The American Skeptic
“You were remembering God?”
The Reluctant Visitor
An American couple came to Kainchi. The wife had met Baba previously and was deeply impressed, but the husband was repulsed. He detested seeing Westerners acting “crazy” and putting their heads at Baba’s feet, and he was particularly upset with his own wife for doing so. For seven days he silently seethed with anger while visiting the ashram, refusing to participate. On the eighth day, he decided to skip the visit entirely and sat alone by the lake in Nainital.
Though he was an atheist, he found himself praying to God. He asked, “What am I doing here? Who is this man Maharaj ji?” He remembered the phrase, “If ye had but faith, ye would not need a miracle.” Then he prayed aloud: “Well I do not have faith, and I need a miracle.”
The Rolled Apple
He decided to return to America the next day, but his wife insisted they go to Kainchi one last time to bid farewell. As they sat before Baba’s takhat, Baba was inside his room. Suddenly, an apple from the top of the takhat rolled down and fell onto the floor. The skeptical husband bent down to pick it up.
In that exact moment, Baba speedily came out of his room and sat on the takhat in such a way that his feet pressed down on the man’s hand. Then, pressing his already bent head further down with his hand, Baba forced the man into a prone position — exactly the posture of touching Baba’s feet that he had despised.
Looking down at him, Baba asked, “What were you doing at the lake? Were you boating? Did you go to swim?” Then Baba struck at the core: “You were remembering God?”
The Breaking of the Skeptic
Hearing these words, the man suddenly broke down and cried like a child. Baba pulled him close, caressed his beard, and asked repeatedly, “Tell me, what did you ask God?” In that moment, the man’s resentment disappeared, replaced by overwhelming devotion and love. He realised that Baba had heard his desperate prayer even from miles away and had orchestrated this “accident” to give him the miracle he needed.
The man later recounted that his entire worldview shifted. He had come as a cynic, but he left as a devotee, his heart filled with a love he never thought possible. Baba did not argue with his intellect; he simply showed him that the divine is real and intimately personal.
Reflections
This leela is a masterclass in how the divine meets the modern, rational mind. Baba did not condemn the man’s skepticism; he answered it. The rolled apple became the bridge between doubt and faith. Baba demonstrated that God is not found through argument, but through the direct experience of grace. The American’s prayer at the lake — a genuine cry from the depths of his being — was enough to draw the saint’s response. The story remains a powerful reminder that no heart is too far, no mind too closed, for the transformative touch of the guru.