Maharajji did not seem to be "deciding" how to react to any devotee and in fact advised others to...

SEE GOD IN EVERYONE. IT IS DECEPTION TO TEACH BY INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES AND KARMA.

Nevertheless, when pressed, he could "explain" his behaviour:

Once I was chastising Maharajji for giving photos to people who were worldly and didn't care about him.

He said, "You don't understand me. If I tell a man great bhakta (devotee), I am planting a seed. If a person already has the seed planted and growing, why should I plant another?"

I said, "You are telling these drunkards, liars, and dacoits that they are real bhaktas.

They will just go home and carry on their old behaviours."

For reasons known only to Maharajji, sometimes he would seem to bargain with death and push it away from one of his devotees, while at other times he would not intercede and the devotee would die.

Because Maharajji knew the time of each person's death, but hated to be the bearer of bad news, he would often be absent at the time when one of his devotees must die.

In some cases, when pressed, he gave a subtle clue, but often it was merely his absence that was the clue for the devotees who had come to know his ways.

Once a neighbor lady came to my wife and said she was going for the darshan of another local baba. She asked my wife to accompany her, so my wife went along.

At the home of some devotees in Lucknow Maharajji was giving darshan to a large crowd. Outside Maharajji's room a sadhu recited the Gita in a loud, pundit-like voice while the man of the house cared for his sick cat nearby.

Maharajji shouted to his devotee, "What are you doing with that cat?" The devotee explained that since the cat was extremely ill he was warming it in the sun, and, further, he thought of taking it to the vet.

"It's a fact of nature," Maharajji said, "that cats don't need doctors. She's the property of Mother Nature; she'll be all right." He took a small sweet, saying, "Give her this."

All the colorful melodrama that transpired wherever Maharajji went; all the various ways the devotees thought of and reacted to Maharajji, and his many faces in response; the anger and abuse, the chiding, the tenderness-all of this filled the time and space when we were around him, and yet . . . we knew that this was a part, but not the essence, of the relationship.

It was not act or words or opinions, but something far more subtle that Maharajji was transmitting to us. It was deep within ourselves that Maharajji was gently transforming us.

There was no aspect of life that was not touched by him.

It was at this deeper level that we felt Maharajji to be the shepherd and ourselves to be a part of the flock. Through this unspoken process we developed faith where previously there had been fear.

Once a party of fifty or sixty Congress politicians were going to see Maharajji.

He was staying at Hanuman Ghar. From there the road could be seen for a long way, so he knew they were coming. Maharajji suddenly got up and went down the hillside. Accompanied by an Indian sadhu, Ram Das, he walked to a small Devi temple.

When the party arrived they inquired about Maharajji's whereabouts. They were directed down the path.

Maharajji and Ram Das had sat down in front of the temple.

The Congressmen also came to the small temple, and though they stood in open land about six feet away, they couldn't see him or Ram Das. The men were standing practically in front of them, saying to themselves, "Where is Neem Karoli Baba?" Maharajji had become invisible and he had made Ram Das invisible.