The impersonalists cannot understand the principle of satisfying Krsnas senses because they reject the personality of Godhead. Thus they think God has no senses and therefore no sense satisfaction. But the devotees simply want to satisfy the senses of the Supreme Lord, and so they take part in the pure activities of love of Godhead. There is no question of lust in that category of pure transcendental love.

Lust leads to fruitive activity for sense gratification. There are different kinds of duties for the human being, such as political obligations, performance of Vedic rituals, obligations for maintaining the body, and social formalities and conventions, but all such activities are directed toward satisfying ones own senses. The gopis, however, simply wanted to satisfy Krsnas senses, and thus they completely gave up the conventional path of social restriction, not caring for their relatives or the chastisement of their husbands. They gave up everything for the satisfaction of Krsna, showing their strong attachment to Krsna to be as spotless as washed white cloth.

It is said that when conjugal affection between a lover and beloved comes to the point of being destroyed and yet is not destroyed, such a relationship is pure love, or prema. In the material world it is not possible to find this kind of love, for it exists only between Krsna and His intimate devotees, such as the gopis. The sentiment between the gopis and Krsna was so strong that it could not be destroyed under any circumstances. Krsna praises the gopis pure love in the Srimad-Bhagavatam (10.32.22):