Verse 23

²³Sage, in a former life now gone I was born the son of a certain serving-woman of those who expound the Veda, and while still a boy I was set to attend on yogins who meant to stay out the rains. ²⁴Though they looked on all alike, those sages showed me favour: a child in whom every restlessness had fallen away, self-controlled, who did not cling to his toys, who did as he was told, who waited on them and said little. ²⁵With the brahmanas' consent I once ate what was left on their plates, and by that my faults were cast off. Living so, my mind grew clean, and a liking for their very way was born in me. ²⁶There, day after day and by their favour, I heard the stories of Krsna as they sang them, and they took hold of the mind; and as I listened with trust, step by step, a liking arose in me for him whose hearing is dear.

²⁷Great sage, once that liking for him whose hearing is dear had come, my understanding no longer slipped; and by it I see this, the real and the unreal alike, as fashioned by my own maya in me, and in Brahman which is beyond. ²⁸So through the two seasons, the rains and the autumn, as I listened at each service to the spotless fame of Hari sung by those great-souled sages, devotion arose, which carries off the passion and the darkness of the self.