Once, in an assembly of good people, a wealthy and wicked man began speaking ill of Shri Ramray ji with open hostility. As the poisonous words left his mouth, by Prabhu's will alone, his pagri spontaneously fell from his head to the ground, as though someone unseen had knocked it off. The entire assembly witnessed it. The man left in great shame, and no one doubted whose side Bhagavan was on.
Shri Ramray ji was born in the house of a Sarasvat Brahmana, and from an early age he cultivated rati for Hari. His hridaya was steeped in the sadhanas of bhakti, jnana, vairagya, and yoga. He had renounced kama, krodha, mada, lobha, moha, matsara, and all such durguna. Absorbed in the jewel of Shri Hari-katha, he was always overflowing with the rasa of ananda. Like a lotus that blooms on seeing the surya, he would become supremely joyful upon beholding the santas.
Whoever bore enmity toward him and committed droha found that Prabhu Himself settled the account.
At the great mahotsava of Shri Kanhardas ji, in Samvat 1652, all the santas gathered together and conferred the title of Goswami upon Shri 108 Nabha ji. And Shri Sobharam ji also received kripa from Shri Kanhardas at that same occasion.
The Four Pillars That Hold a Devoted Life
Nabhadas Ji describes Shri Ramray Ji's inner life as saturated with four great sadhanas: bhakti, jnana, vairagya, and yoga. These four are not competing roads but interwoven strands of a single rope. Bhakti without jnana can collapse into sentiment without discernment. Jnana without bhakti becomes dry intellectual exercise with no warmth at the center. Vairagya without bhakti turns cold and loveless. And bhakti without vairagya risks entanglement with the very world one longs to transcend. Yoga, in its deeper sense, is the continuous practice of linking the individual consciousness back to its source. Ramray Ji held all four together in living balance, each one supporting the others. If your practice feels incomplete or lopsided, it may be worth asking honestly: which of these four is starved? The path asks for all of them, and they feed one another when given the chance.
Bhaktamal, chhapaya verse 197, Nabhadas Ji
Releasing the Six Inner Enemies
The Bhaktamal records that Ramray Ji had let go of all six arishadvargas: kama, krodha, mada, lobha, moha, and matsara. These are unbridled desire, anger, arrogance, greed, delusion, and envy. Each one is rooted deep in the conditioned self. Most people struggle with at least one or two of them for an entire lifetime, and to name all six is to say that Ramray Ji had turned away from every major form of self-enclosure. None of these releases happens through willpower alone. The Vaishnava understanding is that what draws a person away from these forces is not suppression but saturation: when the heart becomes so full of love for the Lord, there is simply no room left for these visitors to take up residence. Ramray Ji's interior emptying was really an interior filling. What left was poison; what entered was ananda.
Bhaktamal, chhapaya verse 197, Nabhadas Ji
Submerged in Hari-Katha
The verse says Ramray Ji was magan, submerged, in the jewel of Hari-katha. In the Vaishnava understanding, katha is not casual storytelling. It is a living transmission. When the stories, names, and qualities of the Lord are told with love and heard with receptivity, something real moves in the listener. The mind turns from the noise of multiplicity toward the source of all things. Old knots loosen. Hearts soften. Ramray Ji did not enjoy katha as an occasional pleasure or as an obligation. He was submerged in it the way a fish is submerged in water: not visiting it, not studying it from outside, but living inside it entirely. From this submersion, the verse tells us, he was always overflowing with the rasa of ananda, the taste of pure joy. The practice of katha is one of the most accessible sadhanas available to a seeker: to keep returning to the stories, the names, the qualities of the Lord, and to let them become the water you move through.
Bhaktamal, chhapaya verse 197, Nabhadas Ji
The Lotus and the Saint
Nabhadas Ji offers a beautiful image to describe how Ramray Ji responded to other saints: as a lotus blooms when it sees the sun rising, so Ramray Ji would become radiant and joyful at the sight of other bhaktas. The lotus does not open for lamplight or moonlight. It waits for the particular light of the sun. When that light comes, it does not merely receive it; it opens fully and turns toward it. This is satsang understood not as a social obligation but as a biological necessity for the devotional heart. Something in the sincere seeker is designed to bloom in the presence of others who carry the same love. Ramray Ji did not hold his devotion sealed away while remaining indifferent to those around him. His inner fullness overflowed outward as warmth for every saint he met. Satsang was not something he did; it was something he became.
Bhaktamal, chhapaya verse 197, Nabhadas Ji
The Saint Does Not Need to Defend Himself
At a gathering of good people, a wealthy man of ill character began publicly denouncing Ramray Ji with open hostility. Without any human hand intervening, his turban fell from his head to the ground. In the culture of that time, the turban was not merely a head covering; it was a symbol of honor, dignity, and standing. For it to fall of its own accord at the very moment condemnation was leaving his lips was visible to everyone in the assembly. He left overcome with shame. Nabhadas Ji does not dwell on this with any satisfaction. He states it plainly and moves on. The point is not that enemies of saints suffer; the point is that the bhakta is not alone. The protection of the Lord over His devotee is not a theological abstraction. It is something that has been witnessed, in gathering after gathering, in age after age. The saint does not need to arrange his own defense. Prabhu, moved by love for His devotee, attends to such matters Himself.
Bhaktamal, tilak commentary on verse 197
Hindi text from OCR scan (Khemraj Shrikrishnadas Prakashan, CC0). May contain errors.