All the seers whom I questioned told me that God abides in all beings; but the doctrine that God is impersonal did not satisfy me, and I became ever more attached to saguna Brahama (i.e., the incarnate Rama).

Even as I recalled the words of my erstwhile guru, my mind conceived a fondness for Rama’s feet, and I wandered about, hymning the praises of Raghunatha with a love which every moment grew even greater.

On a peak of Mount Meru, under the shade of a banyan tree, sat Lomasha the sage. On seeing him, I bowed my head before his feet and addressed him very humbly.

When the gracious sage heard my modest and gentle address. O king of birds, he courteously asked me, “With what object have you come here, Brahman?”

“O ocean of mercy,” I replied, “you are omniscient and sagacious. Teach me, blessed one, how to worship the saguna Brahma.” (By saguna Brahma he means the incarnate Rama, rather than the Ishvara who abides in all things.)

Then, O king of birds, the holy sage reverently recounted some tales of Raghunatha’s excellent virtues; but being himself an illumined seer devoted to the knowledge of Brahma (the Absolute), and knowing me to be the fittest person (to be initiated into such knowledge), the enlightened sage.

Began a sermon on the nature of the Absolute, the unborn, the one without a second and without attributes, the sovereign of the heart (the inner controller), unchangeable (without parts), desireless, nameless, formless, comprehensible only by realization, indivisible and incomparable,