In the blackness of the very early morning of April 3rd, (1950) at 3 A.M., Baba left Motichur for Hardwar on foot, accompanied by Eruch, Pendu, Baidul and Gustadji. Near the area of Nildhara, he contacted recluses, renunciants and sadhus for eleven continuous hours. The total number that day was an overwhelming figure – two thousand nine hundred and sixty-five! Baba knew that by six o’clock, as dawn breaks, that the saints, sadhus and mahatmas after their morning bath in the Ganges River would proceed to their respective hidden abodes. Therefore, Baba took advantage of this opportunity and contacted them early, before they would escape.
At Kankhal that day, thousands of these souls were sitting in circles on the other side of the river. They were the great ascetics and hermits of the most severe or austere type, and it was these that Baba desired to contact; and he did, exerting himself to a near-breaking point. Bowing down, Baba took darshan of one ascetic or hermit after another. He did not miss even one man and penetrated every camp and tent on both sides of the river, until the number nearly reached three thousand.
Baba led the men, walking about twenty miles for these contacts on both sides of the Ganges. By the time he had finished these eleven hours of strenuous labor, he was so fatigued that at one point near the end he could not even stand. Regaining his strength, he decided to ride a bus or truck back, but finding no conveyance available, he and the companions had to trudge wearily back to Motichur. On the way, he lamented, “My whole body is aching terribly …”
Lord Meher, Original Publications, Bhau Kalchuri, Vol. 10. pp. 3579 -3580.