The night before she was to be sent to her husband's home, Shri Karmeti ji rose in darkness. Soaked in the color of anuraga, she took only the dhyana of Prabhu as her companion and walked out alone into the night.
When morning came, there was commotion. Her mother and father, overcome with worry, searched every place and sent people running in all directions. When Shri Karmeti ji sensed the searchers drawing near, she crept inside the torn carcass of a dead camel that jackals had ripped open, and hid there. The stench of worldly paapa was so unbearable to her that, by comparison, she regarded the stench of that carcass as fragrance itself. She sat inside it for three days without the slightest fear arising in her mind. Who can describe this bold manner of priti?
On the fourth day, traveling with someone headed to the Ganga, she bathed in its waters, gave away all her ornaments in dana, and came to Vrindavan. She remained immersed in Hari-smarana.
In the difficult age of Kaliyuga, she had remained nishkalank, unblemished. Renouncing attachment to her worldly husband, she joined her rati to the lotus feet of Shri Krishna. Born of a pure kula, a Brahman woman whose very touch purified, she crossed all the snares of the world as easily as a tilak mark is washed away. Dwelling in Vrindavan, she delighted the saints and increased their sukha. Having cast aside the taste and pleasure of samsara, she never turned back to the body.
Her father Parashuram ji searched and searched until he arrived in Mathura. Learning of her whereabouts, he climbed a vata tree near the dense forest of Brahmakund, spotted her from above, and drenched the earth with his tears.
He descended, reached her, and clung to her charans, weeping. Daughter, he pleaded, since you left, my honor has been cut. I am too ashamed to show my face. Come home. You need not go to your in-laws. Stay and fix your chitta on bhajan and puja. Here in the forest some lion or tiger may devour you. Your mother and I are as good as dead. Come back and restore life to us.
She replied: you speak truly. Without bhakti, know the body to be a corpse indeed. If you wish to truly live, then fix your priti upon the pada of Shri Prabhu and sing His name and yasha.
Gone are mother, father, son, kinsman, companion, friend, Guru, master, and beloved. I belong to Rama alone. My trust is in Rama alone. Dyed in Rama's color, I delight in none other. Living, it is Rama. Dead, it is Rama. The gati is always Raghunath. Only that one truly lives in this world. All others merely wander, dead though carrying a body.
As for your saying that your nose has been cut, that is a statement without true reflection. For one's nose to be cut, one must first have a nose. The only true nose, the only true honor, is Bhagavad-bhakti itself. Without bhakti, all beings in this world and in Svarga-loka are noseless. For fifty years you indulged in vishaya-bhoga, yet you never grew weary. You keep chewing what has already been chewed. Just as a beast swallows grass and then ruminates on the same, worldly people perform an act and then keep relishing and brooding over it. I did not even glance at any bhoga. I looked only toward Shyam. Therefore, you too should abandon all desire and bhoga and devote your tana and mana to Hari-bhajan.
Speak many harsh words, show every disregard. But never forget to cherish Vrindavan. Keep this resolve firm in the mind.
Hearing such upadesh, just as darkness flees at dawn, the tamas and ajnana of Parashuram ji departed. She gave him a Shalagrama-svarupa. He took it, holding her words firmly in his hridaya, and went home. There he devoted himself to worship and bhajan with such absorption that he went nowhere and cared for no one's company.
One day the Raja inquired: it has been long since the Brahman Parashuram ji came here. Where is he? Someone answered: since returning from Vrindavan, he sits at home soaked in prema, performing Bhagavad-bhajan. Hearing this, anuraga arose in the Raja. He sent a message that he wished to have darshan. Parashuram ji sent back the reply: I give the Raja my ashirvada from here itself. Having obtained a human body, I am now serving the only King worth serving.
The Raja then went to Shri Vrindavan himself. There, on the bank of Shri Yamuna ji, he saw Shri Karmeti ji standing with eyes brimming with prema-jala, absorbed in the chintan of Prabhu. An indescribable radiance of anuraga and umanga shone from her. The Raja offered pranam and requested her to return. She gave a firm refusal. He humbly asked to build a kuti for her. She declined again and again.
Nevertheless, the Raja had a kuti built near Brahmakund. It stands to this day. Deeply moved by the darshan of Shri Karmeti ji, the Raja returned to his land and became devoted to bhakti.
The Heart Already Knows Its Beloved
Karmeti ji did not decide to love Krishna one day after careful reflection. From childhood, the form of Shyam had settled so deeply into her that nothing in the ordinary world could overwrite it. She was the kind of child, the Bhaktamal tells us, in whose eyes the lamps of this world look dim, because a brighter light has already been seen. This is the first gift of bhakti: the recognition that something has always been true about you, even before you found words for it. You did not create this love. You discovered it was already there. The question is not whether you can find God. The question is whether you will stop looking toward everything else long enough to notice what is already shining inside you.
Bhaktamal, Tilak of Karmeti ji (entry 169)
The Only True Stench Is a Life Without Bhakti
When search parties came looking for her on the road to Vrindavan, Karmeti ji hid inside the torn carcass of a dead camel for three full days. She sat there without fear, without revulsion, without a single moment of wavering. How? She explains it herself: the paap and mithyatva of worldly life had always seemed to her like an unbearable stench. Against that inner stench, the smell of the carcass was, to her, like fragrance. This is not performance. This is the natural logic of a heart that has seen clearly where the true impurity lies. It does not lie in bodies, in forest floors, in difficult circumstances. It lies in forgetting the Beloved. When you understand that, all hardships on the path of bhakti become light.
Bhaktamal, tilakHi account of Karmeti ji hiding in the camel carcass
Chewing the Chewed: The Trap of Worldly Repetition
When her father came weeping to Vrindavan, begging her to return home, Karmeti ji listened with full care and then answered with full love. She said: you have spent fifty years in vishaya-bhoga, in the enjoyment of worldly pleasures, and still you are not weary of it. You keep chewing the chewed. Like cattle that eat grass, swallow it, and then ruminate on the same mouthful again and again, people perform an act and then relive it endlessly in memory and desire. She had never done this. She had looked only at Shyam. The invitation she extended to her father, she extends to all of us: abandon the bhoga, abandon the desire, and give your body and mind entirely to Hari-bhajan. Not because the world is evil. Because you have already tasted it, and you know, in your honest heart, that it does not satisfy.
Bhaktamal, Karmeti ji's counsel to her father Parashuram ji
True Honor Lives Only in Bhagavad-Bhakti
Her father wept that his honor in the world had been destroyed by her departure. How could he show his face? Karmeti ji answered gently and without cruelty: your honor can only be cut if you had real honor to begin with. The only genuine honor is Bhagavad-bhakti itself. Without bhakti, all beings in this world and in Svarga-loka alike walk around without any true dignity, though they imagine otherwise. This is not harshness. It is the most loving thing one person can say to another: the dignity you are protecting is borrowed and fragile. There is a real dignity available to you. It cannot be damaged by what anyone says, and it cannot be taken away by any event. It lives in your relationship with the Beloved.
Bhaktamal, Karmeti ji's reply to Parashuram ji on honor and bhakti
Radiance Without Seeking: How Bhakti Transforms Those Around You
Karmeti ji never gave public discourses. She never sought followers. She hid in a forest, sat in trees doing bhajan, gave away her jewelry at the Ganga, and stood by Yamuna ji absorbed in the chintan of Prabhu. And yet her father was transformed. A king traveled from his court to Vrindavan to receive her darshan and returned to his kingdom a devotee. Her kuti near Brahmakund became a place of pilgrimage, and her murti is worshiped there still. This is the teaching hidden in her life: you do not spread bhakti by explaining it. You spread it by living it completely. When the interior is filled with the light of the Beloved, something radiates outward without your intending it. Your presence becomes the teaching.
Bhaktamal, Tilak and Tika of Karmeti ji; Vrindavan Today historical account
Hindi text from OCR scan (Khemraj Shrikrishnadas Prakashan, CC0). May contain errors.