Datta maata 15: What is Mugdha bhakti (innocent devotion)?

Bhāva vasyō hariḥ sadā! Sri Hari surrenders to the devotion of his devotees. If one worships him with love, fear, greediness or with any other feeling but with unswerving devotion, then he will definitely be pleased.

Once, a haridāsa (servant of Hari) was narrating a story. As part of the story, he was describing about the appearances of Balarama and Sri Krishna and the ornaments that they were wearing. This is a wonderful story in Bhagavatham. A thief was carefully listening to this story. As soon as haridāsa finished telling the story, the thief approached him and asked the address of Balarama and Sri Krishna because his desire was to steal their ornaments. What can he do now? If he does not tell the address, he would be killed by the thief. After thinking a lot, he said that Balarama and Krishna reside at Brindavanam.

The thief left for Nanda Gokulam. The whole night, he spent thinking about Balarama and Krishna and waited to meet them. As soon as the sun rose in the morning, he heard the soothing sounds of flute, the chirping of birds, jingling sounds created by Krishna’s ornaments of the feet. It was a beautiful environment. Balarama and Sri Krishna arrived there. As soon as he saw them, the thief asked them to give their ornaments. Krishna smilingly saw Balarama and both of them gave their ornaments. Wrapping those ornaments in a fine cloth, the thief took them away and came back to haridāsa. He was surprised seeing them.

He asked the thief whether he had really seen Balarama and Sri Krishna. Haridāsa felt the thief be very lucky. He requested the thief to take him to them. He then described the greatness of Balarama and Sri Krishna. As requested by haridāsa, the thief took him to the place where he saw Balarama and Sri Krishna, requested them to manifest in front of haridāsa. They immediately appeared. But, haridāsa could not see them whereas the thief could. Krishna told the thief that haridāsa does not possess unwavering devotion and hence he could not see them. Then, Krishna said the thief to touch him first and then touch haridāsa. As soon as he did so, haridāsa also could see Krishna.

Here, the thief contemplated deeply on Balarama and Krishna only for their ornaments. He could see them only because of his innocent devotion to them. This is the result of such devotion. It is needless to say about the benefits of contemplating on God purposefully. The more and deeper the devotion, the earlier is the result. I pray Lord Datta to bless you all with pure devotion.