Whenever Shri Nathji would see a camel– and of camels there was no dearth in these areas then known as Madhya Bharat– he would amuse the children with anecdotes about camels and human nature.
Shri Nathji would admire the ability of camels to live without water for days and would tell the boys how it was called the “ship of the desert” by the English.
Shri Nathji would also say:
“Many people believe that a camel can be very revengeful and keep a grudge in his mind for years, waiting for the appropriate moment to take revenge.
“Oontth barson tak apne dil men ‘keena’-revenge rakhtaa hai!”
Shri Nathji would often use the example of a camel when cautioning the boys against revengeful people.
Shri Nathji would also say:
“Allow the camel to bring his head inside, and he will come in with his entire body! If you allow undesirable people to enter inside, they will take over the entire house!”
Shri Nathji would make the boys laugh when he said to them:
“For the large and unwieldy body of the camel, a slope of any kind is difficult. He can walk with comfort only on the plain desert.
“Kissee ne oontth se poochhaa ke charrhaayi achhi yaa utraayi? To oontth bolaa: ‘Har do laahnat!’
Somebody asked a camel which of the two he liked more–an ascent or a descent? And the camel replied: ‘Both are an abomination!’
“There are moments in life when you have only two choices and both are undesirable!”
Shri Nathji always gave wise counsel to the boys on worldly matters. Shri Nathji told the boys of the ego within people. He would say:
“Duniyaa men koyi aadmi apni galti ko sunne ke liye tayyaar naheen!
“No person in the world is prepared to have his mistakes pointed out to him.”
“Kissee ki galti nikaalo to vo dushman ban jaataa hai!
“Point out the mistake of any person and he will become your enemy.”
“Log barson saath raih jaate hain aur pataa naheen lagne dete ke unke dil men kyaa hai!
“People can live for years with you and never let you know what is in their hearts!”
“Kissee ko zyaadaa kaihne se baat bigarr jaati hai!
“If you admonish a person too often, the situation will go out of hand!”
It was the first time that Shri Nathji, Mateshwari, and the children were travelling with only a driver in the car. In earlier journeys some devotee had always been present in the car to serve as an attendant. And Shri Nathji had continued to speak to the devotee for the entire extent of the journey, voicing spiritual revelations of the highest order.
Now that no devotee was present, Shri Nathji had the time to occasionally tell a joke or two to the children or to keep them amused with stories.
Most of the time, however, Shri Nathji would fall asleep in his seat and wake up only when the car had reached the outskirts of some town. Shri Nathji would sit up in his seat and carefully observe how the driver would overtake cars or trucks on the road. He would try to discourage the driver from overtaking. At times he would even ask the driver to blow the horn to clear the road of camels, sheep, cows or stray dogs. If the driver appeared to be driving too fast Shri Nathji would always ask him to slow down. He would ask the driver to scrupulously keep the car to the left hand side of the road in accordance with the law. Whenever there were signboards that said, “Keep to the Left”, Shri Nathji would read them out loud to remind the driver.
Shri Nathji would often speak at length to the driver and then add: “It is a cardinal principle that one must not speak to the driver because it distracts him.”
However, because the driver was a Muslim, Shri Nathji’s flow of Urdu and Persian went out towards him almost continuously for the entire extent of the journey, and the man would be heard exclaiming: “Wah! Wah!” at every sentence that Shri Nathji said.
Shri Nathji had to restrain his divine flow so as to allow the driver to concentrate on his driving, even as the car jerked convulsively every time the driver applied the brakes to avoid hitting something on the road.
The dust from the road and the open lands would cause Shri Nathji and Mateshwari to place a handkerchief over their mouths.
Shri Nathji travelled in a pale orange turban, brown achkan, white chooridars and black shoes. He would occasionally put on his dark green German goggles, looking majestic and mysterious at the same time. But even the goggles could not hide the divine glow on his face which was a feature that revealed his godliness to humanity all the time, no matter how hard he tried to conceal it.
There was Shri Nathji’s Urdu verse ringing out again and again:
Vo Shaahe Husn bhee shaayad inhee raahon se guzaraa hai,
Thhaihar jaao main do sajde yahaan kar loon vahaan kar loon
The Emperor of Glory has passed along these very paths,
Wait awhile, let me prostrate a little here and a little there
Shri Nathji stayed at a hotel at Shivpuri because the local Dak Bungalow was full. This too had a divine plan. He met several persons at the hotel who were in need of his blessings and who received an inner enlightenment from him. Though Shri Nathji never met them again, yet his blessings were to remain with them forever.
Shri Nathji would often say that even one moment spent before God with a genuine craving would be made eternal by God.
There were two verses he frequently quoted in Persian on this theme:
For those who saw God in Shri Nathji there was the voice of the devotee:
Yak saayate hazooriye oo een chuneen guzasht
Man ijz boodam oo hamaa naazo garoor bood
One moment before the Lord passed in such a way,
That I was all humility, and He was all Glory
And for those who saw Shri Nathji only as a man of God, there was this encouragement:
Sohbate yak saayate baa aulia
Behtar az sad saalaye taayat be riyaa
One moment spent in the company of a man of God
Is better than a hundred years of meditation