Divine Cruelty and Love

Mirabai does not sentimentalize Krishna. She calls him cruel, capricious, unreliable. He hides when she seeks him. He loves others and ignores her. Yet she loves him anyway. This is not love as reward for good behavior or reciprocal care; it is love as an act of will and passion that exists independent of how we are treated. This is revolutionary for understanding grief and rage because it breaks the narrative that rage means love was false. We can be enraged at someone we genuinely love. We can grieve what someone took from us while still valuing the relationship. The rage underneath our grief often comes from the dissonance: this person mattered deeply AND they hurt me. Mirabai holds both. She doesn't soften Krishna's cruelty or deny her pain to preserve the love. Instead, she expands her definition of love to include the full complexity of how we can be treated and still choose devotion. This is not codependency; it is mature recognition that love and harm can coexist.