Did Maharajji take Mahasamadhi in 1973 or not?

 A few weeks after Maharaji’s mahasamadhi, a stranger came to the Hanuman temple in Lucknow.  He questioned the priest about the beads he wore around his neck, and the priest replied they were tulsi beads that Maharajji had given to him. The stranger said that he knew Maharajji and thought that he was a great soul.  He asked to be shown around the ashram, and upon entering the bedroom kept ready for Maharajji, the man pointed to an urn sitting on the bed and inquired about it.  The priest realized that the man didn’t know about Mahrajji’s mahasamadhi.  He told him that the urn contained ashes from Mahraji’s cremation.  The man was shocked and he said that this was impossible, since he had just seen Maharajji a few days earlier in Amarkantak.  He said that Maharajji had worn only a burlap sack around his waist and no other clothing.  Maharajji had told him that he had left his blanket in Kainchi and that from then on he wouldn’t wear expensive dhotis.  He had said that ashrams were prisons and that they caused attachment to creep back into the minds of sadhus, who were supposed to have cleansed the mind of attachment.  Maharajji had said that he had run away from the ashrams and that he’d never return.  From now on he would live in the jungle and have time to sing and pray without disturbance. The priest was taken aback by the man’s revelations.  A moment later he turned to question the stranger and he discovered that the man had disappeared. From “Miracle of Love,” p. 392, Ram Dass