Questions and Answers - Shri Meher Baba, The Perfect Master

Question: 
What, in his opinion, is the real meaning and purpose of life?
Answer: 
It is to become identified with the Universal Self, and thus to experience Infinite Bliss, Power, and Knowledge; and finally, to be able to impart this experience to others, and make them see the One Indivisible Infinity existing in every phase of life.

Question: 
Does Shri Meher Baba deny "matter"?
Answer: 
He denies nothing because for him duality does not exist. To a God-realized personality, matter and spirit seem both to be merged in the Ocean of Divinity. He sees the "Divine One" playing simultaneously the different roles of the soul, spirit, mind, and body.

• The soul exists independently of nature and matter, it is infinite, everlasting, and pure
• The spirit, though having the same Divine essence as the soul, differs in that it is attached to the matter, the body, the world and the affairs of the world, but is unconscious of the Infinite Self. "Until it is realised, the spirit has to reincarnate."
• The body is the medium through which the mind puts its desires, emotions, and thoughts into action on the physical plane.
• The mind is the medium by which the spirit's experiences of matter are expressed.

The God-man teaches us the Truth that to realize the oneness of everything we must realize that spirit and matter, or the spiritual life and material life go hand-in-hand. When intellect and feeling, or head and heart, are equally developed and balanced, the apparent antithesis is resolved into the One Divine Consciousness.

Question: 
How is it that the Master, being superhuman, still has hunger, thirst, and the need of sleep?
Answer:
The Master works on different planes - spiritual, mental, astral, and physical. And in order to work with different individuals at different stages of evolution he comes down to their level. Even when in the physical body he can aid highly advanced souls on the mental plane, less advanced souls on the astral plane, and ordinary human beings on the physical plane. He uses the appropriate body - spiritual, mental, subtle (astral), or physical - as the medium for his work on the required plane.

It is rightly said that the best teacher is who can come down to the level of his student. The Master comes down to the level of this world for its upliftment. The physical body, now his medium for work, has its physical needs - food and rest - which most usually be attended to physically. If necessary  he could live without food or water for weeks together.

The problem of the Divine and human elements in the God-man is difficult to comprehend, except for those who have had long personal contact with a Master. This attention to the requirements of the physical body of the Master, although outwardly similar, is inwardly different. It is not, as with ordinary men, actuated by any desire to satisfy hunger, thirst, or sleep, nor for the pleasure that gross men derive from eating, drinking, and other enjoyments. He tends to the physical needs of the body merely to preserve it as a medium for the great work that he has to be on this physical plane.

Similarly, people are puzzled by the everyday details of his material or physical life and activities; his natural, spontaneous manner; his appearance and dress; his long travels and frequent movements from place to place; his visits to theatres,  cinemas, and places of amusement; and so on. Though he may seem to enjoy them for themselves, they are necessitated by his work. The Master has no desires, and one have none to gratify. His only desire, if it could rightly be called a desire, is to enable every human being to realize the "Self" and, like him, to drink of the well of everlasting life.
-Questions and Answers, Shri Meher Baba, The Perfect Master

http://www.divinesport.com/pdf/MeherBabaQuestionsAndAnswers.pdf