Why does the SRF deny that Babaji is still on the physical plane?

BKY: Today the existence and person of Kriya Babaji has become obscured by solemn pronouncements by the Self-Realization Fellowship and by others that Babaji no longer exists on the physical plane. This is like claiming "that Japan does not exist, because I have never seen it." Babaji's own promise in the "Autobiography of a Yogi," is that he would remain on the physical plane until the end of the age, thousands of years henceforward. Since the early 1950's it has been SRF policy to treat him as inaccessible in any way. In effect he has become a historical footnote, or at best, like a saint in the Catholic Church, rather than, the living fountainhead, the sole guru of the Kriya Yoga tradition.  more