Whenever Istafa Khan was in any difficulty in life, he would come to Shri Nathji and narrate the difficulty before him, but he would never ask Shri Nathji to remove it.
Once Shri Nathji asked him:
Nawab Sahib, you never ask me to remove your sorrows though you relate them to me! Perhaps you think I do not have the power to remove them? Or else you intend that they be heard only and not be removed?
Istafa Khan replied: “Hazrat, I am convinced you can remove all my troubles. But my part is merely to place them before you. It is your part to do whatever you think best. How can I ask you to do your part? I leave that to you!
This was a wonderful precept of Shri Nathji’s teachings: Place your troubles before God, Shri Nathji had frequently said, if he removes them well and good; if he does not, then it is only for your own betterment.
A child who has fever might ask for sweets, but his mother will only give him that which is best for him and deny him that which could harm him.
Sometimes the troubles God sends are like bitter quinine which breaks one’s fever. He knows what is for the betterment of man.
Shri Nathji would recite the following verse as the voice of a penitent devotee:
Kis tarah darde nihaan tere main roobroo kahoon,
Yaad aati hai mujhko jab ki hamaadaani teri
How can I relate my sorrows before Thee, face to face,
When I recall that Thou art all Knowing!
Shri Nathji was propounding the highest of spiritual stages. For a man who had absolute and complete faith in God, prayer would become unnecessary! His faith in God would be so great as to make him accept whatever came from God without a complaint. Of what use telling him who knew everything already?
To pray to God would be to impose one’s own wishes upon the Will of God. Far better, if man left everything to God and accepted with happiness whatever came as a measure of His Divine Will which was always for the betterment of man. Even the sorrows that came in life would be mitigated if man came to accept them as the Will of God. Shri Nathji was also fond of the following verse:
Naghmaa haaye gham ko bhee ai dil ganeemat jaaniye
Be sadaa ho jaayegaa ye saaze hasti ek din
O heart! Be grateful for the mournful song of sorrow,
It shall become silent one day, this instrument of existence.