Eligibility of the Candidate for Accepting Devotional Service  33
remain, no one can relish the actual transcendental taste of devotional service.
A pure devotee never cares for liberation. Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu prayed to Kṛṣṇa: “My dear son of Nanda, I do not want any material happiness in the shape of many followers, nor immense opulence in wealth, nor any beautiful wife, nor do I want cessation from material existence. I may take birth many times, one after another, but what I pray from You is that my devotion unto You may always remain unflinching.”
The attention of a pure devotee is so much attracted to glorification of the pastimes, name, qualities, forms, etc., of the Lord that the devotee does not care for  mukti . Śrī Bilvamaṅgala Thākur has said, “If I am engaged in devotional service unto You, my dear Lord, then very easily can I perceive Your presence everywhere. And as far as liberation is concerned, I think liberation stands at my door with folded hands waiting to serve me.” To pure devotees, therefore, liberation and spiritual emancipation are not very important things.
In this connection, in the Third Canto of  Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam , Chapter 25, verse 23, Kapiladeva has advised His mother, Devahūti, as follows: “My dear Mother, My pure devotees are charmed by seeing My different forms, the beauty of My face, the structure of My body so enchanting. My laughing, My pastimes and My glance appear to them so beautiful that their minds are always absorbed in thoughts of Me, and their lives are dedicated fully unto Me. Although such people do not desire any kind of liberation or any kind of material happiness, still I give them a place amongst My associates in the supreme abode.”
This evidence from  Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam  gives assurance to the pure devotee of being elevated to association with the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī remarks in this connection that one who is actually attracted by the beauty of the lotus feet of Śrī Kṛṣṇa or His service, and whose heart, by such attraction, is always full with transcendental bliss, will naturally never aspire after the liberation which is so valuable to the impersonalists.
A similar passage is also there in the Third Canto, 15th Chapter, of