This man is a fraud!

Harilal took the sadhu's advice and set out by train for Tiruvannamalai. The sadhu's directions turned out to be perfectly accurate. When Harilal got down at Tiruvannamalai, he learned that the ashram was about three kilometers away, so he engaged a cart.



As soon as he arrived at the ashram, he jumped out of the cart, put his bags in the men's dormitory, and went off to look for the man who could show him God.

He found out where the Maharshi was, and went and peeked in the window, overcome with curiosity to see what such a person might look like.



And there, to Harilal's utter disgust, was THE VERY SAME MAN who had come to his house in the Punjab! Harilal could scarcely believe his eyes, but he looked closely, and sure enough, it was the very same person. No doubt about it whatsoever.

"This man is a fraud!" he fumed. "He appears in my house in the Punjab, tells me to go to Tiruvannamalai, then hops on the train so that he can get there before me."

He was so annoyed with the man he decided he would not even enter the hall. How many frauds he had come across in his search! And here was one more of them. Harilal turned on his heels and went off angrily to collect his bags.

As he was preparing to leave on the same cart that had brought him to the ashram, a small turbaned lion cub approached him.

The four cubs had been watching all this from behind some bushes ... the tremendous excitement written all over Harilal's face as he had dashed to the hall, the way he had put his face up to the window with such expectation, imagining who knew what ... some granter of God-sightings! ... and then the look of utter dejection, crushed hopes ... which soon gave way to a more tolerable anger and bitterness. They heard him muttering "the very same man!" and quickly put two and two together.

How they wanted to jump out from behind the bushes, all four of them, and say in one passionate voice, "Do you not see?!?! Right then and there, peeking in that window, your life-long wish has been fulfilled. God is sitting on that couch, wearing glasses and reading his book!" (They had had a peek in the window too, while waiting for Harilal to stow his bags, anticipating that he would not be able to last for more than two minutes before the overpowering urge to see Bhagavan overcame him.) But the cubs, though still very young and small, knew that only some people could gaze at Bhagavan and know they were looking straight at the Lord, and others seemed completely blind to this. Dozens of times they had implored Mum Lioness to explain this strange and baffling mystery to them -- why some eyes could see God, and some, even when God was a few inches away, could not.

"You go," whsipered Tirucub and Spotty and Omcub to Arunacub. "Say something! Don't let him go away cast down like this. Look at him! He is caught in Bhagavan's net and he does not even know it ... look at his love eyeses ... don't let him go away feeling he has been tricked ..."

Arunacub stepped forward. Harilal, who was quite large and strong, looked down at him. Was this little chap some part of the charlatan's bag of tricks? His cuteness designed to catch people off guard?



"Aren't you from the North?" Arunacub asked, knowing full well that Harilal was, but not able to think of a better way to stop him from stalking off. "You look like a Noath Indian."

Noath Indian! And the tiny turban! Yes, this must be some further trick. But he could not push the little cub out of the way.

'Yes, I am,' Harilal replied.

'Haven't you just arrived?' the cub asked. 'Aren't you going to stay here for at least a couple of days?'

Harilal recounted the story of how he had come to be in Tiruvannamalai, and concluded by saying, 'This man has been travelling around the country, advertising himself. I don't want to see him. I came here because he said there was a man here who could show me God. If this man really does have the capacity to show me God, why did he not do it in my house in the Punjab when he came to see me? Why did he make me come all this way? I am not interested in seeing such a man.'

"No, no, you are mistaken. Bhagavan has not left this town since years before your birth. It is either a case of mistaken identity, or somehow, through his power, he managed to manifest himself in the Punjab while his physical body stayed here. Some girl from another country ... Amerasomething ... came here once and told a similar story. These things do happen occasionally. Are you quite sure ..." and here the little cub looked down shyly ..."that you have not praps made a mistake."

"No," said Harilal, absolutely sure of himself. "I recognize the man. I have not made a mistake."

"In that case," said the cub, his eyes wide with concern for Harilal, "please stay. I will introduce you to Chinnaswami and he will give you a place to stay."

At this point, Harilal was so curious to find out what was really going on that he decided to delay his departure. He wanted to confront the Maharshi in private and ask for an explanation of his strange behavior.