Mast work or contact with masts assumed a very significant portion of Baba’s work in this Avataric advent. The following material is extracted from the classic source of Baba’s work with masts: "The Wayfarers" edited by William Donkin, Shariar Press, ISBN 0-913078-65-4. For a detailed account on masts and Baba’s work with them, refer the above book.

Baba stayed in Hyderabad (Deccan) from 10th March 1945 until 6th September 1945. He contacted masts all over Hyderabad state ( now called Andhra Pradesh), and also in Hyderabad city. Baba has contacted more masts in Hyderabad than in any other city of India. (See footnote of pp 248 of The Wayfarers) 

Who is a Mast? 

Masts are God-intoxicated souls. They are intoxicated by Divine Love. Their external behaviour often is like that of an insane or mad person. The glimpses of divinity that they get are accompanied by a joy that breaks through any type of sordid composure. One state of unbalanced exaltation is replaced by another state of unbalanced exaltation. A mast may be on any plane of consciousness. Some masts get stuck on the inner planes. They are over powered by the onflow of grace and love, and get into a state of divine stupor. They are entirely absorbed in the "beautific vision." 

The principal sensation of a mast is this permanent enjoyment of divine intoxication. The creation is full of bliss and the mast enjoys this bliss and thereby becomes intoxicated to an almost unlimited extent, virtually consuming him and absorbing him and thereby making the world around him vanish. Absorbed in God, such a person is continually absorbed in thinking about God, and with that comes like a bolt of pure love consuming him further in a state of divine intoxication.

Masts do not suffer from what may be called a disease. They are in a state of mental disorder because their minds are overcome by such intense spiritual energies that are far too much for them, forcing them to lose contact with the world, shed normal human habits and customs, and civilized society and live in a state of spiritual splendour but physical squalor.

How does it happen that some men and women become masts? 

There are those who have become masts whose minds have become unbalanced through unceasing dwelling upon thoughts of God so that they neglect all normal human requirements. There are those whose minds have become unbalanced by sudden contact with a highly advanced spiritual being. There are those who have sought spiritual experience and have met a crisis from which they do not recover. What characterizes all masts is their concentration upon the love of God. (pp 2031 Lord Meher Vol. 6)

Significance of Baba’s mast-contact:

Baba, by His contact with masts, gives effective guidance and a spiritual push. He initiates masts into a greater clarity and lucidity of consciousness, into a deeper ecstasy, a purer and more expansive love, and into a truer stronger creativity of response. Baba draws them out of the "self-sufficiency state" of being absorbed in the Divine Love to a state of rendering true service to others who are in need of spiritual help. A mast can therefore be a more effective agent for spiritual work than the most able persons of the gross world. The mast mind is also often used directly by Baba as medium for sending his spiritual help to different parts of the world.

Baba’s mast contacts in Hyderabad:

Here are the details of mast work done by Baba in Hyderabad city during 1938 and 1945. Most of the contacts were made during 1945. The table is sorted on mast name.
 

Mast	Description	Date of contact
Abdulla	A moderate mast who wanders about,	1945 August 10
Abkari (Captain)	A very good mast. he is tall old man of dark complexion who wears dark glasses and is dressed like a lascar ( a seaman) in blue cotton clothes. He carries a tin about, and hits it with a rat-tat-tat-tat like a drum; his talk is not understood by ordinary mortals and sounds nonsensical. He sleeps in a Nawab’s house. At Baba’s second contact, he asked to be taken for a ride in the car (Adi’s car), and he himself directed, by sweeps of the arm, which way to go. He went first to certain house and walked inside it, causing a flutter among the zenana ladies, and was then driven to Secunderabad station. Finally. from the station, he was driven back to Hyderabad, to a certain shrine there, where he was left.	1945 March 18 1945 Sept 3
Abliwala Baba	Near the Charminar; no further record.	1945 April 7
Abdul Qadir	A moderate mast who sits behind the railing of the verandah of an old house in Rikabganj.	1945 August 7
Ali Shah	Of Ahmednagar. Brought to Hyderabad; stayed till 1st May 1945. Brought to Hyderabad; stayed till 25th June 1945. Brought to Hyderabad; stayed for three days.	1945 April 21 1945 June 16 1945 August 21
Allahwala  Murshid	No further record.	1945 April 8
Amdu Mastan	No further record.	1945 April 16
Amir Rehman Maulvi	A good mast, fiftyish, fat who carries a big stick and wears a sherwani ( along coat much worn by the Muslims of Hyderabad). He was contacted in Abid Road, one of Hyderabad’s main thoroughfares.	1945 August 6
Ashaq Mian	A moderate mast, middle-aged, who sleeps outside a certain mosque, wanders about the town all day, and is well known.	1945 March 17
Bhaiwala Mastan	A young man, perhaps twenty-five years old, who stays near a mosque in "Mecca Madina" ( a Part of Hyderabad). He is a moderate mast.	1945 August 6
Chaman Ali Shah	An advanced pilgrim, about forty years old, who stays near a wears a black kafni and keeps per pigeons. He lives on a plinth near a certain shrine beyond The Arab troops’s barracks. He speaks aloud to himself in a constantly changing voice, so that an odd passer-by might think that five or six different men were talking together. When approached for the last contact with Baba, he was overheard to say, "Merwan was to come yesterday, but he has come today." He asked Baba’s umbrella. and was given it. (N.B.- it is not certain that his name is correctly given.)	1945 Match 1945 (?)
Chaous	A man with hawa only. He is a Chaous, an Arab from southern Arabia (Yemen).	1945 August 11
Chaous Mastan	An Arab mast (see note above) ; nothing special.	1945 April 16
Chunu Mian	A good mast with a weakness for toddy. He was kept by a senior officer of the Nizam’s State Forces in his (the officer’s) house, in a special room . When Baba and his attendants called at the house to contact the mast, they were asked to wait for a few minutes, and were then shown up to the mast’s room. Chunu Mian had been neatly dressed by the officer in a fine sherwani(long coat worn by Muslims), good shoes and so forth.Each day the mast roamed about Hyderabad, and at the second contact with Baba, he was run to earth in a toddy shop and was brought to Baba for contact. If given money, Chunu Mian would give it away at once to someone else.	1945 April 13 1945 August 11
Datar Saheb	No further record	1945 Feb 23
Ganga Bhai	A very old man near the shrine of Baba Shrafuddin; a seeker	1945 June 10
Ghulam Hussein	A very high, salik-like mast, a mixture of jalali and jamali types. he wears good clothes, one of Baba’s group thus referring to him as "the gentleman mast". he is of moderate height, perhaps fifty years old, and is so well known and so much revered by all and sundry that almost all salute him respectfully as they pass. He is allowed to go where he pleases, even into the zenana quarters of muslim houses, which are normally never entered by strangers.	1945 March 18 1945 April 15 1945 August 8 1945 August 11
Gundawala Baba	No further record	1945 April 8
Gunu Baba	No further record	1945 April 16
Habib Chaous	An old Arab with hawa; contacted in a graveyard at Sultan Shahi. He is well known.	1945 August 11
Hamid Chaous	A seeker; also an Arab; to be found near the Mir Alam tank.	1945 August 8 1945 August 23
Hiralal Chunilal	A ragged old man; nothing special.	1945 August 11
Islam Mastan Chaous	An Arab seeker with a jolly temperament; he cracks jokes with everyone always seems happy. He is usually to be found near the Charminar by day, and sleeps in a cemetery by night. Baba liked him.	1945 August 7
Jubbe Shah Mastan	Nothing special	1945 June 13
Kala Nawab	A young man, perhaps with hawa; who wanders about Hyderabad, having given up worldly ties.	1945 April 7
Keshwa-nandji Sadhu	An intimate disciple. For many years he has sat in the Hindu cremation ground.	1945 April 15
Khaki Saheb Baba	An elderly man, of more or less normal consciousness; an advanced pilgrim. He lives in his own little house opposite the shrine of Baba Sharafuddin, and spends most of the day in one room of his house.	1945 June 10 1945 August 8
Lakshman Das Maharaj	No further record	1945 April 16
Mai Mastani	No further record	1945 April 8
Majzoob Saheb	No further record	1945 March 17
Mama Mast	An old, dried up tiny man, and a good mast, who cannot walk and who smokes cigars. Some shop keepers look after him.	1945 March 17 1945 April 8
Maqdum Ali Shah (Shah Saheb)	An old man, perhaps 80 years of age, of short stature, who wears a many colored robe, carries a pair of large iron tongs, and shouts "Ya Hussein" every now and then. He lives in a little room beyond the jail, in which he has collected an assortment of odds and ends, and has several puppies with him. He has a fair and lustrous face. He is an advanced pilgrim.	1945 May 17
Miskin Shah	Near the place of Nizam; nothing special	1945 April 15
Mast Baba	No further record	1945 April 8
Mastani Mai	For many years has sat in a room near the shrine of Ujala Shah;a good mastani.	1945 August 6 1945 Sept 3
Maulvi Abdul Razzack	A seeker; of no special importance	1945 April 7
Maulvi Bukhariwala	A seeker.	1945 April 7
Maulvi Wahab	A seeker.	1945 April 7
Mir Saheb	A good mast; old, respectably dressed. And now sometimes in a majzoob-like state and sometimes in salik-like state. He had previously been completely majzoob-like. He is well-known in Hyderabad, where he has a quite a number of followers.	1945 march 17 1945 April 8
Moeinuddin Baba (Nanne Mian)	A good mast, to whom Baba gave the nick name Pinjrawala Baba because he sat in a cage-like hovel (pinjra means a cage). During the day he would roam at large all over the city, and by nights he would sit in this curious cage. He was always naked and carried a stick when he walked abroad.	1945 March 17 1945 August ?
Mohammed	This is "our" Mohammed. He stayed for a few days with Baba and his party in Hyderabad. During the course of the Bus tour that began in December 1938.	1938 December
Mohammed Hussein	Wanders about the city; no further record	1945 April 7
Mohammed Sharif	A good mast. He is fattish old man, with a fine white beard. He wears a dirty hat and carries a bundle of rags under his arms. A younger, perhaps his son, walks about with him and looks after him. He was difficult to contact but was eventually found sleeping on a verandah one night and, was contacted there.	1945 August 8
Nawab Yaqub Ali	A moderate mast from a village called Karwan, who was brought for Baba’s contact and given five rupees.	1945 August 11
Nuruddin	A tall and lanky mast who can’t keep clear of a toddy shop for very long. He was taken in a tonga for Baba’s contact, and, enroute, having spotted a toddy he insisted on getting down and refreshing himself. But he is a good mast for all that.	1945 July  1945 August
Patrinwala Mast	No further record	1945 April 15
Qadir Mian	Of no special interest	1945 Feb 23
Rajiah Mastan	A good mast, and rather an entertaining fellow. He is naked except for a loin cloth and a huge dirty turban, has a hole in his neck, perhaps from an old laryngotomy operation, and he carries a gigantic bundle of old rags and numerous broken pieces of china plates. If any one asks him for prasad ( a gift of spiritual significance), he gives a piece of broken plate. One day when Baidul and Eruch were in a rickshaw following Baba (who was in atonga with Nuruddin described above), they spotted Rajiah on the road, and sat him in their rickshaw. Rajiah disposed himself in the rickshaw as if he were a king, to the very vocal delight of a crowd of school children inj the street who surged round the rickshaw shouting and laughing, and joined in pulling and pushing the rickshaw along the street with their small and eager hands. Rajiah was taken thus for Baba’s contact, and Baba and his men throughly enjoyed by the rousing reception by this crowd playful children. Rajiah too seem to relish being the focus of so much fun.	1945 August  1945 Sept
Rajullah Shah Saheb	An initiate pilgrim; very well known in Hyderabad	1945 June 12
Rehmatullah Shah	No further record	1945 April 16
Sadhu Upaswala Baba	A sincere sadhu and a good soul	1945 April 7
Saiyid Abdul Maulvi	A seeker; very old, lives in a mosque, and much revered	1945 August 7
Saiyid Amiruddin (Chindiwala Baba)	An old mast and a good one, who collects old pieces of cloth and rags (Chindi); hence his second name of chindiwala Baba.	1945 August 7
Saiyid Jalaluddin	A moderate mast who wanders about, and was thus difficult to contact.	1945 March 18
Saiyid Mehdi Saheb	No further record	1945 March 17
Saiyid Moenuddin (Majzoob Mian)	The spiritual chargeman of Hyderabad; a majzoob-like mast of sixth plane, and a typical jalali. He is a lame, elderly man who lives in a woodstall at Fateh Gate in Hyderabad. He sweeps the road with his hands, is very fond of barfi (a sweetmeat rather like fudge), and he smokes exclusively an atrocious brand of cheap, local cigarettes. Be cause of his jalai nature, he was never easy to contact, and at the first attempt to meet him Baba and his group were repulsed with epithets and objurgating. The following morning Baidul, while again trying to bring him for contact, was hit with a stone. Baidul, however, nothing daunting offered him a cigarette of his favorite brand-which Majzoob Mian accepted-and he then asked for his equally beloved sweetmeat, barfi.