As a college student in Poona, nineteen-year-old Merwan was cycling past an elderly Muslim holy woman, Hazrat Babajan, when she called him over and kissed his forehead. He later described this as the moment he first knew what he was — though he said it took years to fully register.

In 1923 he established a small community near Ahmednagar called Meherabad, with a free school, a free hospital, and shelters for the poor. He called himself an avatar, a claim only he made, and said his work was to awaken, not to teach doctrine.

On July 10, 1925, he stopped speaking. He kept the silence for the rest of his life — forty-four years — first spelling words on an alphabet board, later using only hand gestures that his close disciples learned to read for others.

He died at Meherabad on January 31, 1969, still silent, still communicating by gesture. Decades earlier he had told his Western followers a simple phrase — don't worry, be happy — later printed on posters, then borrowed as the title of a pop song.