Krishna bhakti
Surdas
The heart is stolen. The self is set free.
Poet of Braj bhakti. Surdas turns beauty, complaint, sleeplessness, and longing into an intimate account of what divine love does to the claim that anything is mine.
The accusation
मधुकर श्याम हमारे चोर।
मन हरि लियो माधुरी मूरत।
Dark Shyam is our thief; his sweet form has carried away the mind.What remains of “mine” when even the mind belongs to Krishna?
The poem begins as a playful complaint and becomes a theology of surrender. Krishna steals the mind, loosens its bonds, disappears, and leaves absence charged with remembrance.
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