One day I was travelling by a double-decker bus in London and had occupied a seat near the entrance. There was nobody by my seat and the conductor was on the upper deck. the bus was almost empty. Suddenly the bus stopped and an old beggar got on. He was wearing many layers of tattered clothes and was holding a red and blue blanket in his hand. He stood in front of me and looked at me with a gentle smile as if saying, Move aside I want to sit by you. I moved aside and he sat down.

I do not like staring at people, so I turned my face a little and peered out of the window. At the time I thought, what a lovely smile he has. How nice that old man is! The words old man turned my thoughts to Maharaj. I had always heard that he was known as "the old man with a blanket", so I turned my face to see him again and was surprised to see that the seat by my side was vacant. It had only been a few minutes. Where did he disappear ?

I looked outside but the bus had not stopped anywhere. If he had wanted to get off the bus, how could he?

The road was deserted, and the beggar was not to be seen anywhere. I could not understand how it had all happened, and it was not a case of hallucination.

The next day some of my friends came to me and said that the previous morning (the same time that I was on the bus) they had had a sudden inspiration to help me buy a ticket to go to India to visit Maharajji. It was all rather strange. Although the amount offered by my friends met my travel expenses, a poor student like me had no means of subsistence in India.

Maharaj had to show another miracle to solve this problem. In England a student gets travel expenses from the university to go back home after the end of each term. I had applied for this, but I was surprised to see that the authorities had issued a check for double the amount that I had asked for. I pointed out the mistake to them by telephone, but going through their account books, they informed me that the amount paid to me was correct. I finally realised that Maharaj wanted me to have his darshan.

I arrived Delhi by plane within a month and went directly to Kainchi to see Maharaj. As I went into the ashram, I decided to ask him if he was the same old man who had met me in London. When I went to him, I saw that he was wearing the same blanket that the old man was carrying that day on the bus. Baba looked at me with the same - I know all smile. After this there was nothing left to ask. I knew he was the same old man who had met me in London. What a benign look that was! It filled my heart and soul with bliss.

                                                                                       -  Heather Thompson, U.K.

Dr. Bhonsle, who was renowned for the treatment of incurable diseases by massage, was involved in a political movement during the struggle for India's independence and had to go underground.

While the police were searching for him, he took shelter in a dharamshala(rest house for people on pilgrimage) in Rishikesh and had to remain there without food for several days.

All of a sudden Baba came and as if he knew him very well, said, "Oh, you are famished. You haven't had food for several days. Come."

He took him into an adjoining room where a plate of food was already set out. When Bhonsle finished eating, Baba said to him, "You run away from here now. The police are coming after you." Baba then asked him, "Where will you go?" and without waiting for a reply, he said, "Go straight to Tibet, crossing the Himalayas."

One day during the Chinese aggression against India, I saw Baba in a house in Allenganj, Allahabad.

Sitting by his feet I was brooding over the morning news. The Chinese forces had penetrated deep into the country via Tejpur, and the Indian army, caught by surprise, was not able to hold them back.

Depressed by this state of affairs, and the crisis it caused I expressed my disappointment to him. He simply said, "India is a country of saints and follows the dictates of religion. Communism cannot stay here. China will go back."

I thought, how indifferent we Indians are even at a time of crisis, and felt further saddened. I humbly expressed my doubts and asked, "Baba, why has China invaded India if it has to go back?"

His prompt and brief reply was, "To awaken you." It did not satisfy me, but I kept quiet.

My cousin had seen Baba many times and had heard talk of his lila every day at home. He was worried after taking his high school exam and thought that he should visit Baba to know of his results before they were released. He went to Kainchi ashram and told Baba about his concern. Like a child, Baba at once said, "You will fail."

The way he spoke was convincing enough, but the boy could not persuade himself to accept the truth of the words. Realising that it was an utterance of a saint, he was even more worried. He thought about it for days, and finally, presuming that Baba would have forgotten what he said, the boy went back to Kainchi to ask him the same question again. This time Baba said straightaway, "You will pass." The reply pleased the boy, but the thought that Baba had initially said "fail" and then "pass" put him in a quandary.

One day in Kainchi, Maharajji asked for puris and vegetables to be prepared throughout the night. Nobody understood the purpose of Baba's order since there was no festival at the ashram. Nevertheless, many hundreds of kilos of puris were fried.

The next day prasad was distributed as usual and much of the food remained. The workers were worried that such a large quantity of food would go waste.

Towards evening a bus went out of control because of some mechanical defect and collided with the parapet of the road just outside the ashram. Its front wheels slipped onto a steep slope, and the bus came to rest in such a way that it blocked the traffic on both sides. About one hundred and fifty buses were stranded. Darkness soon fell on the Kainchi valley, and there seemed to be no way out of the situation. In those days there were no shops in the village except for a small tea stall.