My wife had met Maharajji and had come to get me in America and bring me back to meet him. When we first went to see Maharajji I was put off by what I saw. All these crazy Westerners wearing white clothes and hanging around this fat old man in a blanket! More than anything else I hated seeing Westerners touch his feet.

On my first day there he totally ignored me. But after the second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh day, during which he also ignored me, I began to grow very upset. I felt no love for him; in fact, I felt nothing. I decided that my wife had been captured by some crazy cult. By the end of the week I was ready to leave.

We were staying at the hotel up in Nainital, and on the eighth day I told  my wife that I wasn't feeling well. I spent the day walking around the lake thinking that if my wife was so involved in something that was clearly not for me, it must mean that our marriage was at an end. I looked at the flowers, the mountains, and the reflections in the lake, but nothing could dispel my depression. And then I did something that I had really never done in my adult life. I prayed.

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.