The fact that a mahatma collects crowds of thousands around him is in no way a measure of his greatness, for by this very act he ceases to have any personal interactions with the people around him. He sees before him a sea of humanity, but can identify with no one in particular; nor can the nameless thousands before him feel any direct personal relationship with him, and he must remain for them a figure on a podium and not a friend and guide.
Mahatmas who thrive on the strength of multitudes and boast of numbers are at best giving public performances for the sake of their own popularity and can hardly relate to the people around them.
Shri Nathji had often said:
If I so desire I can call the entire world here in a moment! But where will I keep it? Sometimes I must leave lakhs to go to meet one person, and sometimes I must leave one person to go to meet lakhs. Even one man is enough for me. I am broadcasting to the whole world from here!
Indeed Shri Nathji would be seen speaking for hours with one man in words so beautiful and so eloquent that he could have swept away audiences of thousands of people with the same words had he so chosen. It made no difference to Shri Nathji whether one man came to him or thousands. And it was more towards that one man that Shri Nathji’s life was focused.
When someone once pointed out to Shri Nathji that a certain mahatma of fame was collecting crowds of thousands around him and boasting of the multitudes around him, Shri Nathji said:
Tell the mahatma to remember death, which is surely to come one day, where these multitudes will not go with him, and where he shall be all alone, answerable to God. A mahatma must not seek his salvation in the multitudes that come to him, but rather in God alone. To desire name, fame and followers is to alienate oneself from God.
“By its very definition the word ‘mahatma’ means a great soul who is advancing towards God, and for whom the desires of the world have no meaning. If he begins to have desires then he is no better than the worldly people he preaches to. Even one desire can separate man from God. If a mahatma has a desire to make even one follower in the world, he has fallen in the eyes of God, for a real mahatma is one who has a desire only for God and for no one else!