From the Memoirs of
my Father, HH Shri Bhola Nathji (1902-1992) the Founder of the World Prayer Day
for Peace
The years 1939 to
1945 were some of the worst in the history of mankind. This was the time when
the Second World War was going on.
Shri Nathji was in
Dehra Dun at the foothills of the Himalayas. Since it happened to be a special
Army Location at the time, it was a common sight to see wounded, maimed
soldiers come into the town in trainloads.
It was a sight which
was too much for Shri Nathji's delicate and loving heart which embraced the
whole world. There was his invisible hand extended towards the people of the
world, especially those in sorrow and misery. He was shedding tears of his own
to dry the tears of the world.
Shri Nathji's
propensity for taking the sufferings of others upon his own body was well
known. This was out of his great Love for Humanity a love that could only have
been Divine Love, like a love of a father for his children.
These were the days
when Shri Nathji hurt his arm, a hurt that became so terrible and the pain so
unbearable that even the best doctors were at a loss on how to control the
rapidly spreading infection and fever. The doctors said that the poison of the
wound was rapidly spreading into the body and that unless his arm were
amputated there were no chances of his survival. Even then the chances of his
survival were small as a generalised infection had set in and all the organs in
the body were to fail - multiple organ failure Shri Nathji was in The King
George's Hospital in the city of Lucknow at the time. The FRCS doctor who
operated on his arm also made a grave error thus inflaming the existing wound.
The pain was more than any human being could have endured.
It was the pain of a
wounded humanity inflicting wounds on itself through hatred and war, and
wounding the delicate heart of Shri Nathji.
And then Shri Nathji
made his decision. He wished to leave the hospital and go to the North to the
small town of Mussoorie in the Himalayas, where there was not even a pittance
of medical aid available.
People pleaded with
him to stay on at the hospital rather than go into a virtual forest, but Shri
Nathji insisted and went to Mussoorie along with his wife, Mateshwari, and two
very young children.
In Mussoorie itself
he stayed in an isolated area close to the cemetery, known as Camel's Back
Road, as this was the only house available at the time. It was an area which
most people avoided.
As the days passed
the pain continued to flare up and there were septic fevers running into 104
degrees or more almost every day. No one had any hope that Shri Nathji would
survive.
But a strange thing
happened. His appearance took on a strange glory, a strange divine serenity and
a strange power. A powerful glow, a radiance of light came on his face and he
appeared to be in another world. All who came to him experienced God in him in
a very powerful manner. Even while the fevers persisted he continued to speak
to any visitors who came to him, and the visitors found their souls flooded
with peace and their eyes flooded with tears as if they had had a glimpse of
God.
There was a lady,
Shakuntala Mehra, a leader of the Arya Samaj Sect in the country, whose basic
belief was that God could never come down in human form and that those who were
experiencing God in Shri Nathji were deluding themselves.
She came to meet Shri
Nathji and to carry out a lengthy argument with him. When she found out he was
down with a fever she scoffed: "God! With a Fever!" The attendant at
the door would not allow her in, since Shri Nathji's fever was particularly
high that day. The attendant said he would allow her merely a glimpse of Shri
Nathji who was sitting up propped up in his bed. The attendant pulled the
curtain aside to let her look inside.
The moment she caught
a glimpse of Shri Nathji something happened to her. Her entire body thrilled
with an uncontrollable spiritual vibration, it appeared as if the doors of her
soul had suddenly opened.
She screamed out
loud: "Who says he is not God!" and then almost fell unconscious.
In the days that
followed she became so devoted to Shri Nathji that she would say: "He is
the only God I know, in human form or invisible, saakaar or niraakaar!"
She remained loyal to him for over 40 years thereafter and when she died it was
with the name of Shri Nathji on her lips.
As time passed by, as
the years rolled on and it was 1945, the Second World War came to an end.
At just about that
time the wound in Shri Nathji's arm healed completely. Shri Nathji had bled
with the people of the world, making their pain into his own, and suffered with
their sufferings, and when those sufferings were over, he healed himself without
any medication and without any operation - in one of the greatest miracles of
medical science. It was as if he had virtually left his body and then returned
back to the earth, alive and well.
I attach a photograph
of his taken in Musoorie in 1943 when the pain and the fever were at their
worst. The absolute miraculous serenity of his face, the peace and calm on his
features and the divine love in his eyes full of compassion for the people of
the world, and the divinity of his soul are all revealed in the portrait of
that time.
He is wearing his
orange turban, with a grey cape across the wounded arm and a red scarf around
his neck.
Many a person in pain
and suffering finds absolute peace and calm when he looks at this portrait
taken in such pain and suffering. It is a portrait which has become the solace
of many a life.
During those days
Shri Nathji had this verse placed outside his bedroom door:
"The Giving of
Thanks has absorbed me so,
That to complain of
sorrow and suffering I have no time!"
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