Before his death when my guru told me: “I’ve taught everything I know.” I was practicing 14 hours a day. He died in January 1987. After his death I was so much inspired that I was practicing 14 to 16 hours every day. I was practicing, practicing, practicing. The thought began to grow very strongly in my mind that there are still some missing links in the high practices. That feeling grew and grew and grew and I was disturbed with that: from whom will I learn these missing things? There was nobody to discuss them from that level – unless a person is advanced to that level you don’t quite even discuss these things. And that made me very bad. I was feeling disturbed, even a little bit depressed. Then suddenly a chance to visit Benares came. And I visited Benares. It was the 1st of April.
There was another disciple of my Guru who was having some problems in his service. He was a yoga instructor in BHU, Benares Hindu university. Doctor Parhnis – he is dead now. So he told me: “Please, come and put a good word about me to the dean.” I said: “Ok, it’s not a problem to me.” I also wanted to visit Benares once more. So it was in there on the 1st April 1988. I visited the dean in the afternoon. It was Fool’s day all over the world and it was a good day for me. I put a good word for the work my friend was adding into the service of the university. And the next day many persons who were attending yoga project from Mudapar came to see me. And I was staying at Kashi Mumushirada. He was a trusty disciple of my guru so he arranged a very good room for me on the 1st floor. When all the persons left me about 11.30 I began my practice, at 2 o’clock a knock came. I saw the door was opened. I thought it was somebody from the ashram. I was sitting in lotus pose and a man entered with half-shirt and long hair. He was looking very impressive. Can you guess who? He was very fair, slightly golden, but as I was coming out of my practice, first I could not recognize him. And he said: “I am the one whom you know by the name of Babaji.”