Once when Maharaja Sarila said to Shri Nathji: “Swamiji bahut chintaayen raihti hain! I am surrounded by worries all the time!”
Shri Nathji said:
“Maharaja Sahib, tell me, when you came into this world as a little child why didn’t you worry then?”
“I was much too small to worry then, I had no intelligence of my own!” said the Maharaja.
“Maharaja Sahib! He, who sent you into the world, gave you parents to look after you. If he looked after you then, when you were too small to look after yourself, why will he not look after you now! He who was kind then cannot become unkind now. He is still the same – it is only your intelligence which is troubling you!
“Bhejne vaalaa to ab bhee vohi hai. Ye aapki akal hai jo aapko tang kar rahi hai!”
When Maharaja Sarila spoke of the fear of death and where he would go afterwards, Shri Nathji said: “He who sent you into the world took care of you at the time; when he takes you away from the world he will also take care for you!”
Maharaja Sarila’s eldest son was the Maharaja of Charkhari. He, too, had great faith in Shri Nathji and would say to him: “The peace and bliss we derive in your presence and by listening to your words is indescribable. We are so fortunate in having you next door to us at Mussoorie.”
When a child was about to be born to his wife, he came to Mussoorie and decided to have the childbirth there, where he could be close to Shri Nathji.
Even the smallest child in the Sarila family, who was affectionately called Nanne Maharaj, had deep faith in Shri Nathji. Shri Nathji would frequently let him borrow the kiddie cars as well as other toys of Pran Nath and Priya Nath.
In later years when he recollected his association with Shri Nathji he said:
“Vo! Vo to Bhagwan thhe! Oh, Him! He was God! I can never forget his glowing face and beaming smile, and how he would embrace anyone he met with great love. He would always stop and bless us on the slope leading to his house, which passed by the Gate of Sarila Lodge.”
Once a Shankaracharya of great fame came to Mussoorie. Many people went for his darshan. When one of the daughters of Maharaja Sarila returned after seeing him she said to her family:
“Oh, he was all right – but he was not like our Swamiji! Hamaare Swamiji jaise naheen thhe!”
She had voiced a universal truth. Indeed anyone who had ever met Shri Nathji, howsoever briefly, could not but feel that there was no one else like him in the whole world. Shri Nathji was love and bliss personified, and his divine radiance and divine beauty were unmatched in the world.
Maharaja Sarila was the only devotee of Shri Nathji who had the proud privilege of sitting before him and narrating his life’s stories for hours on end, while an interested Shri Nathji listened, making small interjections or nodding his head. Shri Nathji, who had long been accustomed to speaking for hours to visitors, found this relaxing, and he even enjoyed the interesting tales of royal intrigues and the British Raj that the Maharaja narrated.
Since Maharaja Sarila could not do without smoking, Shri Nathji took extra care to purchase an ashtray for his cigarettes, and to have it placed before him every time he came. Though many of Shri Nathji devotees protested at this latitude he allowed the Maharaja, Shri Nathji was too polite to tell the Maharaja to not to smoke. At the end of these sessions, Maharaja Sarila would say to Shri Nathji: “I come here to make my worldly confessions!”
Maharaja Sarila was the only person in the world who could claim to have smoked before God! Shri Nathji’s relationship with the various people who came to him was aptly described by him in the verse of Lord Krishna in the Geeta:
Ye yathaa maam prapyadante tanstathaaiv brijaamiham
Maam vartmaanuvartante manushya paartha sarvshah
No matter what path a man may choose to come to me
I go to meet him along that very path
Shri Nathji could adjust himself to the moods and habits of all the people in the world. He had even adjusted himself to the Rai Bahadur who had come before him after drinking wine.
Shri Nathji had said: “What matters is not that which goes into you, but that which comes out of you.” Shri Nathji ignored personal habits and rites and rituals. His house was all at once a temple of God, a sanctuary and refuge for those stricken by the sorrows of the world, as well as a place for worldly confabulations.
Swamiji, Maharaja Sarila would say to him during later years, our States have ceased to exist. We are no longer known as ‘His Highness’ – we are simply ‘mister so and so’! When one falls from a great height, the hurt is great. I try to console my heart, but consolation comes hard. There is only one way I can gain peace of mind – I come to you and, instantly I am at Peace!
“Main kasam khaakar kaihtaa hoon ke aate hee shaanti mil jaati hai! I swear, that I get peace the moment I come before you!”
Qaddar, the faithful Muslim attendant of Maharaja Sarila, had equal faith in Shri Nathji:
When I think of you, Qaddar used to say to Shri Nathji, unexplainable tears come to my eyes! It is only you in whom the poor can find refuge! Your love is so great that it drenches both the rich and the poor in it!
Maharaja Sarila met Shri Nathji in London in 1964 and was ever proud of the fact that it was only he amongst the various devotees of Shri Nathji who had this proud privilege.
Perhaps, it was no coincidence that, later in life, both, Shri Nathji and Maharaja Sarila, neighbours on earth, were to lose their life partners, Mateshwari and Maharani Sarila, at about the same time.
When Maharaja Sarila was down with a heart attack sometime in 1975, he prayed to Shri Nathji: I am getting old and infirm, but I have a desire to tour Europe once again! Please bless me so that my wish can be fulfilled!
Maharaja Sarila recovered completely from the heart attack, and two years later was seen touring the continent of Europe!
Maharaja Sarila had great respect for Mateshwari and also feared her. He always spoke respectfully to her and called her “Mataji”– Divine Mother.
There was a time when his men were throwing litter into a patch of land adjoining Shri Nathji’s boundary. Mateshwari went and stopped them. The men said: “We have orders from the Maharani Sahiba to throw this here!” Mateshwari shot back in anger: “I don’t accept the Maharani’s orders! Lift this litter from here at once! Main koyi Maharani Sahiba ko naheen Jaanti! Uthhao issko!”
The men went and told the Maharani that Mateshwari was angry, and the Maharani became so apprehensive she had the litter removed at once.
Maharaja Sarila once said before Shri Nathji and Mateshwari: “Mataji, I have a great fear of death! Mataji maut se barraa dar aataa hai!”
Mateshwari laughed and said: “Maharaja Sahib, haven’t you heard the expression: ‘Cowards die many time before their deaths?’”