Once, traveling from his city of Nonere with his brother Anupsingh for darshan of an utsava in Shri Vrindavan, Shri Kalyaansinghji saw something on the road that stopped him: a wealthy and wicked man was tormenting a poor Vaishnava. Without hesitation, Kalyaansinghji took the side of the Vaishnava sadhu, rescued him from the oppressor, and gave him wealth and provisions to restore his happiness.
This was his nature. Taking the side of Shri Haribhaktas and giving away wealth, possessions, even his very life to others: by the kripa of Shri Rama, both these qualities endured throughout his entire life.
He was supremely skilled in dasya-seva of Shri Jagannathji and was dear to the Lord's hridaya. Shri Jagannathji, considering him His own supreme parshad, lovingly called him near.
At the time of his final departure, he fixed his affection solely upon Shri Raghunandanji and snapped every bond of attachment to wife, son, wealth, and home as one would snap a blade of grass. As it is said: 'Wealth, household, friends, mother, father, brother: when one turns toward the feet of Rama, none of these can truly help.'
He was so greatly blessed that at the end, the vision of Shri Raghuvarji's kadhni appeared directly in his hridaya. Uttering the name of Shri Janaki-Rama with his lips, he left his body and attained Saket, the dham of Shri Rama.
Stand with the Devotee
Kalyansingh Ji was traveling to Vrindavan for a festival when he saw a wealthy man tormenting a poor Vaishnava on the road. He did not weigh the inconvenience to himself or the delay to his pilgrimage. He placed himself between the sadhu and the oppressor until the harassment ceased. Then he gave the devotee wealth and provisions, leaving him not merely free of harm but genuinely restored. This is the teaching of bhaktapaksha: to take the side of the Lord's devotees not as a policy but as a reflex of the heart. When you have truly loved the Lord, the suffering of those who love him cannot be a distant matter. Their pain becomes yours. Their relief becomes your joy. The pilgrimage does not end when you protect them. It deepens.
Serve Without Seeking the Seat
The Bhaktamal describes Kalyansingh Ji as supremely skilled in dasya-seva of Shri Jagannathji: the steady, wholehearted service of one who has no wish except to be useful to the one served. Dasya-nishtha is not servitude in the diminished sense. It is the fullness that comes when the ego stops insisting on its own importance and finds something infinitely more satisfying than self-promotion. Hanuman is the great archetype of this bhava: he declared himself servant of Rama and in that declaration became larger, not smaller. When we serve with this quality of settledness, we are not giving up freedom. We are entering it. The Lord, moved by such love, drew Kalyansingh Ji near and counted him among his closest attendants. The servant arrived at the innermost chamber.
Hold the World Lightly
Kalyansingh Ji lived a full householder's life in the town of Nonere. He had a brother, a home, wealth, standing in the community. None of this was renounced in bitterness or flight. Yet the current beneath all of it ran only toward the Lord. When the moment of departure came, he severed the bonds of family, wealth, and home the way one cuts a blade of grass: not with force or grief, but with the clean ease of one who has known all along that these things were instruments of seva, not objects of possession. A verse from the Ramcharitmanas which the tilak quotes says it plainly: when a soul turns toward the feet of Rama, wealth, family, and friends cannot truly help anymore. This is not coldness. It is clarity. The world becomes lighter, more beautiful, when you stop clutching it.
Generosity Is a Form of Worship
Two qualities defined Kalyansingh Ji from the beginning of his life to its end: bhaktapaksha, standing with the Lord's devotees, and udarata, generosity so complete it extended even to his own life. The Bhaktamal notes that these were not acquired through effort or cultivated slowly over decades. By the kripa of Shri Rama they simply lived in him and held steady through every season. This is worth sitting with. We often think of generosity as a virtue we must build up, a muscle that requires exercise. But the tradition suggests something different: that when a heart has been genuinely touched by the grace of the Lord, giving flows out naturally, the way fragrance flows from a flower. The practice is not to force yourself to give. The practice is to stay close to the source of that grace until giving becomes your nature.
The Vision That Waits at the End
In his final moments, as Kalyansingh Ji prepared to leave the body, something remarkable happened. The vision of the kardhani, the ornamental girdle worn by Shri Raghuvara, blazed alive in his heart. In Rama-upasana, the form of the Lord is held in the inner eye with great care, each ornament a doorway into the sweetness of his presence. That this vision arose on its own, without seeking, without effort, at the threshold of departure, is the sign of a life of bhajan fully ripened. When the Lord is truly one's constant companion, the inner eye does not need to search at the end. He is simply there. With the names of Shri Janaki and Rama on his lips, Kalyansingh Ji left the body and attained Saket. This is the promise held out to every sincere seeker: the one who has lived with the Lord's name will not be alone when the time comes to leave.
Hindi text from OCR scan (Khemraj Shrikrishnadas Prakashan, CC0). May contain errors.