The months that followed saw a spate of attacks by the powers of darkness upon Shri Nathji. There were mobs that came to the house, daily threats made to the devotees on the Mall and some were even assaulted. False cases were filed against Shri Nathji, Priya Nath and the home group of devotees. False cases accusing 70 and 80 year old persons of rioting in the streets–when they had not even stepped out of the house! A reign of terror was unleashed upon them.
Every effort was made by the powers of darkness to trap Shri Nathji in the biting cold of winter and to destroy him in the courts. However all their efforts failed one after another. Never even once did Shri Nathji have to attend court.
Shri Nathji said to the small home group:
“Priya Nathji is battling against these forces of evil surrounding us. He is very brave. If he ever uses his divine power he can shake the world! But in this drama it is you who must be given the credit for your services. Remember all of you must remain loyal to him till the end. Give him your good wishes for his victory.”
Priya Nath who lay awake in bed one night worrying about the false cases, suddenly received a divine inspiration, and he acted upon it. In the middle of the night he opened a Law Book and read the relevant sections.
Immediately thereafter he decided to approach the High Court. He set about typing petitions all night long. Shri Urhekar and his nephew, Dilip Sardeshmukh, left with the petitions in the darkness of the night and went to Allahabad, from where they were able to obtain Stay Orders from the Allahabad High Court against the false cases in Mussoorie. Shri Nathji’s adversaries were astonished. The false cases against Shri Nathji and Priya Nath were quashed. The adversaries on the other hand were served with summons and arrest warrants, and had to seek bail. It was one of the greatest victories of the forces of light over the forces of darkness.
A Senior Advocate at Allahabad said to Urhekar:
“The victory in the High Court is entirely due to the divine power of Shri Nathji. Shri Maharajji is a personality who does not belong to this world. He can wipe out all opposition in a moment if he so wishes. It is all a part of his drama, his leela that he endures so much!”
However there were moments of great hardship when Shri Nathji and Priya Nath lived in Savitri Nivas with the lights off for many days, lest their presence at Mussoorie be made known to their enemies, who would then make them their target.
There were the dreadful moments when Shri Nathji and Priya Nath and Urhekar would leave Savitri Nivas in the dark hours of the chilly winter mornings and go down from Savitri Nivas in a covered rickshaw, down the slope of Padmini Niwas, and to a waiting taxi on the Mussoorie Dehra Dun road, from where they would go to Dehra Dum. They would stay at the Kwality Motel and then meet their lawyers at Dehra Dun and return to Mussoorie only after two or three days.
Shri Nathji used these moments to bless the taxi drivers, the hotel waiters and the lawyers and their clerks who served him. A Muslim waiter would say to Shri Nathji: “Oopar Allah neeche aap! There is but God above, and you below!
Priya Nath could never forget the terrible time when once he and Shri Nathji had to stay in a small hotel in Dehra Dun, near the courts, in a cramped room, where Shri Nathji contracted a fever from the cold weather. The physical sufferings endured by Shri Nathji and Priya Nath were terrible in the biting cold of the winter, especially when they had to get out of the house in the dark hours of the early mornings. Seeing Shri Nathji leave Mussoorie and enter it the same way, in a covered rickshaw in the darkness, would bring to Priya Nath the manner in which Lord Krishna had been taken in a covered basket to escape from his foes.
There were moments when Priya Nath could not bear to see Shri Nathji being made the target of the powers of evil and would often embrace Shri Nathji and shed tears. He could not have imagined that Shri Nathji’s dear, gentle body would ever be subjected to the horrors of such days.
However, Shri Nathji was calm and unperturbed throughout this period and simply wrote more and more Urdu Verses for the edification of the home group and kept everyone in a cheerful and enlightened mood, with his divine revelations that continued unceasingly day and night. Shri Nathji remained worried only for the sake of Priya Nath.
This was one of the most unequal battles in history. On the one hand were rich and influential people, and on the other, the small bedraggled group of old men and children that comprised Shri Nathji’s “army” – and yet Shri Nathji won.
A ghazal Shri Nathji was very fond of, was one he had written during those days:
Vo har zakhme havaadas ko dil apne se judaa samjhe
Jo tere nakshe paa ki khaak ko apni dava samjhe
Jafaaon kaa unhen aihsaas kyon ho jo unke hain
Muhabbat kaa ravayiyaa hai jafaa ko bhee vafaa samjhe
Nazar ke hee badalne se sabhee kuch hai badal jaataa
Jisse duniyaan judaa samjhe usse aashik Khudaa samjhe
The heart shall never feel the wounds of sorrow
When it has for its cure the dust of Thy footprints
How can they feel suffering when they belong to Him,
It is in the nature of Love to look upon suffering as joy!
A change in the angle of vision changes everything,
He, whom the world denies, is looked upon by His lovers as God
After having inflicted a severe defeat on the forces of evil, Shri Nathji, Priya Nath and the loyal home group of devotees moved down to New Delhi. Shri Nathji bade farewell to Savitri Nivas.
He had been there from May 1980 to December 1980. It was the last time that he was to live in the house for so many months at a stretch.
As the taxi carrying Shri Nathji and Priya Nath went down the curving road from Mussoorie to Dehra Dun, Shri Nathji turned and looked at his abode, Savitri Nivas, which now seemed far away in the mountains. He would not be returning to Mussoorie now for some years. The Himalayas bid a farewell to the Highest of the High and the Holiest of the Holy. The rain that was falling was like the Himalayas weeping.
On the way from Dehra Dun to New Delhi, Shri Nathji halted briefly at Polaris Motel at Roorkee where he had tea and sandwiches. The waiters and the management recognised him and were enthralled at his presence in their eating place. Even as he left the place after eating, Shri Nathji gave rich tips to the waiters and patted them on their backs, not forgetting the doorman at the gate.
And then the next halt was the petrol pump at Meerut where Shri Nathji stopped briefly to use the washroom, as he had always done whenever he used that route. All these were hallowed spots in the eyes of Priya Nath and would remind him of Shri Nathji in the years to come.
Shri Nathji’s verse echoed in Priya Nath’s mind:
Vo Shaahe husn bhee shaayad inhee raahon se guzaraa hai,
Thhaihar jaao main do sajde yahaan kar loon vahaan kar loon
The Emperor of Glory has passed along these very paths,
Wait awhile, let me prostrate a little here, and a little there
Shri Nathji had become 78 years old on his last birthday on the 23rd of June 1980. It was now December 1980. He had been upon the planet earth for exactly 78 years and six months.
He had played his part to perfection in the theatre of the world as a human being. Each and every year, each and every day, each and every moment of his life had been complete in itself. There was nothing that was incomplete in his life, for he was completion itself. He was the perfection of every perfection.
He was enacting a play upon the planet earth, a play of which he was the producer and director. The play would last for as long as he wished it to last and end when he wished it to end.
The world, and, indeed, the Universe, was being moved by His Will, and all the events that took place in it were in accordance with His Will. On the physical plane his interaction was, of a necessity, with a limited number of persons, but on the spiritual plane he was reaching out to everyone, and was present in all corners of the Universe. It was his glory that was being reflected in the stars of the sky and the oceans and rivers of the earth.
He was The Supreme Actor on the stage of this world and he had to unfold more of his play for the benefit of mankind. His work was not yet finished.
He had said in Nagpur:
“I am revealing a play before you which I have already finished. When you go to see a drama, each and every part of the drama is new for you, but it is old for the director.
“In a like manner I have already done whatever I had to do; you will see it come before your eyes as time passes.”
All through his sojourn upon earth, Shri Nathji had given untold peace and happiness to countless souls, he had relieved people of their sorrows and sufferings and taken them to heights of divine bliss, which they had never before experienced upon earth.
Now that he was in his old age, he still had the greater tasks of his life ahead of him; the most important part of his drama, his leela upon earth, had yet to come.
In the years to come, his words were to find fulfilment:
“Badle hai koyi aan men ab range zamaanaa
Aataa hai aman jaataa hai ab jange zamaanaa
Someone shall change the face of the world in a trice,
The age of war is going and peace is on its way”
Pas az man shere man khaanando mi goyando dar yaaband
Jahaane raa digar gun kard yak marde khud aagaahe
After I am gone, they shall read my Verse and think of the being who came into their midst,
and who knew of himself, and who changed the world, and left….