The difference between him and the garden-variety sinner was of course that he got up and tried one more time, till he finally achieved the transforming experience of God, from which there are no more falls. As he put it, " From top to toe I have committed innumerable sins, but I will not weary of pursuing You, oh Lord! The rope of my life I shall bind to your feet and drag You to me. My heart will be the prison in which I secure You forever. I shall beat You with the stick of (realizing the) Self until You sue for mercy. You are not generous. You give only after having taken away."

This violent language declares at once the man who has passed through a harrowing Dark Night of the Soul, and is determined to ensure God does not forget. When he finally got his realization through the grace of the Lord he compared it to torrential rainfall from the clouds of mercy. A life of Namadeva is a difficult thing to attempt, we have only stories, which may or may not be true. There is, fortunately, not much doubt that he had the support of Jnaneshwar, the spiritual titan of the times, and which went a long way to confirming him that it was not hubris for him, a mere tailor, to seek God. We know that his guru was named Visoba, who was such a strong influence that Namadeva always held that the realization of God is a consequence of the desire that awakens only in the company of the holy. We have charming incidents, or what is meant to be charming, showing how the young lad was driven by a thirst for the divine even in his escapades. One such involved him stealing milk from the village's prize cow because he held that only such was worthy of being offered to the Lord. Since his Lord was Krishna, another famous milk and butter thief, we can understand his logic.

The priestly establishment could never stomach with equanimity the fact that a tailor had achieved such rank and fame in spiritual pursuits and often took a petty pleasure in showing him his place. One day in the temple Namadeva was overcome with devotion and stated dancing with abandon. That was enough for the priest to push him out. The distraught saint burst out into song, complaining to the Lord that he was being treated like this only because he was born in a low caste - for which the Lord is responsible! An amused Vithala is supposed to have turned around on his pedestal to listen to this accusation and the temple still faces the direction Namadeva was in when he set off this miracle.

Angered at this setback his hut was set on fire. Namadeva had a literal belief in the dogma that the lord would provide and he refused to do anything about this disaster. The lord was forced to rebuild a new hut for his stubborn devotee and so well was it constructed that his fellow villagers offered Namadeva twice the usual wages if he made a similar hut for them. The saint answered that he had nothing to do with this hut and the only wages the Lord took was love, devotion and complete surrender. If they could pay those wages they could have similar huts. So completely secure was Namadeva in his constant awareness of the lord that one day he saw him dressed as a despised Mughal and still found him out, exultant that he had passed the test of the Trickster Lord, who wanted to find out if Namadeva really meant it when he sang, " I care not for caste or vocation." The Mughal was the lowest form of life in the popular imagination of the Hindus so this was really far more significant than it looks. Namadeva addressed this form of the lord as Mir Mukunda, Mir being the Mughal term for 'Lord'.