On another visit I brought a Muslim pir I had met in Madras. As a professor in Baghdad he had had an inner awakening and taken to the religious life. He had come to India because he had suddenly felt an urge to visit some Hindu holy men to see what sort of state they were in. I encouraged him to join me on one of my visits to the Ma­harshi since I could not imagine a better example of a Hindu saint. At Tiruvannamalai we sat in the hall together for some time, looking at the Maharshi. Then the pir got up, saluted him and walked out. When I caught up with him and asked him why he had left so suddenly, he said, ‘I have smelled this one flower in the garden of Hinduism. I don’t need to smell any of the others. Now I am satisfied and can go back to Baghdad.’

This man was a jnani and in those few minutes with the Maharshi he was able to satisfy himself that the flower­ing of jnana in Hindus was no different from the highest experience attained by Islamic saints.

Such enlightened people are very rare. In the last forty years or so I have met thousands of sadhus, swamis, gurus, etc. I have been to Kumbha Melas which millions of pilgrims attended; I have been to many of the big ashrams in India; I have toured the Himalayas, meeting many reclusive her­mits there; I have met yogis with great siddhis, men who could actually fly. But in all the years since my realisation I have only met two men, apart from the Maharshi himself, who convinced me that they had attained full and com­plete Self-realisation. This Muslim pir was one. The other was a relatively unknown sadhu I met by the side of a road in Karnataka.

I was waiting for a bus in an isolated location near Krishnagiri, a town located midway between Tiruvan­namalai and Bangalore. An extremely disreputable-looking man approached me. He wore tattered, filthy clothes and had open wounds on his legs which he had neglected so badly they were infested with maggots. We talked for a while and I offered to remove the maggots from his leg and give him some medicine which would help his wounds to heal. He wasn’t interested in having any assis­tance from me. ‘Leave the maggots where they are,’ he said. ‘They are enjoying their lunch.’ Feeling that I couldn’t leave him in such a miserable condition, I tore a strip off the shawl I was wearing and tied it round his leg so that at least he could have a clean bandage. We said ‘good-bye’ and he walked off into the nearby forest.

I had recognised this man to be a jnani and was idly speculating on what strange karma had led him to neglect his body in such a way, when a woman approached me. She had been selling iddlies and dosas at a nearby roadside stall.

‘You are a very lucky man,’ she said. ‘That was a great mahatma. He lives in this forest but he almost never shows himself. People come from Bangalore to have his darshan, but he never allows anyone to find him unless he himself wants to meet them. I myself sit here all day, but this is the first time I have seen him in more than a year. This is the first time I have seen him approach a complete stranger and start talking to him.’

I have digressed a little into the story of the bedraggled jnani because he and the Muslim pir illustrate a couple of points that I want to make. The first I have already alluded to. Though many people have had a temporary direct experience of the Self, full and permanent realisation is a very rare event. I say this from direct experience, having seen, quite literally, millions of people who are on some form of spiritual path.

The second point is also interesting, for it reflects great credit on the Maharshi. Out of these people, the only three I have met since my realisation who have satisfied me that they are jnanis, it was the Maharshi alone who made himself available, twenty-four hours a day, to anyone who wanted to see him. The Krishnagiri sadhu hid in his forest; the Muslim pir, when he stayed at my house in Madras, kept himself locked up and refused to see visitors who wanted to see him. Of these three, the Maharshi alone was easy to find and easy to approach.

My own early visits demonstrate the point. He could have kept quiet on my first two after-lunch visits and allowed his attendant to send me away. Instead, sensing that I had an urgent problem, he allowed me to come in and talk about the things that were bothering me. No one was ever denied access to him because they were immature or unsuitable. Visitors and devotees could sit in his presence for as long as they wanted, all of them absorbing as much grace as they could assimilate. Through his jnana alone, the Mahar­shi was a towering spiritual giant. By making himself con­tinuously available, the lustre of his greatness shone even more.