The Principle of Divine Love and the Importance of Gopī Love

The Principle of Divine Love and the Importance of Gopi Love

[661]

(Raga Baneshri - Tala Kaharava)

Within love's realm, enjoyment and renunciation are both auspicious and extraordinary. They cannot be understood until pure attachment awakens. Their names and outward forms resemble those of worldly desire, yet all are supremely pure, transcendent, exceptional and incomparable. Joy, sorrow, attachment, longing, fear, shyness, restlessness and desire; bondage, jealous pride, play, the rasa dance and intimate association are among their names. Showing jealous pride, sulking, weeping, rejecting and humiliating, teasing, tormenting, carrying tales and flattering are all great acts there. Yet the mind is not disturbed in the least and intention never contains a fault. Favorable or contrary, all are stainless, pure rasas of the pastime. This vast realm of love is filled with sacrifice and wholly free from desire for personal happiness. Disturbances born of material nature can never enter it, even for a moment. Every distinctive mood arises within the Self, from the Self and through the Self alone. Not the slightest trace of impure material disturbance or emotion exists there. All is divine, conscious and filled with Bhagavan, every transcendent mood free of disturbance. The Lord Himself becomes lover and beloved and joyfully engages in pastime.

[662]

(Raga Bhairava - Tala Kaharava)

Above the realm of action shines the beautiful realm of devotional feeling. Above it stands the lovely but exceedingly difficult realm of knowledge of reality. Beyond even that is the supremely radiant realm of the highest bhava, where the beloved and lover perform sweet, inconceivable and stainless pastimes. The imperishable Brahman is the radiance of His toenails, while He is Brahman's foundation. There the pastimes of that Supreme beyond all are enacted continually.

Continuation of [662]

The peaceful and sweet ocean of that pastime surges forever. Becoming enchanting waves of many moods, the divine lovers Themselves play there. Hidden knowledge and realization behold the sweet colors of pastime-rasa and become supremely delighted upon encountering their own rare fruit. They do not manifest openly and never interrupt the pastime-rasa. There, infinite sweet waves of transcendent pastime arise eternally. That rasa is the source of all rasas, the eternal, supreme, sweet and magnificent rasa. Sri Bhagavan, established in mahabhava, eternally embodies unsurpassed rasa. Gods, demons, kinnaras, sages and seers, pure ascetics and supremely holy siddhas continually long for it but cannot behold the heart-enchanting realm even in thought. Ritually skilled workers, yogis absorbed in samadhi and knowers whose heart-knots have been cut cannot even imagine it, much less understand it, however learned they may be. The residents of this realm of bhava are supremely generous and absorbed in rasa-pastimes: sakhis, companions and divine manjaris, embodied forms of rasa-service. One who serves the dust of their feet with great faith, abandons argument and fills a flavorful heart with radiant moods, remains forever detached from contemptible enjoyment and liberation, and keeps the heart continuously attached to Radha and Madhava's feet, may receive a particle of grace from the great souls of the realm of bhava. That person alone can reach the highest boundary of this realm.

[663]

(Raga Pilu - Tina Tala)

The holy path of love is distinct from every other path. Straight, simple, flavorful and raining rasa, it immediately unites one with Syama. Blind to the world of sense objects, it runs bodily toward the beloved. The beloved's happiness becomes everything, while awareness of one's own happiness is naturally forgotten. Beyond speech and mind is the great rasa of mahabhava, enchanting to the heart. The ocean of love suddenly manifests Rasiraja, the supreme rasika.

[664]

(Raga Pilu - Tala Kaharava)

The Greatness of Love

Love is a reality of the heart, supremely secret and priceless. It cannot enter speech, nor can anyone weigh it. 1.

Filled with rasa and bliss, stainless and rare is this divine madness. Indescribable yet exceedingly sweet, it is like flavor tasted by one unable to speak. 2.

The wealth of the three worlds and sovereignty over Indra's realm: the lover regards these as straw and abandons them for love's sake. 3.

Rare is a glimpse of love; blessed is the one who has glimpsed it. All others merely arise and perish in the world like insentient beasts. 4.

Land and home, wealth and grain, intelligence and patience, dharma and discernment: all fall away in love's realm, and one support alone remains. 5.

Love forever increases like the lovely phases of the moon, yet it never reaches fullness and therefore never ends. 6.

This is love's one rule: all other rules fall away. Yet where someone knowingly abandons love, no love exists. 7.

Love inevitably makes one mad and removes every concern for family honor. It erases every Vedic duty and makes Bhagavan manifest within the heart. 8.

Four supreme human aims are renowned and pursued in the world. The fifth is love for Hari, the supremely sweet ultimate good. 9.

Attachment, sorrow, fear, desire, pride, delusion, arrogance and anger: these eight ignorant enemies do not enter love's realm. 10.

At the vision of the deity of love, every bond is cut. Possessiveness and pride vanish, and immense bliss fills the heart. 11.

Means of Attaining Love

Love's path is exceedingly difficult; people flee upon seeing it. Only rare souls who abandon every enjoyment can walk it. 12.

One who walks love's path abandons every desire for enjoyment, pride and honor, and endures arrows striking the heart. 13.

Only those who relinquish every desire can walk love's path. They burn in separation's fire without allowing a sigh to leave the lips. 14.

Only one who abandons all hesitation can walk love's road, retaining no attachment to sense objects and breaking every worldly tie. 15.

One serves the saintly physician and takes the bitter medicine. When the disease of enjoyment is not preserved, love manifests. 16.

If you desire the treasure of love, turn your face from sense objects and join your consciousness to worship with faith and wholehearted dedication. 17.

Those thirsty for love of Hari possess pure moods. They surrender body, mind and wealth and stake even liberation. 18.

They desire neither heaven nor liberation, but Nandakisora, the graceful, lovely dark flute-holder who steals the mind. 19.

One who abandons every pride in learning, intelligence and discernment attains the Lord's love, which no knowledge can equal. 20.

One who rejects all the joys of the seven heavens like poison and does not desire liberation attains attachment to the Lord. 21.

One who desires love for Hari abandons attachment and enjoyment and associates day and night with lovers of God; then attachment to Him increases. 22.

Love's path is filled with thorns, and only a rare person walks it. The one who comes upon this road rejoices while being pierced and torn. 23.

The hero who leaps into the ocean of love attains Hari, the supremely priceless jewel; there is no doubt. 24.

Only one whose heart is utterly unconcerned leaps into love's fire, caring neither for life and death nor desiring heaven. 25.

At the touch of love's wind, the fire of knowledge increases. It burns every mass of karma until only Hari remains. 26.

As the offering of Hari's beautiful form is placed again and again into the heart's sacrificial fire, the fire of love blazes ever more intensely. 27.

Love's fire burning within the heart consumes the threefold miseries. The Lord Himself comes and sits upon the pure seat of refined gold. 28.

Obstacles to Love

One desires to drink love's nectar yet cherishes sense objects. The poison spreads, burns the heart and wastes the body. 29.

One whose mind remains absorbed in sense objects while speaking of love is a liar who continually comes and goes within the world. 30.

One desires to cross the ocean of becoming while boarding the boat of sense objects. That person drowns in midstream without the slightest means of rescue. 31.

One sets foot upon love's path yet worries about the world. That person's mind is deeply impure and understanding utterly wretched. 32.

One fears to leap into the ocean of love and remembers the world. That person wastes life and drowns in the ocean of becoming. 33.

The hypocrite, traitor, selfish person, contentious person and proud person are five villains who cannot endure the heat of love's fire. 34.

The Condition of Love

Nothing of Syama's love can be expressed by the mouth. Sky, water, earth, moving and unmoving: everywhere only Syama is seen. 35.

There is no Brahma, maya, individual soul or time. Even self-awareness is gone, and Nandalala alone remains. 36.

To whom, how and what can anyone say of the heart's condition? While beholding Hari, the heart was stolen by Hari, and Hari is seen everywhere. 37.

Pierced by love's arrow, the heart is wounded and unconscious. It became absorbed in Rama alone, while the field of sense objects disappeared. 38.

Upon entering the ocean of love, the body became like that of a chaste wife. The army of desire fled, abandoning quiver and arrows. 39.

The heart forever colored by pure attachment to Syama never accepts another color; natural detachment has arisen. 40.

Mohana's sweet smile came to dwell within the heart. Maya, possessiveness, sin and fire find no place there. 41.

Those whose hearts laugh forever while beholding Hari's form never turn back and fall into the sorrowful well of becoming. 42.

Those whose eyes continually behold Hari's form everywhere never house the thieves of desire, delusion and pride within consciousness. 43.

Those whose eyes are colored in Hari's hue and whose heart is filled with Hari see Syama in sky, water, earth, wind and fire. 44.

Those whose minds house Mohana and whose eyes have caught Him see only Him embedded throughout the entire world. 45.

Those whose eyes acquire the habit of beholding Hari eternally gaze upon Syama and find nothing else pleasing. 46.

Those whose hearts are inhabited by clever and wise Mohana behold Sri Bhagavan throughout the whole world. 47.

Consciousness delights eternally in contemplation, eyes in His beauty and speech in describing His virtues. Rama remains forever in that place. 48.

Those intoxicated by drinking the wine of love cannot be controlled by Vedas, Puranas or Quran. 49.

The noble people made immortal by drinking love's nectar cannot be burned by the mighty fire of desire. 50.

The floor of the heart becomes cool, filled with the water of love. Every flame of the world remains far from it. 51.

When the mighty sun of love, a mass of radiance, rises within the heart, the night of delusion and all the darkness of sin perish, abandoning their refuge. 52.

As the sun of love rises, complete light spreads. The stars of sense objects disappear and delusion's darkness is destroyed. 53.

Watered with love's nectar, realization becomes immortal. The whole universe becomes Hari, and both knowledge and ignorance disappear. 54.

When love's fire touches it, the world's apparent form burns. Those forms vanish and Hari's single form remains. 55.

They abandon both devotion and liberation and renounce this world and the next. Submerged in the ocean of love, they experience neither elation nor sorrow. 56.

Those who taste Hari's sweet rasa become immortal by drinking it. For their tongue and heart, every other rasa becomes tasteless. 57.

In hearts where Hari descends in the form of love, sins burn to death and every karma turns to ash. 58.

Drinking Hari's rasa, one becomes intoxicated, sways, falls unconscious, rises, walks, weeps, laughs and dances, forgetting home. 59.

Submerged in the ocean of love, one becomes the form of love. This is called nonduality of rasa, where no separate form remains. 60.

Love is Hari and Hari is love; He Himself is lover and beloved. Where love dwells, the world's torment cannot remain. 61.

Bhagavan dwells in the hearts of those intoxicated with love for Hari. No sin or suffering remains, and the mine of delusion is destroyed. 62.

The greatly fortunate lovers who behold the honey of Mohana's smile with their own eyes remain intoxicated day and night. 63.

Drinking love's elixir, boundless strength increases, and the enemies of desire, anger, pride and greed flee beyond the border. 64.

Upon entering the ocean of love and reaching its ultimate floor, one never again rises into the realm of birth and death. 65.

When Manamohana dwells within a mind and fills every limb, no room remains for another, who comes, looks and departs. 66.

Syama, treasury of beauty, remains within mind and eyes. The life of Vraja's young women is then seen within everyone. 67.

Mohana enchants the entire world and keeps everyone dancing. Yet He Himself is enchanted and ruled by love and comes to dance in Vraja. 68.

When the collyrium of love is applied to the eyes, boundless vision increases. The darkness of delusion is destroyed and Syama's image covers the entire world. 69.

When love manifests, nothing else can remain. Only "You, You" remains, and the sign of "I" disappears. 70.

The beloved dwells in love's abode, and love dwells within the beloved. The two have one form, where no rule remains. 71.

Knowledge and Love

Knowledge and love are both greatly venerable, stainless and worthy of praise, yet the lover's heart forever cherishes love's beautiful form. 72.

The knower embodies awareness and becomes absorbed in Brahman, while the expert lover beholds sweet pastimes. 73.

Beside the knower, Hari is grave existence-consciousness and Brahman-bliss. With the lover He eternally plays as restless love-bliss. 74.

The knower remains forever filled with Brahman-bliss, while the lover beholds Hari's delightful and rare radiance. 75.

Hari never abandons the lover and remains continually near, laughing and making the lover laugh while performing many pastimes. 76.

Hari, the foundation of Brahman-knowledge, realization and nectar, meets the lover, embraces the heart and streams tears from His eyes. 77.

Sages and wise knowers of pure discernment praise the lover's fortune. Abandoning reliance upon their own station, they desire the exceedingly rare station of love. 78.

The Lover's Form

The lover does not seek liberation by abandoning Hari, the form of love, but eternally beholds Syama's face, supremely happy and greatly fortunate. 79.

Even if battle is waged face to face and a spear strikes the head, the lover does not abandon love's vow and gives life for Hari's happiness. 80.

If living, one lives only for Hari; if dying, one dies for Hari. The body burns in separation's fire, and everything is surrendered. 81.

The lover recognizes no one apart from Syama. Sleeping and waking, Syama is forever everywhere in the world. 82.

Abandoning worldly and Vedic convention, the lover worships Syama day and night and joyfully surrenders the head in love's name alone. 83.

The body may be cut apart and happily fed to crows. If the beloved desires it, how can this be considered a great sacrifice? 84.

The lover speaks love, hears only love and beholds love with the eyes, tastes love, consumes love and perceives love day and night. 85.

Greatly fortunate are those whose hearts are pierced by love's arrow. They retain not the slightest ordinary awareness and forget all knowledge. 86.

Body, mind and wealth all contain only You and exist for all Your purposes. Ocean of love and King of Vraja, use them however You please. 87.

The lover has no attachment to enjoyment or liberation and remains forever detached from everything, yet attachment to the beloved's beauty continually increases. 88.

Knowing every enjoyment up to Brahmaloka to be worthless, the lover still adorns the body eternally for the beloved's pleasure. 89.

If the lover sees that Rama desires it, separation occurs at once. The lover may fall into hell and endure sorrow, yet remains happy at all times. 90.

Hell's fire may roast the lover, yet love increases every moment. Happiness in the beloved's happiness is love's rule. 91.

Those who burn and die in love's fire, losing their separate self, alone truly live in the world; all others remain dead. 92.

One who has made consciousness a cataka bird and accepted love's vow eternally beholds cloud-dark Syama's beauty and abandons everything else. 93.

One endures calamity, dies of thirst and burns in separation's fire without looking elsewhere; such a lover is greatly fortunate. 94.

The determined lover whose cakora-like consciousness is fixed upon the moon of Syama never looks in another direction. 95.

Worldly delusion vanishes and all ignorance is destroyed, yet possessive love for the beloved eternally increases: this identifies love. 96.

Every bodily ego is burned and possessiveness toward sense objects vanishes, yet the body is not abandoned because it serves the beloved's happiness: this is love's possessiveness. 97.

The two embrace firmly and eternally enjoy happiness. They remain forever one in form, though no bodily union occurs. 98.

Union remains eternally certain, yet separation is perceived. Assuming the forms of union and separation, love continually burns the body. 99.

Yet the lover keeps this burning within the heart and embraces it like the beloved. Nothing is equally peaceful, cooling, delightful or natural. 100.

[665]

(Raga Bhimpalasi - Tala Kaharava)

Love is eternally and supremely pure, free of every disturbance. The beloved's happiness alone is supreme wealth and the pure essence of life. The lover's world is exceedingly wondrous and exceptionally sweet. In every direction, the treasure of love forever expands love.

Continuation of [665]

There is no anxiety, restlessness or awareness of the world. Gain and loss, life and death, happiness and sorrow remain equal. There is eternal mutual honeyed union and ever-flavorful play of love, eternal forgetfulness of the world and eternal company of beloved and lover.

[666]

(Raga Manda - Tina Tala)

This priceless rasa is supremely secret, exceedingly stainless and pure. It should never be revealed or spoken openly anywhere. The beloved touches the lover's limbs, and the lover touches the beloved's. Without the slightest fear or hesitation, They perform varied play of rasa. The two never tell anyone of this rasa. The bee of the mind forever circles its lotus of rasa. Remain eternally submerged in the fathomless lake of rasa and do not emerge. Let no one know it, and let no one come or go.

[667]

(Raga Shivaranjani - Tala Kaharava)

Intense lust, intolerance, fickleness, envy, pride, violence and grief; craving, falsehood, anxiety, confusion, fatigue, delusion, inequality and division; dependence upon another, illness, fear, destructibility, lethargy, attachment and aversion; not the slightest trace of ugliness or dejection exists in the divine form. It is eternally real, all-pervading, sovereign, free of maya's qualities and the foundation of every virtue. Free of every distinction, unborn and imperishable, it embodies existence, consciousness and bliss. Supremely independent, its body is its own nature, pure and without distinction between indweller and body. Its freely willed pastime-form is never subject to place, time, action or anything else.

[668]

(Raga Pilu - Tala Kaharava)

Supremely stainless and exceedingly sweet, it is an abode of divine nectarean rasa, delightful and free of desire for enjoyment, craving and attachment. 1.

Free of desire for personal happiness and detached from the world of enjoyment, it ends every transaction of sense enjoyment by mind and senses. 2.

The mind becomes deeply detached from enjoyment and free of desire for liberation. Consciousness and understanding remain absorbed in love for the beloved. 3.

Not the slightest thought of sinful action remains where holy love manifests, supremely pure and unchanging. 4.

Free of anxiety, fear and maya, and accompanied by peaceful renunciation, pure attachment eternally pervades every atom. 5.

Every holy mood and virtuous action is free of attachment to desire. The beloved's stainless happiness alone is love's one dharma. 6.

Knowing in truth the Lord's greatness, supreme service and the thought within His heart, one remains absorbed day and night in service to the beloved. 7.

May love for the beloved Lord become the form of life itself. The beloved's incomparable qualities remain revealed through their purity. 8.

The world increases, decreases, continually changes and comes to an end, but self-sacrificing love remains infinite and increases every moment. 9.

Free of impurity, radiant, indivisible, incomparable, supreme and without pride, Hari Himself is the form of love, and love itself is Bhagavan. 10.

That very love is eternally embodied as Radhika's form. Sporting forever with Syama, She manifests incomparable nectar. 11.

[669]

(Raga Bhairava - Tala Kaharava)

Love is holy, supremely radiant, generous and free of desire's impurity. Like the moon's phases, it naturally and boundlessly increases every moment. Nothing can ever oppose it for any reason. No worldly mood can ever restrain it. Wealth, people, body, happiness born of many enjoyments and powerful sorrow never affect a mind flooded with love; its true mood remains. There is no fear of hell and no desire for heaven. Life and death remain eternally and delightfully submerged in love-rasa. The beloved Lord Himself becomes the boundless ocean of the sweetest nectarean love-rasa and performs supremely enchanting and wondrous play within Himself. Graceful, incomparable, stainless, limitless and unbroken waves arise within it, continually bestowing pure, ever-new and exquisite happiness through endless time. Neither this world nor the next remains, nor the impermanent world of sorrow. Not even the slightest desirous impulse toward liberation's happiness arises within the mind. The beloved alone, embodied as happiness, existence and consciousness, pervades everything forever. Supremely holy nectar-rasa, rare even for gods and sages, rains eternally.

[670]

(Doha)

I know no one, and no one knows Me. May love for You remain; only You and I know it.

Love is the heart's secret and supremely priceless treasure. With every effort, one should keep it concealed within the heart.

Love is exclusive and exceedingly pure, eternally unbroken and without remainder. It continually increases every moment as a unique form of experience.

Continuation of [670]

Love's movement is exceedingly hidden and naturally remains within the heart, just as all-pervading Hari is everywhere yet reveals nothing outwardly.

Love resembles a fathomless ocean with an exceedingly deep floor. Rare souls reach the bottomless depth, while everyone else stands upon the shore.

Those who reach the bottomless floor of love's ocean never emerge again but remain forever submerged.

A small river receives a little water, swells and grows proud. The humble ocean receives every river's water yet does not swell.

The love that spills and bubbles over is of a light kind. Elevated love is exceedingly deep like a boundless ocean.

It is supremely holy, exceedingly stainless and free of craving for sense objects. The dirt of delusion cannot remain there, nor can anything make it impure.

If desire for sense objects comes to dwell within the heart, know that love is not there; only the degraded enemy of lust remains.

It desires neither yogic powers, Brahman's station nor the state of extinction. How could it count sensory pleasure, which is darkness when the sun rises?

Where the blind darkness of sense desire produces no moonless night, the supremely radiant sun of love manifests within that vessel.

[671]

(Raga Yaman - Tina Tala)

It desires to hear nothing, endures whatever comes and remains one in rasa and single-minded; this is called love. King of Vraja, I surrender body, mind and wealth entirely to You. Do whatever pleases Your heart; My honor rests in Your hands.

[672]

(Raga Jangala - Tala Kaharava)

That which remains forever dependent upon the beloved's happiness and is never independent, whose only happiness is the beloved's happiness and which is solely its instrument, which is forever free of doubt in the beloved, and whose welfare is the beloved alone, whose life's very life is the beloved: that is the sweetest love.

[673]

(Raga Manda - Tala Kaharava)

When love's holy and irresistible fire manifests, sin, suffering, doubt and fear immediately burn to ash.

[674]

(Raga Bhairavi - Tala Kaharava)

All the extraordinary moods are each loftier and more generous than the one before. Though exceedingly inward, they also appear as outward, flavorful behavior. They are supreme ideals, the most sacred and magnificent moods of love's realm. Through them Sri Bhagavan is encountered as the most beloved object of love. Yet in Her essential nature Radha is never bound by them in the slightest anywhere. In truth nothing exists within Radha apart from Syama alone. Radha is eternally Syama's form; no other presence or absence of mood exists. Radha is Syama and Syama is Radha; every other reality is eternally absent.

[675]

(Raga Manda - Tala Kaharava)

The Eight Levels of Love

Prema

The function of pure being that takes the form of desire for Krishna's happiness and arises in a renunciant's heart is called pure and incomparable prema.

Sneha

When the heart melts upon attaining the object of love, that state is called sneha, the lover's treasure. As a lamp's heat and radiance increase when it is filled with ghee, so longing for the beloved's sight grows in the heart when sneha dawns.

Māna

When love reaches an excellence in which ever-new sweetness is experienced, that state is called māna. Concealing the heart's emotion, it becomes crooked and contrary; because it gives Shyama delight, it bears the sweet name māna.

Praṇaya

When māna reaches excellence through an intense sense of possessiveness, non-difference with the beloved arises and the heart's joy greatly increases. When life, intellect, mind, body, food, clothing and every action remain in no way separate from the beloved, that state is called praṇaya.

Rāga

In the hope of meeting Shyama, the deepest pain becomes supreme happiness; in separation, every pleasure appears intensely painful. When praṇaya reaches excellence and arrives at this condition, it takes the name rāga and love attains its natural fullness.

Anurāga

When Shyama, though eternally experienced, appears new at every moment, forever more beautiful, flavorful, supremely sweet and utterly pure, and rāga reaches its highest excellence and grows without limit, these signs arise naturally and the state is called anurāga.

Bhāva

When pain more difficult than giving up one's life appears insignificant, and for Krishna's attainment that pain feels like the sweetest supreme joy, when the heart's longing for union with Shyama and for Shyama's happiness greatly increases, then anurāga, having grown to that degree, takes the auspicious name bhāva.

Mahābhāva

When bhāva naturally reaches its loftiest summit, that most sweet, supremely pure and heart-enchanting state is mahābhāva. The two highest levels of mahābhāva, radiant and pure as gold, are called modana and mādana, in which love manifests in perfection. The mādana state of mahābhāva is supremely rare and naturally sovereign. It manifests only in Radha, never anywhere else.

[676]

(Raga Manda - Tala Kaharava)

The moment one drinks the nectar of love, the poison of sense objects is destroyed, and a sweet river of bliss begins to flow without effort.

[677]

(Raga Sohani - Tala Dadara)

There is neither birth nor death, nor anything like worldly sorrow or joy there. A current of nectarean rasa flows, forever flooding everyone. Incomparable and utterly measureless bliss forever pervades that place, where Nilamani dances eternally without cease.

[678]

(Raga Bhairavi - Tala Kaharava)

As long as the demonic desires for enjoyment and liberation dwell within the mind, not even the slightest development of sacred divine love can occur.

[679]

(Raga Manda - Tala Kaharava)

One who runs here and there, enslaved by the tongue's flavors, and remains devoted to the belly and genitals cannot attain Sri Krishna.

[680]

(Raga Bhairavi - Tala Kaharava)

The desire for worldly enjoyment is the root of every sin, small and great. Purify the longing for love by utterly uprooting the desire for enjoyment.

[681]

(Raga Pilu - Tina Tala)

Know that love for Shyama has arisen when not the slightest trace of sorrow remains and sin, unrest and burning anguish have all been uprooted without remainder; when even a violent storm cannot shake one in the least, and mountains of suffering may collapse without striking the heart; when no trace remains of attachment to enjoyment or selfish desire, and Bhagavan alone is the object of both attachment and longing; when possessiveness toward the world is destroyed and loving possessiveness awakens toward Hari, and equanimity prevails everywhere in this world of opposing pairs; when the world's meetings and separations, honor and dishonor, gain and loss, life and death are all regarded alike; when one dies to the world of sense objects and lives eternally in the Lord, false appearance and unreality vanish, and truth is revealed; when Hari dwells forever and unceasingly in the heart's pure abode, never separated for even a moment, but joined without interruption; and when, gazing again and again upon Nandakumara's incomparable, ever-new beauty from head to foot, boundless new waves continually arise in the ocean of bliss.

[682]

(Raga Bhairava - Tala Kaharava)

Pure love for Radha and Madhava naturally erases every desire. No wish for liberation's pleasure remains, nor any concern for hell's pain.

[683]

(Raga Todi - Tala Kaharava)

It does not soar through an empty sky of delusion for the sake of false emotionalism, nor, overcome by lust, greed, delusion and other disorders, does it break the bounds of right conduct. Ignorance can never veil its understanding, and absorption in indulgence or attachment to sense objects never makes it lose awareness. "The Lord is mine and I am the Lord's; I bear pure attachment to the lotus feet of the Lord": this supreme knowledge remains forever within it, together with utterly pure detachment. Therefore the world's joy and resentment can never overshadow it. It eternally receives the true touch of its Lord, the object of its love. Having offered everything to the beloved, it remains forever absorbed in service, and is thus naturally and perpetually detached from the life of an enjoyer. Neither desire, possessiveness nor attachment to sense objects torments it; ever-new attachment to the Lord's feet continually increases. It forever moves divinely within the Lord's rare kingdom of bhāva; birth and death in the world of delusion can never touch it. Forever dead to the world, it gains eternal, deathless life in the Lord. Such a noble person alone is supremely fulfilled, deeply wise, knowing and pure.

[684]

(Raga Jangala - Tina Tala)

Where attachment and desire for enjoyment keep the heart restless, a current of sensual craving flows every moment under the name of love. There love's calm, cooling and stainless stream does not flow; only the fruit of dreadful hell ripens, and one gains pollution and disgrace.

On the spotless ground of total renunciation, the pure fruit of love grows. All the darkness of craving disappears when bhāva's radiant splendor shines. That sacred, supremely sweet and emotion-filled stage within love's kingdom is where the divine couple Radha and Madhava eternally perform their rasa dance, filled with rasa.

[685]

(Tune: Paraja - Tala Kaharava)

The Lower and Higher Forms of Kāma

Lower Kāma

As long as kāma remains, sins will remain and immeasurable suffering will follow. This is why the singer of the Gita gives the auspicious teaching to destroy kāma.

Higher Kāma

When living beings join body, mind and wealth in order to obtain material happiness and prosperity or the pleasures of heaven and other celestial realms, performing sacrifice, charity, austerity, service, worship, adoration of the gods and virtuous conduct, that too is certainly kāma. It is pure, yet it remains a basis of bondage.

The Ideal Higher Kāma

Higher still is the auspicious kāma cultivated by noble people: the supreme ideal of selfless action, scripturally examined, which makes life fruitful. By purifying the inner faculty, it grants knowledge of the reality of liberation. Ever desired by seekers of liberation, it is the praiseworthy destroyer of delusion and ignorance.

The Highest Kāma

Higher than this is the longing for bhakti, through which the Lord of all is eternally served, He who is the treasury of infinite majesty, divine power, beauty and joy. The supremely generous Lord repeatedly grants His sight according to the devotee's inclination and readily bestows the five kinds of liberation beginning with residence in His realm.

The Means of Destroying Kāma and the Difference Between Kāma and Prema

Kāma is creation's root and an innate disposition of the individual being. Therefore, simply erasing its existence is nearly impossible. The enemy called kāma is never destroyed merely through forceful restraint, but it vanishes effortlessly as soon as it assumes the form of prema. There is therefore one eternally unfailing means for destroying kāma: understand its meaning and transform it into love purified by renunciation. Once transformed into prema, kāma no longer remains kāma, just as iron, once turned to gold, becomes a pure and beautiful ornament. Kāma is eternally honey mixed with poison, while prema is eternally pure, incomparable nectar. Kāma certainly culminates in suffering, while prema is eternally the embodiment of bliss. Kāma leads to blind darkness, a condemned hell and a realm of gloom; prema is a radiant sun that grants joy, a divine world and stainless light. Kāma seeks one's own happiness and forever desires objects of enjoyment and even liberation; prema is made of renunciation and desires the beloved's happiness, the fifth human goal longed for by sages.

Prema

But in those who have no personal preference whatever and nothing left to gain, there is no desire for enjoyment or liberation, nor the slightest trace of worldly craving. Loving service alone is both means and goal, and every prescribed, desire-driven calculation has been abandoned. Even the liberations beginning with residence in the Lord's realm, and even His vision, are not accepted without service. This supremely renunciant love is the ideal of lovers who relish rasa, the exceedingly rare highest excellence desired by paramahamsas, ascetics and seers.

Radha, the Embodiment of Prema

Radha alone is the embodiment of this eternal, stainless and utterly renunciant love. As the very form of supreme prema, She forever fulfills every wish in Madhava's heart.

She does not perform any act of "renunciation," nor does She ever perform an act called "love." She is Herself the very foundation of renunciant love, naturally pure like stainless gold. Hari remains forever absorbed in relishing the rasa of Her divine love. Though eternally free and complete, He remains overwhelmed by love and subject to Radha.

[686]

(Raga Pilu - Tina Tala)

Love has this one sweet rule:

Whatever pleases the beloved's heart is alone its dharma, yoga and welfare. Forever filled with the nectarean rasa of love, the lover forgets the entire world. Through self-forgetfulness even dharma is forgotten, and nothing else retains importance. Without the one who embodies dharma, how could dharma stand separately on its own? Merging completely, the lover becomes eternally one with the beloved's mind. There is no desire, thirst or expectation, and no distinction between self and other. By nature the lover is only a puppet in the beloved's hand. There is not the slightest awareness of personal sorrow or joy, neither attachment nor anger. There is no concern for harm or benefit, nor dispassion arising from perceiving faults. Total renunciation is utterly natural; no pride, possessiveness or ego remains. Body, mind, life and intellect all belong to the beloved; life and death are alike. There is no calculation of injunction and prohibition, nor any separate code of conduct. The lover does only what the beloved makes one do, with no other thought.

[687]

(Raga Bhimapalasi - Tala Kaharava)

In love's kingdom, desire for one's own happiness or any wish of one's own is a great obstacle on love's path and produces intense burning in the heart. Even the slightest craving for sensory pleasure is a grave sin there. Beloved, You are a master examiner and test Your own devotee forever.

To erase this sin from Your own devotee, You remain forever vigilant, Lord. You do not indulge even the slightest wish of the devotee's mind and never support it. One who becomes deeply dissatisfied at this, sees faults and grows angry, abandons bhajana in degradation and becomes a storehouse of faults. But the foolish one who does not abandon bhajana or relinquish faith still seeks to have the mind's desire fulfilled without making any effort. When one pleads with You in this way to fulfill the heart's wish and then becomes agitated and unhappy, You do not count it as an offense. You would grant that person's wish if the heart were pure and faultless, but You do not give prema until awareness dawns. Thus one remains deprived despite receiving the opportunity of Your grace. Though engaged in bhajana, the deluded enjoyer does not attain love. The fortunate devotee who passes love's formidable examination finds every obstacle immediately worn away and destroyed. Renouncing every desire for enjoyment, liberation and personal happiness, such a devotee always follows Your will and loves the beloved's happiness. Giving that devotee utterly sacred love, You become subject to the devotee, dwell within that body and mind, and absorb the devotee into Yourself. You Yourself lovingly revealed this supreme ideal to me. Through it the world's seeming existence vanished, and neither elation nor resentment remained. This experience is dawning: "There is no one at all apart from You." Supreme connoisseur of rasa, within Yourself You enact Your own divine play.

[688]

(Raga Vageshri - Tina Tala)

May not even the faintest scent or trace of desire for one's own happiness be imagined or awakened. May pure anurāga arise, filled with desire for Krishna's happiness and made wholly of renunciation.

May not an atom's measure of attachment, desire or possessiveness toward enjoyment or liberation remain. May everything burn without remainder in the sacred fire of love. May everything remain wholly offered, yet without even the memory of having made an offering. May the beloved's happiness become life itself, while ever-new ecstasy of rasa remains awake forever. May this world and the next become stages for the divine play of the beloved's happiness. May both bondage and liberation lose their separate hold and be honored only as means for divine play. In separation and union alike, may the ocean of loving rasa expand without limit at every moment, its depth beyond paramahamsas, yogis and sages, before which even seers and contemplatives concede defeat.

[689]

(Raga Jangala - Tala Kaharava)

Distance in time or place can never truly separate those whose hearts forever dwell within each other, perpetually full.

[690]

(Doha)

If our beloved feels even slight pain on seeing us unhappy, how terribly guilty we are! Why do all our personal wishes not die? Why should we not remain supremely happy and give Him abundant happiness? Why should we not always smile with cheerful faces and make Him laugh?

[691]

(Doha)

Beloved, laugh and keep laughing; may we make You laugh abundantly. Beloved, remain forever joyful; may we make You exceedingly happy. Body, mind and intellect are all Yours; may we never cause them to weep. By giving happiness to what belongs to You, may we continually attain pure joy.

[692]

(Doha)

How can such a person consider herself miserable or regard herself as destitute? Those to whom her body and mind belong will understand and bear every new sorrow and affliction. Whether They preserve the body or not, keep it very near or place it far away, They forever keep it within Themselves and remain eternally full.

[693]

(Raga Todi - Tala Kaharava)

Within exquisitely sweet remembrance there is forever sweet union, vision and tender touch. Sweet and enchanting conversation continues, beautiful and sweet, continually giving rise to joy. Sweet feeling and pure, sweet longing arise, while sweetness forever reaches new excellence. Within that eternally sweet, stainless world of rasa, neither resentment nor disputation remains.

[694]

(Raga Bhairava - Tina Tala)

Whoever has attained the bliss of meeting Hari alone plunges freely into the unfathomable depths of the ocean of rasa. Every worldly attachment to enjoyment falls away and every deception and artifice breaks. Absorbed in the honeyed rasa of Shyama's lotus feet, the mind becomes a bumblebee. Desire for enjoyment and liberation disappears as the snare of sneha takes hold. At every moment new joy is created by gazing upon the moon of His face.

[695]

(Raga Bhimapalasi - Tala Kaharava)

As nearness to the Lord increases and egoless renunciation grows, rasa becomes successively more radiant, sweet and immeasurably exalted. Shanta, pure dasya, beautiful sakhya, vatsalya and the supremely generous madhura rasa each display an unchanging succession of ever-greater renunciation and intimacy. Complete self-offering, intimacy without any veil and the sweetest, stainless renunciation are why this madhura rasa, filled with anurāga, is called the radiant rasa.

Within this, parakiya is still more radiant and purer in feeling than svakiya, for its sole longing is to give happiness to the beloved. It is complete surrender made entirely of renunciation, conduct free of fault-finding, devoid of desire for enjoyment or liberation, with the beloved's happiness as life's only essence.

× × × ×

In relation to Ishvara there is no mundane conception of one's own wife and husband, or of another's wife and another woman's husband. There is only the all-pervading, all-formed, condensed reality of existence, consciousness and bliss, whose nature lies beyond ordinary comprehension. Divine play and the One who performs it are eternally non-different; there is no enjoyed object, enjoyer or act of enjoyment. His body of divine play is beyond the threefold division and the three gunas, eternally beyond union and separation. Yet the incomparable Rasaraja remains eternally absorbed in the rasa play of Mahabhava, Bhagavan's form forever serving as the indescribable shelter of apparently contrary qualities and attributes.

[696]

(Raga Todi - Tala Kaharava)

The supremely sweet beloved Sri Krishna alone is the pure form of love. Sri Krishna gives love without interruption in every way and forever receives love. Sri Krishna speaks, hears and forever inhales only the one reality of love. Sri Krishna sees and tastes love and touches love alone. Sri Krishna performs only the actions of love and is the sacred life-breath of love. Sri Krishna forever remains love's servant and is eternally love's master.

× × × ×

Love removes distance and love abolishes every obstruction. Love makes one forget the entire world of appearances and unites one with Bhagavan.

[697]

(Raga Vageshri - Tala Kaharava)

Pure love for Radha and Madhava naturally erases every desire. No wish for the pleasure of liberation remains, nor any concern for hell's pain. No longing for enjoyment or for one's own sensory pleasure remains, and every painful deprivation accumulated over ages is utterly ended.

Pride, self-regard, arrogance, possessiveness, attachment, envy and jealousy disappear. Renunciation, love and bliss pervade the mind, and the heart's burning ends. No distinction remains between gain and loss, joy and sorrow, auspicious and inauspicious. The beloved's happiness alone becomes life's nature and its sustaining support. Everything is naturally surrendered, yet no memory of surrender remains. Not the slightest pride survives, and undisputed humility manifests. One finds incomparable, infinite joy in seeing the beloved profoundly happy, yet the heart's longing to give happiness again and again only increases. Without renunciation, not even the slightest entry into love's kingdom is possible. Not the faintest trace of desire for enjoyment, liberation or personal happiness remains. Then Bhagavan Himself becomes that devotee's beloved, the delight of the life-breath, and within His mind awakens a splendid longing to relish rasa. He is eternally filled with rasa, the connoisseur of rasa, the ocean of rasa's nectar and Rasaraja Himself; yet, forever unsated, He casts aside all reserve and continually relishes that rasa. This is why He remains forever subject to Radha and the gopis. Unable to repay His debt to them, He eternally regards Himself as destitute. Radha, meanwhile, regards Herself as forever impoverished in the wealth of love and remains shy on seeing the beloved's nectarean feeling toward Her. Holding the magnificent ideal of this most sacred kingdom of love within the heart, may every human being walk the path of renunciation and eternally worship Bhagavan, the treasury of rasa. This is the generous message of Radha and the gopis' sweet and sacred love, the pure, boundless ocean of the rare, exquisitely sweet nectar of Bhagavan's rasa. May the one auspicious and sacred goal of human life be to remain always and everywhere immersed in the ocean of pure loving rasa. This alone is the most excellent fruit of the Radhashtami festival: may Sri Radha-Madhava alone become the supreme beloved of one's life.

[698]

(Raga Bhairava - Tala Kaharava)

Free from desire for sensory pleasure, there is an exceedingly sweet anurāga for Krishna. It arises naturally, filled with the beloved's happiness, renouncing everything and detached from enjoyment. There is no craving or acquisitive desire, no possessiveness, pride or self-regard anywhere. Only the heart remains filled with loving rasa, stainless, incomparable, divine and great. There is giving and only giving, with no business of taking anywhere. Shyama forever longs to relish that very loving rasa.

[699]

(Raga Jangala - Tala Kaharava)

Hari is eternally the cause of every cause, omnipotent and the support of all, all-attractive, concentrated consciousness, the changeless form of bliss. He is the embodiment of the nectar of every rasa, the connoisseur of rasa, Rasaraja and the boundless ocean of madhura rasa. Radha, the form of Mahabhava and the hladini potency, is the manifest incarnation of prema. They are the divine and eternal treasury of beauty's nectar, a pure and limitless ocean of sweet rasa. Free of desire for Their own happiness, They forever give each other sweet joy. Becoming the relisher and the relished, They expand rasa through the act of relishing and establish the auspicious, generous ideal of love's kingdom.

[700]

(Raga Pilu - Tina Tala)

Even if You never wish to meet me and choose not to remember me, may I remember You forever, without forgetting for even a moment. Give me immeasurable pain; I shall make no complaint. May Your sweet remembrance forever remain within my heart.

[701]

(Raga Bhairavi - Tala Kaharava)

Where sacred feelings are filled with rasa and pure love flows mutually, there are no anxiety, fear or sorrow, and freedom from concern for acquisition and preservation is eternally manifest. Nothing remains to be given and nothing remains to be obtained. There is only the wish for the beloved's happiness, without a trace of desire for enjoyment or liberation. Gain and loss, pleasure and pain, praise and blame, honor and dishonor: no duality of pleasant and unpleasant remains, and the vision stays equal toward all. The beloved, the very embodiment of divine play, eternally performs graceful pastimes and takes me along. Nor am I ever separate; I am forever the beloved's own inseparable limb.

[702]

(Raga Bhairava - Tala Kaharava)

Total renunciation arose naturally, and bhajana began to flow without interruption. The beloved's happiness alone is bhajana, the natural, beautiful abode of joy. "Krishna will be happy": for this alone I renounce everything completely. No sense of duty has arisen; only natural anurāga remains. This natural disposition now abides within my every action, and therefore ever-new longings continually arise for the beloved's happiness. Worldly convention, Vedic rule, bodily duties and actions, modesty, fortitude, honor, pleasure and enjoyment: all were naturally renounced from the moment union with Shyama's happiness arose. Attachment, craving, possessiveness, expectation, lust and anger all disappeared. The beloved's happiness alone remains supremely dear, the clear understanding that sustains life. Every agreeable and disagreeable pain, astonishment and grief disappeared. Within the beloved's happiness, no distinction of place and time, bondage and liberation remains.

[703]

(Raga Bhairava - Tala Kaharava)

There is no worldly craving, no selfish desire and not the slightest attachment to enjoyment. Within Shyama's sacred ocean of nectar there is eternal union in complete oneness. Nothing is ever said of life and death, meeting and separation. No external condition ever strikes as beloved or unwanted. Place and time can never create even the slightest obstruction. They remain forever united, with not the least awareness of non-meeting. No distinction ever arises between the object of love and lover, master and servant. A pure, non-different feeling forever remains, an eternally sacred unity.

[704]

(Doha)

First offer your head, and only afterward enter. Only such a noble lover gains entrance to this realm.

[705]

(Raga Sohani - Tala Dadara)

The taste of sense objects is forever tasteless, filled with poison and torment. Attachment to sense objects continually increases sorrow and fear. Love for Krishna's feet is nectarean, divine and exceedingly sweet. By tasting even a little of it, every sorrow and fear departs.

[706]

(Raga Pilu - Tala Kaharava)

When every rule concerning this body and its life-breath is forgotten, the world calls that person's love complete and calls that person a perfect lover. Love's story cannot be told; words cannot express it. The eyes fill the cup of each moment with the ocean of divine form. One who is caught in love's snare and dies thereby lives forever. Without knowing love's secret, no one who dies can truly live.

[707]

(Tune: Vageshri - Tala Kaharava)

One has joyfully entrusted body, mind and life to the beloved and given Him unrestricted authority to use them as He wishes. The Lord embraced that person and accepted the entire surrender, saying, "You are My very life." Why should that person now deliberate in this way? How can such a person consider herself miserable or think herself destitute? Those to whom her body and mind belong will understand and bear every impure sorrow and affliction. Whether They preserve the body or not, keep it very near or place it far away, They forever keep it within Themselves and remain eternally full. Wherever They go, whether They meet her or not, even if They always act in contrary ways, every harsh and sweet strain of music will resonate only within Them.

[708]

(Raga Todi - Tina Tala)

The Lord has made that person His own.

Giving shelter at His feet, He has naturally made that person fearless of everyone. Pressing that person to His heart, He said, "In every way you are My devotee." How then can a servant of the Lord's feet remain under the sway of worry and anxiety? The world's sufferings and faults never come to meet that person. Seeing that person protected even from afar, they all run away into the distance. Gods, sages, siddhas and accomplished yogis grow weary of praising that person's fortune, for the Lord of the entire universe delights in holding that person close in His embrace.

[709]

(Raga Manda - Tala Kaharava)

May surrender be complete and forever free of desire for personal happiness. May infinite virtues always be seen and the mind remain absorbed in beholding them. May not the slightest fault ever be seen in the beloved, and may not the least agitation, disappointment or anger ever arise in the mind. I give the beloved nothing, no object whatever; the beloved continually gives everything: this is the truthful experience. The neglect, dishonor, grave adversity and pain the beloved gives me are gifts of rasa from the beloved. This is the beloved's intimacy; this is the beloved's love. It can never be destroyed, for this is love's rule. May it increase from moment to moment, with new joy at every moment, freely drinking the ever-new, sweet nectar of rasa at every moment.

[710]

(Raga Vasanta - Tala Dadara)

Body, life-breath, mind, possessions, circumstances, possessiveness, attachment, desire and delusion: where all are naturally surrendered, there alone is love, the pure abundance of happiness. This infinite love cannot arise in anything finite in any way. It arises only in the one infinite and perfect Lord, where it grows eternally without bound. This love is never finished and never reaches an end. Ever-new pure rasa grows, and the infinite sweetness of rasa increases forever. Not a trace of desire for personal happiness remains, nor does any distortion survive even in memory. One eternal and all-pervading ocean of loving rasa continually surges everywhere.

Every duality disappears and only the one beloved remains, absorbed in relishing love's nectarean rasa and drawing the many into the Self.

[711]

(Raga Pilu - Tala Kaharava)

There is not the slightest desire for personal happiness, nor attachment to enjoyment in the mind. Love for the beloved's feet continually increases, together with pure devotion to the beloved's happiness. Ever-new honeyed joy of union, ever-new exhilaration of rasa; ever-new acts for the beloved's happiness, the rasa of complete surrender. The spotless moonlike face is ever new, with ever-new displays of art and grace; the flute's sweet melody is ever new, as are the exchanges of rasa. Exclusive possessiveness is forever fresh, and rasa forever newly expands. Longing for the beloved's happiness grows boundlessly day after day.

[712]

(Raga Paraja - Tala Kaharava)

The eyes entered and merged with the beloved's eyes, and hearing truly merged with the beloved's hearing. All the other senses eternally merged within the entire company of the beloved's senses. Heart merged with heart, and life-breath forever entered the beloved's life-breath. They became one form, with not even the slightest awareness of difference remaining. Who offered whom, and who became absorbed in whom, when and how? Is this the beloved or the beloved girl? Who, bereft of ordinary awareness, can say?

[713]

(Raga Jangala - Tala Kaharava)

Whatever makes my one supremely beloved Lord utterly happy is dharma, is action and is the one highest duty, whether it brings lasting bondage or immediate liberation, whether it brings dark ignorance or direct knowledge.

Whether it brings heavenly pleasure lasting for eternity or the terrible torment of hell, whether clouds of unrest gather or eternal peace extends everywhere, whether there is extreme poverty or abundant luxury and enjoyment, whether life is filled with action or there is complete renunciation of action: I have no relation to bondage or liberation, ignorance or knowledge, heaven or hell. Neither the splendor of enjoyment nor the bonds of dreadful poverty remain. I have not the slightest attachment to anything, nor aversion toward anything. The beloved's happiness alone is my life and good fortune.

[714]

(Raga Bhimapalasi - Tala Kaharava)

There is no satisfaction in union, yet in non-meeting there is never any lack. Presence and absence have become one rasa in the eternal river of love. In every separation and at every moment, this incomparable experience arises: They have never been two, and can never possibly become two. They are eternally one, eternally united, an infinite ocean of rasa. What union could there be when eternal union never ends? Yet the extraordinary bliss of union creates a fresh madness for meeting. They immediately become two, and the honeyed relish of rasa increases at every moment. There is never satisfaction; an immeasurable thirst for rasa continually grows. They desire only to remain two, so that the current of rasa may flow forever. May They eternally and ceaselessly drink that honeyed, rare and divine rasa. May not even the thought of separation arise; may splendid union remain forever. Thus the sacred river of love flows continuously, exceedingly sweet and filled with rasa. Vipralambha and union are its two charming and delightful banks.

[715]

(Raga Paraja - Tala Kaharava)

A pure loving contest begins between lover and beloved. They give each other happiness and honor, each lovingly insisting in contrary yet unobstructive ways. You eat first, and afterward I shall receive the maha-prasada infused with the nectar of Your lips. Within it I taste an extraordinary, divine sweetness beyond compare. Place the betel in Your mouth, relish it, fill it with Your own rasa, then give it to me after chewing. Within it I shall taste an incomparable rasa, exceedingly sweet and enchanting. You sit while I adorn You beautifully with my own hands. With my own hand I shall pick fragrant flowers, weave a garland and place it upon You. You assume māna and I shall appease You with the humblest entreaties. You recline while I massage Your feet and fan You with a cooling, comforting breeze.

[716]

(Raga Bhupali - Tina Tala)

Radha, the graceful lady, is the ocean of loving rasa.

The moonlight from the moons of Her lovely toenails dispels every obstruction of darkness. Remembering Her instantly burns the countless offenses of many births. The exceedingly rare nectar of love is obtained, and every pure spiritual practice becomes fruitful.

[717]

(Raga Saranga - Tina Tala)

Blessed, blessed are the men and women of Vraja, in whose courtyards Mohana dances every day, clapping His hands to the rhythm. The rustic cowherd women, steeped in love and rich with rasa, are most dear to Manamohana. From their hands He eats butter and yogurt, while they fondle Him and lovingly scold Him.

Hearing the flute's melody, they all run forth, forgetting social shame and household work. This destitute, possessionless beggar for love forever longs for the dust of their feet.

[718]

(Tune: Lavani - Tala Kaharava)

To the degree that desire for personal happiness is renounced within the mind, the mind's anurāga becomes increasingly pure. Then one longing alone awakens: the beloved's happiness. The fortunate lover becomes solely an instrument of that happiness. Praise and blame, auspicious and inauspicious, pleasant and unpleasant, gain and loss, honor and dishonor, bondage and liberation, hell and Indra's heaven all become equal pairs of opposites. The beloved's happiness alone is life, and Bhagavan alone is the beloved. This is the sacred, rare and exalted nature of Radha and the gopis.

[719]

(Raga Bhairava - Tina Tala)

"May my beloved sport with me; may Bhagavan make me happy": such a wish never arises within a gopi's mind, knowingly or unknowingly. "May Shyama's play with Radha continue forever without obstruction": this gives a gopi millions of times more happiness than her own play with Him.

[720]

(Raga Vageshri - Tina Tala)

They are the fruit of every spiritual practice, the embodiment of renunciant love, free from desire for enjoyment or liberation and devoted to fulfilling Madhava's wish. They establish the magnificent ideal of supremely pure service. They are the very form of the sole desire for the beloved's happiness, and Bhagavan longs for them.

Within them, boundless sacred waves rise from the ocean of loving rasa. Generous Hari performs the divine rasa-lila in their company.

[721]

(Raga Malava - Tina Tala)

Only a gopi can serve as the comparison for a gopi.

The pure and incomparable splendor of the gopis' form has been adorned by the gopis alone. He who is Himself the form of rasa, from whose rasa gods, seers and sages receive their portion, created a mind to relish the gopis' rasa and abandoned every boundary. Even the irascible Durvasa beholds their graceful divine acts in wonder and bows. To touch a particle of dust from their feet, Uddhava wished to become an inert shrub. The Lord beyond all and beyond mind, the eternal maker of mind, conceals sweet longings within it. Overwhelmed, He longs to meet them. Blessed, blessed, all victory to those gopis!

[722]

(Raga Dhanashri - Tina Tala)

The glory of the gopis is incomparable.

The Vedic hymns, seers and sages absorbed in austerity eternally long to attain their bhāva. Pure knowledge of Brahman performs austerity, desiring love as sacred as the gopis' love, through which one encounters Brahman beyond the beyond in a charming, sweet form filled with rasa. Hari remains forever subject to their love and holds them in the highest regard within His mind. He stays irresistibly near them and does not wish to leave them for even a moment. He dwells in their minds, life-breaths and eyes as their mind, their life and the pupils of their eyes. Filled with rasa, He eternally enjoys the rasa dance, forgetting all divine majesty over the moving and unmoving world.

[723]

(Raga Khamaja - Tina Tala)

No celestial woman is equal to the gopis.

Hari Himself, who makes everyone dance, dances with them, clapping His hands. All their senses become fulfilled by attaining the touch that delights their hearts. Mind and understanding become blessed within themselves by continually beholding Murari dwelling there. He forever dwells in their lotus eyes as a honeybee drinking honey, the destroyer of the pride of Cupid. The flute's melody and its waves of sound, which delight His own devotees, eternally dwell within their ears. His beautiful sweet fragrance dwells within their nostrils, delighting and intoxicating everyone. As delicious food He dwells upon their tongues, sweet, enchanting, pure and captivating. He gives joy to every limb, while the touch of each other's limbs awakens divine passion. Through intimate contact, becoming the object of their loving enjoyment, He continually fulfills every body and mind. Overcome by love and eager to relish the loving rasa in the gopis' hearts, Giridhari forever longs inwardly and gains supreme happiness, though He is Himself the source of happiness.

[724]

(Raga Bhairavi - Tala Kaharava)

Nothing anywhere compares with Him, and nothing anywhere can serve as His likeness. Forever free of everything yet pervading everything, beyond all and the highest good above all, His existence, consciousness and nature as bliss are measureless and infinite. He abides in the majesty of His own nature, within whom everything arises and ends. That very inconceivable, infinite and indescribable foundation of divine sweetness, the boundless ocean of love's nectarean rasa, dances covered in the dust of Vraja.

[725]

(Raga Bhairava - Tala Kaharava)

May Queen Radha, Krishna's beloved, be filled with the happiness of divine play. From this alone immeasurable, boundless bliss arises within their hearts.

The sakhis and manjaris do not desire the happiness of divine play with Krishna for themselves. Every limb of their being is eternally filled with this supreme mood of renunciation. Radha is the creeper of love for Krishna, and all the sakhis are its leaves and flowers. When Krishna is supremely favorable and waters the creeper with the nectar of divine play, whatever bliss the Radha creeper freely receives, its leaves, flowers and buds receive millions of times more.

[726]

(Raga Bahara - Tala Kaharava)

Their exclusive longing is total surrender made entirely of renunciation. They have abandoned even the faintest scent of desire for personal happiness, while supreme joy arises naturally in the mind. The beloved's happiness alone is the delight of their lives. Their complete bliss is free, eternal possessiveness toward the beloved's lotus feet. Their minds exist through the beloved's mind and their life-breath through the beloved's life-breath. Their hearing, touch, sight, taste and smell remain eternally engaged in serving the beloved. They are the eternal form of the rasa of Krishna's service and a treasury of every virtue. Free of ego, they give happiness even to the giver of every happiness. Such gopis embody the beloved's happiness, have offered their selves to Krishna and are without ego; their pure hearts are filled with a boundless ocean of love's nectarean rasa. To relish the nectar of their sacred love, Bhagavan sweetens the autumn nights and establishes the rasa dance. Hundreds of millions of obeisances to the dust of those holy gopis' feet, which Uddhava longed to attain by becoming a beautiful creeper, shrub or healing herb.

[727]

(First Lavani Tune - Tala Kaharava)

Utterly free of lust's scent and devoid of desire for personal happiness, their life is the desire for Krishna's happiness, forever absorbed in beholding His joy. Their exceedingly divine bodies are fashioned from the essence of Krishna's loving rasa. Ever-new longings for Krishna's happiness keep their hearts restless. If Sri Krishna is happy, even intense suffering becomes intense joy for them. Though dwelling in an ocean of sorrow, they experience incomparable happiness. They have not a trace of desire for personal happiness and not the slightest distortion of lust in the mind, yet for the sake of Krishna's happiness they accept happiness that comes to themselves. Even while experiencing happiness, they do not forget the wish for the beloved's joy. Therefore they remain forever detached from and desireless toward their own happiness. Coming and going, sleeping and waking, clothing and ornaments, bodily adornment, food and recreation are all eternally filled with loving rasa and undertaken for Krishna's happiness. If Sri Krishna takes pleasure in seeing anger, exhilaration or māna in them, they display anger, great exhilaration and māna with immense delight. They sit in a sulk, speak harshly and show disregard and dishonor, never fearing social convention or Vedic rule if the beloved Bhagavan gains happiness thereby. Their attachment to Krishna's happiness is intense, and the mind's longing for His happiness is immeasurable. Their life is made of desire for Krishna's happiness, a supremely sacred divine abode of joy. Not even the seed of the demonic wish for enjoyment or liberation exists in their minds. Their rare and perpetual absorption in rasa is seedless, filled with the nectarean rasa of love's bliss. Supremely lovely, pure, divine and forever blessed, free of concern for ego, this exclusive gopī love, filled with Krishna's loving rasa, is rare even for gods and sages.

[728]

(Raga Vageshri - Tala Kaharava)

Within them not even the slightest conception or trace of the scent of desire for personal pleasure exists. The sun of love remains forever manifest, having erased the darkness of lust without remainder. Their actions and thoughts always express the one feeling of the beloved's happiness. Ever-new longing arises within the mind to behold the beloved's joyful face. May these embodiments of Krishna's happiness, whose minds belong to Krishna and who are abodes of love, give me a place at their lotus feet and shower boundless rasa of grace upon me.

[729]

(Raga Jangala - Tala Kaharava)

Sri Radha and Sri Krishna are eternally one incomparable supreme reality, the eternal condensed form of existence, consciousness, bliss and love, the most radiant embodiment of rasa. Appearing as two forms, They forever relish the rasa of divine play. The condensed form of bliss remains absorbed in divine play throughout beginningless, endless time. The countless splendid gopis are bodily expansions of Radha. Through them Radha and Shyama relish the rasa of divine play. Krishna, Radhika and the gopis join within the divine play: the one reality assumes three forms and enjoys the rasa of lila. The supreme reality Sri Krishna is eternally the incomparable condensation of existence, consciousness and bliss. Existence is sandhini, consciousness is citi, and hladini is the condensed power of bliss and rasa. Hladini Herself is Radhika; sandhini eternally becomes Sri Vrindavana; and citi becomes Yogamaya, arranging the rasa-lila. Radha Herself becomes the exceedingly charming cowherd women of Vraja. Becoming the field and vessels of lila rasa, Radha and Shyama thus remain absorbed in divine play.

The beauties of Vraja are great embodiments of love, free from the scent of lust. Solely for the beloved's happiness, they forever give loving rasa. Social shame, family custom, scripture and tradition, wealth, caste and status, fame and home, enjoyment and liberation: renouncing all, they naturally love the beloved. Impure desire for sensory pleasure is deeply condemned, polluted lust. Even elevated seekers who desire liberation are not fully free of desire. Lust is forever dark and a particular cause of the blindest hells. Love is perfectly pure, filled with Hari's rasa, the supremely radiant auspicious sun. One who has no wish for liberation and no awareness of bondage, whose duties, actions, understanding and knowledge exist solely for Krishna's happiness: within the minds of such gopis surges the ocean of love's nectar. This is why Natanagara, the jewel among connoisseurs of rasa, remains eternally immersed within it.

[730]

(Raga Bhairavi - Tala Kaharava)

The first practice on this path is to renounce sensory enjoyment within the mind and become deeply attached to virtuous actions that increase love for Hari. Completely destroy the grievous sin of lustful craving, and eradicate hypocrisy, vanity, ego, greed, intoxication, anger and māna. Abandon discussion of others and relinquish every desire for sense objects. Sweetly contemplate the divine name and form, holding firm faith in the Lord within the mind. Hear Hari's virtues, reflect upon His lila and love lila rasa without selfish desire. Keep the beloved mood forever in Mohana, with a pure and charming longing for prema. Surrender everything to Hari and abandon enjoyment and liberation. Find all happiness in Hari's happiness and all attachment at Hari's feet.

Seek the pure company of supremely intimate saints who love Hari and have no taste for enjoyment or liberation; bring personal preference to an end within their preference. The practitioner of the sacred path of love then contemplates divine play. By the grace of Radha and Shyama, lila is then directly seen. Understanding the gopi mood, the practitioner becomes pure and perfected through practice. Attaining perfection in the discipline of rasa, one receives a pure gopi form. Then, eternally participating in lila, one becomes the very form of prema. This is the supreme perfection of love's path and the stainless form of love.

× × × ×

Those perfected in karma, yoga or the path of knowledge do not come to this place. Through their own pure, prescribed paths they continually advance toward their respective goals. This is the mysterious divine arrangement of Radha and Krishna's graceful pastimes. Even the moods of dasya, sakhya and vatsalya do not reveal it. Only the pure mood of a woman of Vraja has eligibility here. There alone it flowers and bears fruit, and this radiant rasa expands.

[731]

(Raga Tilanga - Tina Tala)

Shyama's divine play is a treasury of happiness.

He appears and hides at every moment, playing proudly with us. The moment He is seen, He is unseen; sometimes unseen, He suddenly grants His sight. His coming seems like going, as He arrives and departs at every moment. He laughs and makes us laugh, makes us dance and dances, and sings while marking the rhythm. He accepts our māna and sometimes appeases us; at other times He sulks and puffs out His cheeks. Deceiving us again and again, He fills the heart with joy and speaks playfully deceptive words. Sometimes He joins His eyes with ours, and sometimes presses heart to heart.

Separating while meeting and meeting while separating, this continues day and night. Waking and dream seem one as He performs His splendid divine play. Body, mind, wealth, social bounds and dharma, public shame and family custom, enjoyment and liberation are all forgotten upon seeing that enchanting smile.

[732]

(Raga Bhairavi - Tala Kaharava)

Radha does not seek personal happiness from Her beloved in any way. She becomes supremely and changelessly happy only through the beloved's happiness. She desires only that the beloved remain happy at every moment without interruption. To see Him happy and make Him happy from moment to moment is Her one and only work. Being subject to His devotees is indeed His stainless and charming nature, and remaining subject to Radha seems to Him an incomparable abode of bliss. Yet Radha does not seek exclusive authority over Him. She generously longs for everyone to attain the beloved's happiness. With an open hand and a heart full of joy, She distributes the beloved and His happiness. "Make everyone happy," She continually tells Him in profoundly playful words. "I am without virtue and wholly impure; why are You so infatuated with me? Everyone is more beautiful, pure, sweet and rich in character and virtue than I. Relish everyone's loving rasa and, beloved, give me the gift of that happiness. Ocean of rasa, Natanagara, my beloved, my one and only Bhagavan!"

[733]

(Raga Paraja - Tala Kaharava)

She eternally serves the beloved in order to give Him happiness. She protects every proper boundary, yet naturally breaks even scripture's bridge when His happiness requires it.

Her one dharma is simply that happiness reach the beloved. She recognizes no other principle of personal benefit or harm. Her service continually gives the beloved pure and unrestricted happiness. Seeing this, She receives joy millions of times greater. But if Her own happiness obstructed the beloved's happiness for even a moment, She would regard it as sin and terrible suffering, and wisely abandon it. She never cares for hell or heaven, sorrow or joy. Within Her mind, the pure longing for the beloved's happiness alone continually grows. Her pure form becomes the embodiment of the happiness of serving the beloved. Through it, supremely incomparable service arises forever without ego.

[734]

(Raga Vasanta - Tina Tala)

Sri Radha's pure love is eternally complete, all-pervading and forever boundless, yet it never appears static, for its essence of happiness increases at every moment. It is exceedingly weighty, surpasses everything, is filled with dignity and utterly great, yet is free of pride in that dignity and is a treasury of sacred humility. An extraordinary, heightened crookedness arises within it effortlessly, yet remains perfectly pure and simple, continually increasing purity, simplicity and sweetness. Pure anurāga for Radha eternally shelters apparently contrary qualities and attributes. Blessed, blessed is this ever-pure attachment filled with detachment, following the beloved's own nature.

[735]

(Doha)

Within the perfectly pure kingdom of my Radha's love there is never any entrance for even the slightest conception or trace of polluted lust and enjoyment. Its unique adornment is free of selfish attachment, and its sacred love is free of delusion. Its possessiveness is free of desire for happiness, its every acquisition and preservation fully surrendered.

All food and drink are without personal taste; their extraordinary honor is free of pride. Abundant enjoyment is forever free of self-enjoyment, a perfectly pure treasury of the beloved's happiness. Senses, body, mind, life-breath, ego and understanding all exist for the beloved. They perform no personal task through them; every faculty does the beloved's work. All worldly conduct arises naturally and with complete restraint. They have no concern with anyone or anything; the beloved's happiness alone is the essence. Such is my Radha, purifier of the three worlds and the goal of life, the most sacred and supremely worshipable beloved of eternally fulfilled Sri Madhava.

[736]

(Raga Bhairava - Tina Tala)

Queen Radha gives the beloved ever-new joy at every moment. From His joy She freely receives happiness hundreds of times greater. Body, mind, wealth, life, understanding and movement, every possession, action, conduct and thought are all naturally offered to the beloved, eternally engaged in joyful service without disturbance. Yet She never retains any awareness that She has given anything. Not the slightest pride in Her own action ever enters Her mind. Her extraordinary adornment is free of selfish attachment, Her great enjoyment forever free of self-enjoyment. Everything exists for the beloved's happiness and is filled with humility, with extraordinary honor free of pride. Her possessiveness is free of desire for personal happiness, Her attachment to the beloved forever filled with detachment. Her own food and drink are without personal taste, and Her free attachment exists solely for the beloved's happiness. Not a trace of the darkness of impure lust can ever enter Her. The perfectly pure, divinely radiant sun of love shines there eternally. Every affair of body and home proceeds naturally and with complete restraint. All are means of the beloved's happiness, while She forever forgets Herself.

Her incomparable beauty and character, virtues, nature, pure feeling and lovely form are my Radha's sacred, divine and unique qualities that attract Krishna. She is eternally the beloved's servant, naturally humble, courteous and meek in heart. She forever says and considers Herself poor in the rare wealth of love for Shyama. Yet Shyama remains eternally delighted with Her and offers ever-new entreaties. With a stainless heart, beloved Nandakumara regards Her as supremely worshipable.

[737]

(Raga Pilu - Tala Kaharava)

Her mind is Krishna's, Her understanding Sri Krishna's, and Her pure life belongs to Krishna. Her senses belong to Krishna; auspicious and graceful, She is Krishna's perfectly pure beloved. Krishna's stories forever fill Her mouth, along with Krishna's name and the singing of His virtues. Krishna is Her ears' pure ornament, and Her ears remain absorbed in Krishna's virtues. The honey of Krishna's form fills Her eyes, and Krishna's fragrance fills Her nose. Her tongue is forever freely filled with the nectarean rasa of Krishna. Every limb remains continually joined with Krishna's touch, without obstruction. Her unsated mind eternally drinks Krishna's sweet rasa. She forever makes Shyama drink sweet nectarean rasa and, with full attention, eternally fulfills all of Shyama's wishes. She is the immeasurable, enchanting treasury of pure love and attachment for Shyama, the eternal and incomparable repository of countless virtues that give Shyama happiness. Within and without, wise and beautiful Shyama fills Her completely. Everything appears pervaded by Shyama, forever new, sweet and great. She enchants Shyama, the enchanter of the universe, and is the abode of rasa. Radha, the divine crest jewel, drives Shyama's heart mad with love.

[738]

(Tune: Rasiya - Tala Kaharava)

The love that manifested in the midst of Vraja

is rare in this world and incomparable in this world. It exists neither in the three worlds nor throughout the seven continents. Radha is the embodiment of Mahabhava, and Madhava is the crest jewel of rasikas and Lord of rasa. The Vedas cannot find the limit of Their radiant love made of renunciation. Purely renouncing desire for personal happiness, They love one another and are naturally detached from enjoyment and liberation; Their glory is boundless. They give each other happiness, neither seeking nor taking happiness for Themselves. For the beloved's happiness They serve renunciation and reduce ego to ashes. Whoever wishes to attain love should fill the heart with immeasurable ardor, neither laughing in pleasure nor groaning in pain, but becoming fully prepared. One must completely accept the gopis' mood of renunciation, their sole longing for the beloved's happiness and their freedom from every craving. Live and die for love, abandoning both enjoyment and the pride of renunciation; become filled with the beloved's will and remain eternally undisturbed.

[739]

(Raga Hujaja - Tala Dipacandi)

The otherworldly love of Radha and Madhava

is wholly unlike anything moving or unmoving in rasa, taste, attachment and conviction. Each eternally delights the other, and each, for the other's sake, forever renounces without a trace of pride and gives stainless happiness. Neither remembers personal needs, happiness or virtues in the least. Seeing any inability to give the beloved happiness, each continually grieves.

In eternal separation there is union, and within union there is separation. Their separation and meeting are unlike those of this world, an astonishing union in separation. Within eternal rasa are infinite attachment, enjoyment and detachment. The eternal treasury of rasa is beyond attachment and detachment, yet contains infinite attachment and detachment. Radha and Madhava's love is enjoyment without self-enjoyment, yet filled with divine enjoyment. Worldly eyes, mind and understanding can never perceive this unique divine reality.

[740]

(Raga Bhairavi - Tina Tala)

The extraordinary love of Radha and Madhava

contains not the slightest worldly craving; it exists solely in the way of the beloved's happiness and rasa. There is no fatigue, no delusion, no bondage and no desire for liberation. There is neither sin nor merit, but an unfathomable ocean of sacred rasa. Life has no other purpose and no limiting bridge of convention. The sacred auspicious banner of immeasurable love forever flies. Its natural disposition is pure exclusive loving rasa, without any divided or unfaithful feeling. Within eternal union is the pure happiness and perfectly pure longing for ever-new union. There is ever-new vision of stainless virtues, selfless love beyond material qualities, and ever-new beauty that steals heart and wealth, its pure splendor continually increasing. There is no self-enjoyment or renunciation, no selfish attachment or detachment. Anurāga pervades each solely for the other's happiness. Both are expert and each knows the other's mind. Both eternally serve, and each forever longs to serve the other. They are eternally of one rasa and one life, with one eternal support. Forever longing for union, They remain eternally united and are never separate in the least.

[741]

(Raga Paraja - Tala Kaharava)

Sweet union, in which the beloved is joined, is exceedingly joyful: His tender sweet enchanting smile, incomparable and divine, is a feast of nectarean rasa. But that union occurs in one place, at one time and in one manner. Inner vision does not remain, for awareness becomes wholly outward. The beloved's severe separation, however, gives the most excellent eternal happiness. Day and night throughout every direction, His honeyed sight and union are encountered. There, place and time never create even the slightest obstruction. The beloved is met within every object, continually giving happiness. Every hair remains thrilled by His eternal touch and every limb blossoms. Separation from the beloved is thus still more excellent, for ever-new colors continually unfold within it.

[742]

(Raga Purvi - Tala Kaharava)

Wealth, people, noble family, home and every means of happiness, glorious fame and honor, enjoyment and prosperity in this world and the next, supermundane blessedness and great liberation: Friend, not the slightest attachment remains anywhere, in any object or circumstance. One incomparable and absolute attachment to the beloved's feet eternally pervades everything. There is not a trace of fear at the destruction of this world or the next, nor of hell. The beloved fills all of life, and no other memory remains anywhere. Ever-new sweetest experience, ever-new renunciation and detachment, ever-new relish of rasa and divinely fresh anurāga filled with rasa. Nothing else possesses any independent existence, and nowhere is anything else perceived. Therefore no attachment, hostility or opposition toward anything remains. Not even an empty place for imagination remains within the mind. The mind itself is gone, for wise Hari has stolen it too.

Through His own mind He performs the work of their mind, and through His own body the work of their body. The all-fulfilled beloved ceaselessly fulfills His own desire. Who can ask Him what He does, why He does it or how? He speaks whatever enters His mind and remains silent whenever His mind so moves. Yet, producing an awareness of separation, He Himself experiences union and separation. He acts and causes action, continually arranging ever-new, sweet, divine relishing of rasa. The supreme rasika, forever filled with rasa, remains as two beloved forms fashioned for this purpose. He takes rasa, makes rasa drunk and showers immeasurable, incomparable rasa.

[743]

(Raga Bhairava - Tina Tala)

Modesty, good character and the heavy attachment to home formed the gateway; respect for elders stood guard. The doors of dharma were tightly fastened, and family pride was the lock. The thunderbolt of the flute's sound shattered the mighty fortress of shame. Everything was leveled to the ground, and the earth became equal everywhere.

[744]

(Raga Malhara - Tina Tala)

A rain of blissful rasa is falling.

The divine, sweet love of Radha and Shyama has blossomed. It remains full of rasa through the pure mood of humility, and anger never arises. Renouncing personal happiness for each other's sake is the means of every happiness. Bhāva eternally dwells within the abode of rasa, and rasa eternally dwells in bhāva's beautiful home. Ever-new joy continually arises, and not a speck of sorrow remains.

[745]

(Tune: Lavani - Tala Kaharava)

Ever-new capacity continually increases, together with ever-new, fathomless exhilaration. Ever-new longing flows without interruption, and ever-new enthusiasm continually grows.

Each is the other's pure self and each is the other's adornment. Each eternally loves the other and each is the other's foundation. Each is the other's eternal companion and the necklace of the other's heart. Meeting each other, They forget enjoyment, liberation and the entire moving and unmoving universe.

[746]

(Raga Bhimapalasi - Tala Kaharava)

Body, life-breath, mind, intellect and senses, together with all their natural functions; longing, attachment, desire, hope, thirst and every principle underlying them; maya, delusion, ego and possessiveness, together with all their conduct; every high and low transaction of this world and the next, of the highest good and personal interest; wealth, people, life, relatives, good name and true fame, the highest respect and honor; blessed destiny, spiritual powers, prosperity, success, stainless wisdom and great discrimination; bodily duty, family duty, every social duty and every Vedic duty; all dharmas, the practitioner of dharma, the righteous self, the body of dharma and dharma's essence; bodily and family happiness, heavenly pleasure, incomparable liberation and the bliss of Brahman: all were naturally surrendered, leaving nothing high or low. Waking, dream, deep sleep and turiya; seer, seeing, seen and thought; past, future and present were all surrendered without ego. Not the slightest memory of offering remained, nor any pride anywhere, the pride that causes a fall from the highest level and which Bhagavan Himself removes. Total renunciation becomes perfectly pure where it exists for the beloved's happiness alone. The radiant sun of love rises there, and the dark eclipse of lust dies. Sacred humility then manifests and longing for the beloved's happiness increases. Exclusive remembrance and happiness in the beloved's happiness: this is the sweetest gopi mood. It is the supreme jewel, the pure, extraordinary treasury of this priceless love, eternally fathomless and naturally increasing at every moment, immeasurable and without pride.

Radha is the highest and most beautiful form of the eightfold love beginning with sneha, māna and praṇaya. As the embodiment of Mahabhava, She naturally and uniquely attracts Krishna.

[747]

(Raga Pilu - Tala Kaharava)

Boundless waves arise in the ocean of Radha's mind, giving happiness to the beloved and defeating millions of enchantresses. She eternally performs many pastimes with the beloved in the forests of Vrindavana, assuming ever-new adornments within a secluded, newly blossoming grove. Supremely expert in rasa play, She displays ever-new bhāvas for the beloved's happiness, while fresh longings continually increase. She knows every gross and subtle movement of the beloved's heart and conducts Herself accordingly, following like a shadow day and night. All Her conduct is eternally and perfectly favorable to the beloved; She never entertains even the slightest thought unfavorable to Him. Yet sometimes, acting contrary, She sits sulking in the grove. The rasika beloved then comes to appease Her, His sorrowful heart a treasury of happiness. She is supremely clever in conduct, with knowledge developed in every way, yet near Her beloved She is exceedingly innocent, simple-hearted and without pride. By nature She is always utterly joyful and eternally overwhelmed with bliss, yet for the beloved's happiness She becomes distressed and experiences profound loving concern. She remains naturally and eternally fearless, yet sometimes becomes afraid. Going alone to meet Him, She quietly sings. At times She imagines fear without cause, and Her body naturally trembles. She goes and hides within the beloved's arms, Her tender limbs held tightly. Seeing the beloved's yellow garment and mistaking it for Her own golden form, She immediately merges into it, displaying boundless and incomparable beauty.

When the Malaya breeze blows the garment from Her body, the beloved immediately covers and conceals Her limbs with His yellow cloth. Seeing golden creepers entwined around young tamala trees, She embraces dark Shyama like a creeper, regarding Herself as that golden vine. Sometimes She picks fragrant flowers, fashions a pure and beautiful garland, and joyfully adorns the beloved's neck while entreating Him with love. Seeing fragrant flowers in bloom, She says with utmost humility, "Lord of my life, please pick and bring them for making a garland." When the treasure of Her life joyfully gives Her the selected flowers, She receives them with boundless happiness and engages in play filled with rasa. Sometimes, assuming māna, She refuses to accept the sweet and enchanting garland the beloved has woven and placed upon Her. Then, seeing distress again cover the face of Her life-beloved, She grows agitated, abandons all māna and goes to appease Him Herself. Sometimes She prepares four kinds of delicious food with Her own hands, lovingly feeds the beloved and fans Him. At times She joyfully takes a morsel from the beloved's own hand when He feeds Her with His arm, filling Her heart with supreme delight. In this way Radha, whose body is non-different from Shyama, eternally sports with Shyama. They are the shelters of madhura rasa and perform splendid divine pastimes.

[748]

(Raga Paraja - Tala Kaharava)

Radha and the gopis do not remain upon the low plane of selfish enjoyment. With immeasurable joy they endure every sorrow, hardship and adversity. They naturally cut the tree of desire for personal happiness entirely at its root. Forgetting themselves, they joyfully live and die forever for the beloved's happiness.

They abandon every duality of praise and blame, honor and dishonor, joy and sorrow. Renouncing all personal acquisition and preservation, they worship only the beloved's happiness. They have not the slightest desire for heaven and no fear of hell. Unwavering remembrance of the beloved's happiness removes every distinction and inequality. They do not value liberation or isolation if it obstructs service. Intent upon serving the beloved, they hear the word liberation and flee in fear. They are eternally made of service, yet never fill the mind with the slightest pride. They forever follow only the heart's wish that embodies the beloved's happiness. Thus they teach the material and spiritual worlds the loftiest renunciation and remove the low designs of ego, senses and mind for personal happiness.

[749]

(Raga Pilu - Tala Kaharava)

There are two beautiful supreme forms of worshiping Radha. Both are supremely unfailing and auspicious, excellent and incomparable. Radha's bhāva is the happiness of Her beloved Lord Sri Krishna. Longing for the beloved's happiness continually increases within Radha's mind. When wise people remain absorbed in serving them, Radha continually receives great joy from such people. The second powerful means of Radha's happiness is this: become a manjari and serve the entire divine couple, the treasury of rasa. Do not retain the slightest conception of personal happiness anywhere. For the happiness of the cherished divine couple, joyfully endure hardship. Remain undisturbed while performing every service in the grove. Keep senses and mind restrained; the only privilege is service. Seeing splendid Radha and Shyama happy in the grove pastimes, one attains supreme joy and pure, beautiful taste for service increases.

Remain always alert under the guidance of a particular manjari. Receiving her indication, serve as that manjari serves.

[750]

(Raga Asavari - Tina Tala)

Every virtue eternally dwells there.

Radha's heart exists for serving Shyama, while boundless exhilaration fills Her mind. Rasa itself remains eternally greedy and blossoms within Her heart. There the ocean of rasa continually surges with ever-new sweetness. From the rasa in Radha's heart, the treasury of rasa, the outward splendor of divine play arises. The cloud-dark Shyama, filled with lila, eternally performs it, revealing pure attachment.

[751]

(Raga Saranga - Tala Tevara)

He alone is everything to me, and I belong to Him alone. He is always with me, and I am forever the maidservant of His feet. We are never separated for any reason. Forever united, the two of us eternally perform ever-new pastimes.

[752]

(Raga Shivaranjani - Tala Kaharava)

The complete absence of even a trace of desire for personal happiness within the mind, with life consisting solely of desire for Krishna's happiness: this is sacred gopi-bhāva. I had thought: "Like these divine gopis, I shall give everything. Sacrificing my own happiness, I shall give happiness to the ocean of happiness. My mind, every sense and every hair will become blessed by serving Them. Through the joy born of serving the ocean of happiness, I shall attain the rare touch of Brahman. Attaining the otherwise unattainable sakhi mood and the eternal privilege of service, I shall cross the boundless ocean of maya and dwell in the divine abode."

But when I entered and examined my own mind, I saw it filled with endless corruptions. The craving for enjoyment was dancing everywhere, dressed in the costume of love for Krishna. How low and desire-ridden I am, a purchased slave of lust and delusion; how sacred and charming is the gopi state longed for by Vedic seers. Taking the name of the gopi state while carrying vile lustful craving within my mind, I was setting out to defame it through my own dark actions. Had I advanced any farther, I would have been scorched and suffered immeasurable pain, the terrible torments of hell after readily entering its abode. But the Lord expanded His natural compassion and saved me. He established beyond doubt that a lustful person has no eligibility for the path of prema.

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