I first met Maharajji in Bhowali many years ago. Maharajji frequently visited a certain Ma's home there.

I told her that I had heard about him but had never met him, and I asked her to tell me the next time he came.

After a week or so Maharajji came at night. In the morning a message came for me and I went at once.

I found him lying on a cot. He looked at me, then closed his eyes for a moment. He knew at once who I was, who I had been before, and what I was going to do in this world.

In a few seconds, he said, "I am very pleased to see you," which he repeated many times. Maharajji had walked from Nainital to Bhowali during the night.

In 1935 I was on vacation from school and went to Dakshineshwar on a religious pilgrimage. When I reached the place where there were many Shiva temples, a man appeared before me whom I had not noticed to be there before.

"My son," the man said, "You are a Brahmin? I shall give you a mantra."

"I will not take it," I said, "I do not believe in it."

"You must take it," he insisted and so I relented.

Thereafter I faithfully recited the mantra daily. Many years passed.

It was June 1955. I had some close friends who were like members of the family. Every Sunday we'd chat in the evening at our house.

I previously believed that a saint should observe certain restrictions as to food. Also, I never took tea or coffee, and I ate a very simple, small diet. I never took medicines.I wondered how people could take so many pills.

After Maharajji left I caught a cold.

At first the doctors thought it was a flu, then they said it was a more serious disease. So I had to take fifteen pills a day to cure it.

It was all Maharajji's play. The doctors also told me to put on weight so from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. I ate.

I wondered how I could eat so much when previously I had only  eaten two chapattis at a meal. All my old ideas vanished.

This was similar to what happened when I came to Kainchi, prior to which time I never drank tea.

I had come to India from the United States as  a devotee in a very intense religious sect - the guru was the guru, the final and great saviour.

After only two weeks in his presence, I was dearly disillusioned about him and began to wander about in India on my own - still hoping to find the one true and pure guru somewhere.

Several times in my wanderings someone would tell me of Maharajji and that he was nearby. But I would not go, as I felt no particular pull.

Finally I was down near Bombay, still seeking the true guru, when an old friend showed up. He looked so clear and light that before we even spoke I determined to go to wherever it was he had just come from.

He had just left Maharajji in Vrindavan. I packed my bags and was gone that afternoon. Twenty-four hours later I was before Maharajji.

Maharajji reacted in a variety of ways to those of us plagued by anger; and all of those ways sooner or later brought the anger to the surface and helped us begin to let go of it.

Sometimes a devotee would become the object of a continuous barrage of abuse from Maharajji. The abuse, coupled with the underlying love, was a great panacea for even the most hidden and deep-seated anger.

For others it seemed as if situations just developed around Maharajji that forced anger to the surface like a badly inflamed boil.

And at just the right moment, Maharajji would be there with the necessary cup of milk to soothe the soul after surgery.