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indignant and she said, “If you come to the city wall tomorrow, at noon, I will appear to you and prove that I am a true ghost.
The next day, I arose as usual and did my practices. I left the ashram in time to reach the city wall which was some distance away. But by the time I reached the wall, I had thought about many other things and seen so many new sights along the way, that I forgot about the ghost woman and why I was going there, in the first place.
In a field near the city's wall, many people were drawing their water from a well and I stopped and talked with an old man. There was nothing unusual about him except that I noticed his mouth was stained from beetlenut juice as were all the other people at the well. Then an old woman who wore dirty-looking cotton clothing and who had a humped back and long, stringy hair, caught my eye. She was walking away from me, carrying a small wooden bucket of water and she did not turn around to face me when I called out to her to stop. Also, even though the sun was bright, her body did not cast any shadow. Only an astral being or ghost does not have a shadow.
When I followed her up the road, she disappeared around a curve; and as I rounded the curve, only seconds later, the old woman had completely disappeared as only ghosts can. Upon my return to the ashram, as I passed the well again, I noticed that no one was at the well or on the road or anywhere in sight even though there had
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