March 20
I am sharing this post which I wrote on my page HH Shri Nathji, my father.
Memoirs of HH Shri Bhola Nathji (1902-1992) The Founder of the World Prayer Day for Peace.
The personality of HH Shri Nathji was Divine in more ways than one. Not only did he possess a startling beauty that could only have been described as divine, as perhaps the handsomest man in the history of the world, but there was a divine light that shone from his Face all the time, which became very intense whenever any genuine seeker after Truth came before him. His overpowering Love overwhelmed all who came to him so that tears came to their eyes, which were tears of love as if they had met their nearest and dearest loved one.
But the most astonishing thing was that HH Shri Nathji did not have to convince people of the existence of God through words and sermons. People who truly sought God found God in HH Shri Nathji in an instant.
It was one of his greatest miracles that avowed atheists and agnostics found the God they had been denying all their lives in him. But they could understand only that much about him as he chose to reveal to them.
Khushwant Singh was an intellectual par excellence, the author of over 80 books and winner of many an international award for his writings. He understood religion better than most believers and had studied them all. Yet, his studies had led his philosophical mind to conclude that there was no God and he had turned into a self-proclaimed agnostic.
But HH Shri Bhola Nathji would always say about him:
"He is a man with a very pure and righteous heart! I would love to meet him!"
A follower of HH Shri Nathji, Vijay Kapahi, met Khushwant Singh and asked him to meet HH Shri Nathji.
Khushwant Singh said to Kapahi: "I will be wasting his time as well as my own. I do not believe in God or holy men. I have visited many but they have nothing to offer me which I already do not know!"
Kapahi somehow persuaded Khushwant Singh to meet HH Shri Nathji. It was a fateful day in June 1988 when Khushwant Singh came to meet HH Shri Nathji at his modest sized bungalow in New Delhi.
HH Shri Nathjii was reclining on pillows in bed, engrossed in writing
Urdu Poetry.
HH Shri Nathji's son, Priya Nath Mehta a Harvard educated nuclear physicist, escorted Khushwant Singh into HH Shri Nathji's room.
He pulled the curtain of the door to one side and announced the arrival of Khushwant Singh to HH Shri Nathji.
HH Shri Nathji looked up from his poetry book at Khushwant Singh
and said in a powerful voice in Persian Verse
"Be-hijaabaaanaa daraa az dare kaashaanaye maa
Ke kase nest vajuz darde to dar khaanaye maa"
"Enter thou within these doors without hesitation,
For here there is only a pain in my heart for you!"
Suddenly something happened to Khushwant Singh. He rushed forward towards HH Shri Nathji and fell at his feet, weeping!!! He broke down.
He felt as if this was his tryst with destiny.
On the 2nd of July 1988 there was an article by Khushwant Singh in one of the leading newspapers of the country, "The Hindustan Times"
which had a picture of HH Shri Bhola Nathji at the top, with the words
"GOD INCARNATE" written on top.
Today I remember the Love of HH Shri Bhola Nathji for Khushwant Singh and also the love of Khushwant Singh for him.
In later years when I mailed a picture of HH Shri Bhola Nathji to him, he wrote to me and said:
"Whenever I feel sad or depressed, I turn to this picture for solace!"
News has come over all the major television and newspapers that today on the 20th of March 2014, Khushwant Singh passed away very peacefully at the age of 99 in his home.
He had once asked me "What comes after death?"
And I had written to him: 'You will meet HH Shri Bhola Nathji there who will embrace you in his arms with love, as he had done when you came to his home upon earth!"
Of a certainty Khushwant Singh is in heaven. It is a great loss to the country and indeed to the whole world that such a great intellectual and writer and thinker and righteous man has left the world.
HH Shri Bhola Nathjii had already left his physical frame on the 6th of September 1992.
I am sharing this post which I wrote on my page HH Shri Nathji, my father.
Memoirs of HH Shri Bhola Nathji (1902-1992) The Founder of the World Prayer Day for Peace.
The personality of HH Shri Nathji was Divine in more ways than one. Not only did he possess a startling beauty that could only have been described as divine, as perhaps the handsomest man in the history of the world, but there was a divine light that shone from his Face all the time, which became very intense whenever any genuine seeker after Truth came before him. His overpowering Love overwhelmed all who came to him so that tears came to their eyes, which were tears of love as if they had met their nearest and dearest loved one.
But the most astonishing thing was that HH Shri Nathji did not have to convince people of the existence of God through words and sermons. People who truly sought God found God in HH Shri Nathji in an instant.
It was one of his greatest miracles that avowed atheists and agnostics found the God they had been denying all their lives in him. But they could understand only that much about him as he chose to reveal to them.
Khushwant Singh was an intellectual par excellence, the author of over 80 books and winner of many an international award for his writings. He understood religion better than most believers and had studied them all. Yet, his studies had led his philosophical mind to conclude that there was no God and he had turned into a self-proclaimed agnostic.
But HH Shri Bhola Nathji would always say about him:
"He is a man with a very pure and righteous heart! I would love to meet him!"
A follower of HH Shri Nathji, Vijay Kapahi, met Khushwant Singh and asked him to meet HH Shri Nathji.
Khushwant Singh said to Kapahi: "I will be wasting his time as well as my own. I do not believe in God or holy men. I have visited many but they have nothing to offer me which I already do not know!"
Kapahi somehow persuaded Khushwant Singh to meet HH Shri Nathji. It was a fateful day in June 1988 when Khushwant Singh came to meet HH Shri Nathji at his modest sized bungalow in New Delhi.
HH Shri Nathjii was reclining on pillows in bed, engrossed in writing
Urdu Poetry.
HH Shri Nathji's son, Priya Nath Mehta a Harvard educated nuclear physicist, escorted Khushwant Singh into HH Shri Nathji's room.
He pulled the curtain of the door to one side and announced the arrival of Khushwant Singh to HH Shri Nathji.
HH Shri Nathji looked up from his poetry book at Khushwant Singh
and said in a powerful voice in Persian Verse
"Be-hijaabaaanaa daraa az dare kaashaanaye maa
Ke kase nest vajuz darde to dar khaanaye maa"
"Enter thou within these doors without hesitation,
For here there is only a pain in my heart for you!"
Suddenly something happened to Khushwant Singh. He rushed forward towards HH Shri Nathji and fell at his feet, weeping!!! He broke down.
He felt as if this was his tryst with destiny.
On the 2nd of July 1988 there was an article by Khushwant Singh in one of the leading newspapers of the country, "The Hindustan Times"
which had a picture of HH Shri Bhola Nathji at the top, with the words
"GOD INCARNATE" written on top.
Today I remember the Love of HH Shri Bhola Nathji for Khushwant Singh and also the love of Khushwant Singh for him.
In later years when I mailed a picture of HH Shri Bhola Nathji to him, he wrote to me and said:
"Whenever I feel sad or depressed, I turn to this picture for solace!"
News has come over all the major television and newspapers that today on the 20th of March 2014, Khushwant Singh passed away very peacefully at the age of 99 in his home.
He had once asked me "What comes after death?"
And I had written to him: 'You will meet HH Shri Bhola Nathji there who will embrace you in his arms with love, as he had done when you came to his home upon earth!"
Of a certainty Khushwant Singh is in heaven. It is a great loss to the country and indeed to the whole world that such a great intellectual and writer and thinker and righteous man has left the world.
HH Shri Bhola Nathjii had already left his physical frame on the 6th of September 1992.
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