Every individual suffers from some kind of physical and mental pain. But with many, hunger and disease of body or mind become acute. One of Babaji's visible methods of helping people was by feeding the hungry, arranging medical treatment for the sick, and giving money and materials to the helpless. The brief interlude of his life in the ashrams was spent in caring for the hungry and curing the sick, like the head of a household busy with his large family. Those who visited his ashrams, especially Kainchi, saw how prasad was being served throughout the day to all and sundry without any discrimination. For some it was prasad, an auspicious token of spiritual elevation, but for many more it was a whole meal for the stomach.

There were many such experiences indicating how Babaji kept track of the doings of his devotees. In 1947 at the crown of Ayodhya Nath Singh's glory, as an honest and incorruptible officer who resisted all temptation to make easy money while performing his duties, he was posted in Faizabad as Excise Inspector. He received a telegram from Babaji asking him to meet him in Allahabad.

When he reached Allahabad the next morning, he found Babaji sitting with several devotees in a room by the side of a lane. He stood there in the lane looking at Babaji, thinking that he might call him. But Babaji kept him waiting, then went to another room inside the house. Ayodhya Nath felt highly agitated at the treatment meted out to him. Babaji had sent for him; he had come for that only. How could Babaji refuse to give him darshan?

He was very upset and was thinking of going away, when someone came and told him that Babaji wanted him in his room. When he reached the room, Babaji was talking to the people there. Then he said, raising his voice high, "You have become atheist? You have become atheist? You have left God? You will most certainly be made Assistant Commissioner. Do you think the law made by God can be overturned?"

The late Mrs. Uma Shungloo was a very religious, simple and pious, polite, self-respecting old Kashmiri Brahmin lady. She was dutiful, scrupulously clean and without any modern-day evils.

Once she fell seriously ill and during her week's treatment I had to go to her house almost daily to watch the progress. Even after she became completely free from symptoms, my visits to her house increased on account of her motherly love and affection towards me.

The demarcations between doctor and patient vanished and a son and mother relationship got fully established.

>I had seen Mrs. Shungloo performing puja, putting flowers on the feet of Maharaj Neem Karoli Baba's picture, doing arti and bestowing prasad. She was a great devotee of Babaji, narrating to me stories about his miracles.

How strange is the passage of time. What was once visible becomes invisible and what was once outside the field of vision takes shape before our eyes.

Some of the devotees whose stories Dada tells in this book were captured in pictures for us to see; others left no visible trail but their interactions with Maharajji are vivid in our minds.

Reading these stories of Maharajji and his devotees, one can't help but sense something from a place and time just outside the reaches of memory.

So many beings passed through his gates, so many hearts were nourished and so many lives touched by his grace.

Bhagwan Singh, known as Bhabania, was born in an obscure village of the Kumoan. Now middle-aged, he was well known to those who visited Babaji's temples at Lucknow, Vrindaban and other places.

The visitors who came to the Hanuman temple in Lucknow knew him as the most important person there—the priest who did his puja, presented offerings to Hanumanji, and distributed prasad to everyone coming to the temple.

The rise of this illiterate boy—a 'non-entity' as he called himself—to the highest post in a celebrated temple happened before our eyes.

Many persons were jealous of this boy who, they felt, had no claim to the post, either by his merit, by family relationship, or by any service done to Babaji.