Neutral Love of God
२०३
long as one does not happen to see Your eternal form of bliss and knowledge, appearing just like a newly-grown  tāmala  tree, with a bluish hue—only for so long can the impersonal feature of the absolute truth, known as  Brahman , be very pleasing to a saintly person.”
The qualifications of a saintly person are described in the  Bhaktirasāmṛta-sindhu  as follows: A saintly person is one who understands fully that simply by discharging devotional service he can become confident of liberation. He is always situated in the regulative principles of devotional life and at the same time aspires to be liberated from the material entanglement.
A saintly person thinks like this: “When shall I be able to live alone in the caves of the mountains? When shall I be dressed simply with undergarments? When shall I be satisfied by eating simply a little fruit and vegetables? When will it be possible for me to always think of the lotus feet of Mukunda, who is the source of the  Brahman  effulgence? When, in such a spiritual condition of life, shall I fully understand my days and nights to be insignificant moments in eternal time?”
The devotees and self-realized persons who are engaged in preaching the glories of the Lord always maintain an ecstatic love for the Lord within their hearts. Thus they are benefitted by the rays of the ecstatic moon, and they are called saintly persons.
The impulse of a saintly person is to be engaged in the study of the  Vedas , especially the Upaniṣadic portions, to always live in a place where there is no disturbance from the common people, to always think of the eternal form of Kṛṣṇa, to be ready to consider and understand the absolute truth, to always be prominent in exhibiting knowledge, to see the Supreme Lord in His universal form ( viśva-rūpa ), to associate always with learned devotees and to discuss the conclusion of the  Vedas  with similarly elevated persons. All of these qualifications of a saintly person serve to raise him to the status of  śānta-rasa .
In the  Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu  it is stated that all those who attended the pious meeting held by Lord Brahmā for the study of Vedic literature like the  Upaniṣads  became overwhelmed with ecstatic love for Kṛṣṇa, the chief of the Yadu dynasty. Actually, the result of studying the  Upaniṣads  is to understand the Supreme Per-