There were also a certain Ray and Pearl Rosborough, husband and wife, who had become greatly attached to Shri Nathji. They were Methodists and never missed an opportunity of listening to Shri Nathji. They would frequently invite Shri Nathji to speak to guests at their house.
Ray Rosborough, who was a Canadian, would often say: When Mr. Nath speaks, time flies by like this–wham! and he would hit the palm of his hand with his fist.
We have become a part of your mission in life,” Mr. and Mrs. Rosborough would say to Shri Nathji.
They saw something very great, very sublime in Shri Nathji, although they could neither define it nor explain it.
Swami Nath is a very sincere person, Mr. Rosborough would say. The word Swami became an inescapable title in America for any Indian engaged in spiritual pursuits, even though Priya Nath tried very hard to avoid the appellation being attached to Shri Nathji.
During some of Shri Nathji’s sermons, Mr. and Mrs, Rosborough began passing a plate around, collecting contributions in dollars, as they did in Church. But Shri Nathji put an instant stop to this. He told them that if they did this he would not visit them again. It was against his dignity to accept even a single dollar from any American. He had gone there to give, freely, of himself.
Priya Nath had begun to earn as a teacher at the Harvard Summer School at that time, and his earnings were sufficient for Shri Nathji. Even though Shri Nathji was in great financial difficulties in London because his devotees in India could not send him their sewa, yet he never bothered to ask the Americans for anything. This developed an immense respect in their hearts for him.
Billy Graham charges thousands of dollars for his sermons, said Rosborough to Shri Nathji, and his sermons can hardly compare with yours. You can charge any amount you like!
In the western countries, even a half-hour speech was considered to be fairly long, and people would lose their patience with speakers who spoke longer, but here was Shri Nathji speaking for hours while the people were unaware of the passage of time.
Such a phenomenon had never been witnessed before. No speaker in the world could match Shri Nathji. As Father Malachy of London had written about him: “When he speaks of God, he lights up. He speaks for hours, and his audiences are never tired. Where God exists, he says, time does not exist. He has the power of breaking up atheists. He is emptied of self and possessed of God.”
Shri Nathji’s lectures or sermons carried an incomparable power and divine touch, which was not to be found anywhere else in the world, and which took people beyond space and time. However, Shri Nathji would not hear of charging a fee, and delivered all his sermons free as he had done all his life.
Shri Nathji’s mode of life was in sharp contrast to many Indian swamis and gurus who immediately began collecting dollars the moment they landed in America. As the yoga teacher would say to his audiences: God wants not only your worship–he also wants your money!
Priya Nath had noticed how an Indian swami of a well known mission abroad, would watch with half-closed eyes as the plate was passed around in the midst of his congregation.