KHOSROW NAMIRANIAN
BELOVED MEHER BABA CALLED FOR HIS LAST PREM ASHRAM STUDENT KHOSROW NAMIRANIAN (TOOS)
On December 24 2007 about 11:00 PM Khosrow Namiranian (Baba Khosrow) the last member of Prem Ashram was united with his Divine Beloved Avatar Meher Baba.
Baba Khosrow was born in Yazd, Iran, on March 23rd 1918. He was 8 years old when he was taken to India by Baba’s Mandali Mr. Baidul along with his twin brother Khodayar and twelve other children from Iran. They went to study in Meher Baba’s school called Meher Ashram with over a hundred other children from all over India. The parents send their children to get education but they didn’t know those children were destine to receive also a burning fire of Beloved Meher Baba’s Love.
After some time Beloved Baba had chosen 28 of the Meher Ashram students, for His special Universal work and called it the Prem Ashram (Ashram of Love). Baba Khosrow was one of them. The work Beloved Baba did on them is beyond our human understanding. The fire of Divine Love of the Avatar of the Age was lit in the heart of those children. Sometimes they would sob for days and nights. In fact we should be like a child to be able to enter that Divine state of Bliss. These special kids must have yearned many life times in their longing for their Beloved, and now the Avatar of the age had called for them.
Eight year old Khosrow’s little heart was in such a fire that burned him throughout his life. Baba Khosrow visited his old and only school a number of times especially towards the end of his life. He would cry like a baby every time he would visited the museum on Meherabad hill. In Prem Ashram days, the older children were allowed to pull Baba in the hand-pulled rickshaw (which you see in the museum) but Baba Khosrow was only 8 years old and had a very small body so was considered too small to help pull the rickshaw. The longing to show how much he loved his Beloved Baba was still as strong as ever. This Beloved Meher Baba’s quotation is true about Baba Khosrow’s life: “Be like a child in heart and like an old man in wisdom.”
Baba Khosrow served his only Beloved Meher Baba with a heart full of love and compassion and relying on his belief of the oneness of all beings. He lived in Iran and served his Beloved in the people of Iran. His house in Shiraz is known to Baba Lovers as the tavern of Divine Love. In this tavern a very unique Divine wine of love was served throughout the day and night, to whomever would enter that place. By doing prayers, selfless service and dedication to the Beloved.
Baba Khosrow would always kiss the dust off the feet of whoever would enter his house. He would tell them, it is Beloved Meher Baba’s will that you are here so you are very precious to me.
So many lost people came to this tavern and left with a heart full of God’s Love. Time after time in this tavern problems would be solved so simply, like a miracle. These events would help Baba Lovers to understand why Beloved Baba says that:
“If understood, life is simply a jest;
If misunderstood life becomes a pest.
Once overcome, life is ever at rest.
For pilgrims of the path , life is a test.
When relinquished through love, life is at its best.”
Beloved Meher Baba through His student (Baba Khosrow) had a very profound effect on whomever Baba Khosrow would meet. This is an indication that Baba Khosrow lived a life of complete surrenderance, dedication, love and service to his Beloved Avatar Meher Baba.
On Wednesday November 6 2007 as usual, shortly after midnight Baba Khosrow woke up to do his prayers and meditation. At 3:00am he fell and broke his right hip. From where he had fallen it took him nearly six hours to get to the phone and call one of his daughters for help.
Before this accident Baba Khosrow lived by himself and took care of all his needs very independently.
Shortly after his surgery he was brought home and had to be taken care of 24-7 by Baba Lovers and his children. He walked again, slowly, using his walker. Baba Lovers and his students would say in fact this was a chance that Beloved Baba gave to His lovers to serve and love His last Prem Ashram student.
They knew they were serving Beloved Meher Baba in Baba Khosrow and they were very pleased and thankful to Baba Khosrow for that opportunity.
In these 47 days every night two of his students would come to the tavern to attend the care and needs of Baba Khosrow. That night he looked at the student who was helping and said “God news, good news, and you should pass it to others. From tonight on there is no need for anybody to stay here for me. I’ll be taking the burden off your shoulders. There is no need anymore for you to come her every night. I have no special work anymore and if I did my daughters can do it.”
But when one of the students insisted, Baba Khosrow (by using his set of prayer beads) consulted the matter with Beloved Baba and got His approval that they should and could stay for the last time.
That night, after Baba’s Khosrow’s daughters left to go back to their own house, he asked to be moved from his chair to his bed so he could lie down. After a few minutes, while lying on his bed, all of a sudden his breathing slowed down and he started repeating Beloved Meher Baba’s name, then he raised his hands and said “Beloved Meher Baba rescue me, Baba, Baba, Baba”. Then he looked like he was feeling a lot of pain and waved his hand good bye. Baba Khosrow joined his Beloved Baba and drowned in Him.
Baba Khosrow had a jasmine plant in his house (the tavern). Very unusually, this tree would blossom all year round. Every morning Baba Khosrow would pick some flowers and place them on the picture of Beloved Baba’s feet, and those flowers would fragrance the tavern. The morning after Baba Khosrow had gone to his Beloved, to our surprise, all its flowers were shriveled on the plant except one. That one was picked and placed on Baba Khosrow’s chest.
“I say with my Divine Authority to each and all that whomsoever takes My Name at the time of breathing his last comes to Me; so do not forget to remember Me in your last moments. Unless you start remembering me from now on, it will be difficult to remember me when your end approaches. You should start practicing from now on. Even if you take My name only once every day, you will not forget to remember Me in your dying moments.”
Baba Khosrow would be repeating Beloved Baba’s Name even when sleeping or being unconscious. His unique and strong love for Beloved Meher Baba had united Baba’s Name in Baba Khosrow’s existence.
He always welcomed Baba Lovers and all those who would come to visit him in the tavern by his special greetings and they had learned to reply all in English as follows:
Baba Khosrow would say: You are Baba
Baba-lover would answer: All is Baba
Baba Khosrow would say: Baba is Everything
Baba-love would answer: Everything is Baba
Baba Khosrow would say: Baba is God
Baba-lover would answer: God is Baba
Baba Khosrow would say: Baba is Love
Baba-lover would answer: Love is Baba
Baba Khosrow would say: Thank you Baba
Baba-lover would answer: Thank you Baba.
If someone was not familiar and would not answer, he would be looking into his or her eyes and saying their part with a sweet smile on his face.
For the last few years of his life, Baba Khosrow wouldn’t allow people to adore him by hugging him or kissing him, but during that last 47 days that he was in bed in that tavern was a chance for Baba Lovers to be close to him and his pain and suffering was his last dedication and selfless service to the Beloved.
He also had promised us that if someday he united with our Beloved Baba, first he would reach out his hand to all the lovers of the Truth.
Always if someone would praise or even respect him, he wouldn’t allow it and would point out to Beloved Meher Baba’s picture and say “When you have 100% don’t go to any lower than that”.
Also he would say “I am just an old bear. You should hold tight to Beloved Meher Baba’s daman and don’t let it fall. All your respect, compassion and love should be laid down on that supreme form of Love and Lover”.
Baba Khosrow was right, but we also knew for a fact that he was our Beloved Meher Baba’s burning torch which was giving light in Iran. In late 1920s when Beloved Baba was closing the schools in Meherabad, said those were just like scaffoldings for His real work. Perhaps the students were the structure who later did Beloved Meher Baba’s spiritual work in the world.
There is no end in talking abut Baba Khosrow. The same way that there was no end to his love for Beloved of all Avatar Meher Baba.
On May 25 2007 he made his last trip to India. Beloved of all Avatar Meher Baba had called His last student of Prem Ashram (after 81 years, at the age of 89, with Student visa, back to his old school.) Not even one step of that trip was done with Baba Khosrow’s own will. Only Beloved Baba himself knows what inner spiritual work had to be done.
Baba Lovers and students who lived close to Baba Khosrow say that selfless service, compassion and love that Baba Khosrow had was very unusual and unique. We were witnessing that some days Baba Khosrow’s tavern (his house) would be filled with people who had come with their backpacks full of problems and questions, and they would leave like a free bird.
This would happen all through the day and sometimes he wouldn’t have a chance to prepare his lunch and have it. But still, with that old and brittle body, would keep talking and with the Name of Beloved Meher Baba, would solve their problems. Most of the people who would come to him were quite strangers who had heard about Baba Khosrow and they weren’t Baba Lovers. That wouldn’t matter to him and he would do his best in helping them. Beloved Meher Baba, in one of His darshans, asked the Mandali to find and bring Khosrow to Him. They did find Khosrow in the middleof thousands of people and brought him to Baba. That was a very special moment for the old Prem Ashram student. Beloved Meher Baba gave him a private darshan. Baba Khosrow explained “after that moment most of the obstacles of his path were taken away by the Beloved.”
Baba Khosrow was the true messenger of his Beloved Meher Baba. He lived a life as it was his Beloved’s wish. Once in his life with just one quote from a Baba book, he got almost naked and gave away all his worldly possessions. His living place (the tavern) was his late wife’s lifetime saving that he never wished to be in his name, but he did wish it to remain Baba’s center in Shiraz forever. The only tavern for Baba-lovers in Shiraz and a lot of other cities in Iran.
Beloved Meher Baba’s Wish: Spread My Message of Love. Those who truly Love Me are my “centers” in the world. Let each Baba-lover, wherever he or she may be, be a “Baba’s Center” personified, radiating the eternal Message of Love Divine, living a life of love, sacrifice and honesty.
When you spread My Eternal Message of Love to others, show them first that you really love Me. Do not merely make them read my books and messages. Do more – live such a life of love, sacrifice, forgiveness and tolerance that others will love me.
And Baba Khosrow was such a pure and compassionate lover that his love and compassion for Beloved Meher Baba had made him a center for his Beloved in this world. He had a pure childlike heart and an old man’s wisdom and his mind was under his control to the last moment of his life. Like other students of Beloved Meher Baba, he radiated the eternal Message of Love Divine, by living a life of love, sacrifice and honesty.
Every day standing in front of Beloved Baba’s picture he would recite this couplet from Hafez:
جان می کنم نثار و خجلت همی برم
زین نقد کم عیار که کردم نثار دوست
I sacrifice my soul and I am so embarrassed because this is such a worthless sacrifice for the Beloved.
Then Baba Khosrow would explain to us that sacrificing our soul for the Beloved Meher Baba could be done by living a life of selfless service filled with love and compassion.
He lived in Shiraz but his students whom were from all over Iran are using his path of love as their guide. Hafez says:
سخن عشق نه آن است که آید به زیان
ساقیا میده و کوتاه کن این گفت و شنود
It’s impossible to talk about or discuss Love, Saki, pour us wine and let’s cut short this conversation.
Eventually there is nothing to say, because as Beloved Meher Baba says: “What is Real is given and received in silence.”
Thanks to Beloved Avatar Meher Baba and as Baba Khosrow would say:
Avatar Meher Baba Ki Jai, True Friend forever.
[Received through Email from MeherBabaIrani.com]