SOURCE: Bahadur, Krishna P. “The Nature of Mira's Love.” In Mīrā Bāī and Her Padas, pp. 33-8. New Delhi, India: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers, 1998.

In the following essay, Bahadur addresses how Mirabai's padas express her love for Krishna.

Sensual love and spiritual love are worlds apart. One pampers to the body, the other is balm for the soul. Krishna says, ‘As rivers enter the sea and lose themselves in it, while the sea is ever the same, so too that man achieves peace in whom all desires are extinguished, not he who clings to his desires.’¹ The person who has reached the topmost height of spirituality, sees God everywhere. To him love becomes, in Shelley's words, a kind of worship.² He attains to a state of fine frenzy: ‘The rustling of the wind is taken as indicating the Lord's approach, the dark blue sky, the sea and the...