I feel truly blessed to have been born in a family that believes it does not have an existence without Nathji. I have had the privilege of knowing the Mahanta Sri Sri 108 Sri Shubhnathji Maharaj of the Sri Amritnath Ashram in Fatehpur, Rajasthan. And, I have even had the privilege of having seen the three generations of the Nath family practicing its philosophy. I was a small child during Sri Sri 108 Sri Shubhnathji Maharaj’s reign. However, a lot of memories are still completely fresh in my mind. I was really lucky as I often got to meet him in those times due to my father.

I have also been blessed by the special graces of Sri Hanuman Nathji Maharaj’s. There was a time when Sri Hanuman Nathji was at Raniganj for some days and I used to go to see him every day with my father. On one such day, I made a request to him that if he would come over to my home the next day for breakfast, I would be very grateful. To my great joy, he accepted my invitation and I eagerly waited for the next morning. I woke up early in the morning to prepare Idlis for him and then sat holding my breath waiting for him to come. As time passed, I began to get more and more restless as it was beginning to get late and Babaji had still not arrived. I got really angry and I began to say to my father that when we make a mistake, Babaji really scolds us but who can scold Babaji when he is at fault! And just as I said that, Babaji stepped in to our home.

And the first thing he said was, “Child, you should send in a request up there to God. I was feeling ashamed of myself but he gently touched my head and said that he had forgotten about breakfast but when he picked up a cup full of whey, he got this feeling as if someone was holding his hand and telling him to put the cup down and to go visit my home. That is when I understood what he meant by putting in a request up there to God. From then on, whenever there was something on my mind, I would write a letter. I would give this letter to him and just say, “Babaji, I want to get this request sanctioned by God up there.”

Once, the present Mahanta Sri Sri Narhari Nathji was in Kolkata. I had gone to see him with my husband and daughter. My husband said to Guruji, “See Babaji, there is some kind of white spot on my daughter’s cheek.” Guruji has immense affection towards my daughter, Mridu. He jokingly said that put some dung on the cheek. As soon as we reached home, my husband went out to get some cow dung to put it on her cheek. We all know that kids today cannot even stand the smell of dung, but since these words had come out of Babaji’s mouth, Mridu simply held a rose under her nose and let us put dung on her face. She washed it away after 5 minutes. And it was a miracle! She had put dung only twice or thrice on her face, and the white spot just disappeared. It was Babaji’s blessing that caused this miracle!

I pray to the God Almighty that my family and I always have Nathji’s affection and blessings on us!

Lakshmi Modi
Kolkata