Thief of the Soul

This poem was inspired by the Gopis speaking to Krishna when they met for the Rasa Dance and Krishna disappeared like a thief after stealing their souls. But what really churned the ink were the many slokas in the Bhagavatam and other Bhakti literature that refer to Krishna as a thief. The reader will find few of them after this intro and in the footnotes.

So the conclusion that came to the heart is that the Lord in whatever form He manifests for His devotees, among the sublime qualities He always displays, there is the one of being a thief, since He enters His devotees mind and steals it. " 

SD 10.29.34 Comm. "O king of thieves! We did not come here with any other purpose than to recover the treasure that You stole from us. You have stolen our minds, but unlike other thieves You did not have to make any great endeavor. You did this simply by blowing on Your flute."

RED DUST

- The song of the Pulindi girl of Vraja

SBB Vol.III 7.119 Purport."Seeing the kunkuma on the ground reminded them first of Krishna and then of His intimate affairs with the gopis. Thinking about these things agitated their minds [...] And how were the aborigine women relieved of this agitation?  By picking up the red powder and smearing it on their faces and breasts, which were burning with lust.  Having done this, the Pulindis felt completely satisfied."

SBB III 7.146 Purport " [...]...the aborigine women lacked the assets of knowledge, good birth, good behavior and devotion to God. They were ignorant of their own eternal identities as spirit souls, and because they had never come close enough to Nanda Maharaja's village to see Krsna with their own eyes, they were also ignorant of Krsna's all-attractive beauty.  None the less, in the forest, the aborigine women of Vraja accidentally came in contact with grass and leaves smeared with kunkuma from the bodies of the gopis   [...] even though indirect, it infused them with sublime devotion for Krishna ...[...].  Having had some contact with the gopis, the aborigine women of Vraja all attained a perfection similar to theirs, if not in this life then in the next."

SGS 1.4.56 "When they saw Him, some aborigine girls became tortured with lust."

THE DECEITFUL BOATMAN

THE DECEITFUL BOATMAN

With tantalizing words
the boatman left the shore,
yet His flute revealed 
He was the Moon,
He took the stars to the sky
and delighted, he desired
their milky load,
but tasting the sparkles
of their love
He drank it all. 

The Moon Prelude

NOD  Ch. Qualities of Krishna[Krishna said] "The most opportune time is the full-moon night in autumn, like tonight.  The best place within the universe is Vrndavana, and the most beautiful girls are the gopis.  So, My dear friend Uddhava, I think I should now take advantage of all these circumstances and engage Myself in the rasa dance." 

Mādhurya-kadambini, 1.11

Here are some further highlights from Viśvanātha Cakravartī’s commentary on this verse in Śrīmad-bhāgavatam, 10.33.39:

"One who continuously hears, glorifies or writes poetry about this autumnal rāsa-līlā and similar pastimes of Kṛṣṇa described by other poets, first of all, even if he has the heart disease of material lust, he becomes imbued with prema. Then, by its effect, the disease of the heart is destroyed. Thus, it is understood here that this prema is independent; it is not weak or dependent like jñāna-yoga."