One day his bhabhi served him stale food. Shri Narayandasji asked her to prepare something fresh. She flared with anger, struck him, and retorted: 'Are you some Bhagavad-bhakta like Baba Alhaji that I should serve you at your command?'
Those words changed his life. He renounced the household and, following in the footsteps of his grandfather, set forth on the path of Shri Hari bhakti. Prabhu, by His kripa, granted him direct darshan and fulfilled his life.
He was the younger brother who spent freely while his elder brother earned. The world saw him as a burden. But Prabhu saw something else entirely. And a bhabhi's angry words became the gateway to God.
In the same lineage of bhakti, Shri Prithvirajji of Bikaner was a great kaviraaj, accomplished in both Deva bhasha and Prakrit bhasha. Through savaiyas, gitas, padas, shlokas, and many other chhandas, he sang the glories of Shri Hari with all nine rasas. He composed 'Rukminilata' with such unparalleled description that it seemed Sarasvati herself was seated upon his tongue.
But it is his inner life that astonishes. His devotion to Prabhu's seva and his virag from worldly enjoyments ran so deep that he scarcely recognized his own queen, as if seeing her for the first time.
Once, while away in a distant land, he continued performing manasi seva of the very Prabhu enshrined in the Bikaner mandir. One day, entering the mandir in his mind, he could not obtain darshan of Prabhu's mangal vigraha. Three days passed like this, without darshan in his meditation. From the fourth day onward, Prabhu appeared again.
The king dispatched a swift camel-rider to Bikaner with a letter: 'For three days I have not beheld Shri Hariji in the mandir. What is the reason?' The reply came that the mandir had been under repair, and for those three days Prabhu had been moved outside. His inner vision matched the outer fact perfectly.
Hear one more account. He resolved that by Hari's grace he would relinquish his body at Shri Mathuraji. The Badshah learned of this and, out of malice, deployed him to battle at Kabul. But by Hari's kripa, the appointed hour of his life's end became known to him. When his remaining days grew very few, each moment passed like a kalpa.
Prabhu wished to honour His devotee's vow. That very instant, Prithvirajji mounted a swift she-camel and rode to Shri Mathuraji. At Vishrant Ghat, he bathed, sat in padmasana, fixed his dhyana upon Prabhu, and relinquished his prana. All the bhaktas raised cries of jaya. The Badshah gazed upon Prithviraj's moon-like fame like a chakora bird gazing at the moon.
Once more: Prithvirajji and his army found themselves stranded in a jungle. Bhakta-vatsala Shri Bhagavan, wishing to comfort everyone, caused an entire city to appear, and the whole army was relieved. The king offered boundless thanks for Hari's kripa.
Grace Can Arrive Through an Angry Word
Narayandas was not a saint the world expected much from. His elder brother earned; he spent. When his bhabhi struck him and mocked him with the name of a true devotee, she meant it as a wound. But something in Narayandas recognised what she could not: that the name of a real bhakta, even when thrown in contempt, carries the same power as when offered in love. The stone she threw became a seed. He rose from that meal, left the house, and walked directly into the path of Shri Hari bhakti. The instrument of our awakening does not need to be beautiful. It can be a blow, an insult, a moment of humiliation. Prabhu uses whatever is at hand. What matters is whether the heart is ready to receive the signal, whatever form it takes.
Bhaktamal, Doha 140, Tilak on Narayandas
The Household Is Not an Obstacle to Bhakti
Narayandas lived as an ordinary member of a household, not as a renunciant or a recognised saint. He had no ashram, no disciples, no public life of devotion. The transforming moment came in a kitchen, over a plate of stale food. This is the Bhaktamal's quiet insistence: that divine grace is not reserved for those who have already arranged their lives around it. Narayandas walked into bhakti from inside a family dispute, carrying nothing but the spark that had just been struck. The Charan tradition he came from, the same lineage as Baba Alhaji, had already shown that devotion could flow through any form of life. Narayandas simply proved it again, without ceremony, without announcement.
Bhaktamal, Doha 140, Tilak on Narayandas
Inner Worship and Outer Reality Are One
Prithvirajji of Bikaner, whose story is woven into the same passage of the Bhaktamal, used to perform manasi seva every day: he would enter the temple in Bikaner entirely through meditation, offer his respects, and behold the murti of his Lord. One day, travelling far from home, the inner vision did not come. He tried again. Again, nothing. Three full days passed in that absence, each one heavy. On the fourth day, the darshan returned. He sent a rider to Bikaner asking what had happened during those three days. The reply came back: the temple had been under repair, and the murti had been moved outside for exactly those days. His inner experience and the physical temple were one and the same thing. Sustained inner practice is not imagination. It is a form of perception that the world has not yet learned to measure.
Bhaktamal, Doha 140, Tika on Prithvirajji of Bikaner
A Vow Made in the Heart, Prabhu Holds as His Own
Prithvirajji had made a resolve deep in his heart: by the grace of Hari, he would release his body in Shri Mathuraji. Not a wish, not a preference. A vow held in the innermost chamber. When the Badshah learned of it and sent him to a military campaign in Kabul to frustrate it, the vow was not frustrated. Prabhu Himself moved. He revealed to His devotee that very few days of life remained, and in that knowledge Prithvirajji mounted a swift camel and rode to Mathura without stopping. He arrived at Vishrant Ghat, bathed in the Yamuna, sat in padmasana, fixed his dhyana on Prabhu, and released his prana. The bhaktas raised cries of jaya. No political power could rearrange what Prabhu had already arranged. A sincere vow in the heart of a true devotee is something Prabhu treats as His own commitment.
Bhaktamal, Doha 140, Tika on Prithvirajji of Bikaner
Devotion Dissolves the Familiar World
One of the marks of Prithvirajji's devotion was that he looked at his own queen one day and did not recognise her, as though she were a stranger. This is not a story of forgetting or madness. It is a description of what happens when the heart gives itself so completely to one beloved that all other faces, even the most intimate, become neutral. The same current of love that usually attaches us to the world had been gathered and turned entirely toward Prabhu. His anurag for Prabhu's seva and his virag from the pleasures of the world were not two separate disciplines but one movement. What we love shapes what we see. Prithvirajji had arrived at a seeing that the Bhaktamal presents not as strange, but as the natural completion of a life of bhakti.
Bhaktamal, Doha 140, Tika on Prithvirajji of Bikaner
Hindi text from OCR scan (Khemraj Shrikrishnadas Prakashan, CC0). May contain errors.