Meher Baba's missing book is a book that Meher Baba

Meher Baba

Meher Baba , , born Merwan Sheriar Irani, was an Indian mystic and spiritual master who declared publicly in 1954 that he was the Avatar of the age....

 wrote by hand between 1925 and 1926 in Meherabad

Meherabad

Meherabad was originally an ashram established by Meher Baba near Arangaon Village, India in 1923 about south of Ahmednagar. It is now the site of Meher Baba's samadhi as well as facilities and accommodations for pilgrims...

, India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

  which went missing in 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. The book was sealed in a black box. Meher Baba carried it with him to the West in 1931 and allowed Mahatma Gandhi

Mahatma Gandhi

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi , pronounced . 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948) was the pre-eminent political and ideological leader of India during the Indian independence movement...

 to read several pages aboard the SS Rajputana

SS Rajputana

The SS Rajputana was a British passenger and cargo carrying ocean liner. She was built for the Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Company at the Harland and Wolff docks on the River Clyde near Glasgow, Scotland in 1925. She was one of the P&O 'R' class liners from 1925 that had much of their...

. The book was also taken to the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. It was then brought back to India and given 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

Mumbai

Mumbai , formerly known as Bombay in English, is the capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the most populous city in India, and the fourth most populous city in the world, with a total metropolitan area population of approximately 20.5 million...

. The Book 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

Eruch Jessawala

Eruch Byramshaw Jessawala , born in Bombay, India, was a close disciple of the silent Indian master Meher Baba, and one of his mandali. Jessawala was also the primary interpreter of Meher Baba's , and later his unique sign language.- Early life :Jessawala was born in Bombay to Zoroastrian parents,...

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 250 pages first discovered in 1969 after Baba's death and believed to be Baba's words, but penned in two 1920s style notebooks by an unknown scribe, 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 a chalk slate during the same period that he wrote the lost book.

Timeline

Year	Events
1925	Meher Baba begins writing a book by hand in Meherabad, India and completes it in 1926. He shows it to no-one, except for showing several pages to Mahatma Gandhi aboard the SS Rajputana in 1931.
1958	The book is determined by Meher Baba's disciples to be missing.
1969	Meher Baba dies January 31. Shortly before his death he indicates that the book written in 1925-1926 is "in good hands."
1969	Two notebooks containing 250 pages in a handwriting other than Meher Baba's are discovered in a storage room in Meher Baba's home in India shortly after his death. Nothing is done with them, but they are kept.
1998	39 pages in Meher Baba's own handwriting determined to be written between 1925-1926 are discovered in India. In 2000 they are published as In God's Hand by Sheriar Press.
2002	It is discovered that the notebooks found in 1969 contain a duplicate of the 39 pages published in In God's Hand.
2007	The notebooks found in 1969 are published as Infinite Intelligence by Sheriar Press. Meher Baba's name is given as the author. It is uncertain whether the work is the same as the missing book, so the original handwritten book from 1925-1926 continues to be considered missing.