Bill Le Page

An ardent follower of the Indian spiritual figure Meher Baba since the 1950s, Bill Le Page reflects on his life and relationship with Baba, the 'God-Man.'

By Geoff Ginn and Ray Kerkhove

This is a 4 minute read and 14 minute video, published December 2024.

In December 2021 we set off from Brisbane to interview Bill Le Page at Avatar’s Abode, a spiritual retreat and pilgrimage site in the Sunshine Coast hinterland. Climbing Kiels Mountain, Ray’s little car entered the gates of Avatar’s Abode and took us along a hilltop track through the trees with views opening up towards the ocean.

Bill was waiting for us in characteristic style, seated in the enclosed veranda of the quiet bungalow home where he lived with his wife, Diana. Wearing a checkered shirt and comfortable shorts, he rose a little unsteadily to his feet as we approached and opened his arms wide in welcome. “Now I know why I am still alive!” he said, with eyes twinkling and a broad smile. Bill was an enthusiastic interviewee, and we sat down to have a cup of tea and get started.

Early life: seeking a connection

Bill was born in Melbourne in 1924. After wartime service as a pilot, he studied psychology in the late 1940s without a lot of conviction. ‘During those years my parents … had begun exploring alternative groups and organisations such as Theosophy, Christian Science, and small Christian splinter movements,’ he later wrote.

‘In my continuing interest in knowing what life was all about, I eagerly attended with them and read literature that was offered. None appealed, and after one or two contacts with these groups I would turn aside, but somehow never relinquished a strong inner drive to establish a true connection between God and life’ (Le Page, 1993: 3).

Figure 1: Bill Le Page, during war service, c. 1944-5 (Jennifer Keating).

Bill found that connection when he encountered the teachings of Avatar Meher Baba through the Australian branch of the international Sufi Society. A spiritual figure with universal, multi-faith affinities, Baba was born Merwan Sheriar Irani in Pune, India, in 1894. After commencing his spiritual work and teachings in India as a young man, he made several visits to Western and Asian countries in the 1930s and 1950s.

To his followers, Meher Baba (‘Compassionate Father’) was the ‘God-Man’, an ‘Avatar ’ who personified divine love in human form, as others had before him, like Jesus Christ and the Buddha. From 1925 until his death in 1969, he maintained a self-imposed silence, communicating messages to his followers through an alphabet board and later his own distinctive sign language. He emphasised Divine love and selfless service.

Figure 2: Bill Le Page and Francis Brabazon (centre right) with Meher Baba and other followers, India, 1954 (© Meher Nazar Publications).

Meeting Baba

In 1954 Bill travelled to India with the poet Francis Brabazon to attend a darshan (‘viewing’ or gathering) at Meherabad. With other devotees and Baba’s mandali (close disciples), Bill met Meher Baba personally, in a private interview. The experience was overwhelming:

I have no idea how long we were with Him, but it seemed relaxed and leisurely, with an eternal, timeless quality making it as real, as living now as it was then. It was also tense, riveting, compelling, as Baba constantly stirred the whole of one’s being and heightened the quality and depth of response to His presence. To be in His presence was simultaneously sobering and exhilarating, and also so much more, as though one had become involved with a powerhouse … (Le Page, 1993: 24).

For the remainder of his long and active life, Bill was a prominent Australian voice in the world-wide Meher Baba movement: raising funds, sponsoring charitable projects, speaking with media, organising public events, writing books and articles, travelling widely in India, Australia and North America to increase public awareness about Meher Baba, and nurturing the development of Avatar’s Abode as a pilgrimage destination for Baba’s followers throughout the world. He also helped assist during Meher Baba’s two visits to Australia in 1956 and 1958.

As it transpired, our conversation was one of the last major interviews Bill conducted before his passing, peacefully, at home with Diana, in July 2023.

Oral history interview: Bill Le Page

With thanks

Bill and Diana Le Page, Jennifer Keating, Meher Nazar Publications.

Sources and further reading

Baba, Meher. 2020 [1967]. Discourses. Myrtle Beach: Sheriar Press.

Grant, John. A. 1985. Practical Spirituality with Meher Baba. Sydney: Merwan Publications.

Hopkinson, Tom and Dorothy Hopkinson. 1982 [1974]. Much Silence: Meher Baba: His Life and Work. Mumbai: Meher House Publications.

Kerkhove, Ray. 2002. ‘Authority and Egolessness in the Emergence and Impact of Meher Baba (1894–1969).’ PhD Thesis, School of History, Philosophy, Religion and Classics, University of Queensland.

Le Page, Bill. 1993. The Turning of the Key: Meher Baba in Australia. Myrtle Beach: Sheriar Press.