Question: Baba, I am intrigued by your ways of working. Could you please explain?
Baba: There are three principal ways in which I work: (1) individually, (2) collectively [for crowds and masses], and (3) universally.
When I work individually, it is with persons (a) who are with me, (b) who are away from me, and (c) who are connected with me. In some cases, I work through their material downfall; in some, through their material welfare. In some cases, I deliberately bring about material downfall, but always keep their spiritual upliftment at heart. In some cases, I use them as “mediums” to efface their own Mayavic qualities, for their own salvation, and that’s where I am misunderstood. But I don’t mind it; I know why I do it. That is sufficient because, when love and hatred are in the extreme, both have the same results. For example, A loves me and thinks of nothing but me all the while and is lost in me; whereas B is against me and hates me, but always thinks of me with antagonistic feelings…I always use the medium of thought… it depends upon the qualities that readily respond to the push.
When I work collectively, which is generally in theaters, cinema houses, sporting grounds, and games, where people collect and concentrate on a particular object, it is easy for me to have my spiritual effect on their minds collectively.
When I work universally, it is through agents. Mind, being universal, is linked up with every individual mind…even with advanced minds, who are my agents, and so in every part of the world I am present and working through agents. That is why at times (a) while speaking to one person, my mind is working elsewhere. People have seen me stopping suddenly in the midst of conversation as if absent and away from the spot, engrossed in something else. (b) At night, on many occasions, I make some of my devotees sit beside me and press the soles of my feet. (c) Sometimes, my personal attendant abruptly sits up in his bed at night, noticing some signs or a flash of light, which makes him nervous. At such times, there is special working that pertains to bodiless “spirits” only, who are entering the path of evolution. There are scores of such spirits, but in whatever stage of advancement, they hope to take form again, because the ultimate goal of every soul is to be one with the Infinite, and that is only possible in human form. This is, in short, how I work.
–Silent Teachings of Meher Baba, compiled and edited by Naosherwan Anzar, p131