The house at Kirti Nagar had become very deleterious for Shri Nathji’s health as well as that of Priya Nath. There was a factory next door, which sent noxious fumes inside the rooms at all times of the day and night. Priya Nath was frequently ill because of the suffocating atmosphere.
They complained to the neighbour who came to see Shri Nathji and was very touched by him. He could not very well shut down his factory, but he made amends by constructing a long chimney that took the smoke high up into the sky. But the problem did not cease, as the flakes of the smoke continued to fall into Shri Nathji’s rooms.
In addition, the house was full of thousands of cockroaches which came from a manhole that was constructed in the middle of the courtyard.
Priya Nath sensed that the situation at the Kirti Nagar house had become impossible and that it was imperative to seek a new dwelling place.
And thus Shri Nathji and Priya Nath searched for new rented accommodation in Delhi. They went to Patel Nagar, then Defence Colony and South Extension, but the houses there were not only in crowded localities they were also too expensive. It was Shri Nathji’s way of blessing the landlords who owned the houses, for otherwise they would never have obtained Shri Nathji’s darshan and blessings.
Priya Nath had wished for an independent bungalow befitting the dignity of Shri Nathji, but such a place was practically impossible to come by in New Delhi and was prohibitively expensive.
Someone told Shri Nathji and Priya Nath of a new colony coming up on the outskirts of South Delhi, which was called Sarvodya Enclave, where the rents were still cheap and where larger houses could be obtained. Shri Nathji and Priya Nath went there. Much of the colony was deserted and there were only a few houses that had already been constructed.
All at once they saw a beautiful yellow house that looked like a small castle and was an independent bungalow built on three hundred square yards, in which there was a driveway that could accommodate two cars.
There were only two bedrooms and a moderate sized hall, but the place was more than enough for Shri Nathji and Priya Nath. Best of all, it contained a small lawn in the front.
Much to Priya Nath’s delight the house was available for rent. They liked it so much that they immediately took it on rent. It was to be the residence of Shri Nathji upon earth for the next twenty-two years.
Indeed the place was blessed because Shri Nathji had not stayed at any other place for that long a period any time in his entire life. Perhaps there was something in that land, the sacrifice of martyrs or saints of ages past, which had brought God to bless it with his holy feet.
Even as Shri Nathji entered the place on the 6th of July 1970, the verse seemed to echo from the heavens above:
Mubaarik ho makeene laamakaan aayen hain duniyaan men
Zameen kaa charkh se paayaa dobaalaa hone vaalaa hai
Good tiding be to all, He, who was Infinite, has come into a Dwelling,
The status of the earth shall soar higher than the skies above
After a while, both the cars of Shri Nathji were brought to the house and kept in the driveway.
Shri Nathji’s bedroom was airy and there were two windows that opened into the small lawn in front of it. The other bedroom adjacent to it, which Priya Nath occupied for a few years, also had two windows opening towards the lawn.
There was a fairly large hall, which Shri Nathji at first converted into a drawing cum dining hall. Shri Nathji enthusiastically purchased a dining table and two chairs for the said room but later used the room only as a drawing room.
Shri Nathji always had a drawing room in his house, and never a satsang hall. He was living in the world like a man of the world, and not in an ashram like a mahatma.
The word satsang was superfluous, as everything that Shri Nathji said was sacred, no matter where he said it. No matter where Shri Nathji lived, that place would become a place of satsang. Shri Nathji often described the word “Satsang” as “Sat ka sang”- meaning: “Keeping the company of truth”.