All the affairs of the state, our honour and fair name, our virtue, land, riches and homes – all these our guru’s glory will defend; and everything will be well in the end.

The guru’s grace is the only protector you and I and all our hosts of men and women have a home or in the woods. Obedience to one’s father and mother, guru and master upholds all righteousness, even as Sheshanaga (the lord of serpents) upholds the world.

Obey, then, their commands yourself and help me do the same, and so, dear brother, be the saviour of the Solace race. Obedience is for the aspirant the only means for the attainment of every success, a Triveni of glory, salvation and power. (Like the triple stream of the Ganga, the Yamnuna and fabled Sarasvati at Prayaga, obedience is the triple flood of glory, salvation and power.)

Having thus reflected, make your subjects and your kinsfolk happy, though the burden you must endure be grievous. My afflictions have been shared by all, brother, but upon you will be the full weight of the hardest lot for the period of my exile.

I know you, brother, to be tender-hearted, yet what I am saying is harsh; but hold these evil times responsible for this, for the fault is not mine. In an emergency a noble-souled brother is used for a shield, in the same way as the stroke of a thunderbolt is parried by the hand.

A servant should be like the hand or foot or eye, a master like the mouth. When they hear of such self-denying, wholesome love (of loves as a source of nourishment to others), great poets, says Tulasi, are filled with admiration.

When they heard Raghunatha’s speech, steeped, as it were, in nectar churned up from the ocean of love, the whole assembly fell into an overpowering trance of affection. Sharada herself was struck dumb at the sight of their condition.