People have asked me the same questions that I have been asking myself all these years: Who is Babaji? What is he? Wherefrom has he come? What was the aim or purpose for which he was living and working? Is Babaji here, or has he disappeared or vanished?

So far as who is Babaji, I have not been able to get a conclusive or satisfactory answer to that. About the miracles of Baba, of course, we know of many of them. Since I first met him I have been seeing so many miracles. Even now they continue.

But the mystery that surrounds his name, that is what has been bothering me all these years.

We used to see him from very close quarters, but still he was a mystery all the time. We have seen him as a human being with a certain form and shape, but were never sure about the form or the shape.

Devotees have taken dozens of pictures. If you look at those pictures you find Babaji appearing in different forms, in different sizes, in different shapes, in different stature. Whenever any devotee askes me what was the real stature or height or weight or size of Babaji, I cannot answer.

When the murti for the Kainchi ashram was to be constructed, Siddhi Didi asked me, "Dada, let us have a picture for the statue which will give a correct impression of Babaji." I could only tell her, "You shouldn't talk like that. You and I have been two of the few fortunate ones who have seen Babaji at very close quarters. Not only when he's sitting and talking, but taking his bath, going to the latrine, or taking his food or sleeping. We have never seen him of the same size or the same girth or the same height or the same weight." This has been a problem that has baffled us all throughout time.

On October 12, 1974, a holiday, I went out to a bookshop about twelve o'clock. My mother, my auntie, my brother, all were sitting on the porch.

About one o'clock I returned and went through Babaji's room to go to my own. I found that the picture of Maharaj ji's feet that was always kept on his bed since his mahasamadhi had changed direction. It had been facing south, now it was turned to the east. The odd thing was that the picture had been turned, but the line of flowers had not been disturbed.

There was also a copy of the Hanuman Chalisa there that Maharaj ji used to keep under his pillow. When children came, he would take it out and say, "Read from this." That Hanuman Chalisa had been taken out from under the pillow and placed in front of the picture.

Usually I put gardenia flowers before the picture, but that day for some reason I had put a saffron-colored flower from a creeper in the garden. It had no smell, so it was not normally used, but we called it "Hanuman's flower." That flower was put on top of the Hanuman Chalisa.

Nowadays people come to me and say, "Dada, shall we see him again in his body?"

I say, "Look here, you may be having his darshan, but if I see him again I will say, 'Do not come in that body anymore!'

He carried us in his arms for twenty years and what did we learn? Now if he would give a glimpse of that body, what would that do? What are we missing simply because he is not in a body? He has lived for us, he has given everything to us. I have no need to see that body again."

There are stories of Maharaj ji being seen here and there. I do not take them seriously, but perhaps these people are very keen to see him in that form and he comes.

But what body he may be in, I do not know. That he is alive, of course, that I do know. I have never said that he is not alive. Otherwise how do we feel so strongly that he is here with us? How are so many persons still coming to him? But for those who have known him for twenty or thirty years, did not take much interest, and now suddenly want to see that body, what is the use of that?

After 1970 I saw how very restless Babaji had become, that he just wanted to go away. He said, "Dada, I shall not have any more temples. It is very easy to build a temple, but so very difficult to run it."

Since I had met him he had been talking constantly of building new temples and dharmashalas here and there—at Jagganath Puri, Badrinath, Chitrakut, Benares, Gaya, Allahabad. Suddenly it all changed. Now he bagan saying, "Dada, what is attachment for a saint? I shall run away."

This he would repeat many times a day, but I was not to tell anyone. I knew that it was with very great effort that he was staying.

There are so many stories of how Babaji healed people. My own brother Subodh, who lived with us, was very nearly blind. He was a good student and joined the education department as a temporary subinspector of schools. He was in that post for a long time, but could not be confirmed until he submitted a medical certificate. Because of his poor eyesight he was afraid to go for a test, knowing that he would be rejected outright. He kept working on a temporary basis and the result was that he had foregone promotions and other benefits due him.

Now Babaji knew everything and it is certain that he must have been protecting Subodh all along. Once my auntie, who loved Subodh like a son, told Baba that she worried about him when he went out on tours of the villages and wanted him to stay home, safe and secure. Baba said, "Maushi Ma, there is nothing to fear, God moves with him."