When Shri Nathji was at Shadi Bhavan there was a health officer in Mussoorie by the name of Sardar Sunder Singh who had first met Shri Nathji at Lucknow and had heard Shri Nathji speak at a gurudwara there. Shri Nathji’s theme had been the verse from the Holy Granth of the Sikhs:
Ur dhaare jo antar Naam,
Sarv men pekhe Bhagwan
Nimak nimak Thaakur namaskaare,
Nanak, O aparse sagal vistaare
He who keeps within himself, His Name,
And sees in all, the Eternal God,
In every breath who prostrates before Him,
Nanak! Such an enlightened soul saves all!
Sardar Sunder Singh had been so impressed by Shri Nathji’s personality and his magic words that he became intensely devoted to him.
When he came to Mussoorie as the health officer of the city he continued to come for Shri Nathji’s darshan at Shadi Bhavan. Those were the days when he, as a health officer, would travel around Mussoorie on a horse.
Sardar Sunder Singh made it a daily ritual to pass by Shadi Bhavan around Camel’s Back Road and to come punctiliously to Shri Nathji.
He would bring with him freshly plucked flowers and offer them to Shri Nathji in the morning whenever he came.
Shri Nathji had become so accustomed to his visits that he would get up early in the morning and put on his best clothes and sit in waiting for Sunder Singh to arrive.
Shri Nathji always took care to wear the best of clothes when welcoming any visitor. He would always wrap his turban carefully and put on his woollen chooridars, his achkan and even his shoes.
This was in sharp contrast to many leaders and men of renown who took pleasure in meeting visitors with anything they were wearing at the time.
Shri Nathji wanted his visitors to know how much respect he had for them, and how well attired he would become for their sake. Shri Nathji had often said: I put on various guises and pleasing dresses, hoping perhaps that one of them may capture your heart!
One day there was a terrible thunderstorm. The skies shook with thunder and lightning. Outside, there was rain and soon, thereafter, hail. It was morning.
Shri Nathji got up early as usual and began dressing for the arrival of his devotee Sardar Sunder Singh. Mateshwari and Sardar Basant Singh tried to dissuade Shri Nathji from dressing so early since the weather was so inclement that not a soul stirred outside on Camel’s Back Road. In fact the weather was so threatening that the trees and bushes outside shook with a fury that all but uprooted them. Not even a bird was seen in the skies.
But Shri Nathji knew in his heart of hearts that Sardar Sunder Singh would come. And Shri Nathji was right. At nine-o-clock sharp in the morning there was a knock at his door. The door was opened and there was Sardar Sunder Singh standing in the doorway with his flowers in his hand.
My pranaams to you! said Sardar Sunder Singh from the door, but pardon me if I do not come inside since I am dripping with water. Kindly accept my nazaraana.
And saying this he offered the flowers to Shri Nathji who had come to the door. Sardar Sunder Singh was dressed in a heavy raincoat and gum-boots and was drenched with water. Shri Nathji went up to him and embraced him, saying:
Sardar Sunder Singhji! All the flowers in the world shall fade away – but these flowers which have received so much of water today, and which you have brought to me through the storm and lightning shall ever remain fresh in my heart!
And for years afterwards, Shri Nathji kept the flowers of Sardar Sunder Singh alive before the world in his sermons. Long after the event had occurred, and Sardar Sunder Singh had left the world, people thrilled to hear his valiant story and how he had braved the storm to come for Shri Nathji’s darshan bringing with him his offering of flowers.
It was thus that Shri Nathji had a unique and intensely personal relationship with all who came to him. His meetings with individuals, his relationships with them that spanned years, the great love and emotion that they inspired, were in fact immortal histories that Shri Nathji was leaving behind for the people of the world that would reveal his divinity to them long after he had left the earth.
Indeed each and every meeting, each and every event in Shri Nathji’s life was meant to serve as a living spiritual history for the world. Volumes were written in these brief meetings and encounters with the humanity around him. No action of Shri Nathji was ever without meaning. His entire life, each and every second that he lived and breathed, was for the sake of the world.