No history of Shri Nathji would be complete without a mention of the Kasera brothers. The eldest amongst them was Devki Nandan, who had met Shri Nathji in Lucknow first, and immediately accepted his image into his heart as the image of God-Bhagwan. He was a poor clerk in a bank. He welcomed Shri Nathji to his home, spreading cloth on the ground all the way to the door. His faith in Shri Nathji had reached such great heights that he would often say:
Janam janam rati Nath pad
Ye vardaan na aan
May I remain at the feet of Nath for ages,
I ask only this boon and nothing else
This was a variation from the original verse in which there was Rama instead of Nath. For Devki Nandan it was Nath.
After meeting Shri Nathji, he knew he had reached the final goal of life. He stopped going to Mandirs or pilgrimages. His mother, Mayyo, once said to him: Beta, take me on a pilgrimage to Badrinath!
Mother, he replied, I have brought you to the doors of Shri Nathji. There can be no greater pilgrimage than this!
Devki Nandan had three brothers, Ganni Lal, Shyam Lal and Gopal. Each of them developed a faith in Shri Nathji, which was to equal his. Devki Nandan’s wife, Indermani, had a devotion that surpassed even her husband’s devotion in Shri Nathji and always thought of him as God. She Prayed to him in every difficulty of life and always received divine help, which strengthened her faith beyond all bounds.
Devki Nandan was a man of frail constitution, and suffered from tuberculosis. It was a miracle that whenever he was with Shri Nathji he was astonishingly well, and whenever he was away from him, he remained sickly and weak, and could barely walk. Ultimately he gave up his job at the bank and began to live with Shri Nathji.
It was only the great love and grace of Shri Nathji that he allowed a patient of tuberculosis to live with him despite the fact that the disease was dangerously contagious during those days and there was no means to control it, and Shri Nathji could easily have contracted it from the diseased person.
In later days, from 1937 onwards, when Shri Nathji came to live at his house at Dehra Dun, Devki Nandan and his brothers and their families all came to live with Shri Nathji in his large house there at 25, Inder Road.
It was a vast establishment for Shri Nathji to maintain at his house at Dehra Dun.
This caused Shri Babaji Maharaj to remark:
Beta, your personal expense is almost nothing. It is the large group of people that lives with you that consumes everything! Shri Nathji even went so far as to educate Devki Nandan’s son, Nand Kishore, at his own expense.
The Kasera brothers continued to live with Shri Nathji even after his marriage in 1939.When Shri Nathji’s spouse, Mateshwari, began working in the kitchen at Dehra Doon, Devki Nandan appealed to Shri Nathji:
Please do not take away our work from us. This is our earning. Ye hamaari rozi hai!”
He knew this was the only real earning of life–the service that he could do for his Lord and Master, Shri Nathji.
Devki Nandan’s wife, Indermani, remained as a constant companion of Mateshwari during those early days of 1939 in Dehra Dun. She had a faith as great, if not greater, than the faith of her husband in Shri Nathji and Mateshwari.