eastern borders some 2,000 km (1,250 miles) apart, India could well have three time zones! Like China, another huge country, India has chosen however to have a single time zone across the whole country. No Daylight Saving Time rules are applied either.

This still doesn't explain why 5:09am has been used instead of 5:00am but clearly any proposed time given by relatives in 1976 for a birth in 1894 is going to be approximate so I assume some rectification has been carried out. The differences between a 5:00am and 5:09am chart are slight anyway (Ascendant of 2°01' Aquarius versus 4°25' Aquarius for example).