Khanna would make Shri Nathji play tennis with him so that Shri Nathji could exercise his body. Shri Nathji looked extremely handsome, bare-headed, his hair perfectly combed and parted at the right. He would be dressed in white tennis trousers and a white woollen sweater, and he would play tennis with the perfection of a champion in the game.
Later Khanna would massage Shri Nathji’s body with his own hands. This was a duty he had taken upon himself as a part of his service to his Lord and Master, Shri Nathji. On one occasion Khanna was absent from his house, and his servant massaged Shri Nathji. Shri Nathji immediately developed a fever. Khanna understood. The part allotted to him was a sacred part. His service to the Lord could not be given to anyone else, nor could anyone else have the same feelings for Shri Nathji as Khanna had. Shri Nathji’s body was too sacred to be touched by just anyone. Only special people could have that privilege.
God existed in various forms for many people. For some He remained Invisible, for some He existed in the form of images. How fortunate was the man who had found God in a living human form. Khanna had realised this from the depths of his soul and he knew how precious the body of the avatar was. It had to be preserved at all costs.
Shri Nathji used to say:
I could have come down upon earth with a body of iron which would have been insensitive to hunger, thirst, sickness or disease. But then the people of the world would not have been able to identify with me. They would have been too afraid to come to me. They would have said: ‘What kind of a man is he?–He is not even human!’ Therefore I have come before you in a form that you can identify with, assuming all the frailties of the human body. I allow sickness and disease to come upon me so that I can understand the sufferings of humanity and be able to remove their troubles.”
Shri Nathji revealed in later days:
When God was with Himself in His invisible form, He was in a state of Absolute Bliss. Being Almighty He was not subject to the frailties of the human flesh. Therefore, when people prayed to him asking Him to remove their sufferings, He could not understand what the word ‘suffering’ meant. And in order to understand the meaning of physical suffering, He came down upon earth in human form, so that He could remove the sorrows of mankind after experiencing them upon His own body.
This was a truth that only Shri Nathji could have explained, being God Himself.
Shri Nathji said:
The people of the world were so enmeshed in their worldly duties and so torn by worldly turmoil and strife that they had no time to walk towards God. The mahatmas -holy men- who walked towards God, made some progress on the path, but later became filled with pride as multitudes gathered around them and began worshipping them. Instead of transferring all worship to God, they allowed their own egos to be worshipped. And thus their pride made them fall and they were cut off from God. Worldly pride, even of the width of a hair, is enough to separate man from God Therefore, no one, in truth, could reach God.
And in that moment of spiritual elation, Shri Nathji added:
When God discovered that the people of the earth could not go up to Him, He decided to come down to them!