In the 1930's when HH
Shri Nathji was a frequent guest at the house of R.R. Khanna the Registrar of
the Lucknow University, people of all faiths flocked to him.
Khanna held parties
in which he invited people of different faiths on different days. Amongst the
visitors were the intellectuals of the University itself. There was the
Education Minister a highly literate man with a Ph.D who was greatly enamoured
of Shri Nathji. There were the judges of the Lucknow High Court, Justice Raza
being one of them, along with Justice Nanavati.
On one such occasion
while Shri Nathji's sermon kept his audience in another world, where space and
time had ceased to exist, an old lady stooped with the years, entered into the
room. She had something wrapped in a white cloth bundle. Much to the surprise
of the visitors the old lady came right up to Shri Nathji and placed the little
bundle on top of a small table that lay before him.
The people of Lucknow
knew the old lady, she was a Rani a small queen of a State, and used to wear
spectacles because of which she was known as "chashme vaali mata" -
the mother with spectacles!
And then, without a
word, she went on to open the bundle, while people waited with some impatience.
Shri Nathji had stopped talking as was his usual humility and politeness.
Finally the bundle
was open and - it was filled with little toys for children.
The old lady said:
"Nathji! I brought these for you! Yesterday I was passing by a hall and I
got a glimpse of you standing and speaking on the stage - but you appeared to
me as a little child!! So I have brought these little toys for you to play
with!"
Many people there
thought the woman was mad. But she was a renowned lady of the town, a Rani, a
small queen of an estate bordering Lucknow.
Then she explained:
"Yesterday I was
the unhappiest woman in the world. My husband had died, All my five sons had
passed away. My daughter had died, so had her husband and their daughter. My
body was racked by illnesses, I had no life within me. The Ministers of my Estate
were exploiting my weakness. Each and every hair on my head was numbered with
an infinity of sorrows! I had no desire to live any longer.
"But that one
glimpse of you standing on the stage was enough to change my entire life. The
Divine Glory that you exuded entered my very being! All my sorrows simply
vanished! Today I can say without any hesitation that I am the happiest woman
in the world!"
Without replying to
what the old lady said, Shri Nathji picked up the little toy cars on the table
and began winding them and making them run, playing with the toys as if he were
a child!
The old lady's joy
knew no bounds. Tears rolled down her cheeks!
For her, Shri Nathji
was God Incarnate who had appeared before her as a divine child to rob her of
all her sorrows!
It was a gift no
human being on earth could have given her. She felt as if she had regained
everything and everyone in life which she had lost. All her loved ones seemed
to be restored to her in that love filled Being that sat before her, who was
the only God for her.
Time came when she
came to live with Shri Nathji in his home - as his mother. Everyone would call
her "Shri Nathji's mother". She would remain well whenever she was
with Nathji and fall ill whenever she went back to her own State.
Shri Nathji on his
part tried his best to enact the part of a child which she had relegated to
her. There were moments when he would even pretend to "quarrel" with
her over small things like his shirt butttons being lost! Later came a period
when this part of his play was over and Shri Nathjii's presence took her to
another plane.
She fell ill once and
said to Shri Nathji: " Do you know why I have fallen ill? It is because
you have ceased to quarrel with me!! Those loving quarrels used to put new life
into me!"
Once she prayed to
Shri Nathjii: "O Lord! For how long will thou remain hidden from the
people of the world! Reveal thyself so that the world may know God is on
earth!"
That very day crowds
appeared from nowhere and flooded the entire house. As a matter of fact for
three days the Old Lady could not even see Shri Nathji though living in the
same house!!
She said later:
" I will never ask thee to reveal thyself to the world again ! I was the
first person whose entry to thee became impossible!"
There came a time
when she had to leave to attend to affairs of her own State for a while. While
there she fell ill.
She kept a picture of
Shri Nathji with herself. She fanned this in the summer and put a quilt over it
in the cold season.
Shri Nathji received
word that the Old Lady was very ill. Thereupon he arranged for a car and took
the long ride outside Lucknow to here Estate.
Her home was a
Palace. She was the Rani of the State. There were large gates to the house into
which Shri Nathji's car drove.
As he entered the
Gates of the Rani's Palace, the Verse echoed in his mind, as if it were the Old
Lady whose voice were reciting the words:
"The need of the
world for thee is so great, it will not let thee come, I know!
But if thou willst
not come to my funeral then thou must come to my tomb!"
When he reached
inside th Palace, he met the servant of the Old Rani. She said to Shri Nathji:
"The Rani has
left the world. Just before she passed away she gave me this message:
'When Nathji comes,
tell him that I am leaving this world, knowing fully well that I have attained
salvation!"
She had Shri Nathji's
picture by the side of her pillow at the time she left the world. it was an
image that was inside her heart as well, and an image that went with her to the
next world.
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