The Devotee Becomes a Light to Others
Narada teaches that those filled with divine love become teachers and saviors of others simply by what they have become.
The realized lovers of God become beacons whose lives draw others toward the Divine, often more by their being than by their words. Narada notes that the company of such devotees is itself the surest means by which love spreads from heart to heart. Having received the gift of love, the devotee naturally becomes a giver of it, not through preaching but through the contagious radiance of a transformed life. This is how the lineage of bhakti has been carried through the centuries — saint kindling saint, the flame passing from one loving heart to the next. The glory of devotion completes itself in this generosity, for love by its nature overflows. The lover who has tasted the source cannot help but point others toward the spring.
Such great souls are the means by which others cross over the ocean of the world.
The idea that the saint teaches chiefly by transformed presence rather than doctrine resonates with the Quaker conviction that a life can 'preach' and with the Orthodox veneration of the holy elder, or starets, whose mere presence guides seekers.
Narada Bhakti Sutras