THE FACE OF GOD UPON EARTH
Gar husn naheen ishq paidaa naheen hotaa Bulbul gule tasveer par shaidaa naheen hotaa
If there were no beauty there would be no
love,
The nightingale loves not the painted picture
of a rose.
The Divine Beauty of God fills the Heart of the devotee with Love. It is a beauty never before seen in the world. It is a beauty that comes from another world. It is the beauty of that Divine Being whose Soul is the Universal Soul.
The Face of Shri Nathji is evidence enough of its divine beauty. The perfection reveals that it is no earthly form. It is a Face that reveals Purity, Love and Peace, never before seen in any other human frame.
The faces of earthly mortals are altogether of a different form, no matter which country they may belong to. The faces of earthly mortals reveal their personalities, which are developed after their actions and vocations in life and to some extent parentage.
The faces of worldly mortals are filled with their ego, their “I”. The faces of worldly
beings do not contain a Divine Light, their bearing does not reveal Divine Love, Infinite Mercy and Grace, their features do not contain that perfection of form, which belongs only to the Perfect.
The face of man is different from the Face of God. The face that contains within itself Infinite Beauty, Infinite Love and Infinite Peace, and Infinite Knowledge, must be a face that belongs to an incarnation–an Avatar of God upon Earth. Such is the Face of Shri Bhola Nathji.
Anokhee shaan hai saare zamaane se niraale
hain
Ye aashik kaunsi basti ke yaa Rabb raihne
vaale hain
A strange Glory surrounds Thee, different from the rest of the earth. O Lord, from whence cometh this Beloved Form of Thine?
The Divine Light that emanated from the face of Shri Bhola Nathji twenty-four hours of the day cannot be found on the face of any earthly being. It was a Light Divine, a dazzling brilliance of the Glory of God.
The photographs of Shri Bhola Nathji carry this Divine Light and Glory with them, which were found in His personality.
The face of Shri Nathji contained an innocence that was not of this world, a
humility that was unmatched, and a purity that purified one’s Heart. It was a Face that
was the face of the Knower–the All Knowledgeable, as if the mysteries of the Universe lay concealed and revealed in Him.
This was not the face of any ordinary mortal. Those who look upon His photographs and pictures can see this for themselves. The Face is that of the most Beautiful Being upon this planet earth. Such beauty had never been on this earth before and shall never come again in this form. To look upon this face in Portrait Form, is to gain an indefinable Peace and a feeling of Purity, and to forget the sorrows of the world and to see God before oneself.
Tujhe jo dekh letaa hai vo shaidaa ho hi
jaataa hai
He who sets eyes upon Thee becomes of a
certainty Thine.
The world had never seen such beauty as belonged to Shri Nathji. All who set eyes upon Him continued to gaze for long. Shri Nathji was the living image of Beauty upon earth. All the creatures of this world were dazzled by the effulgence of His Glory. Believers and atheists, philosophers and scientists, the learned and the common folk, men, women and children, were filled with bliss when they set eyes upon His Majestic
Beauty. He was the most beautiful Being in creation.
His Beauty far exceeded the conceptions of beauty that Valmiki and Tulsidas had about Lord Rama or Ved Vyas had about Lord Krishna. Truly, when God chose the frame of Shri Nathji to appear on earth, He chose the most beautiful face and form. In Shri Nathji was personified “Satyam Shivam Sundaram”-the fact that God was Truth, God was Divine, and God was Beauty. It appeared as if the entire beauty of creation had entered within the divine frame of Shri Nathji.
The eyes of Shri Nathji contained an ocean of Love Divine, in which His Grace and Mercy and infinity of knowledge were seen. It was with these beautiful eyes that Shri Nathji cast His sight of Love Divine upon the beings on this planet. The eyes of Shri Nathji looked upon His Creation, which had
been born out of His Formless Form. Shri Nathji’s glance gave a new life and purity to
all who came within its orbit. When Shri Nathji looked at anyone in particular, it appeared to that person as if He were the most fortunate person upon earth.
Nigaahe naaz se uski hazaaron masto
bekhud hain
Nashe ki ek duniyaa hai muhabbat chashme
jaanaa ki
The glory of His glance has intoxicated
them all,
It is a world of intoxication, the Love in the
eyes of the Beloved.
His Right Eye contained an Orange Sign. This was the Sign of the Avatar. Saints and sages who saw this Sign acknowledged it to be that of the Lord upon earth.
But it was not difficult to recognise the divinity of Shri Nathji. Any person who had seen Shri Nathji even once in His whole life could never forget him. Whenever He walked on the roads, people would stop and stare at Him, cars would stop as people strained to get a glimpse of Him.
The outer appearance of Shri Nathji was that of royalty. Many thought He was a Maharaja. His dress contained none of the features of saints, sages or mahatmas. His silken turban, chooridaars, and achkan or shervaani gave him an appearance that was altogether Royal and Majestic. He was in fact the Emperor of the World, who had come upon this earth disguised as a human being.
Bhes badle maihfile agyaar men baithe hain
ham
Vo samajhte hain koyi opraa saa aur hai
Disguised, He sits amongst us as a stranger, We think of Him as coming from somewhere else.
The first glimpse that people got of Shri Nathji made them think of Shri Nathji as a Being of infinite handsomeness, a royal prince with an indefinable radiance, a world figure of the greatest importance, a being who did not belong to this world. A prince like Lord Rama and Lord Krishna.
The most fortunate were those to whom He revealed His Real Self.
However all who met Him heard an inner voice calling out to them from within their souls that Shri Nathji was God incarnate upon earth. All His devotees had firm faith that He was God – a faith that lasted a lifetime, and existed right up to the last moments of their lives. Foremost amongst these were Shri Ganesh Prasad Bhutt, Chief Justice of Madhya Pradesh and Shri Ram Ratan Khanna, Scientist and Registrar of the Lucknow University, amongst a vast conglomeration of people of all faiths and beliefs.
Today we have with us only the idols and pictures of Lord Rama and Lord Krishna who came upon this earth for the salvation of mankind. All these paintings and sculptures are the creations of some artists’ devotion. These may not be exact depictions of the Great Souls upon earth, as there were no cameras in existence then.
However we are fortunate in having with us photographs of Shri Nathji, which give us a real idea of the Divine Beauty and Love, Peace and Bliss that existed in Shri Nathji. We can experience His Divine Beauty, Divine Love, Divine Grace and Divine Knowledge in these portraits of Shri Nathji, which radiate His Glory.
These portraits bring back the past when Shri Nathji was sitting before the camera with the studio lights reflected from His Face along with the effulgence of His Divine Beauty and Glory, shining in His Light Divine.
The face of Shri Nathji was godly in form. Smt. Gangabai Bhutt, the wife of Chief Justice Bhutt, had seen the same face in the form of Lord Vishnu, as she had openly proclaimed before all. It was the same Face in which Mahatma Sitaram Sharan of Chitrakoot had seen the Face of Lord Rama,
and upon beholding which Sant
Pachlegaonkar of Maharashtra had proclaimed:
“Bas issee cheez kaa intazaar thaaa!”
” This is what the world was waiting for!”
This was the face that appeared to many as Lord Rama and Lord Krishna, the face that many in Maharashtra saw as that of Lord Panduranga, and the Face in which many saw Absolute Love, Peace and Bliss in the form of Lord Shankar Bhola Nath. It was the same Face of Shri Nathji that appeared in many forms before many people in accordance with their own beliefs.
All who look upon the beautiful portrait of Shri Nathji shall be blessed and shall come to know what the avatars of old looked like in the ages past. The Avatar of Shri Nathji proved the existence of earlier avatars who came upon this planet. People who had never seen Lord Rama or Lord Krishna, saw for the first time the Face of God in human form in the face of Shri Nathji.
Look upon the portrait of Shri Nathji, enshrine it in your heart, let its Divine Beauty and Purity capture your heart and soul and fill them with peace and bliss. Pray to Shri Nathji through this portrait of His, enshrined in your heart, to reveal His inner Self to you, and He will surely answer your prayers, and remove all your sufferings in life, leading you towards material as well as spiritual progress in life and purifying your inner beings to such an extent that you begin to see Shri Nathji within you all the time as your constant companion in life. This portrait is the portrait of God Himself in human form.
Teri soorat se miltee naheen kissee ki soorat Ham jahaan men teri tasveer liye phirte hain
There is no Face like Thine in the world, We carry a portrait of Thee within our hearts.
Aa zaraa dekh le iss chehraye nooraani ko Dil men gar dard naheen ishq naheen josh naheen
Come and look upon this Face which is
Divine,
If There be not the pain or the joy of Love
within thy heart
Teri ye tasveer hai beshak karaare zindagi Jiskee raihmat par hai meraa inhisaare zindagi
This, Thy picture, is the solace of my Life, On its Mercy rests the Foundation of my Life.
Keep His portrait in your homes, in your places of worship, and let Shri Nathji speak to you through it within your hearts. Let Him be the pilot of your boat of life and free you of all the worries of this world and the next.
Not only will He be your constant companion in life, but when you leave this world, He shall be waiting in the fulness of His Beauty and Glory to receive you and to take you to His World of Peace, Love and Glory, where there shall be no sorrows but only endless Bliss, and Salvation – moksha.
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THE ADVENT OF THE AVATAR