There was a middle-aged lady, Shakuntala, by name, the daughter of Dewan Bahadur Amar Nath Nanda of Lahore. She was a devoted Arya Samaji. Her bhajans at their congregations would regale the listeners.
She had heard of Shri Nathji through Mr. and Mrs. Khera. She was in Mussoorie and she came to see Shri Nathji, who was in Dilaram Estate in Mussoorie at the time.
Shri Nathji lay in bed, his arm in a sling. Shakuntala Mehra had many doubts in her mind. As an Arya-Samaji her mind was not conditioned to thinking in terms of avatars. She had come out of curiosity. She had brought with herself a quilt cover and a silver glass, and she had said to herself: “I will present these gifts to him only if he is genuine.”
There was Shri Nathji’s loyal attendant, Sahadeva Tayal, at the door who would not allow her inside because Shri Nathji was running a fever and was in bed. However, with Shri Nathji’s permission, he offered to let her have a glimpse of Shri Nathji from the door itself.
She looked inside the room and saw the radiant figure of Shri Nathji. And the next instant something happened to her. The innermost being of her soul was flooded with light, there was an inner recognition, and she cried out loudly:
“Kaun kaihtaa hai ye Bhagwan naheen hain?
“Who says that He is not God?”
The quilt cover and the glass fell from her hands, as her soul was flooded with the Light of God that came from Shri Nathji.
Her entire life was changed in that one single glimpse of Shri Nathji. Hers had been a pure seeking soul since ages, and the moment it came before God it was granted recognition. All her doubts vanished. Shri Nathji had appeared in his real form as God in the innermost depths of her heart and soul. The world of materialism had no explanation for such a transformation.
Shri Nathji would often quote the verse below:
“Vo jo hosh o akal havaas thhe teri yoon nigaah ne urraa diye
Ke sharaabe sad kade aarzoo khume dil men thhee jo dharee rahi
The senses, mind and reason were put to flight by thy glance in a moment;
The wine of a hundred desires was left untasted in the flask of the heart”
Shri Nathji’s also explained the situation in another verse:
Dil ke jaane kee khabar aakil ki kyaa jaane balaa
Kis tarah jaataa hai dil be dil se poochhaa chaahiye
How the heart is lost cannot be fathomed by the wise,
Ask those who have lost their hearts and they will know!
She became a staunch devotee of Shri Nathji and began worshipping him as God.
He is my God, she said, visible and invisible, both!”
When she returned to Lahore, her guru was startled at this transformation in her. She stopped singing in his congregations because she was lost in a world of her own where there was only Shri Nathji and nothing else.
One day her Guru came to her house and asked her angrily what had happened to her. But the glow of an inner spiritual light on her face filled her Guru with awe. He said to her with astonishment:
“Betaa ye rangat kahaan se lee? From where did you acquire such a spiritual glow?”
Shakuntala told him about Shri Nathji, and her guru said to her: “I hope I shall have the good fortune to have his darshan one day.”
Shakuntala Mehra worshipped Shri Nathji as God Incarnate for over forty years, right up to the last moments of her life. Never, for an instant, did her faith falter or become dim, nor was she ever shaken from her resolve even through the worst storms of life. For her, Shri Nathji was the only Reality.
A great proof of Shri Nathji’s divinity was the length of time every devotee held this belief. Those who came to Shri Nathji would become his, forever. For years and years they would remain attached to him, their faith in Him becoming stronger with each passing year. And, in the end, they would leave the world with the name of Shri Nathji on their lips. Not even death could shake their belief that Shri Nathji was God. But Death was like a passing phase, a brief test, beyond which lay Shri Nathji in the form of the Eternal Friend.
Those who had genuine faith in Shri Nathji remained fearless in the storms of life. Peace and prosperity followed them, and Death was union with his Eternal Form.
Mateshwari, Shri Bhutt, R. R. Khanna, the Kasera Brothers, Shakuntala Mehra, and, indeed, hundreds of others whose names would be difficult to put together, remained loyal to Shri Nathji for periods ranging from twenty years to forty years or more, right up to the last moments of their lives. It was the divinity of Shri Nathji that inspired such constancy of faith.