Worshipping you in this manner, both the inner and outer perception of the devotees is destroyed and your touch is experienced in equal measure both by the inner and outer worship. Then one sees your manifestation in the chandal (outcaste) and in the Brahman, the cow and the donkey, the tree and the creeper, the fire and the wind. Thinking that you alone are decked in these forms, one starts offering salutations to everything, adopting the attitude of world-servitude. Eventually, experiencing inner and outer servitude, the devotee forgets your greatness. The sense of servitude departs and in its place an attitude of friendship surfaces.

The way a sakha (friend) lives with a friend, eats and drinks with him and cannot stay away from the friend even for a moment, it’s like that. There’s no protocol of regard, no stress. A devotee who regards God as a friend says, ‘You’re my friend, both of us are equal, I cannot stay without you, I love talking to you, and crave for your speech. If someone speaks about you, or praises you, I feel naturally inclined to join in it. I like the person who speaks about you. The texts which detail your sports and acquaint me of thy virtues – I love even the sight of such books. I feel like sharing with you everything I like. If you’re not there around when I eat my food, I don’t enjoy the meal. When I go for walks without you, I miss you. Everything seems so blank and lifeless. If you’re not there when I go to sleep, I feel the mattress has turned into a bed of thorns. Please stay in my sight always and ever; stay in my heart, don’t leave me even for a moment. Even a moment of separation from you feels like aeons.’

Sakhaa Sakhaa Sakhaa!
Raakho baandhi drirha kore baahupaashe more.
Aharahah biraaja mor nayane nayane.
Prati anga diye prati anga mor karo parshan.
Raakho dubaaye more taba parasha amiya saagare.

O Friend, O my Friend, O Friend mine!
Please keep me firmly held in Thy arms’ embrace.
Please dwell forever within my eyes’ reach.
May every limb of mine be touched by every limb of Yours.
Keep me ever drowned in the ocean of Thy immortal touch.

With self-surrender, the devotee becomes yours. He does not think anything about the body, home etc. Just as the owner of the cattle that has been sold does not care about the food for the sold animal, the devotee does not worry for himself. He becomes yours. Nothing of the happiness, sorrow, disease and grief remains for him. He is immersed in the ocean of joy. By practicing this kind of Navadhaa bhakti, a person is able to benefit from your grace. But I am unable to do that. Many types of obstacles hinder my spiritual practice.

Tell me what is the solution to this? How will this weakness go? I know lust and anger are doors to hell, even then I am not able to renounce them. A little contact with these overwhelms me. Tell me, how will this anger go? I know – the reason for anger is desire, anger is caused only by desire. So, I cannot even desire that the son, student, grandchild may display humility lest I become angry. What can I say? Desire makes a person disoriented.

You see, it’s impossible for me to plumb my defects and get rid of them one by one. You make me free from defects. If you don’t do that for me, I don’t think I will ever be free from this adversary. I worship you, sing your name, yet when anger or malice arises, I become agitated. Tell me, which is the correct spiritual practice? Which is the means to the knowledge that everything is you?

Allow me to answer. Everything is my own. Mother, father, sister, son, daughter etc. have all come into my life as a consequence of my own deeds. The happiness and sorrow that I experience is erasing my past karmas. If that be the case, why should I blame them or find faults in their transactions with me? Why should I be livid with them?

Are you listening to the enumeration of my shortcomings? There are many such defects in me. Countless defects indeed. You will have to forgive all my failings and make me your own. There’s no other alternative. I am the meanest of the mean, a lowly creature!

Mo sama deen na deen hita tum samaana Raghubir,
Asa bichari Raghubansa mani harahu bisham bhav bhir.
(O scion of the Raghu race! There’s no one as lowly as me and none who can redeem the lowly ones as thee.
Thinking thus, O jewel of the descendants of the Raghu race, please rid me of the terrible sorrow of the cycle of birth and death.)

There’s no other go than this. Your grace is the only saviour. O expediter of the soul through multiple lives, please review my condition with your compassionate gaze. Destroy my weaknesses and the oppression done by my enemies so that I am able to say this naturally and with ease:

Kamihi nari piari jimi lobhihi priya jimi dam,
Timi Raghunath nirantar priya lagahu mohi Ram
(Just like a lustful one loves a woman and a greedy one money,
in the same manner, O Raghunath, may you always be endearing for me.)

The way a lustful one gives up all worries and goes after the woman, and the greedy one after money, when will I reach that state when I will worry only about you continuously? When will my heart be agitated if I don’t think of you? The restlessness one feels when the breath stops, gripped by the fear that life will depart now, he says, ‘O I’ll be dead, I’ll be dead’…when will I feel that kind of restlessness at a moment’s separation from you? Are you unable to hear this? You’re an antaryami, you can fathom the depths of all hearts. Don’t you understand my feeling? Or do you think I am simply putting on an act?

Alright, let me recite another couplet of Gosai Tulasidas:
Aratha na dharam na kaam ruche gati na chahau nirbaan
Janam janam rati Ram pad yah bardaanu na aan
(I am neither interested in wealth nor righteousness,
I seek no pleasure, nor salvation.
Birth after birth, may I have love of thy feet O Ramji, that’s all;
I ask for this boon, nothing else.)

O Gosai ji, I know you assumed a divine body in order to confer the secret gift of devotion to God, and you seek nothing but the feet of Sitaram. Well, is there anything other than the feet of Sitaram for you which is worth asking for in any case? The feet of Sitaram which the devotees contemplate in their mellowed heart or the crown chakra, are nothing but the great, vast, limitless seat of final beatitude.

Once the desire for the feet of Sitaram is awakened, there’s no other object that one desires. I could not bring my mind to rest in these feet of Sitaram, I could not sufficiently yearn for them. Had I single-mindedly desired the feet of Sitaram and always and ever prayed for them, it wouldn’t have been possible for Sitaram to stay unmoved. He would have certainly granted a vision in all these days. It’s the mind that deprived me of Sitaram’s feet. O mind, how much grief I have endured on account of you; how much am I enduring now, and what is in store in future!

After all this torment, you haven’t developed detachment. You’re mad for petty worldly happiness. Shame on you! Shame on you! O madcap, if you long for eternal happiness, you must realise what the scriptures say: lasting happiness cannot be had from finite pleasures. Why then do you cast away that great gift in favour of trifles and keep on raising a hue and cry? Come back home, to the sahasrara, your abode in the crown chakra.

See, in the triangular space, dotted with the letters A-Ka- Tha, in the pericarp of the thousand-petalled lotus, resides the seed of the universe, Pranava. Offer your salutations to this Pranava. The letter ‘A’ of this Pranava (Aum) is Brahma, the letter ‘U’ is Vishnu and letter ‘M’ is Maheshwara. After that the fourth is half syllable, fifth syllable is Nada, sixth Bindu, seventh Kala, eighth Kalatita, ninth Shanti, tenth Shantatita, eleventh Unmada, twelfth Manonmada, thirteenth Puri, fourteenth Tanumadhyama, fifteenth Pashyanti, sixteenth Para.

May these revert back from Para backwards!

One can be here as long as one can, but if this abode ceases to be dear, one may slowly start retracing along the same path by which one came. Devoting oneself to Pranava in this way, one can attain freedom while still in the body.

I know as long as you will be here, you will frolic up and down like a monkey. Instead of that, start climbing up and down these sixteen steps, you will be full of bliss. If you cannot go that far, just climb up and down the eight steps, letters A, U, M, nada, bindu, kala, kalatita and Param Atma. This will give you freedom from birth and death.