AMRITSAR-CHHATTARPUR 387
to Chhattarpur, where he halted in the Krishna temple.
Bhavani Prasad overwhelmed him with kindness and
hospitality. Here Ramdas learnt that Swami Nirbhay-
anandji and his spouse resided at the time in Navagaon.
Ramdas went to that village for their darshan. He arrived
at their residence one evening by motor-btis. The blessed
pair was overjoyed to see Ramdas, but his halt with them
proved short-lived, for about seven o'clock Bhavani Prasad
and his devout wife turned up suddenly in a motor-car.
They urged Ramdas to return with them to Chhattarpur
as the Maharaja of the State was anxious to see him. So
he was back at Ohhattarpur that very night.
Early next morning, Gulab Rai, son of Bhavani Prasad,
secretary to the Maharaja, escorted Ramdas to the palace
of the Maharaja. He was a decrepit old man, weak and
emaciated. Ramdas took his seat beside him.
" "I have been repeating Ramnam for over thirty years",
he said, "but still my mind is as restless as ever. How
then could that Name be said to possess the power of
quelling the tumult of the desire-ridden mind?
" Peace can be attained,1' Ramdas replied, " by the japa
of Ramnam only when you do so in a spirit of nishkama,
i. e. with the sole desire for liberation and peace and
without longing for worldly things. God grants our
prayer when we appeal to Him with an earnest fervour of
the heart only for pure devotion to His holy feet and for
nothing else. So the secret of Ramnam is in the taking of
it for realizing the goal of life which is immortality or
union with God."
"You are perfectly right. It is very hard to get
nishkama bhakti," he observed, and changing the course
of conversation said: "I have got a retainer of mine
seriously ill from a gun-shot. He was one of the party who
went for hunting and by oversight on the part of one of
the party, he was shot in the thigh. His condition is very
precarious. I request you to give him the benefit of your