Standing in the waters of the river near the village of Kukas, Shri Dwarikdasji held dhyana in his mana. The current flowed around his body. His awareness flowed toward Shri Ramchandraji.
His pledge of prem-bhakti was true and steadfast. Through it he experienced surpassing love at the lotus feet of Shri Rama. Wife, son, wealth, home: he became completely indifferent to all of it. The hard net of moha, which binds so many, he snapped like a thread.
Having practiced yama, niyama, asana, pranayama, atyahara, dharana, and dhyana in sequence, mastering these seven limbs, he became established in the eighth: samadhi. By the grace of his guru, Swami Shri Kailudevji, and by the power of bhajana, he took up the sword of jnana and destroyed avidya-maya.
Piercing the brahmarandhra, he left the body and attained Shri Ramdham. The whole world knows this.
The River as Witness: Stillness Within Motion
Shri Dwarikadasji stood waist-deep in the river near the village of Kukas, the current pressing around him, and held his mana motionless on the feet of Ram. This is not merely a picturesque detail. It is a teaching about the nature of the practice itself. The world does not pause its motion to accommodate your meditation. The river does not stop flowing because you have entered it. The practice is to remain still at the center while everything around you moves. The outer current and the inner stillness are not enemies. They are the condition and the response. If you can hold the mana on Ram while cold water moves around you, while the sounds of the world continue, while life presses in from every direction, then you have learned something that no quiet room can fully teach. The river was Dwarikadasji's teacher as much as his guru.
Bhaktamal chhappay 182, tika commentary on Shri Dwarikadasji
The Eight Steps Are One Step: Sadhana as a Single Movement
The tradition records that Dwarikadasji mastered the seven outer limbs of ashtanga yoga in sequence, each one creating the ground for the next, until samadhi arrived as the natural fruit of the whole structure. This sequential account is a great reassurance to the sincere seeker. You do not need to leap to the summit. You begin with yama, the simplest question: how do I conduct myself toward others? From that honest beginning, the path unfolds in its own order. The ethical foundation supports the bodily discipline, the bodily discipline supports the breath, the breath draws the senses inward, and the inward senses allow concentration to hold, and concentration deepens into meditation, and meditation opens into absorption. None of these steps is wasted. None can be skipped without cost. The whole ascent is contained within the sincere beginning. Start with the step you can take. The rest follows.
Tilak commentary on Bhaktamal verse 182; Patanjali Yoga Sutras on ashtanga yoga
The Net of Moha: Why One Cut Is Enough
The Bhaktamal verse uses a precise image for what binds a person to samsara: not a single chain but a net, with many individual loops, each tightening around a different object of attachment. Son, wife, wealth, home. These are not arbitrary examples. They are the four pillars that organize a householder's identity and sense of self. Dwarikadasji did not detach from some of them while holding on to others. He became udasi, genuinely indifferent, to all four at once. This is the key the verse is pointing to. Moha is a system. Loosen one loop and the pressure merely shifts to another. The freedom that Dwarikadasji embodied came from recognizing the net as a whole and then cutting the structure that holds it together: the belief that any of these outer things is the self. When that belief is cut by the sword of jnana, all the individual loops release together.
Bhaktamal chhappay 182; Bhagavad Gita 15.5 on those free from vanity and delusion
Jnana and Bhakti Are One Blade
The commentary describes Dwarikadasji wielding the jnana-khadga, the sword of wisdom, to destroy avidya-maya. This could sound cold, philosophical, distant from the warmth of devotion. But the text is careful to say that this sword was sharpened on the power of bhajana, of continuous devotional remembrance of Ram. Dwarikadasji was not a dry logician who reasoned his way out of illusion. He was a Ram-bhakta who loved first and understood as a fruit of that love. In the bhakti traditions of North India, jnana and bhakti are not competitors. Jnana without bhakti can become arrogance, the pride of the knower. Bhakti without jnana can become sentiment, the warmth that dissipates without ever dissolving the self. Together they form something different from either alone: a love that sees clearly, and a clarity that loves completely. That combination is what the sword metaphor points to.
Bhaktamal tika on Shri Dwarikadasji; Bhagavad Gita 4.42 on cutting doubt with the sword of knowledge
The Grace of the Guru: What Instruction Cannot Give Alone
The commentary credits two forces for Dwarikadasji's liberation: the kripa, the grace, of his guru Swami Shri Kailudevji, and the bala of bhajana, the power built through sustained devotional practice. The order matters. Grace is named first. In the tradition that Dwarikadasji inhabited, the guru is not simply someone who explains techniques correctly. The guru is the point where the accumulated force of the lineage becomes personally available to the disciple. You can practice all eight limbs with perfect technical execution and still find that something is absent, some interior opening that the effort alone cannot produce. The guru's grace is that opening. This does not make personal effort irrelevant. Dwarikadasji's long practice of ashtanga yoga was real and necessary. But the grace of Kailudevji was the light that made that effort effective. Seek the teaching, but also seek the teacher who carries it in their living presence.
Bhaktamal tika on Shri Dwarikadasji; on the guru-disciple relationship in the Ramanandi tradition
Hindi text from OCR scan (Khemraj Shrikrishnadas Prakashan, CC0). May contain errors.