On the night of June 23, 1980, after the function was over and the devotees had gone to their sleeping quarters, Shri Nathji, for the first time in many years, stepped into the Cottage of Savitri Nivas in which the devotees were staying. Over one hundred persons were living together in the five rooms there.
As Shri Nathji entered the Cottage unannounced, the devotees there were awakened to a world of Bliss. They could not believe their eyes, nor could they contain their happiness. It was as if the Divine Host had stepped into the world to see how his guests were faring.
Loud cries of: “Param Pujya Shri Bhola Nathji Bhagwan ki Jai” filled the open courtyard of the Cottage where Shri Nathji was standing. Shri Nathji raised his hands in a gesture of blessings and appeared to be lost in a deep reverie with his eyes shut for a few seconds.
The devotees were beyond themselves in ecstasy. There was Shri Chaman Lal Magoo whose stentorian voice raised the cry of “Jai” every few seconds. There was Shri Navneet Lal Talwar, Chief Sanitary Inspector of Delhi. He had found a dholak – an old fashioned drum which had years ago belonged to Mahamateshwari, who had played upon it on festive occasions. Talwar’s hands began to beat out a rhythm on the dholak quite unconsciously, even though he did not know how to play the drum. It was an unprecedented rhythm.
And then, suddenly, before anyone knew what was happening, Shri Nathji had begun dancing!
It was like Lord Shankar dancing on Mount Kailash. It was a scene of such divine bliss that even the devis and devtaas came down to witness it in their invisible form.
The devotees of Shri Nathji could no longer control themselves and everyone was seized by a divine dance that kept their feet moving uncontrollably as they joined Shri Nathji in his dance. Even the 80-year-old retired chief engineer Shri Romesh Chandra found himself dancing, probably for the first time in his entire life, without any voluntary effort on his part.
A Divine Wave had possessed everyone present there. There was something in the dancing figure of Shri Nathji, which appeared to bring the rhythm of the heavens down to earth.
Shri Nathji’s dance was slow but ecstatic. Shri Nathji stood in one place and bent his knees in rhythm while keeping his hands upraised and moving his feet but little. In the end he turned around in a small circle.
He had a grave look upon his face and his eyes were closed, while his hands remained raised in a gesture of blessing the world. The dance was short-lived–it lasted hardly a minute. Shri Nathji stopped abruptly and stood silently for a while, his eyes closed in self-forgetfulness.
Chairs were brought into the open courtyard where Shri Nathji and Priya Nath sat, even as the devotees danced and sang around them.
Shri Nathji spoke but little. He had not come to utter any words that night, but rather with a divine mission which was to reveal itself later that night. His stepping into the Cottage so late in the night after so many years was a most unusual event, which the devotees could not fathom.
The ailing Atmaram Godbole, who had made scores of handwritten copies of “Zahoore Haqueeqat” in Hindi script, was there along with his wife. He was a chronic patient of asthma and had risked his life in coming to the cold and damp weather of the hills. Just one day before he had to be given an emergency injection. His wife Vasundhara Godbole sang the bhajan of the late Dr.Babtiwale:
Jeevo jug jug pyaare Prabhuji,
Pran Priya Mateshwari more
Jeevo jug jug pyaare
May you live for ages and ages, O Beloved Prabhuji,
May you live for ages,
Along with Pran Priya and Mateshwari mine
These were the affectionate words of the devotees of Maharashtra who wished their Lord and Master a long life.
Indeed Shri Nathji had often said:
“Mere Aasheervaad lekar jaao aur apni shubh kaamnaayen mujhe do taaki main iss vishwa ke kaarya ko pooraa kar sakoon!
“Take my blessings with you, and leave your good wishes behind so that I may be able to complete the world for which I have come into this world!”
There was also Godbole’s bhajan which was sung by his wife in the courtyard that night, even as Shri Nathji and Priya Nath listened in silence.
Duniyaan ke sitam se khaaye huye
Tere daraaz par aa baithhe
Jaayen kahaan ab Nath bataa
Tere daraaz par aa baithe
Eaten by the sorrows of the world,
We have come to sit at Thy door,
Tell us, O Nath, where else we can go,
We have come to sit at Thy door
And finally time came for Shri Nathji to depart from the midst of the devotees in the Cottage.
On this night of the 23rd of June there was a special reason for Shri Nathji’s visit. Even as the stars and the moon above watched in subdued silence, Shri Nathji walked back slowly down the stairs of the Cottage and into the main house, Savitri Nivas, led by Priya Nath by the arm.
After Shri Nathji had left, the devotees in the Cottage went into a blissful sleep. While they were asleep, a dreadful drama was in the making. The powers of evil, which had been watching the celebrations in silence, were about to unleash their powers in full force to take the toll of many lives.
A huge rock, the size of a boulder, suddenly dislodged itself from the tall mountain behind the Cottage, and came hurtling down towards the Cottage with terrific speed. The rock was as large as a full room of the Cottage and it began to fall in the direction of one of the rooms of the Cottage below, in which twenty persons were asleep. All of them would have been crushed to death.
But then, just as suddenly, an invisible hand appeared to reach out and to deflect the rock with great force at a right angle from its direction of fall. It was the Invisible Hand of Shri Nathji.
The rock fell into the kitchen of the Cottage with a thundering crash, shattering the roof and falling to the floor. The kitchen was empty at the time.
But for the devotees who were blissfully asleep, even the earth shattering force barely made itself felt. They woke up to find the massive rock inside the kitchen. As Shri Nathji’s miracle made itself manifest, not even the pots and pans or even a single cup plate or spoon, was broken or damaged.
The devotees realised then, what the reason was for Shri Nathji’s visit that night. It was to save his devotees from certain doom! The rock was as large as the size of the kitchen itself. In later days scores of workmen had to be engaged to break it into little pieces so that it could be removed from the Cottage.
In the morning, the devotees gathered together and came into Savitri Nivas. They fell at the feet of Shri Nathji and began to weep. Their tears were not only tears of gratitude but tears born from a re-affirmed realisation that Shri Nathji was none other than God Incarnate upon earth.
That day, when engineers were sent to the mountain to discover the cause of the disaster, and to map out the route that the rock took in falling downwards, they were astonished beyond measure.
The rock had fallen in a straight line from a great height with considerable speed. There were no impediments in its path. Yet, moments before it hit the roof of the room where 20 people were sleeping, it was deflected at right angles, to fall on the kitchen instead!
There was no scientific explanation of how the rock had been deflected so drastically from its path. Only a very powerful force acting at right angles to the direction of the falling rock could have sent the rock on the kitchen roof. As a physicist, Priya Nath knew that better than anyone else.
YES, THAT DEFLECTING FORCE WAS THE HAND OF SHRI NATHJI.
There was a time in Dehra Dun in 1938, when Shanker, the younger brother of Gangabai Bhutt, had come for Shri Nathji’s darshan. He had looked at the soft and delicate hands of Shri Nathji and wondered how hands such as these could have any power in them.
Just that day, Shri Nathji had placed his hands on Shanker’s back. Something happened to him and he ran out of the house in terror, returning only after three days. He later narrated:
“When Shri Nathji’s hands fell on my back it was as if the weight of the Himalayas had fallen upon me!”
Yes, Shri Nathji could keep his hands soft and delicate so that they would stay on the backs of people with love, and yet he had the power of God in them that could halt falling mountains and still the most violent of storms.
People in Akola had experienced how Shri Nathji had stopped the flood waters from breaking the Morna Dam in 1978.
The devotees of Shri Nathji, who had hitherto thought of him merely as a beautiful divine being with a Godly voice and divine blessings that brought them peace of mind, suddenly developed a new-found awe in him. They knew then that within that small human frame there existed the Power of the Universe.
Rehana Tyyab had said in 1935, when she was visiting Shri Nathji at Kahkashan at Mussoorie:
“As I looked at the slim form of Shri Nathji sitting at the table looking out at the mountains far away I wondered whether he could be God. Just then a voice rang out from within me:
‘Rehana! Too mujh par shak karti hai! Main akela naheen baithhaa, main saari duniyaan ko chalaa rahaa hoon! I am not sitting alone by myself! I am controlling the entire Universe!”
Shri Nathji had said:
“Main aap logon ke saamne laakhon parde daal kar baithhaa hoon. Agar ek bhee pardaa sarak gayaa to aap log apni hosh men naheen rahenge!
“I sit before you after placing lakhs of veils upon myself. If even one of the veils were to fall, you would lose all consciousness of yourselves!”
Shri Nathji veiled his divine power most of the time, but it revealed itself whenever the world was in need of it.