While Shri Nathji was still at South Extension in Delhi, Priya Nath received a cable from Harvard University in which they had offered him a teaching job and wished to see him join soon. It was a cable that Priya Nath had dreaded.
The moment Shri Nathji came to know of the cable from America, he told Priya Nath to leave for America at once to pursue his career there.
It was as if Shri Nathji did not care what happened to his own body, he merely wished that Priya Nath make his career in America. Priya Nath would not hear of it. Shri Nathji tried every means of persuasion to make him go, even telling him that he would join him there later on. But Priya Nath was determined to not to leave Shri Nathji.
Priya Nath had seen the atmosphere in the western countries, and he knew that Shri Nathji did not feel at ease there. He seemed so much more at home and relaxed in India than he was in America or England. India was where his roots lay. Unlike the sadhus and mahatmas who settled down abroad for the sake of the dollars they received and the name and fame that they acquired there, Shri Nathji had no desires whatsoever.
However, Shri Nathji was willing to go back to the western countries if Priya Nath so desired. Priya Nath did not want to put Shri Nathji to the rigorous strain of travelling abroad again, and he decided that his future lay with Shri Nathji in India. He could not leave so precious a Being as Shri Nathji to the tender mercies of servants and devotees who had proved so unreliable in the past. The illness of Shri Nathji at South Extension had further strengthened Priya Nath’s resolve to stay on in India with Shri Nathji.
Without informing Shri Nathji, Priya Nath went to the International Post Office in New Delhi and sent a cable to Harvard, that decided his fate in America permanently:
“ Thanks for offer. Regret cannot come”.
Shri Nathji would, for years afterwards, relate this sacrifice of Priya Nath to his devotees and tell them how Priya Nath had sacrificed lakhs of rupees in America just to be with him in India.
Shri Nathji would also say mathematically:
“Jo ye le naheen rahe indirectly de hee to rahe hain! Whatever money he is refusing to take, he is indirectly giving away!”
There was a devotee who came to Priya Nath and asked him:
“Why did you sacrifice your job and career in America to come to live with Shri Nathji in India? Surely you could have taken Shri Nathji with yourself to America.”
And Priya Nath said: “Then how would you had had the darshan of Shri Nathji here in India!”
Yes, it was for the sake of his poor devotees in India that Shri Nathji had decided to stay on in India.
Priya Nath would also say:
“I did not make any sacrifice in leaving America to live with Shri Nathji. A sacrifice means leaving something big and coming to something small. In my case it was just the opposite. I left a very small thing, and came to something that was very big! It was not a sacrifice; it was in my own interest!’
Shri Nathji spent an entire year, 1968, at the South Extension house, meeting people day in and day out, relieving countless souls of their misery and bringing peace and happiness to all the souls that needed them. His work would go on uninterrupted even when he was asleep. There was never a moment when he was not awake.
He would say:
“Jab saari duniyaan so rahi hoti hai, uss vakt main jaag rahaa hotaa hoon! When the entire world is sleeping, I am awake.”