Every Ekadashi night for years upon years, Ramdasji walked seven kos each way to attend the jagaran kirtan at Shri Ranchhorji's temple in Dakor. He never missed. It was his unbreakable niyam.
When his body grew old and the journey became painful, Bhagavan Himself spoke to him with tender concern: "In this condition, you need not endure this hardship." But Ramdasji would not stop.
So Bhagavan spoke again, this time with the urgency of prema: "I can no longer bear watching you struggle this way. Take Me home with you. Bring a cart. Park it behind the mandir, near the back window. Lift Me in your arms, lay Me upon the cart, and drive away with haste."
Ramdasji did exactly so. He came to the jagaran on the cart. People assumed the old man's legs had finally given out. At midnight, Bhagavan accompanied him home the same way. Before placing Prabhu on the cart, Ramdasji had removed every ornament and left them in the mandir. He had no hunger for gold. His sole longing was for those sacred charans.
At dawn, when the temple doors opened, the sanctum was empty. The pujaris understood at once: Ramdas had taken the Lord. They gave chase. In the distance, they spotted the cart. Ramdasji saw the pursuers gaining and anxiety flooded his chitta: "What shall I do?"
Bhagavan commanded: "Hide my pratima in that vapi nearby." They caught Ramdasji and beat him. They searched every corner of the cart. They found nothing. Guilt crept in: "We have beaten an innocent bhakta for nothing."
Then someone remembered seeing Ramdasji near the baoli. They went there and found the water stained red with blood.
Bhagavan's voice rose from the well: "My bhakta carried Me away by My own command. The blows you struck upon him, I have taken upon My own body. It is My blood that has turned this water red. You have done wrong. Go back. I will not go with you. Take another murti of Mine from a certain place, install it there, and bring gold equal to the weight of this pratima."
The pujaris agreed: "Very well, weigh out the gold." But when they placed a single gold earring on the scale against Bhagavan's pratima, a new wonder occurred. By Prabhu's prabhav, the earring grew so heavy the pan would not rise from the ground. The Lord made His own murti light, and that side floated upward. The pujaris left, scoffing: "What comfort will Bhagavan find at Ramdas's house? The Lord's own intellect has gone awry!"
But Shri Sarkar took His seat in Ramdasji's home. And there He remains. To this day, a bandage is tied upon the wound on the pratima. To this day, whenever the mandir needs repair, only a descendant of Ramdas Bhaktaji can lift the murti. No one else can raise it.
The Niyam That Becomes the Soul
Ramdasji held one lifelong niyam: every Ekadashi he would walk seven kos to the Ranchhorji temple in Dwaraka, spend the night in jagaran singing kirtan, and return at dawn. He kept this vow through youth, through middle age, and into frailty. Even when Bhagavan Himself, moved by compassion, suggested he stop, Ramdasji could not imagine abandoning it. A niyam held with such unwavering love ceases to be a rule. It becomes the shape of the heart. What we do without exception and without complaint, year after year, tells us what we truly love. Ramdasji loved the Lord's presence in those pre-dawn hours of kirtan more than he loved comfort, sleep, or even the mercy of being released from the obligation. His steadiness was itself a form of prayer.
The Lord Who Cannot Bear the Devotee's Suffering
The Bhaktamal records a remarkable reversal: it was not Ramdasji who could no longer bear the distance from the Lord, but the Lord who could no longer bear watching Ramdasji suffer. Bhagavan said, 'I cannot stand seeing you struggle this way.' This is the secret teaching of the Ramdas story. Genuine bhakti does not leave the bhakta alone in his longing. It moves the Lord. Bhagavan, who requires nothing, finds Himself unable to remain indifferent when a devotee gives everything freely. The Lord's response to Ramdasji was not only miraculous. It was intimate. He spoke as a close friend who has watched long enough and now acts. The devotee's sincerity creates an irresistible pull on the divine, drawing Bhagavan out of the sanctum and into the life of the one who loves Him.
Bhaktamal tikaEn, Ramdasji entry
Leaving the Gold Behind
Before lifting the murti of Shri Ranchhorji to place it on the cart, Ramdasji removed every ornament and jewel from the image and left it inside the temple. He took nothing of material value. This act, quietly noted in the Bhaktamal, carries an essential teaching. Ramdasji was not interested in wealth, in prestige, or in possessing sacred objects. He wanted only the Lord's charans, the sacred feet. The ornaments were not what he had walked seven kos for, year after year, through the dark. Bhakti in its purest form is not acquisitive. It does not accumulate. The true bhakta releases even what is sanctified so that only the living relationship remains. When the heart is free of all grabbing, even free of the appearance of taking, the Lord can be held with both arms and carried home.
Bhaktamal tilakHi and tikaEn, Ramdasji entry
The Wound on the Lord's Body
When the temple priests caught up with Ramdasji on the road and beat him severely, thrusting weapons into his body, something unprecedented happened: the Lord took those wounds upon Himself. The water in the baoli, the stepwell where the murti had been hidden, turned red. Bhagavan declared: 'The blows you struck upon my bhakta, I have taken upon my own body.' This is not a metaphor in the Bhaktamal tradition. It is a statement about the nature of the relationship between the Lord and one who loves Him without reservation. The devotee's pain and the Lord's pain are not separate. This is why the murti at Dakor has been wrapped in a bandage over its wound from that day to this. The wound is preserved, not healed, as a visible record that the Lord and His bhakta share one body when love has become complete.
Bhaktamal tikaEn and moolEn, Ramdasji entry; Dakor temple tradition
The Scale That Weighs What the Eye Cannot See
When the priests demanded gold equal to the weight of the murti before they would leave, Ramdasji had nothing to offer but his wife's small earring, a single bali of humble gold. By Bhagavan's own prabhav, divine power, that earring became immovably heavy when placed on the scale. The side holding it would not rise from the ground. Simultaneously, the Lord made His own murti light, and that side of the scale rose upward. The priests left in confusion and scorn. The teaching here is not about miraculous physics. It is about the nature of true weight. A home filled with steadfast love and daily devotion carries more spiritual gravity than any treasury. The scales of the Lord do not measure gold. They measure the sincerity of what has been offered, and a single ornament from a bhakta's household, placed freely, outweighs everything.
Bhaktamal tilakHi, Ramdasji entry
Hindi text from OCR scan (Khemraj Shrikrishnadas Prakashan, CC0). May contain errors.