MY FATHER, your terrible suffering on the night of January 24th, 1969, is always before my eyes – the night you asked me to write your biography in verse. You took upon your delicate flower-like body the infinite burden of universal ignorance, so that the rays of Awareness would gradually shine on each kingdom of evolution. The weight of that heavy load was crushing every part of your body to pieces. Your slightest movement caused painful electrical shocks that I saw as spasms. I find it impossible to measure, or imagine, or try to calculate the degree of your suffering.

In this critical condition, by slowly moving your fingers you spoke to me, "I am giving you very important work. You must write my biography in verse."

As you were gesturing, I watched you bear the painful spasms caused by moving your fingers. Your body lifted from the bed in spasm after spasm and fell back down. My heart was breaking, so I pleaded, "Baba, why instruct me about the book now? Wait and tell me when you feel better."

But you kept gesturing, suffering constant spasms through the movement of your fingers. Haltingly, for almost thirty minutes you gave me instructions: "Write eight hundred pages . . . Write in a simple and attractive way . . . Make it very interesting . . . Use four types of poetic meters . . . Write a hundred pages about my manifestation . . . I will give you the meters and also reveal to you about my manifestation later. Do not worry, I will explain everything to you."

I could only watch. My heart refused to question your instructions, so your agony would not be prolonged. I only wished you to stop gesturing, so the spasms would cease. How could I know that after a week your body would snap its physical connection with this world, and that I would be forced to carry out your directives with tears of grief in my eyes?

I remember, you had once told me to bring a copy of the RAMAYANA and read to you a few pages of couplets. I remember you told me, "You will write better than Tulsidas."

But with your departure, everything in life now seems empty; though at times I feel the rays of your Presence, they are few and far between.