A Thief's strong #Faith makes him see #God

My friends, whenever anybody talks about God, we don't believe the presence of God because we can't see Him. We don't see Him. So we have a story related to faith, one's own faith. Once there was a Vedic scholar and he was giving preaching about the stories which are there in Bhagavatam and one day a thief entered his house to steal and when he was narrating the stories in Bhagavatam, he was so deeply involved in the story and he felt that it really happened. That was his faith. When others were just listening, as devotees they were listening, but the thief was so deeply involved in the story and what was he talking in the story, let's know. He was a Vedic scholar from Madura and there were many devotees and Bhagavatam Saptaham was going on. Saptaham means it takes very long time, almost it is earlier verse and the one who was deeply involved in the story was the thief. This incident actually happened in Dwapara Yuga. So this is what that Vedic Pandit was describing. All Gopikas went to Nanda Gokulam, I mean Nanda Gopala's house in Nanda Gokulam and then they asked Yasodha to send Balarama and Shri Krishna with them for taking the cows for grazing. Mother Yasodha decorated those two boys. One was dark in complexion and another one was fair in complexion. The one who was dark in complexion was Shri Krishna and the one who was fair in complexion was Balarama. She further gave Krishna the flute made of gold and Balarama the stick which is coated with gold. The thief who was listening to the story thought, why unnecessarily I am taking lot of strain to steal in different houses. If I steal all jewelry which those boys had, that will be sufficient throughout my life, he thought. The thief approached and asked, Swami, you said the boy in dark in complexion and the boy fair in complexion wore jewelry and what jewelry did they wear, can you describe once again? Mother gave the boy who was dark in complexion a flute made of gold and she gave the fair boy a stick made of gold. A stick, only that or anything else they wore. Of course other jewelry they wore. They had anklets, bracelets and ornaments to shoulders and they have ornaments to neck. So he was describing everything. How old are they? He asked again. The boy dark in complexion was 8 years old and the one who was fair in complexion was some 9 or 10 years old. He said. Where do they live? They live in Brindavan. So he decided to go there. Then what had happened? Let us see. With great difficulty, the thief reached Brindavan and he was walking on the banks of Yamuna and there was a tree and he climbed up the tree and was waiting for the kids to come. That pundit already told normally these kids are seen on the banks of river Yamuna. Yes, he found two boys, one fair in complexion and the other one dark in complexion were coming along with their cows and the calves and there were some Gopabalas also. So no doubt whatever he described a scene, they were fully decorated. I got an opportunity to steal, he thought. He climbed down the tree and asked, I don't let you go until you give all your ornaments to me, he said. Those two boys without saying a word gave those ornaments to him. The thief wanted to show his gratitude to that pundit for giving information about those two boys. He went directly to the pundit and said, Panditji, what you said was true. I saw those two boys, he said. What? How can you see those boys? This incident happened in Dwapar Yuga. No, no, no, I saw them. They were exactly like the same as you described. If you don't believe, you can see the ornaments which they were wearing including the flute and the stick. What? Did Shri Krishna and Balaram really appear to him? He was still under the shock. Please show them to me, then I will believe your words. That Vedic scholar along with his devotees went with the thief. They appeared to the thief but not to the pundit and his devotees. It happened because they thought that Lord Krishna belonged to Dwapar Yuga and they can't see him now. But at that point of time, he and his devotees had forgotten that God is almighty and can be seen at any time if we really have faith. That Vedic pundit and other devotees thought perhaps the thief might be a great devotee of Lord Krishna in his previous birth. That is why he appeared to them in this birth. They fell on his feet. Thus the thief's strong intention to see Lord Krishna and Balaram fulfilled in that way. We have many stories about great devotees of Panduranga or whatever name we can give. They adored the Lord in statue form also as idols. For example, if we take Bhakti Mirabai, Sakubai and Tukaram, all these felt the presence of Lord in idols. Thus, they sang the glory of the Lord and finally reached Lord. In whatever form we adore the Lord, he appears to us in the same form, whether it might be a human form or it might be any form like idols. Let's come with some other interesting topic in our next video. Till then, bye.