Shri Nathji often used to say.
You are thirsty, you want water. What is the use my speaking to you about water without giving you what you want? I have brought water to satiate your thirst. And a principle is established: if it quenches your thirst, then surely the water I have brought, will quench the thirst of everyone in the whole world!
“One man’s experience is enough. The viraat roop of Lord Krishna was revealed only to one man -Arjuna- but today the whole world accepts the revelation given to him.
Shri Nathji would often say that there was the thirst – hidden or revealed – for God, within the depths of the human soul. The moment God came before the human soul, it recognised its goal! But the recognition only came to souls that were genuinely thirsty.
It was the grace of Shri Nathji that he granted such recognition. The thirst could only be satiated by God. And Shri Nathji was God.
That was why the realisation was almost instantaneous and spontaneous when a genuinely thirsty soul came before Shri Nathji.
No sadhu, saint, or mahatma was sufficient to quench the latent thirst in Khanna. His soul was thirsty for God, and therefore, only God could satiate it.
The moment Khanna came before Shri Nathji, the latent thirst surfaced and was quenched. His state was described by the verse:
Mujh men kahaan thaa shauk yeh sozogudaaz kaa
Ai soze shamaa toone hi parvaana kar diyaa
How couldst I develop a taste for burning-
O Flame! It was only thy fire that turned me into a moth
Khanna, who was fond of the verse of Sir Iqbal, the famous poet of the time, had this to say:
Iqbal tere ishq ne sab bal diye nikaal
Muddat se aarzoo thhee ke seedha kare koyi
Thy love has straightened out all the kinks in me–O Iqbal!
For long now I had sought this reprimand!
Beneath the stern exterior of the man had rested a craving for Truth. His was a soul that was pure, that wanted nothing but the Truth. Separated for long from its real essence, it had sought after its Beloved since ages. The shades of materialism could not prevent the inner light from reaching him. In a brief moment the veil of ego was pierced and Khanna’s soul was flooded with a recognition.
What appeared to the world as a conversion, was, in fact, this inner recognition – the individual soul recognising the Universal Soul. It was the same experience that Paul was said to have had in the Bible, or Valmiki and Tulsidas in the Hindu scriptures. Lost in the meshes of materialism, the soul had temporarily been veiled from Reality. It had, temporarily, forgotten its essence. But the effulgence of Glory that came from the Universal Soul rent the veil and bathed the individual soul with Love Divine. The ocean had brought the drop to itself; the flame had brought the moth to itself.