I like the way he lives. He has many names — Haridas Tyagi, Sitaram Maharaj, and some more. I call him Baba ji.

A vairagi — someone who has renounced bodily pleasures — and this helps keep his mind free of the pulls and pressures so quintessential to desire. I was curious; he was forthright. "I have never had sex with anyone," he says, casually.

Yet he's curious about life, about people — how they go about doing things. An ardent witness, but never a player. He has no need to prove himself to anyone, not even to himself. He speaks his mind, nothing to hide. I tell him my share of weird stories; he's unimpressed. I get it — he doesn't judge, and is therefore not open to being judged, since he can't be bothered about what people think of him.

He has lived on top of a hill for two decades, in a mud hut in the compound of Kokila Mata temple in Hartola village, Nainital district of Uttarakhand. He left his family as a child, and the village has become his adopted family. He knows what's happening in their lives — even the sleazy stuff. They seek his divine intervention in their material affairs; he enjoys it, but these influences don't shape his life one bit. He's open yet noncommittal to life — and that, in itself, is a great commitment to his spiritual quest, which is not a destination but a way of living a certain process.

He's part of a fellowship of sadhus and travels often to see his peers, but we don't talk about it. He loves nature undiluted, spends his days meditating, tending to plants and animals. Cats and dogs are frequent visitors to his hut; he seems to hold conversations with them too. He cooks his own food — people contribute what they can. He's taken care of by the Almighty, he says: he gets what he needs, and more, so he likes hosting people, smoking up with them, even feeding them. In worldly terms, he's dependent on others — but on no one in particular. "I will stay here till I'm around," he says.

Faith has become a way of life for him. Things simply happen. If he decides to travel, he finds co-travellers — not just for pilgrimages, but for globe-trotting. He has no documents, yet he has been to a dozen countries across five continents. To him, a change of context means nothing; he remains himself. The real journey is within. And if you love life, life will love you back, he explains.

Baba ji has friends all over the world, speaks many languages, and is famed — defamed, by some moralistic locals — for organising a rainbow gathering, where hippies from across the world, particularly nirvana-seekers, congregated in the forest to celebrate their communion with God. A shared intention of peace, harmony, freedom, and respect bound them together, birds of the same flock. The villagers were scandalised, and it never happened again.

"I was initiated by the Gods," he says, and tells me a story. In a freak accident, he died — and was revived. When he came back, he was not the same; there was a break from his past. He renounced the material world and has a penchant for the life of a sage. Those who know him say his stories change with each telling. But then, what is constant in this world?

This is one good way of existing on this planet.