There was a Bhandari family who lived a few houses away from Shri Nathji at Sarvodya Enclave. At first they had been apprehensive of visiting Shri Nathji because of the presence of Mrs. Bhutt there, whose eccentric mannerisms scared them. Priya Nath would always tell Mrs. Bhutt to dress in accordance with her status as the wife of a former Chief Justice, but she preferred to dress in old, dark coloured, khadi sarees, which were often worn out.
Mrs. Bhandari obtained a spark of faith when she saw her father-in-law, who was a retired police officer, visiting Shri Nathji, and being completely overwhelmed. The man obtained such great faith in Shri Nathji that he would be seen sitting for long hours in the lawn of Shri Nathji’s house just waiting for a glimpse of Shri Nathji every day.
He suffered from chronic sores on his body, and Shri Nathji took his ailment upon himself and developed a sore on his seat so that it became very painful for him to even sit upon a chair. Priya Nath soon stopped the man’s visits and he was heard to lament:
“Yahaan to daulate bepaayaan bat rahi thhee! A priceless wealth was being distributed by Shri Nathji!”
Mrs. Bhandari developed such intense faith in Shri Nathji that she would seek every excuse to have his darshan, which would give her strength to endure the travails of family life. Very often she would be seen bringing ‘saag’, which she had prepared with her own hands for Shri Nathji.
Her husband did not have the same degree of faith that she did, but he, too, had a great reverence for Shri Nathji. Shri Nathji had blessed him once when he had gone to his office to make a trunk call to Pran Nath from there.
Very soon Mrs. Bhandari began to experience the miracles of her faith in Shri Nathji. A needle had entered her foot and could only be extricated with great difficulty. The local anaesthetic was not effective. As the surgeon cut through her flesh, she shut her eyes in the unbearable intensity of pain and prayed to Shri Nathji. She immediately saw Shri Nathji standing in the operation theatre, smiling gently. Her pain disappeared all by itself, and the surgeon extracted the needle.
There was the time when doctors had diagnosed a tumour in her body and she was to have an operation at the Holy Family Hospital at Delhi.
The operation was to be a complicated one. Her husband, who at first had little faith in Shri Nathji, came to him late in the evening and said:
Meri ek iltajaa hai! I have a prayer! Please let the operation of my wife be a success!
At the Hospital, Mrs. Bhandari felt the presence of Shri Nathji inside the operation theatre, freeing her of all her fears and worries. The operation was a success, far beyond the doctor’s expectations.
The first thing she did on her discharge from the hospital was to come to Shri Nathji’s residence at Sarvodya Enclave along with her husband, to thank him for his grace.
One of Mr. Bhandari’s relatives was without child for over twenty years. She was brought to Shri Nathji, and he presented her a copy of the book, “Amar Jyoti”, the biography of Mateshwari.
“Read it from beginning to end,” he told her, “and the Divine Mother will come to your help.”
Exactly one year after this, the woman had her first child.
Mrs. Bhandari’s husband, who had risen from lowly beginnings to become a rich employee of his brother-in-law, had become intoxicated with his newly acquired wealth.
His attitude towards Shri Nathji had been flippant, if not irreverent, despite the fact that his wife had been saved from terrible tragedies through his divine grace. As the fates would have it, in later years his brother-in-law fired him from his job, and he found himself in dire financial straits.
Indeed, Shri Nathji would often say:
“Those who are irreverent invariably receive their punishment from Nature. I never wish ill on anyone, but the law of Nature does its work. Nature kaa Law kaam kar jaataa hai!”
Shri Nathji had often quoted Shri Babaji Maharaj’s words on irreverence, known as ‘be-adbi’ in Urdu:
“Be-adab paabad sazaa! The impertinent shall be punished!”
Shri Babaji Maharaj had laid great emphasis on proper respect before a spiritual personality, and had often said that God would forgive most sins but not the sin of deliberate impertinence, ‘be-adbi’.