The relationship of a devotee with God frequently took the shape of a lover and beloved in Shri Nathji’s sermons. He gave an illustration of Divine Beauty, using the story of Yusuf, the beautiful prophet, and Zulekha, the Queen who loved him.
Zulekha had lost her heart to Yusuf’s divine beauty. Her friends questioned her about Yusuf, for he frequently had a veil on his face.
How beautiful is he?” they asked Zulekha.
And she said: “Tomorrow he shall pass by this way, and he shall come unveiled. Bring a lemon with you and a knife. And try to cut the lemon with the knife as Yusuf passes before you.”
The next day, the Queen’s friends stood in a row, and Yusuf passed before them, his face partially unveiled. His beauty was so dazzling that not one lemon was touched by a knife!
And Zulekha said, “Just a partial unveiling had this effect upon you. Can you imagine what his beauty has done to me–I, who have seen his face in the full glory of his unveiled form?”
Such, indeed, is the state of mind of those devotees of God who have seen Him in all His Glory, and of those who have seen Him but partially revealed.
Who could purchase such a one as Yusuf? He was being sold in the market place as a slave. Rich and wealthy queens brought their riches and placed them on the weighing scale, on one pan of which sat Yusuf. But all the riches were not enough to lift Yusuf’s pan. Not even Zulekha, the richest of them all, could tilt the balance.