But there was a power more powerful than the powers of the stars. It was the power that had created the stars.
Shri Nathji had said many times:
“Bhaagya kee paribhaashaa jaante hain? Jo vo jis vakt chaahe vo aapkaa bhaagya hai!
“Do you know the definition of fate? Your fate is that, which God wills for you at any time!”
There was a portrait of Shri Nathji in his house at Mussoorie where he was shown writing with a pen in his hand. Two devotees were looking at the photo, and one of them said:
“I wonder what he is writing?”
“Our Destiny,” said the other.
“And what if he has written something that goes against us? We shall have to endure it all our lives!” said the first.
Shri Nathji who had been listening to the conversation from inside, came out at once, and said:
“If you do not like the fate I have written for you, I shall scratch it out and write it all over again!”
“Agar pasand naa aayaa to kaat kar dobaara likh denge!”
Indeed these words of Shri Nathji contained an infinite depth of meaning.
If an ordinary man, writing a letter or a prose is at full liberty to scratch out what he has written, and to write it afresh, then why cannot God, who is All-Powerful, have the liberty to scratch out what He has written and write the destiny of man all over again? He is Almighty and therefore no one can restrain his hand.
Shri Nathji offered hope to all of humanity which despaired of the predictions of fate. No fate is permanent. God can change it whenever He likes.
Shri Nathji said:
“Agar aapko jyotishi kaihtaa hai ke kal kaa din aap par bhaari hogaa, to fikar kyon karte hain? Abhi to kal aur aaj men raat baaki hai!
“If the astrologer tells you that tomorrow is going to be a bad day for you, then why worry? There is still the night left between tomorrow and today!”
The Persian poet, Omar Khayyam, had written:
The moving finger writes, and having writ, moves on
Nor all thy piety nor wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a line
Nor all thy tears wash out a word of it.
But the moving finger was the finger of God, who was not only All Powerful but also All Merciful. If he were sufficiently moved by the prayers and supplications of anyone He could alter what he had written and write it afresh.
This was the message of Shri Nathji. While Omar Khayyam, was a mere human who was speculating on the Divine Will, Shri Nathji was the One who had the pen in his hands.
Destiny was not its own master. It was in the hands of God. Or in the hands of Shri Nathji on earth, in the form of a pen with which he wrote and re-wrote, obliterating and re-constructing, bringing faded flowers to freshness and turning Autumn into Spring.
For reasons that remained unknown to all the leading astrologers of India, the disaster did not occur on the date predicted by the Ashta Graihi. All astrological predictions failed. The only doom was the one, which came upon the science of astrology. Many renowned astrologers of the day fell into disrepute. Perhaps it was better that their reputations be sullied than a disaster rock the lives of millions. God chose between the lesser of two evils.
Shri Nathji had swiftly and silently saved the country. And no one knew the secret except Mrs. Gangabai Bhutt. Today, after the passing away of four decades, the fact is being recorded for posterity in the pages of this book.
Even when Shri Nathji sat alone all by himself in his room, reclining on a divan, apparently lost in reverie, doing nothing, he was doing everything.
Mrs. Bhutt often compared Shri Nathji’s silent mode of living with the silent, recumbent posture of Lord Vishnu on the Shesh Naag–the serpent bedstead within the ocean of existence.
“It is an old habit of his,” she would say of Shri Nathji, “Unki to puraani aadat hai!”