At a time when Shri Nathji was struggling against the financial odds as well as Mateshwari’s illness at Mussoorie, he received a letter from Shri Bhutt that was most caustic in its tone rather than sympathetic.
The gist of the Hindi letter was as follows. It was written to Shri Sahadeva who was with Shri Nathji at the time:
“My Dear Sahadevji,
My infinite prostrations may be conveyed to H.H. Shri Prabhuji.
I beg to place some of my thoughts before you which I think are important. The first is that I do not believe I shall get leave from my office to go with Prabhuji on a tour if he choses to come to these regions. Gangabai Bhutt is not well and is upset these days and so am I.
I am sorry that Prabhuji is beset upon by so many financial problems in Mussoorie, but I would like to suggest that a frugal life style can accommodate the means. I do not think it is appropriate that you write to other devotees for sewa to serve Prabhuji. It creates a wrong impression.
I would advise Prabhuji to stop narrating the episodes of his life associated with Rajas, Maharajas and people of high status, the more so, because one does not see such people in his darbaar these days.
I would also advise him to stop using Urdu and Persian in his lectures as it alienates the people and they cannot understand the language.
Please do not ask him to take my comments adversely, these are written in the right spirit of devotion. Please convey my humble pranaams to him.
Yours,
Ganesh Prasad Bhutt”
Shri Bhutt as a devotee who had attained everything in life from Shri Nathji and risen miraculously to the post of a High Court Judge, and who, himself, attributed his success and happiness in life to Shri Nathji’s Blessings, could never have written such an impertinent letter on his own.
It was the hidden ego within him, the ego that separates man from God, and makes man find faults with God, that was working in an unseen way to pull him down from his pedestal of devotion. In an indirect way the ego of man was an agent of the asuri bal–the powers of evil that lay hidden in the depths of the human heart.
The ego of man came from his age-old habits, his clinging to his world, his power and status, and his attachment to his own body.