Just then a terrible gnashing pain hit the right temple and eye of Shri Nathji’s face. It was like the cut of a thousand knives. Shri Nathji bore it with patience. The doctors identified it as the most painful condition known to Medical Science–Trigeminal Neuralgia.
Priya Nath was distraught. It was an incurable condition. Was Shri Nathji never to be free from the sufferings of the flesh? And yet, Shri Nathji endured it without a tremor, without so much as a murmur. The sins of the world had entered into his flesh.
Shri Nathji had only one painkiller with him–endurance without complaint! It turned out that Shri Nathji had taken upon himself the sins of his devotees.
There were two likely sources for the pain–one was an ailing old lady in Mussoorie who had such attacks in the past, and would surely have died from a fresh one, had Shri Nathji not taken her pain upon himself.
And the other was the devotee who suddenly fell ill in a moving train, and who was relieved of his suffering the moment he yelled: Nathji! Save Me!
Albeit, Shri Nathji bore the pain regardless of where it came from.
He would often quote the verse:
Dard hoon dekhne aao to davaa ban jaaoon
Aah hoon poochhne aao to rasaa ban jaaoon
I am a pain that becomes a medicine when Thou art before me,
I am a sigh, that reaches its destination, when Thou art before me!
It was only when Priya Nath became acutely distressed, and prayed and prayed to Shri Nathji that Shri Nathji threw off the ailment so that it never occurred again.