All who became nivrtta from samsara are my yajamana, and I am the singer and supplicant of their yasha.
Shri Deendas names the prominent ones among them: Uddhav, Ramrele, Parashuram, Ganga, the residents of Dhushet. Achyutakula, Brahmdas, Vishram, residents of Sheshasai. Kinkar, Krida, Vishnudas, Kheme, Sotha, Gopanand. Jaidev, Radho, Bihari, Dayol, Damodar, Mohan, Paramanand. Udhav, Raghunathi, Chaturo, Nagan, Kanj, and others who dwell now.
Every bhakta who renounced samsara is his patron. He counts himself their servant. He asks for nothing but the privilege of singing their glory.
The Vocation of the Witness
Not every soul on the path of bhakti is called to the summit of solitary practice. Deendas understood this with great clarity. He looked at the vast company of those who had freed themselves from the pull of samsara and felt not competition but reverence. He chose a different role: the witness, the herald, the one who holds the thread of memory so the garland does not scatter. In a tradition where the remembrance of saints is itself a form of worship, this is not a lesser calling. It is a distinct and necessary one. Ask yourself honestly: what role has love assigned to you? Not everyone lights the lamp. Some are called to carry it forward so the next seeker finds the road already illuminated.
Bhaktamal, chhappay 147 (Deendas)
Nivrtta: The Still Point Inside the Turning Wheel
Deendas speaks of those who have become nivrtta from samsara, turned away, withdrawn, no longer propelled by the ceaseless momentum of desire, action, and consequence. This is not a cold rejection of life. It is finding the still point inside the turning wheel. Most of us remain caught in samsara not because the world is evil but because we have not yet noticed that there is a center that does not spin. The saints Deendas loved had found that center. They acted, they lived, they breathed, but the wheel no longer dragged them. This is the freedom the bhakti path points toward: not escape from the world, but release from compulsion within it.
Bhaktamal, chhappay 147 (Deendas)
To Sing Another's Glory Is Its Own Liberation
Deendas called himself a yash-gayak, a singer of glory, and a yaachak, a supplicant who begs only for the privilege of speaking the names of those he reveres. Together these words describe a way of living that requires profound self-erasure. He did not seek to be numbered among the saints. He sought only to stand at their feet and make sure their names were not forgotten. There is something deeply freeing in this. When the self stops grasping for its own recognition and turns entirely toward celebrating what it loves, a quiet joy opens up. Praise that asks nothing in return is one of the purest expressions of a heart that has begun to loosen its grip.
Bhaktamal, chhappay 147 (Deendas)
The Spiritual Lineage Is Constituted by Love, Not Birth
Among the names Deendas cherishes is Achyutakula: the lineage of Achyuta, a name of Vishnu meaning the imperishable, the one who never falls. In the traditional world, your kula determined your ritual duties, your social standing, your marriage connections. Deendas gestures toward a different kind of lineage, one constituted not by birth but by the direction of the heart. To belong to Achyutakula is to have claimed the imperishable as your sole ancestry. This is the radical democracy at the heart of bhakti: the community of those who have turned toward the Lord is open to anyone, from any background, who makes that single turn. Your spiritual lineage begins the moment you choose it.
Bhaktamal, chhappay 147 (Deendas)
Remembrance Keeps the Lamp Alive
Deendas understood that without the singer, the names dissolve. Without memory, the saints live only in their own moment and are gone. He appointed himself the keeper not of a bureaucratic record but of a living one: the sung one, the one that enters the body of the listener through the ear and takes up residence there. The bhakti tradition has always held that merely hearing the name of a realized soul carries the fragrance of liberation. Every time Deendas spoke a name from his long list, Uddhav, Brahmdas, Vishram, Vishnudas, Paramanand, he was performing an act of worship. The same is true for us. When we remember those who walked the path before us, we do not merely honor the past. We keep the lamp alive for whoever comes next.
Bhaktamal, chhappay 147 (Deendas)
Hindi text from OCR scan (Khemraj Shrikrishnadas Prakashan, CC0). May contain errors.