The Gopī Maidens

The Gopī Maidens

Invocation

I bow to the hearts of the gopīs, where Hari remains concealed; not even for the blink of an eye does He ever leave, for there He finds supreme delight.

I bow to the tender minds of the gopīs, which have merged into Hari's mind; Hari's mind has become the gopīs' mind, forever enacting what delights them.

I bow to the gopīs' pure passion, beneath whose sway Hari lives; eternally indebted, He tastes supreme joy and relinquishes His lordship.

I bow to the gopīs' love, which serves the dust of Hari's feet; in the radiance of the divine form, every base impurity disappears.

I bow to the gopīs' feeling, forever intent upon the Beloved's happiness; growing from moment to moment, it breaks every bridge of convention.

I bow to the gopīs' supreme vow, devoid of desire for their own pleasure; supremely faithful, their minds remain forever absorbed in loving service.

I bow to the gopīs' affection, whose truth draws Hari Himself; it also irresistibly draws the minds of sages who contemplate it.

I bow to the gopīs' names, which Hari calls through His flute; Hari Himself finds joy in chanting them again and again.

I bow to the gopīs' forms, absorbed within Hari's eyes; never leaving His sight, they charm Him more deeply at every moment.

The gopīs who renounced even liberation

"Some seek each day, through worship prompted by desire, a cherished reward. Others seek heaven, liberation, yoga, sacrifices, and the like. But we desire only attentive meditation upon the two feet of Yadunandana. What have we to do with exalted worlds, self-restraint, sovereignty, heaven, or liberation?"

• Śrī Śaṅkarācārya

"Some people daily perform worship with desire and seek a cherished result. Others pray for heaven through sacrifices and for liberation through karma-yoga, jñāna-yoga, and other means. We, however, desire only to remain attentively absorbed in meditation upon the two feet of Yadunandana Śrī Kṛṣṇa. What use have we for exalted realms, self-restraint, kingship, heaven, or liberation?"

The Vṛndāvana līlā of Bhagavān Śrī Kṛṣṇa, the compact embodiment of Existence, Consciousness, and Bliss, is exceedingly sweet, captivating, wondrous, and beyond description. Everything there is extraordinary. All beings, moving and unmoving, are immersed in love for Śrī Kṛṣṇa; yet even among them the love of the gopīs is wholly supernatural and inconceivable. Speech cannot reach it, nor can the mind imagine it. How could the mind do so when it has no access to that realm? However lofty a human conception of love may be, it does not equal even one particle of that divine love which transcends conception. How can the material mind, fashioned from the guṇas, imagine that transcendent, uncreated "love alone," which lies beyond the guṇas?

Who, then, can describe the divine, uncreated love between Śrī Kṛṣṇa, the compact embodiment of Existence, Consciousness, and Bliss, and His own forms of bliss and consciousness known as the gopīs? Whatever has been written until now has generally followed each writer's particular devotional feeling. The true nature of this love can be understood, even in the smallest measure, only by one to whom Śrī Kṛṣṇa, the very density of love, chooses to reveal it. Yet whoever understands it instantly becomes a gopī and can no longer describe it. Indeed, it is not an object that words can describe.

The two understand one another's secret and perform their līlā in perfect freedom. No distinction remains between the gopīs' life-breath and Śrī Kṛṣṇa, or between Śrī Kṛṣṇa's life-breath and the gopīs. Each beholds and is enchanted by its own reflection in the other, while together they enchant everyone. Śrī Kṛṣṇa and the gopī are, in truth, one reality appearing in two forms. As the poet says:

"Kānhā became wholly the gopīs' life, and their life became wholly Kānhā; the heart can no longer tell whether what dwells within is Kānhā or its own life-breath."

Bhagavān says that such a devotee is His very Self: "He is indeed My own Self - this is My conviction." More than the Self, that devotee is dearer still:

"Neither Brahmā, born from Me, nor Śaṅkara is so dear to Me; neither Saṅkarṣaṇa nor Śrī, nor even My own Self, is as dear as you." (Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 11.14.15)

"Uddhava! Brahmā, Śaṅkara, Saṅkarṣaṇa, Lakṣmī, and even My own Self are not as dear to Me as a devotee such as you, for such a devotee is content in Me alone and wants nothing apart from Me."

"One who has offered his very self to Me desires nothing apart from Me: neither Brahmā's station, nor Indra's throne, nor universal sovereignty, nor lordship of the nether regions, nor yogic perfections, nor even freedom from rebirth.

I constantly follow the desireless sage who is peaceful, free from hostility, and equal in vision, so that I may be purified by the dust of his feet." (Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 11.14.14, 16)

Thus My beloved devotee offers his very self to Me. Leaving Me aside, he desires neither Brahmā's rank, Indra's throne, imperial sovereignty, dominion over the lower worlds, nor any yogic perfection - not even liberation. Only those devotees who have renounced liberation know the joy they receive. I always follow such desireless devotees, whose minds rest in Me, who are peaceful, without enmity, and equal in vision, so that I may sanctify Myself with the dust of their feet.

It should be remembered that Uddhava attained this rare status only after accepting discipleship under the gopīs. If Bhagavān speaks this way of Uddhava, what need is there to speak of the gopīs? Whatever appears to us as the loftiest conceivable state in the relationship between Śrī Kṛṣṇa and the gopīs later comes to seem very low indeed.

The Bhagavad Gītā is today honored throughout the world. Because it contains supremely beneficial teaching spoken in Bhagavān's own divine voice, it is revered by all. Yet everything that it enjoins was already naturally present in the lives of the gopīs.

The supremely secret essence that Bhagavān taught His dear devotee and friend Arjuna in the Śrīmad Bhagavad Gītā is this:

"One who sees Me everywhere and sees everything in Me is never lost to Me, nor am I ever lost to him." (Gītā 6.30)

"My resolute devotees constantly sing My names and qualities, strive for My sake, bow to Me again and again, fix their minds perpetually upon Me, and worship Me with exclusive devotion." (Gītā 9.14)

"Those devotees who constantly fix their minds on Me and offer their very lives to Me speak with one another only of Me. Singing My līlās, they are satisfied and delight in Me alone. To those who worship Me in this way - ever united with Me in love - I grant communion with divine understanding, by which they attain Me." (Gītā 10.9-10)

Then, revealing the supreme truth and most closely guarded secret of the Gītā, Bhagavān said to Arjuna:

"Fix your mind on Me; become My devotee; worship Me; bow down to Me. You shall surely come to Me. I pledge this truth to you, for you are dear to Me.

Abandoning every dharma, take refuge in Me alone. I shall free you from every sin; do not grieve." (Gītā 18.65-66)

"Offer your mind to Me alone. Become My devotee, worship Me alone, and bow only to Me. Then you will surely attain Me. I make this solemn promise because you are My most beloved friend. Relinquishing every other dharma, take refuge in Me alone. I shall release you from every sin; do not be afraid."

All these teachings were not merely woven through the gopīs' conduct; in their lives they existed in a measure far beyond what words can teach, for conduct can embody much that instruction cannot express. Arjuna was being taught to become such a devotee, whereas the gopīs were Bhagavān's already perfected devotees. Praising them with His own lips, Bhagavān declared:

"The gopīs tend even their own bodies with the thought, 'These belong to Me.' Apart from them, O Pārtha, no one is the vessel of My most hidden love.

They are My helpers, teachers, disciples, servants, kin, and beloveds. I tell you truly, O Pārtha: what are the gopīs not to Me?

My greatness, My worship, pure faith in Me, and the wishes of My heart - the gopīs alone know these in truth, O Pārtha; no one else knows them."

"O Arjuna! The gopīs care for their bodies only because those bodies serve Me. Apart from the gopīs, no one else receives My innermost love. They are My companions, My teachers, My disciples, My servants, My family, and My beloveds - call them what you will, they are everything to Me. Truly, what are the gopīs not to Me? O Pārtha, only the gopīs understand in truth My greatness, My worship, pure faith in Me, and the deepest wishes of My heart. No one else knows them."

The gopīs desired no enjoyment in this world or the next, and no object of the senses could attract their minds. They had dissolved their minds into Śrī Kṛṣṇa's mind and their life-breath into His life-breath. They continued living only because Śrī Kṛṣṇa wished it. Their life and death, this world and the next - everything rested in His will. Every desire of their own had merged into His desire. One day, in solitude, Bhagavān Śrī Kṛṣṇa told His beloved Uddhava:

"With minds given to Me and lives centered in Me, they abandoned bodily ties for My sake. Those who forsook worldly duties for Me - I Myself sustain them."

"O dear one, because I, dearest of all beloveds, am far away, the women of Gokula remember Me and faint, overwhelmed by the anguish of separation.

Those cowherd women, whose very selves are Mine, preserve their lives only with the greatest difficulty, sustained somehow by My promise that I shall return." (Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 10.46.4-6)

"O Uddhava! The gopīs have offered their minds and lives to Me. For My sake they have left behind their bodily relations and every means of worldly pleasure, and they remain attached to Me alone. I alone am the source of their happiness and their life. To those women of Gokula I am dearer than the dearest. Because I am far away, they remember Me and become utterly distraught and bewildered in separation from Me. Having surrendered their very selves to Me, they somehow keep alive with extreme difficulty, sustained only by My message that I shall soon return to Gokula."

The gopīs' hearts had become wholly filled with Śrī Kṛṣṇa. Eating and drinking, sleeping and waking, walking about and performing household work - at every moment they beheld Śrī Kṛṣṇa alone and shed tears as they remembered His qualities. The Bhāgavatam says:

"While milking, winnowing, churning, plastering the floor, rocking infants, soothing crying children, sprinkling water, and sweeping, the women of Vraja sing of Him with loving minds, tear-filled eyes, and voices choked with feeling. Blessed indeed are those whose hearts are fixed upon Urukrama." (Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 10.44.15)

Blessed are the women of Vraja who, while milking the cows, pounding grain, churning yogurt, plastering the courtyard, rocking children, soothing crying infants, sprinkling water, and sweeping the house, sing of Śrī Kṛṣṇa with loving hearts, eyes filled with tears, and voices choked with emotion. Their minds are wholly established in Him.

This love of the gopīs is supremely pure. In it, one must lay one's entire being at the Beloved's...

...feet. One must turn away both from the desire for liberation and from the fear of hell. The sole purpose of life becomes doing whatever pleases beloved Śrī Kṛṣṇa.

To desire that another give me pleasure and satisfy my senses and mind is called kāma, even when that feeling is directed toward Bhagavān. To find one's own happiness in making the Beloved happy through oneself is called prema. Kāma exists for enjoyment; prema exists for the Supreme. Attachment to sense objects is kāma, while attachment to Bhagavān is prema. As this love grows, it makes the lover a reflection of the beloved Lord; only then does love approach perfection.

At the Beloved's indication, the lover must relinquish social duty, scriptural duty, bodily claims, all actions, shame, composure, bodily pleasure, personal happiness, and everything else. Those who say that love for Śrī Kṛṣṇa requires neither renunciation nor detachment are gravely mistaken. The foundation for attaining such love is the surrender of everything for Śrī Kṛṣṇa's sake. Only then is the supreme peace that is Śrī Kṛṣṇa attained: "From renunciation, peace immediately follows." (Gītā 12.12)

So long as the mind remains among sense objects, uninterrupted loving contemplation of Bhagavān is impossible; how then can there be complete surrender? Deluded people continue enjoying sense objects with attached minds, yet imagine themselves lovers of Bhagavān and qualified to speak, hear, and act according to gopī-prema. This is why they fall.

Pure attachment directed solely toward Śrī Kṛṣṇa's happiness is sacred gopī-bhāva. It was said above that a lover of Śrī Kṛṣṇa does what pleases the Beloved without concern even for fear of hell. This must not be misunderstood to mean that such a person commits evil acts that would lead to hell. Rather, that lover does not think at all of liberation or enjoyment, heaven or hell; the mind remains wholly absorbed in Śrī Kṛṣṇa. Mind, life-breath, and intelligence become immersed in Him. How could any evil deed arise from such a devotee? Only if sin or wickedness could arise from Bhagavān Himself could it arise from such a lover...

...for the devotee has abandoned every attachment to sense objects and made the mind one with Bhagavān's mind. In such a state, only if a sinful impulse born of attachment could enter Bhagavān's mind could it enter the devotee's. Bhagavān is beyond both sin and merit; therefore the devotee, too, remains beyond them.

Nectar might sooner act as poison, and cool water might sooner burn the world to ashes, than a devotee who truly loves Śrī Kṛṣṇa commit a wicked act. To perceive sin in the gopīs' conduct is merely the fruit of our own mind's sinful tendencies. A lustful observer can discover lust even in the innocent laughter and conversation of a young brother and sister speaking at a distance. In the same manner, we project lust onto the gopīs' love. In truth there was no lust there at all; even the faintest scent of lust is destroyed in genuine followers of gopī-prema. Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu is the manifest example. There, Kṛṣṇa alone remains. Nothing else can appear or endure before the mind or eyes. The three worlds appear pervaded by Śyāma, and every sense takes Śrī Kṛṣṇa alone as its object.

At Bhagavān's command, Uddhava came to Vraja and tried to instruct the gopīs. He gave many teachings, but when he witnessed their love, the entire grandeur of his knowledge melted away and he was swept into love's stainless current. The gopīs said:

"Śyāma is our body and Śyāma our mind; Śyāma alone is all our treasure. Uddhava, through all eight watches of the day we have business only with Śyāma.

Śyāma dwells in the heart; by Śyāma we live; without Śyāma there is no life. Śyāma's name is our support, like the staff held by one who is blind.

Śyāma is our path and Śyāma our understanding; Śyāma alone is Lord of our lives. Even when Śyāma gives sorrow, it is our blessing and our abode of beauty.

Uddhava, you have gone mad, racing here with a letter in your hand! Where could we put your yoga, when Śyāma fills every pore of our being?"

There is nothing here but Śyāma. The entire heart is filled with Him, and He pervades every pore. Whether asleep or seated, He never...

...leaves us. Tell us, then: where are we to put your knowledge and yoga?

"There is no room left within our hearts. How can another be brought in when Nandanandana stands there, fixed crosswise?

Walking and looking, awake by day, dreaming in sleep at night, not for an instant does that dark form wander from the heart.

Uddhava, you tell countless stories and parade the shame of worldly opinion. What can we do? The body is filled with love; the little vessel cannot contain the sea."

Tell us, what can be done? He is embedded in the heart and lodged so firmly in every pore that nothing can draw Him out. Within and without, everywhere, He alone is present.

"The butter-thief is lodged within the heart. How can He come out now, Uddhava, when He entered and became fixed there crosswise?"

Uddhava was astonished. His greatest wonder came when, by the gopīs' grace, he beheld Śrī Gopīnātha with his own eyes, present everywhere among them. Mahātmā Sūradāsa says:

"Hearing the gopīs' constancy in love, Uddhava forgot himself; singing Gopāla's virtues, he wandered exultantly through the bowers.

At one moment he fell at the gopīs' feet: 'Blessed is your steadfast love!' Then, intoxicated with love, he ran from tree to tree and embraced them."

A wondrous transformation came over Uddhava. He had arrived to extinguish their fire of separation with knowledge and, as their teacher, initiate them into yoga. Now, becoming their disciple, he cried:

"I came to offer instruction, but it is I who have been instructed."

The moment he became their disciple, he cast aside Mathurā's royal dress and assumed the garb of a cowherd, dusted with pollen from the lotus feet of the gopīs. In that form he returned to Bhagavān. By then he no longer remembered, "I am Uddhava of the Yadu dynasty." He...

...regarded himself as a servant of the gopīs' feet and saw the entire world in the same way. He therefore forgot to address Bhagavān Śrī Kṛṣṇa as Yadunātha and called Him only Gopīnātha:

"Uddhava went before the Lord of the Yadus dressed as a cowherd. Forgetting the name 'Yadupati,' he said, 'O Gopāla, Lord of the cows! Go once to Vraja and let the gopīs behold You.'"

Uddhava pleaded, "O Gopāla, O Gopīnātha! Please come once to Vraja. Why have You abandoned that realm of love to settle here in this dry and barren Mathurā?"

"Why have You forsaken Vṛndāvana's joy and come to dwell here? Knowing Him as Lord of Govardhana, Uddhava grasped His feet.

Uddhava told Him all of Vraja's steadfast love. Tears surged into his eyes; no further word could be spoken."

Clinging to Bhagavān's feet, Uddhava sobbed uncontrollably. Bhagavān too, overcome by love, fell to the ground. Wiping His tears with His yellow cloth, He said, "Well, Uddhava! You have certainly returned after teaching them yoga!"

"Dark Śyāma fell upon the earth, His eyes flooded with tears. Wiping them with His yellow cloth, He said, 'You have taught yoga very well indeed!'"

Bhagavān said, "Uddhava, now you have seen the stainless, pure, causeless, and exclusive love of the cowherd maidens. That is why I cannot forget them even for an instant."

Blessed Śrī Nandadāsa, steeped in the rasa of Vraja, portrays Uddhava saying:

"Your compassion and connoisseurship are false. One calls a fist 'a hundred thousand' only while it remains closed.

Only after going to Vraja did I learn how merciless You are: those who rely upon You, You cast into a well!

What kind of dharma is this? Again and again I tell You, Śyāma: go and dwell in Vṛndāvana, the treasury of supreme love, and remain there among the gopīs."

"Abandon every other company and bring happiness to those people. Otherwise the delicate bond of love will break even now. If it breaks, what will You do?"

What happened to Bhagavān when He heard Uddhava's words? Hear it from Śrī Nandadāsa himself:

"Hearing His friend's words, both His eyes filled with tears. Helpless beneath the flood of love, He lost all outward awareness.

A gopī clung to every pore of His dark body; the dark wish-fulfilling tree was clothed in the women of Vraja as its leaves, streaming from every limb."

Recovering somehow, Bhagavān said:

"'It was good that I sent you, discerning friend, to bring news of them, yet you returned from there and began recounting all My faults!

Between them and Me, dear friend, there is not an instant's difference. As you behold them within Me, so I dwell wholly within them - as waves are nothing but water.'"

Then Bhagavān dispelled Uddhava's remaining confusion by revealing His own gopī-form:

"Banavārī showed Himself as one with the gopīs, casting away the net of bewilderment from Uddhava's tear-filled eyes.

Then He once more concealed that form of divine play. Nandadāsa was sanctified by singing this līlā, this treasury of the rasa of love."

This much may be expressed in words. The real love of the gopīs stands infinitely higher. Some hold that the gopīs loved Bhagavān as a wife loves her husband. Others say that this is not so, and that their love resembled the love of a paramour for her secret beloved. In my...

...understanding, neither comparison fully applies to gopī-prema.

It is true that the conjugal attitude includes the four other devotional moods - peaceful adoration, service, friendship, and parental tenderness. A devoted wife offers her name, lineage, life, wealth, and dharma to her husband and performs every act for his sake. She displays peaceful reverence in serving his relatives, the mood of a servant in attending to him, friendship in consulting with him, and maternal tenderness in feeding and caring for him. Without reserve, she offers him both body and mind. Yet the love borne toward Bhagavān by pure devotees who, like the gopīs, are embodiments of love alone is of an altogether different order.

The analogy of paramour-love is likewise incomplete. Only this much may be taken from it: just as a woman's thoughts may remain fixed upon her secret beloved through all eight watches even while she performs her household duties, so a devotee's mind remains fixed upon Bhagavān. But the worldly paramour's mind contains sensual desire for bodily union, while not even a trace of lust existed in the gopīs. The object of a paramour's love is an illicit lover; such a relationship can never truly apply to Bhagavān, the Supreme Self, who is utterly pure and immutable.

Therefore the gopīs' love is said to possess a divine parakīya-bhāva. It is supremely pure and wholly exclusive, yet it belongs to a realm beyond even these descriptions - a realm our imagination cannot reach. For this reason it is ineffable and inconceivable.

Gopī-prema is unique. It contains śṛṅgāra, but no worldly passion; enjoyment, but no material bodily union; attachment, but no ignorance; separation, but no sundering; weeping, but no sorrow; longing, but no pain; service, but no self-importance; loving pique, but no loss of spiritual poise; renunciation, but no formal monasticism; delirious speech, but no unconsciousness; possessive intimacy, but no delusion; deepening affection, but no selfish desire; fulfillment, but no absence of longing; happiness, but no craving; a body, but no ego; a world, but no māyā; knowledge, but no separate knower; Brahman, but not a qualityless abstraction; liberation, but no dissolution.

This rāsa-līlā of supreme divine feeling between Bhagavān Śrī Kṛṣṇa and the gopīs is eternal. It manifests in every age and continues even today. Qualified saints in every age have seen it, and those who are qualified can still behold it now.

If you wish to be blessed by even the faintest glimpse of such love, if you desire a single drop from this inconceivable ocean of prema, abandon the longing both for enjoyment and for liberation, and join your heart to Śrī Kṛṣṇa. Weep for Him with your whole being. Become attached to His name and form. Sell everything for one drop of His beauty; lay your entire being at His feet. Employ body, mind, and wealth in His service, and surrender yourself completely and forever.

Whether you are a man or a woman, a brāhmaṇa or a caṇḍāla, virtuous or sinful - whatever you may be - firmly vow to become one of Śrī Kṛṣṇa's own. Behold Him in every living being. In pleasure and pain, prosperity and adversity, life and death, recognize the Beloved and experience joy. With an open heart and an unrestrained voice, sing Śrī Kṛṣṇa's name together. Cry for Him sincerely until the heart seems to break. Everywhere behold the threefold-bending sweetness of Śrī Kṛṣṇa, crown jewel of all relishers of rasa. His grace will descend; you will receive prema and become fulfilled, and through you others too will be fulfilled. Hold firmly to this certainty.

"Yaśodā, Nanda, and all the cowherd boys are surely blessed, yet in this world the gopīs alone became wholly one-pointed in love."

• Rasakhāna

The love of the gopīs

Rasakhāna says:

"What use are pleasures and countless riches? What use is a great yogi's smearing his limbs with ash? What use are the five fires, or sleeping amid water? What use is conquering kingdoms from shore to shore?

Repeated japa, austerity, restraint, immeasurable vows, and thousands of pilgrimages - why babble of them all? The true rustic fool is one who has never loved or served at the court of his Friend, Nanda's Son.

Eyes find no rest even in palaces of gold, forever ablaze with rows of lamps and crimson jewels. How far can one recount every other splendor, with crowds of ornamented gatekeepers who never leave the door?

Bathe in Mother Gaṅgā, scatter pearls in charity, recite the Vedas twenty times, and meditate upon the Lord. Even if all this has been done, what has Rasakhāna truly done if he has not given his heart in love to the Wearer of the yellow cloth?"

For someone such as me, writing anything about gopī-prema is in truth an intrusion into a subject beyond my qualification. Something of its reality can be known only by that loving devotee to whom Śrīmatī Rādhikā, Bhagavān's hlādinī potency, and Śrī Kṛṣṇa Himself, the Supreme Self who is the divine ocean of bliss and love and the compact embodiment of Existence, Consciousness, and Bliss, graciously reveal it. Even one who knows cannot speak or write it, because Bhagavān's Vṛndāvana līlā, which manifests gopī-prema, is wholly ineffable. It lies beyond imagination, beyond the world, and beyond material nature.

All the people of Vraja are Bhagavān's associates, free from māyā. Under the direction of Śrī Rādhikā, Bhagavān's own bliss potency Yogamāyā, they appeared in Vraja to participate in Śrī Kṛṣṇa's sweet līlā. Desiring the...

...dust of the feet of these great souls who appeared in Vraja, Brahmā, creator of the universe, himself prays:

"Lord, may that immense good fortune be mine: whether born here or elsewhere, even in an animal form, may I become one among Your devotees and thereby serve Your tender lotus feet.

Oh, the fortune, the immeasurable fortune of Nanda and the people of Vraja, whose friend is the eternal, complete Brahman, the very form of supreme bliss!

The greatest fortune here would be any birth at all within this forest, and within Gokula, to have one's head bathed in the dust of any resident's feet. Their entire life is Bhagavān Mukunda, whose foot-dust even today remains the object sought by the Vedas." (Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 10.14.30, 32, 34)

"O Lord! May I receive the great fortune of being born in this life, or even in some animal species, as one among Your servants, so that I may serve Your lotus feet. Ah, blessed indeed are Nanda and the other residents of Vraja, whose intimate friend is You Yourself, the eternal, complete Brahman and embodiment of supreme bliss. To obtain even the birth of an insect upon this earth, in Vraja, and especially in Gokula, would be the highest fortune, for one's head might someday be anointed with the dust of a Vrajavāsī's feet."

How immeasurable is the greatness of those residents of Vraja whose foot-dust Brahmā desires. They have rejected even the claim to liberation and traveled far beyond it. Brahmā himself says in effect, "Bhagavān, You bestowed liberation even upon Pūtanā, who came to kill You with poison smeared upon her breasts. Will You give these lovers only that same liberation? No - You must remain forever indebted to them." Bhagavān Himself acknowledged this with His own lips when He told the gopīs:

"O faultless ones, I cannot repay your noble service, not even in the lifetime of the gods. You cut through the nearly unbreakable bonds of home to worship Me. May your own goodness be the recompense for what you have done." (Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 10.32.22)

"O beloved ones! You shattered the most difficult chains of domestic life to serve Me. Even through a lifespan as long as the gods', I could not repay this noble act. Let your own generosity release Me from My debt."

In Mahātmā Nandadāsa's composition, Bhagavān says:

"Then the ever-youthful Beloved spoke: 'I remain indebted to you. Remove from your hearts all thought of My faults.

Even if for millions of ages I repaid each one of you again and again, O young enchantresses of My heart, I could never be free of this debt.

My māyā charms and subdues the entire universe, but you yourselves are love-filled māyā, and you enchant My mind.'"

The Lord of the universe, the compact embodiment of Existence, Consciousness, and Bliss, who binds gods, humans, gandharvas, asuras, and every other creature in the fetters of karma, allows Himself to be bound to a mortar by the hands of the cowherd woman Yaśodā. Hari, Lord of māyā, who keeps the whole world absorbed in māyā's play, loses games to the cowherd boys, becomes their horse, and carries them upon His back. Blessed are the men and women of Vraja!

One day Yaśodā was occupied with necessary household work. Child Kṛṣṇa grew insistent and said, "I want to sit in your lap." His mother paid no attention, so in annoyance He began to cry and roll in the courtyard. Just then the divine sage Nārada arrived, longing to behold Bhagavān's childhood līlās. He saw the supremely blissful Lord, master of the moving and unmoving universe, lying upon the earth and crying to be taken into His mother's lap. Overwhelmed by the sight, Nārada called to Yaśodā:

"What can we say to you, Yaśodā? In how many sacred places did you travel in former lives, and by what observances did you accumulate such immeasurable merit? He whose grace neither Indra, Brahmā, nor Śiva could obtain - that complete Brahman rolls upon the ground, weeping to climb into your lap!"

"Yaśodā, your fortune is immense. Who can say what great merit you earned by visiting holy places in previous births? The Lord of the universe, its creator, its all-pervading form and support, whose grace even Indra, Brahmā, and Śiva cannot attain - that complete Brahman today rolls crying upon the ground because He wants to climb into your lap!"

The Lord who binds the whole universe with māyā's strong cords and makes it dance without cease is Himself the compact embodiment of conscious bliss, enchanted by the gopīs' māyā of love and forever dancing in their courtyards. Who can praise their fortune or measure their love? Rasakhāna says:

"He upon whom Śeṣa, Maheśa, Gaṇeśa, the sun, and the lord of gods forever meditate; He whom the Vedas declare beginningless, endless, indivisible, unpierced, and without distinction;

He whose limit Nārada, Śuka, and Vyāsa chant in vain, exhausting themselves without finding His end - that very Lord the cowherd girls make dance for a little bowl of buttermilk!"

Praising the gopīs' fortune, Śukadeva, the supremely detached sage forever established in Brahman, says:

"Neither Brahmā, nor Śiva, nor even Śrī who rests upon His breast received from the Giver of Liberation the grace attained by the gopī Yaśodā." (Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 10.9.20)

"Brahmā, Śiva, and even Lakṣmī, who forever resides upon His breast, did not receive from the Lord who grants liberation the rare grace bestowed upon the foremost lovers among the gopīs."

Likewise Uddhava, highest among the wise, says:

"Not even Śrī, though supremely attached to His breast, received such grace; nor did the celestial women, fragrant and radiant like lotuses - what then of any others?...

"...For in the festival of rāsa, the women of Vraja attained this blessing when His mighty arms encircled their necks." (Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 10.47.60)

"During the rāsa festival, the fulfilled women of Vraja received Śrī Hari's rare grace when His arms embraced their necks. Not even Lakṣmī, who dwells forever upon His breast, nor the celestial women with lotus-like fragrance and beauty received it. What then can be said of anyone else?"

Sūradāsa says:

"By nature this treasure of Hari's play fell to the gopīs; not even in a dream does Kamalā receive such grace.

The Vedas search for its foundation and Tripurāri reflects upon it; Śeṣa exhausts himself, yet none can find its farther shore.

Kinnarī women and hosts of gandharvīs, even serpent maidens, cannot gain a place within its sight.

That red-limbed Gopāla claps the rhythm, while the girls of Vraja seize Him and make Him dance like a monkey.

'Bring the butter!' they say, then gaze smiling at His face, as He gathers them one by one within His own arms and frolics.

The women of Vraja forget all household work and roam with Kanhaiyā and Balarāma.

Sūra says: once one drinks the honey of Giridhara's honey-sweet deeds, every other nectar begins to taste foreign.

Who would desire any other joy, fit only for a pauper? Even liberation tastes as salty as brine."

The devotee Nāgarīdāsa says:

"Victory to Lalitā and the other divine maidens of Vraja, embodiments of the Vedic hymns, dear to Kṛṣṇa and the very ground of His intimate play.

Drunk on the rasa of the Divine Couple, blissful treasuries of beauty, they are the sheltering companions of every joy and every season.

From their fair faces stream rays like moonlight; their honeyed songs awaken waves of love in the Beloved's heart.

Nāgarī says: they fashion every secret meeting-place; the mind grows lame when it tries to count their hosts of virtues."

Bhagavān Himself spoke to Uddhava, the devotee who desired to become a vine, shrub, or herb in Vraja so that he might receive the dust of the gopīs' feet, and who attained gopī-bhāva after accepting their discipleship:

"Neither Brahmā, born from Me, nor Śaṅkara is so dear to Me; neither Saṅkarṣaṇa nor Śrī, nor even My own Self, is as dear as you." (Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 11.14.15)

"O Uddhava! Brahmā, Śaṅkara, Saṅkarṣaṇa, Lakṣmī, and even My own Self are not as beloved to Me as devotees such as you."

This may offer some faint idea of the gopīs' greatness. Yet how can someone like me describe the love of gopīs who are so dear to Bhagavān? Qualification for prema arises only after supreme detachment has been attained. Only through the grace of great souls who have entered that divine kingdom of love can a devotee advance upon love's difficult path and taste even a little of its nectar. This depends upon spiritual discipline; study and reading alone cannot reach it. Nevertheless, by Bhagavān's grace, I shall attempt to set down briefly the little that has become known to me from various sources. May the blessed and venerable lovers of God graciously forgive my offense and presumption.

The nature of gopī-prema

Passion is not absent from the gopīs' love. Rather, that passion has withdrawn from every other object...

...crossed the formidable mountains of temptation named enjoyment and liberation, and offered itself to Śrī Kṛṣṇa alone. The gopīs' minds, life-breath, and everything they possess belong to Him. In this world and the next they know no one but Śrī Kṛṣṇa. They live only for His happiness. Their waking and sleeping, eating and drinking, walking and moving, adorning themselves, arranging their hair, singing, and speaking - all are performed to bring Him joy. Empty of every desire of their own, the gopīs experience boundless happiness only in seeing Śrī Kṛṣṇa happy. Bhagavān Himself says:

"The gopīs tend even their own bodies with the thought, 'These belong to Me.' Apart from them, O Pārtha, no one is the vessel of My most hidden love."

"O Arjuna! The gopīs preserve their bodies only because they regard them as My property. Apart from the gopīs, no one else receives My innermost love."

A question arises: how can anyone give happiness to Bhagavān, the ocean and compact embodiment of conscious bliss? Does He obtain happiness only through the gopīs? Is He not Himself the totality of bliss? Certainly He is. Śrī Rādhikā is the hlādinī potency of the all-powerful Lord, and through the sound of His flute He continually draws this potency toward Himself. By its very nature, this divine potency, together with all its attendant partial potencies, is forever drawn toward Bhagavān. Receiving their offering of delight, Bhagavān then distributes that very bliss back to those potencies, His loving devotees.

Hearing Bhagavān's flute, His summons, the devotee forgets home and household. Intoxicated, surrendering everything, the devotee runs only to make Him happy. Bhagavān accepts that offering of joy and then returns it to the lover. A person whose beauty fills a mirror and makes the mirror beautiful receives his own beauty back from it. The joy he offered returns to him. In the same way, Bhagavān, the supreme ocean of bliss, accepts the gopīs' gift of happiness and fulfills their single wish: "May Śrī Kṛṣṇa be happy by seeing us, accepting our service, and playing with us." He...

...fulfills it completely. Bhagavān becomes happy, then magnifies that happiness beyond measure and gives it back to the gopīs. The special nature of their love is that not even the slightest desire for personal happiness exists within them. The very conception of happiness for themselves does not arise. Seeing Śrī Kṛṣṇa made happy through them, they remain immersed day and night in an ocean of joy.

The gopīs' love is stainless, without the darkness of lust. It is a pure sun, entirely divine and transcendent. Explaining the difference between kāma and prema, the Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta says:

"The purpose of kāma is only one's own enjoyment; the powerful purpose of prema is Kṛṣṇa's happiness.

Social duty, scriptural duty, bodily claims and ritual action, shame, composure, bodily comfort, and one's own deepest happiness -

all are relinquished as one worships Kṛṣṇa. For Kṛṣṇa's happiness alone, one renders the service of love.

Therefore kāma and prema are utterly different: kāma is deepest darkness; prema is a stainless sun."

There is a vast difference between lust and love. Deluded by sense objects, we mistake lust for love and become trapped in the mire of sin. Lust is honey mixed with poison; love is divine, heavenly nectar. Lust quickly turns into sorrow, while every pang of love contains the taste of blissful nectar. Lust seeks satisfaction and fulfillment of the senses; love is absorption in the Beloved and an ever-intensifying desire for the Beloved's happiness. Though sensual fulfillment appears pleasurable, its result is suffering. Though love remains forever unsatisfied, it is eternally supreme joy. Lust is fragmentary; love is whole. Lust decays; love grows forever. Lust thirsts for objects; love forgets them. Lust aims at the object and one's own satisfaction; love culminates in total renunciation and complete self-forgetfulness.

True love itself destroys lust. The lover may call the desire to give happiness to the Beloved a "desire," and because all the senses, mind, and intelligence face only toward love, may even call it kāma. Yet that pure prema is in truth not lust. The Gautamīya Tantra states:

"The gopīs' prema became famous under the name kāma; even Bhagavān's beloved devotees such as Uddhava long to attain it."

Although the gopīs' love bears the name kāma, it is not lust but pure prema. Great devotees such as Uddhava yearn for this love called "kāma," precisely because no desire for the pleasure of their own senses exists in the gopīs. Knowing Śrī Kṛṣṇa to be Bhagavān Himself, they offer every limb completely and desire only to make Him happy.

Of these gopīs, whose lives belong to Śrī Kṛṣṇa and who are free from attachment to sense objects, the Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta says:

"The aim of kāma is the happiness of one's own senses; the excellent gopī-bhāva aims at Kṛṣṇa's happiness.

The gopīs have no wish for the pleasure of their own senses; for Kṛṣṇa's happiness they perform the play of union.

The gopīs do not consider their own happiness or sorrow; every action they perform is for Kṛṣṇa's happiness.

Rejecting everything apart from Kṛṣṇa, for Kṛṣṇa's happiness they cultivate pure attachment."

To regard body, mind, wealth, beauty, youth, this world, and the next as materials for Śrī Kṛṣṇa's happiness, and to direct pure attachment toward that happiness alone, is sacred gopī-bhāva.

Madhura-rasa predominates in gopī-bhāva. There are five rasas: śānta, dāsya, sakhya, vātsalya, and mādhurya. Each can be either worldly or divine; that is, both worldly and divine love assume these five forms. Among them, however, madhura-rasa, the love of a beloved consort, is highest because it contains within itself the other four: peaceful reverence, service, friendship, and parental tenderness. Possessing more qualities, it is more richly relishable and is therefore called "madhura," sweet. In divine love as well, the love of the beloved consort...

...madhura-rasa, is supreme.

In śānta and dāsya one feels, "Bhagavān possesses majesty and I am lowly; Bhagavān is master and I am servant." A certain distance, fear, and reserve remain. In sakhya, vātsalya, and mādhurya, however, Bhagavān becomes progressively more intimate: one's own companion, cherished child, and beloved. Concealing His majesty and divine opulence, He remains before the devotee as friend, son, or beloved. In these rasas there is no petition or desire. Why make a request of one's very own? Everything belonging to the Beloved is already one's own.

Among them, the beloved's mood is highest. It fully contains both friendship and parental tenderness. Service flourishes here in abundance, and the devotee never tires, because this is not a servant's attendance upon a master but loving service to the Beloved. Boundless happiness lies in the Beloved's happiness, and however much joy one gives seems too little, for the more happiness the Beloved receives, the more limitless is the joy experienced by the love-filled one who gives it.

This beloved's mood has two forms: svakīya and parakīya. In worldly conjugal feeling, parakīya is to be rejected and condemned because it contains sensual desire for bodily union and its object is an illicit human lover. In divine conjugal love directed toward the Supreme, however, parakīya-bhāva is accepted and held superior to svakīya, because it contains no longing for bodily contact or sensual gratification. Its beloved is no adulterous man but Bhagavān, the Self of the universe, the Supreme Self dwelling within husbands, children, and all beings. For this reason gopī-prema is described through parakīya-bhāva.

A faithful wife in svakīya-bhāva may offer her name, lineage, life, wealth, and dharma to her husband and act only for him. Yet parakīya-bhāva possesses three special features: uninterrupted thought of the beloved, unappeased longing to meet him, and the complete absence of fault-finding in him. Because husband and wife live continually in one household, these three features do not ordinarily attain the same intensity in svakīya love.

The gopīs saw Bhagavān every day, yet because parakīya-bhāva predominated, even a moment's separation became unbearable. They cursed the creator who fashioned eyelids over their...

...eyes, for without eyelids the eyes would remain forever open. The gopīs say:

"When You wander in the forest by day, a moment becomes an age for those who cannot see You. And when we gaze upon Your lovely face framed by curling locks, the maker of eyelids for our eyes appears to us a fool." (Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 10.31.15)

"When You roam the forest during the day, every moment in which we cannot see You passes like an age. In the evening, when You return from the forest and we behold Your beautiful face surrounded by curling locks, Brahmā, who placed eyelids upon our eyes, appears foolish to us. We cannot endure even the blink of an eye without seeing You."

To contemplate Bhagavān constantly, to feel the profound pain of separation even during a moment without His sight, and to surrender oneself completely without ever perceiving a fault in Him - this was the gopīs' nature. Before service to their Beloved, nothing else possessed the slightest value. Leaving behind all social and Vedic conventions, they became wholly attached to Kṛṣṇa. Enjoyment and liberation alike were trivial and unworthy of desire.

Hear what Bhagavān says of such devotees:

"I follow them constantly, so that I may be purified by the dust of their feet." (Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 11.14.16)

For the same reason, the poet of Gīta-govinda makes Bhagavān long for Śrī Rādhā's lotus feet in the words, "Place Your tender lotus foot upon My head." Upon this basis, the rasika poet Rasakhāna says:

"I searched for Brahman in the Purāṇas and their songs; with fourfold eagerness I listened to the hymns of the Vedas. Never had I seen or heard what that form was like, what beauty and what nature belonged to Him.

I wearied myself calling and searching, yet no man or woman could tell me. Then, says Rasakhāna, I saw Him hidden in a bower-cottage, sitting there and tenderly massaging Rādhikā's feet."

Although a devotee never desires that the beloved Lord should massage the devotee's feet, in that realm complete oneness prevails and no distinction of higher and lower remains. In the Mahābhārata, Sañjaya described before the Kaurava court the intimate way Śrī Kṛṣṇa behaved with His friend and devotee Arjuna. If He acted so with Arjuna, His dealings with devotees such as the gopīs are more extraordinary still.

The gopīs' parakīya-bhāva is divine. People whose minds are deluded by worldly sense objects fail to understand its true nature and, because of the faults in their own dispositions, project fault upon the gopīs. In reality, the love of the cowherd women of Vraja stands at the highest summit. Every rasa unfolds within it, though madhura-rasa predominates. As this sweetness intensifies, it passes successively through prema, sneha, māna, praṇaya, rāga, anurāga, and bhāva. The culmination of bhāva is mahābhāva, which existed only in the ever-venerable goddesses of Vraja.

To fulfill the loving longing of His devotees, Śrī Bhagavān manifested this divine līlā of Existence, Consciousness, and Bliss within Vraja-maṇḍala. He did not enact the sacred līlā of gopī-prema out of a desire for sensual enjoyment or to satisfy lust in the gopīs. Neither Bhagavān possessed such a desire nor did the gopīs possess lust. This līlā was performed to destroy lust in the beings of the world. Concluding the account of the rāsa-līlā, the sage Śukadeva says:

"One who faithfully hears or recounts this play of Viṣṇu with the women of Vraja quickly attains supreme devotion to Bhagavān and, becoming steadfast, casts off the heart's disease of lust." (Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 10.33.40)

A steady person who faithfully hears or reads the account of Śrī Kṛṣṇa's rāsa play with the women of Vraja soon attains supreme devotion and is freed from lust, the disease of the heart. In a līlā whose faithful and discerning hearing destroys lust and grants supreme devotion, to perceive lust in...

...its hero Śrī Bhagavān and its heroines, the gopīs, or to imagine corrupt human adultery, can only be the product of a sense-bound mind bewildered by lust.

Lovers of God know well that the līlā of Vraja is supremely pure. For this reason divine sages such as Nārada and great gods such as Śiva accept initiation into gopī-bhāva, longing to participate in it. The supremely wise Śukadeva narrates the līlā of Vraja to King Parīkṣit as he awaits death so that the king may naturally attain supreme devotion, realize Bhagavān's true nature, and attain Him.

Describing under the name of steadfast knowledge the progression toward supreme devotion and its fruit, Śrī Kṛṣṇa says:

"Endowed with purified understanding, firmly restraining oneself, abandoning sound and other sense objects, casting away attraction and aversion;

dwelling in solitude, eating lightly, controlling speech, body, and mind, constantly devoted to meditation and taking complete refuge in detachment;

relinquishing ego, force, pride, desire, anger, and possession, free from possessiveness and peaceful, one becomes fit for realization of Brahman.

Established in Brahman, serene in self, one neither grieves nor desires. Equal toward all beings, one attains supreme devotion to Me.

Through devotion one knows Me in truth - what and who I am. Knowing Me thus in reality, one thereafter enters into Me." (Bhagavad Gītā 18.51-55)

That is, when a person possesses purified understanding; lives in solitude; eats moderately; masters mind, speech, and body; thoroughly embraces detachment; remains continually absorbed in meditation; restrains the inner faculties through firm resolve; abandons sound, touch, and the other sense objects; destroys attraction and aversion; wholly relinquishes ego, strength, pride, lust, anger, and possessiveness; and becomes peaceful and free from the sense of "mine," that person becomes fit for realization of Brahman. Established in Brahman and ever serene, one neither grieves for anything nor longs for any object...

...and beholds Bhagavān equally within every being. Then one attains My supreme devotion. Through that devotion one knows My reality fully: who I am and what My divine power is. Knowing Me in truth through supreme devotion, the devotee immediately enters into complete union with Me.

Examined carefully, every one of these qualities existed perfectly in the gopīs. What greater proof of purified intelligence could there be than a mind forever fixed upon Śrī Kṛṣṇa? Living in seclusion for the sake of meeting Him - alone not merely in body but also in mind; forgetting food and drink; withdrawing mind, speech, and body from sense objects and fixing them upon the one beloved Śrī Kṛṣṇa; holding no attachment to home, family, or any object of enjoyment; remaining continually absorbed in meditation upon the Beloved; firmly holding Śrī Kṛṣṇa within the heart until the entire inner being became filled with Him; relinquishing all sounds, touches, and other objects except those related to Him; possessing neither worldly attraction nor aversion; offering ego, strength, pride, desire, anger, and every possession to Him; claiming neither home nor heaven nor liberation as one's own; keeping the heart absorbed in Śrī Kṛṣṇa's form and tranquil toward worldly objects; recognizing everything apart from Śrī Kṛṣṇa as Brahman and yearning to meet Him - all these are found at every step in the gopīs' conduct.

Their nature as embodiments of eternal bliss, untouched by joy or grief over gaining and losing worldly things, and their vision of Śrī Kṛṣṇa everywhere and within every being are likewise renowned. What practitioners obtain only through prolonged and arduous discipline was spontaneous in the gopīs. Therefore Śrī Kṛṣṇa disclosed His secret to them, revealed His form directly, performed divine līlā with them, and made them one with Himself.

Their distinction from the jñānīs was that these truths did not remain mere ideas but became directly perceptible through the senses. The Supreme Brahman Himself assumed the exquisitely beautiful, two-armed form of the flute-enchanting Lord and...

...danced with His devotees. Stealing their hearts through the sweetness of His form, He drew His loving devotees to Himself with the sound of His flute and fulfilled them in every way. A great soul, beholding this with divine sight and entering the mood of a sakhī, said:

"Friend, hear of a wonder I beheld in the courtyard of Nanda's house: the ultimate conclusion of Vedānta danced there, His limbs grey with cow-dust."

"O friend, listen to this marvel! Today in Father Nanda's courtyard I saw Brahman, the final truth of Vedānta, dancing with His limbs covered in the dust raised by the cows."

"The wise become embodiments of knowledge and merge in Brahman; the adept lover, however, beholds His sweet līlā.

Before the jñānī, Hari is grave, the bliss of Brahman, Existence and Consciousness; with the lover He plays forever, restless as the bliss of love.

The jñānī remains filled with the bliss of Brahman, but the lover beholds Hari's delightful and rarely seen radiance.

Praising the lover's fortune, sages of stainless discernment abandon reliance upon their own attainment and seek love's exceedingly rare state."

The sweetness of Śrī Kṛṣṇa's form

Who can describe the sweetness of that divine form? Whomever He once regarded with love, He showered with love's nectar and made immortal. Destroying that person's attachment to every sense object, He made the soul His lover. Paṇḍitarāja Jagannātha says:

"O mind, for your welfare I warn you: do not make a friend of that cowherd in Vṛndāvana, that youth radiant like a fresh rain cloud. With enchanting gentle smiles that pour out beauty's nectar, He will swiftly destroy you and every sense object you hold dear."

"O mind! For your own good I caution you: do not befriend that handsome youth, luminous like a new blue cloud, who grazes the cows in Vṛndāvana...

...for with His gentle smile pouring forth the nectar of beauty, He will enchant you and instantly destroy every object you cherish."

Even Madhusūdana Sarasvatī, author of the Advaita-siddhi, was ensnared by that beauty and displaced from the throne of spiritual sovereignty. He says:

"Revered by travelers on the path of nonduality and initiated into enthronement in the kingdom of the Self, we have nevertheless been forcibly made servants by some rogue who dallies with the cowherd women."

"We, honored by followers of Advaita and qualified to sit upon the throne of self-sovereignty, have been forcibly enslaved at His feet by a certain cunning youth who follows the gopīs."

Sāha Kundanlāla, steeped in the rasa of Vraja and writing as Śrī Lalitakiśorī, says:

"I sacrifice my partridge-like eyes to the moon of His face; I sacrifice my heart to Manamohana, the thief of hearts.

I sacrifice my life to the Beloved's smiling red lips and teeth, to the mischief of His glances and the corners of His eyes.

I sacrifice my mind to every lovely limb of dark Śyāma, to the surging rasa of union within the palace of love.

How exquisitely the threefold-bending Beloved shines! I sacrifice everything to the graceful turn of His neck."

Even after the lover has surrendered everything, He wounds the devotee with the spear of His sidelong glance. Looking back again and again and smiling, He continually sprinkles salt upon the wound:

"Look, friends! Nanda's boy goes about striking us with a spear. He wields the keen blade of His sidelong glance.

Seeing us wounded, the merciless One smiles softly. Lalitakiśorī says: upon the heart's wound He scatters salt."

The wound in the heart of a lover struck by Śyāma's sidelong glance can never...

...dry. It remains forever fresh, and every momentary pang gives joy greater even than the bliss of Brahman. This wound lay very deep in the gopīs' hearts. Only through immense fortune does one receive a wound that grows day by day, and it does not heal even when the dark Beloved Himself comes as physician. The sight of Śyāmasundara deepens it further, yet not seeing Him can never be pleasing. He alone is the physician, but this physician enlarges the wound rather than closing it. Happiness lies precisely in its increase. Thus to moan from the wound and repeatedly do what makes it deeper becomes the eternally delightful sorrow of a lover's life.

The flute and the rāsa

The same is true of His flute. When it sounds, not to speak of others, even the samādhi of yogīs established in seedless absorption is broken. The moment the flute's music emerges, it makes the insentient conscious and the conscious insentient. Thus one gopī once praised the flute with playful sarcasm:

"O Murāri, please do not play Your sweet flute while I am cooking. Its sound makes my dry firewood fresh and dripping with sap, and even the fire grows thin and goes out!"

"O Murāri! Please show mercy and do not sound the sweet notes of Your flute while I prepare food. The instant its music arrives, my dry wood turns green and begins dripping sap, while the fire dies away, so that I cannot finish cooking."

Hearing the flute's call from afar, one sakhī tells another:

"Do you hear it? Run home, or the arrows of His eyes will pierce you. That flute, says Nivāja, is filled with poison and spreads it through the life-breath.

In a moment, innocent girl, you will lose all awareness when you are caught in the whirling sweetness of its melody.

If you wish to preserve your family's honor, put a finger firmly into each ear!"

Any discussion of gopī-prema remains incomplete without considering this flute and the rāsa. We must therefore reflect upon them as well.

On the day He was to grant the boon sought by the gopīs who had worshiped Kātyāyanī for union with Śrī Kṛṣṇa, Bhagavān stole their garments and tested their pure, exclusive love. Taking away their entire consciousness of difference, He recognized them as qualified for the path of stainless prema and granted the boon of union.

To perceive sin in the līlā of stealing the garments is the product of a sinful intelligence. No veil can remain between the individual self and the Supreme Self; veiling belongs only to māyā. How could any individual soul wish to conceal its limbs from Bhagavān, the indwelling Self of all? So long as one tries to hide, one fails to recognize the Supreme as Supreme and maintains the pride of separateness. The stealing of their garments shattered this delusion in the gopīs. They understood Śrī Kṛṣṇa as the Supreme Self, broke the veil of ego that sustains separate individuality, cast off completely the garments of māyā founded upon division, and stood before the Lord who is the Self of all.

Some days later came the autumn full moon, the appointed night of union with Bhagavān. The autumn night, blossoming jasmine, and the full moon's sweet nectar-radiant beams awakened an unseen longing in the gopīs' hearts, as though the heart yearned for something otherwise unattainable. It was the longing to meet Śrī Kṛṣṇa.

At that very moment Śrī Kṛṣṇa's enchanting flute began to sound. In a mādhavī bower stirred by the gentle breeze, upon the pure sands of the dark Yamunā flooded with autumn moonlight, Ātmārāma, the ever-fulfilled Lord of yoga and eternally fresh master of dancers, began upon His sweet flute the joyous music that summons all-enchanting love and intensifies the longing for union. Śukadeva says:

"Hearing that song which intensified their longing for love, the women of Vraja, their minds seized by Kṛṣṇa, came to where their Beloved stood. So urgent was their departure that they did not notice one another, and as they hurried, their earrings swung wildly." (Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 10.29.4)

The moment that love-intensifying song entered their...

...ears, the minds of all the women of Vraja became wholly filled with Śrī Kṛṣṇa. At once they abandoned everything and went to their Beloved. In their haste none tried to summon another. Each, in whatever condition she happened to be, forgot everything and ran alone. They moved with such speed that their beautiful earrings swung all along the path.

If this ananga had increased, why did they go to Śrī Kṛṣṇa rather than to their husbands? The reason is clear. Their ananga was not worldly lust but the powerful longing to meet Śrī Kṛṣṇa, a longing rare even among yogīs. Though "bodiless," it was so strong that it irresistibly drew them toward Him. The sound of the flute was Bhagavān's inescapable invitation to indivisible bliss. How could they refuse it? No one can.

How did that flute sound, and how far did it travel?

"Silencing the clouds, repeatedly astonishing Tumburu, interrupting the meditation of Sanandana and the other sages, and bewildering Brahmā; making Bali restless with waves of eagerness and causing the serpent king to reel, the sound of the flute pierced the shell of the cosmic egg and came to rest only after filling every direction."

The sacred music of the flute flooded all Vṛndāvana with nectar-bearing waves. Rising into the sky, it stilled the clouds; in heaven it repeatedly amazed the celestial singer Tumburu; in Brahmā's realm it broke the seedless absorption of Sanandana and the great sages in qualityless Brahman and astonished Prajāpati Brahmā himself. Having planted its banner of victory in the upper realms, it descended to the netherworld, startled King Bali, set the thousand hoods of Ananta Śeṣa trembling, pierced the shell of the entire universe, and spread in every direction.

Yet despite its cosmic reach, only devotees truly heard this summons, and they ran at once. Śyāma's flute still sounds in exactly this way, and loving devotees still hear it. So be it.

The eminent devotee Śrī Nandadāsa says:

"Hearing the melody, the women of Vraja set out along the pathway of song. Neither house nor wall, tree nor clustered bower obstructed them anywhere.

The path of nectar-sound was colorful, subtle, and profound. The women of Vraja alone traveled it well; no other possessed the qualification."

Mad with longing, they followed the flute's sound and reached Śrī Kṛṣṇa's feet. There their love was tested again. Two questions chiefly had to be answered: first, whether their minds retained attachment to any worldly object; and second, whether they knew Śrī Kṛṣṇa to be Bhagavān Himself. Therefore Bhagavān first said:

"Welcome, greatly fortunate ones. What pleasing service may I perform for you? Is all well in Vraja? Tell Me why you have come." (Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 10.29.18)

"Most fortunate ones, you are welcome. Tell Me what I may do to please you. Is all well in Vraja? Explain why you have come here at this hour."

Hearing Bhagavān speak this way, the gopīs smiled but said nothing. Bhagavān continued:

"This night is fearsome and frequented by fearsome creatures. Return to Vraja, slender-waisted ladies; women should not remain here." (Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 10.29.19)

"Beautiful ones, see how dreadful the night is. Many dangerous creatures roam about. Return immediately to Vraja; it is not proper for women to remain here long."

Still the gopīs gave no answer. Bhagavān spoke again:

"Your mothers, fathers, sons, brothers, and husbands, not finding you, must be searching. Do not cause your relatives alarm." (Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 10.29.20)

"Not finding you at home, your parents, children, brothers, husbands, and others...

...must be searching for you. Do not remain here and needlessly distress your families."

By reminding them of their closest worldly relations, Bhagavān wished to discover whether attachment to those relations or fear of them remained in the gopīs' hearts. Did they still belong to the realm of māyā, or had they turned wholly toward God? The gopīs passed this test. At this very point, the wives of the sages had returned home, but the gopīs said nothing. No attachment to worldly intimacy awoke in them; they remained immersed in love for Śrī Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Self.

The beauty of the moonlit night had awakened love for Śrī Kṛṣṇa in their hearts. To test whether this awakening was worldly or divine, Bhagavān said:

"You have seen this flower-filled forest, colored by the full moon's rays and adorned with tender leaves stirred playfully by the breeze from Yamunā.

Now return without delay to the cowherd settlement, faithful wives, and serve your husbands. Your children and calves are crying; go nurse the children and milk the cows." (Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 10.29.21-22)

"You have now seen beautiful Vṛndāvana, adorned with night-blooming lilies and fresh leaves trembling in the gentle wind cooled by contact with Yamunā's waters, all colored by the moon's rays. Faithful wives, delay no longer. Return to Vraja and serve your husbands. Your children and the cows' calves must be crying. Go nurse them and milk the cows."

What duty, He implied, could be greater for a faithful wife than serving her husband? By addressing the gopīs as "faithful wives," Bhagavān reminded them of their husbands. A mother holds her child dear, and cowherd women cherish cows and calves, so He recalled these too in compassionate words. He said all this to discover whether their minds remained with husband and child or, detached from everyone, rested solely in Him. Still the gopīs said...

...nothing.

Then Bhagavān displayed the glory of His outward beauty, testing whether they were merely enchanted by that beauty or had come knowing Him as God:

"Or perhaps your hearts, constrained by affection for Me, have brought you here. That is certainly proper, for all creatures find joy in Me." (Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 10.29.23)

"Or, if attachment born of affection for Me has brought you here to see Me, there is no fault in that, for every living being rejoices on seeing Me." Nevertheless:

"Sincere service to her husband and his relatives, together with care for the children, is a woman's highest duty.

A woman who desires well-being in this world should not abandon a husband who has committed no grievous sin, even if he is ill-tempered, unfortunate, aged, foolish, sick, or poor.

For a woman of good family, adultery is everywhere condemned. It prevents heaven, ruins reputation, is petty and painful, and brings fear." (Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 10.29.24-26)

"Fortunate ladies, a woman's highest duty is sincere service to her husband and his relatives and the care of her children. A woman who desires an auspicious destiny should never leave a husband who is not gravely sinful, even if he is harsh, unfortunate, old, foolish, sick, or poor. For a woman of honorable family, serving a paramour is wholly condemned. It does not lead to heaven, brings disgrace in this world, and is contemptible, painful, and dangerous."

Bhagavān stated the matter without concealment: "If you have come in lust, regarding Me as an ordinary man, you will go to hell and earn disgrace in the world, for such is Vedic dharma."

Even this teaching did not move the gopīs. To test them further, Bhagavān said:

"Hearing of Me, seeing My form, meditating upon Me, and singing My glories produce a love for Me not attained by physical nearness. Therefore return to your homes." (Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 10.29.27)

"Very well, even if you have come because you recognize some greatness in Me, know that hearing My qualities, beholding Me, meditating upon Me, and singing of Me generate a love not produced by physical closeness. Therefore return home."

The sages' wives had returned after hearing a similar instruction, but the gopīs did not. Those wives had recognized Śrī Kṛṣṇa as Bhagavān, yet attachment to home remained within them. The gopīs were wholly detached from the world and fully aware of His greatness. They knew, "Bhagavān is the Self of the entire universe. He alone is the Self within us, our husbands, our sons, and everyone."

No conception of illicit love can apply to Bhagavān, the Self of the universe. The compact embodiment of Existence, Consciousness, and Bliss whom great sages, ascetics, and yogīs seek after breaking every worldly bond and withdrawing from all things now stood before the gopīs as the beautiful Beloved, the Supreme Self Himself. They had arrived at His feet. Would it not have been foolishness to leave Him and go elsewhere?

Therefore the love-filled gopīs, tears in their eyes and voices choked by affectionate indignation, replied:

"All-powerful Lord, You should not speak so cruelly. We have abandoned every object and sought the shelter of Your feet. Do not reject us, difficult as You are to attain. Accept Your devotees, as the Primeval Lord accepts those who seek liberation.

You, knower of dharma, have said that a woman's proper duty is to serve her husband, children, and relatives. Let this teaching indeed be true - but its proper object is You, the Lord, for You are the dearest one, the kinsman, and the very Self of every embodied being." (Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 10.29.31-32)

"You are not merely the son of a gopi; You are the indwelling witness in the hearts of all embodied beings. At Brahma's prayer You appeared in the Satvata dynasty to protect the universe, O friend." (Srimad Bhagavatam 10.31.4)

"O all-pervading Lord! You should not speak such harsh words. Forsaking every other object, we are attached solely to Your lotus feet. Just as the primordial Lord Sri Narayana accepts seekers of liberation, accept us in the same way and never abandon us. O Krishna! You Yourself know dharma. The highest dharma is refuge at Your feet, so how can You, who know dharma, tell us to return? You said that a woman's duty is to serve her husband, children, and relatives. Let that teaching repose in You, for You are its very foundation and the ultimate end of dharma. You alone are the dear kinsman and Self of husbands, children, and all embodied beings. Surely You are not merely Yashoda's son; You are the witness within every heart. O friend! At Brahmaji's prayer You descended in the Yadu dynasty to protect the whole world."

Do not deceive us. You are the Supreme Lord Himself; without You, neither husband, child, nor anyone else could exist. Forsaking You, the ground of all, the destination of all, the foundation of every dharma, and the Lord of lords, where could we go, and why should we go?

The gopis knew that Bhagavan Sri Krishna is the complete Purushottama, the concentrated embodiment of conscious bliss, the Soul of the universe, and the Supreme Lord. The Supreme Lord is the Self and final destination of all. Having attained that Supreme Self, why would the gopis turn away from Him? They said:

"The wise love You, their own Self and eternally beloved Lord; What use have they for husbands, sons, and others who bring worldly sorrow?"

"Therefore, O Supreme Lord, be gracious to us. O lotus-eyed One, do not sever the hope we have cherished in You for so long. You have effortlessly stolen the mind that once found contentment in our homes. Our hands no longer engage in household work, and our feet will not move even one step away from Your feet. How can we return to Vraja, and what could we do there now?" (Srimad Bhagavatam 10.29.33-34)

"Those who know the scriptures love You as their own Self, their eternally beloved Lord. What need have they of husbands, sons, and others who bring the sorrows of worldly existence? Therefore, O Supreme Lord, be pleased with us. Do not cut down the vine of hope we have nurtured for so long. We can no longer return home in any way. You have stolen the mind that had rested happily in our homes; our hands, once occupied with household duties, have become powerless; and our feet refuse to move even one step from Your lotus feet. How can we go home, and what would we do there now?"

Bhagavan tested His devotees. When they passed the test, He granted the fruit they desired. Though self-delighting, the Lord of all masters of yoga enjoyed the play of the Self with the gopis. Then, at one point, Bhagavan disappeared. Distraught at no longer seeing Him, the gopis searched for Him and lamented in many ways:

Rola

When separation made them utterly distraught, they questioned the trees and vines of the forest; A lover in separation no longer knows what is insentient and what is conscious. "O malati! O jasmine! O yuthika! Listen kindly and attend to us; Have you seen here our darling Giridhara, who steals pride and steals the heart? O ketaki! Did our offended Beloved glance toward you from here? Or did Nanda's son, smiling gently, steal away your heart?"

"O pearl-fruited vine, wearing a garland of pearl-like gems, Did your wide eyes behold the enchanting son of Nanda? O gentle uda, brave karavira, wise ones, Have you seen mighty Balarama's steadfast brother, whose serene gait steals the mind? O sandalwood tree, destroyer of sorrow, cool us, for all of us are burning; Bring us Nanda's son, adored by the world, whose touch is cooling sandalwood. Ask these vines, dear friend, blooming so splendidly with flowers; Without the touch of our beautiful Beloved's hand, they could not flower so. O friend, why not follow and question these does? Their eyes shine brightly; surely Hari looked toward them only moments ago. O kadamba! O mango and neem! Why do you remain silent? O lofty banyan, noble and beautiful, did you see Him passing this way? After questioning the trees near Yamuna, we have become utterly despondent; Why would they answer, friend? These austere dwellers at a sacred ford are hard-hearted. O earth! Where have you hidden our butter-thief, the thief of our hearts? Tell us where you keep the Beloved of our lives concealed. O blessed Tulasi, forever dear to Govinda's feet, Why do you not tell Nanda's son of our anguish? Beauties, let us go by the light of our own moonlike faces Into the dense bower where masses of darkness gather beneath the trees." (Nandadasaji)

Then they said:

"Ah, blessed indeed are these vines and trees, covered with dust from Govinda's lotus feet, Dust that Brahma, Shiva, and Goddess Rama place upon their heads to dispel sin." (Srimad Bhagavatam 10.30.29)

"The dust of Bhagavan Sri Govinda's feet is supremely sacred. Brahma, Shiva, Rama, and others bear it upon their heads; let us too place it upon our heads."

Saying this, they became wholly absorbed in Sri Krishna and began to enact lilas like His own.

"Thus, searching and questioning from forest to forest like women driven mad, They began to enact the heart-stealing Darling's beloved lilas. Only these maidens could fittingly enact the lila of enchanting, nectar-filled Mohana; So completely absorbed in Him, they no longer knew who they themselves were." (Nandadasaji)

Thereafter Bhagavan appeared again and performed the rasa dance, manifesting separately beside each gopi.

The opening verse of the rasa account is:

"Bhagavan too, beholding those autumn nights when the jasmine had blossomed, resolved to sport, taking refuge in Yoga-maya."

"Bhagavan desired to sport under the shelter of Yoga-maya." Thereafter the text uses expressions such as "though delighting in His own Self, He sported"; "the direct enchanter even of Kamadeva"; "whose amorous power remains perfectly contained within Himself"; as well as self-satisfied, true in every desire, complete in every desire, and Lord of the masters of yoga. These expressions establish that Bhagavan's lila was supremely divine. Not the slightest scent of worldly lust has any place in it. The word Bhagavan itself establishes that illicit relationship cannot apply to Him, for He delights in the Self of all. Bhagavan is one in whom all eight powers beginning with anima are present and who is the boundless, inexhaustible treasury of sovereignty, dharma, fame, beauty, detachment, and knowledge:

"Complete sovereignty, dharma, fame, splendor, knowledge, and detachment - the totality of these six is called bhaga." (Vishnu Purana 6.5.74)

Thus lust or illicit relationship cannot possibly apply to Bhagavan, who possesses all six divine excellences. Bhagavan enacted this entire lila through His Yoga-maya. According to each devotee's longing, the Yoga-maya of Bhagavan, the wish-fulfilling tree of His devotees' desires, caused experience to appear accordingly. Yoga-maya, Bhagavan's own divine and eternal

potency, enables the unattached Bhagavan to enact the lilas of creation, preservation, and dissolution. Just as a magician fascinates spectators at will and shows them whatever events he desires, Bhagavan enacted His lilas through Yoga-maya. Radhikaji was the very embodiment of Yoga-maya. He had earlier sent another manifestation of Yoga-maya to deliver a message to Kamsa, and through that same Yoga-maya Bhagavan performed His divine playful lilas in Vraja.

When Brahma stole the cowherd boys and calves, five-year-old Sri Krishna, through the power of His Yoga-maya, Himself became the cowherd boys, the calves, and all their belongings - their clothes, horns, sticks, and everything else. At the age of six, through Yoga-maya, the child Sri Krishna subdued Kaliya and swallowed the forest fire. At that same age Bhagavan enacted the lila of taking the Vraja maidens' garments, dispelling the illusion of those who desired Him as husband and granting them fitness for complete self-surrender. Through this Yoga-maya the young women of Vraja saw the seven-year-old Sri Krishna as endowed with fresh youth. Through His own Yoga-maya, Bhagavan appeared to sport in the circle of the rasa dance. By that same power, every gopi saw Gopinatha beside herself. As a child plays freely with his own reflection in a mirror, so through Yoga-maya Bhagavan Sri Krishna sported with the gopis, who were manifestations of His own reflection:

"The Lord of Rama sported with the beauties of Vraja as a child plays with reflections of himself." (Srimad Bhagavatam 10.33.17)

And through the influence of Yoga-maya, the residents of Vraja saw their own wives, who had gone to the rasa dance, sleeping beside them:

"The men of Vraja believed their respective wives were lying beside them." (Srimad Bhagavatam 10.33.38)

By Yoga-maya's power, when the eleven-year-old Sri Krishna entered Kamsa's arena, the wrestlers saw Him as hard as a thunderbolt, the citizens as

an extraordinary supreme man; the women as Kamadeva embodied; the cowherds as their own kinsman; the wicked kings as their ruler; Vasudeva and Devaki as their son; Kamsa as death itself; the learned as the Cosmic Person; the yogis as the Supreme Reality; and the Yadavas as the highest deity.

This was a divine lila of love between Bhagavan Himself - complete in every desire, true in every desire, Lord of the masters of yoga, possessed of all six divine excellences, wielder of Yoga-maya who makes the impossible possible, possessor of the hladini potency, and wish-fulfilling tree of His devotees' desires - and the devotees who are His own reflections.

In truth, Radha is wholly nondifferent from Sri Krishna. Sri Krishna's own hladini potency, through which He savors His own beauty and sweetness, is called Sri Radha. Among Sri Krishna's innumerable potencies, those that nourish this hladini potency are Sri Radha's companion sakhis, the Sri gopis. Among them are many classes, such as intimate friend, companion, attendant, messenger, and maidservant. Sri Krishna is the most beautiful and the sweetest. Therefore He is Rasaraja, the sovereign of rasa; the direct enchanter of Kamadeva; He whose beauty shames millions of Cupids; the primal seed of Kandarpa; the divine, eternally fresh Madana; and the Supreme Purushottama, concentrated conscious bliss. Sri Radha is the supreme prakriti, filled with love for Krishna and absorbed in Krishna-bhava, enchanted by Sri Krishna's beauty and sweetness. Through this potency of His own, Sri Krishna savors the rasa of His beauty and sweetness. This is the shared treasure of love between Sri Krishna, sovereign of rasa, and Sri Radha, who delights in rasa.

This love is not human; it does not exist in the mortal world. Therefore Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita says:

"In parakiya-bhava arises the supreme exultation of rasa; Apart from Vraja, it has no abode anywhere."

This divine parakiya-bhava, the exultation of the highest rasa, dwells nowhere except Vraja - the divine Goloka filled with Sri Krishna-prema. Therefore Sri Krishna, Rasaraja and sovereign of Vraja, never moves even one step away from this Vrindavana:

"Leaving Vrindavana, He does not go even a single step elsewhere."

Bhagavan Sri Krishna is pure consciousness, pure bliss, pure love, pure

rasa. These gopis, beloveds of Sri Krishna - Sri Radha, who is Sri Krishna's hladini potency, and the sakhis eternally engaged solely in bringing about the loving union of Sri Radha and Krishna, who experience a happiness even greater than Sri Radha's own - are made of pure consciousness, pure bliss, pure love, and pure bhava. They and their bodies are not in reality composed of blood and flesh like ours. They are neither worldly nor imagined, nor are they instruments for undergoing pleasure and pain born of karma. They are eternal. Even when they manifest in the world of maya and enact lila in the mortal realm, they remain entirely beyond mortality. Their divine forms and the eternal rasa dance can be seen only through divine eyes overflowing with prema.

Bhagavan Himself says to Sri Mahadevaji:

"Know this Radhika, My Beloved, to be the supreme Goddess. Around Her and behind Her stand hundreds of thousands of sakhis. O Rudra, all these are eternal, just as I possess an eternal form. My companions, parents, cowherds, cows, and My Vrindavana are eternal. All this is eternally constituted of the rasa of consciousness and bliss. Know this Vrindavana of Mine as Ananda-kanda, the root of bliss." (Padma Purana, Patala-khanda 51.73-75)

"Sri Radhikaji is My Beloved - understand Her to be the supreme Goddess. Hundreds of thousands of sakhis surround and follow Her. Just as My form is eternal, all of them too are eternal. My father, mother, friends, cowherds, cows, and this Vrindavana of Mine are all eternal and filled with the rasa of sat-chit-ananda. Know that My Vrindavana is called Ananda-kanda, the root of bliss."

In the Rasollasa-tantra, Bhagavan Sri Shivaji tells Goddess Parvati concerning the rasa dance:

"Just as the embodied being has gross, subtle, and causal bodies, so one should know of another body, proclaimed the body of bhava. This body is received through grace and comes naturally from birth to birth; or, O Maheshvari, it may sometimes be attained through spiritual practice."

"This body is neither saguna nor nirguna; it belongs to the transcendent Self. Nowhere in this world is it to be seen except Vrindavana. The gopis' conduct in union with Krishna was born neither of lust nor of its absence; it was enacted through the body of bhava."

In other words: "Just as the body has gross, subtle, and causal forms, there is also a body of bhava. This body is received through Bhagavan's grace and, through that same grace, is obtained naturally from birth to birth. Such a body generally belongs to Bhagavan's liberated companions or to souls who descend for a divine purpose. Or, O Maheshvari, this body may sometimes be attained through spiritual practice. This body of bhava is neither saguna in the sense of being born from karma nor nirguna; it belongs to the transcendent Self and is seen nowhere except Vrindavana. The gopis became fulfilled through union with Sri Krishna. Their meeting arose neither from lust nor from the mere absence of lust; it was accomplished through the body of bhava."

These words of Shivaji make the divinity of Sri Krishna's love with the gopis unmistakable. The gopis' enjoyment with Sri Krishna was not material or bodily; there was not the slightest object of the senses in it. To see fault in this divine lila of love is therefore a grave sin.

Qualification and Duty

One point, however, must be kept firmly in mind: no one except Bhagavan can be the hero of such a lila. Every soul endowed with detachment and prema is qualified to worship Bhagavan in gopi-bhava. Gopi-bhava is not reserved for women, nor is there any need to dress as a woman. What is necessary is to take the gopis as one's ideal and awaken love like theirs within the heart. This worship is perfected through bhava, not through costume. Only one who possesses such transcendent, selfless, and exclusive love can worship in gopi-bhava, and the object of that worship can only be the Supreme Self.

In the understanding of worshipers of gopi-bhava, all souls in their bodies of bhava are prakriti, while Vrajendra-nandana alone - the supreme Purusha and the transcendent, ever-fresh Madana - is the sole husband of all,

the supreme Husband. Apart from Sri Nanda-nandana, they cannot even conceive of another man: "Not even in a dream is there another man in the world." In this divine realm of love, none but Sri Krishna has the right or power to enter as Purusha, and no woman may enter except the devotee whose mind has been imbued with the rasa of Sri Krishna-prema. Ordinary women and men are wholly forbidden entry into this divine mansion of love belonging to Bhagavan's bliss potency.

At the threshold of the great temple, an entering devotee must show the gatekeeping sakhi a letter of admission. That letter is a buddhi immersed in the rasa of Sri Krishna-prema, and it can be obtained only by one who offers body, mind, and wealth to the Beloved Lord; becomes utterly free of desire and of faults such as lust, anger, and greed; dons the supremely beautiful garments of detachment; adorns oneself with the ornaments of divine virtues; and sacrifices the self upon the altar of love:

"First offer your head, and only then enter; This land admits only such a noble lover."

Therefore no human being can ever become Sri Krishna in this realm, even if regarded as a great acharya, preacher, lover of Bhagavan, liberated while living, or a person of divine bhava. If anyone claims to become Sri Krishna and have others worship him in gopi-bhava, one should always remain far away. In particular, a man who asks women to worship him in gopi-bhava should be regarded as immoral. For a male aspirant, not only women themselves but even the company of those who associate with women is to be abandoned:

"A self-controlled person should remain far from the company of women and of men who associate with women." (Srimad Bhagavatam 11.14.29)

This love is exceedingly rare. Even the gods are not qualified for it. Only devotees who savor Bhagavan's rasa of Vraja, who are filled with Vraja-bhava and love Vraja-prema, drink this supremely exalted nectar of love. Only by taking refuge at the gopis' feet and adopting gopi-bhava can one attain this rare divine love, utterly free from the scent of lust and from desire for sense objects, and Shyamasundara Himself - the embodiment, foundation, and

abode of prema. Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita says:

"Whoever develops longing for the nectar of gopi-bhava abandons every Vedic dharma and worships Krishna alone. Whoever worships upon the path of raga and anuraga attains Vrajendra-nandana in Vraja."

Yet the lover does not willfully abandon Vedic dharma. When prema manifests, Vedic dharma recognizes that it has attained its supreme fruit in the state of love and releases the aspirant of its own accord. One who abandons it knowingly merely falls:

"This alone is the law of love: every other law falls away; But where one knowingly casts them off, there is no love at all."

This is not a path for those who crave sense pleasure, nor a path of outward costume. It is the sacred way of true renunciants who have abandoned the world's delusion and every desire and wish to worship Bhagavan alone. For one whose heart still longs for enjoyment, setting foot on this path is like leaping into blazing fire or placing a hand into the mouth of a deadly serpent:

"He wishes to drink the nectar of prema yet clings to sense pleasure; The poison spreads, burns his heart, and ravages his body."

Therefore Shukadevaji warns everyone:

"One who is not the Supreme Lord must never imitate this, even mentally. A fool who does so is destroyed, just as anyone but Rudra would be destroyed by drinking the poison born from the ocean. He who dwells within the gopis, their husbands, and all embodied beings is their witness. The embodied soul must not imitate His play. To bestow grace upon all beings, He assumes a human form and performs such lilas that whoever hears them becomes wholly devoted to Him." (Srimad Bhagavatam 10.33.31, 36-37)

"Shivaji drank halahala poison; every human being cannot do so. In the same way, Bhagavan enacted this lila, but a human being cannot. Therefore an incapable person must

never imitate this lila of Bhagavan, even in the mind. Whoever does so out of foolishness will be destroyed. Bhagavan is the Self of the gopis, their husbands, and every embodied being; He dwells in all hearts as witness. He descended by assuming a body solely for lila, and in order to shower grace upon living beings He enacted with that divine body such transcendent lilas that those who hear them become devoted to Bhagavan."

Therefore, instead of imitating Bhagavan's transcendent lilas, one should take sacred gopi-bhava as the ideal, offer everything to Bhagavan, serve Him in every way through intellect, mind, and senses, and contemplate Him constantly with love. One should become a devotee, not Bhagavan.

The soul is a portion of Bhagavan and therefore possesses a portion of bliss, a spark of the hladini potency. If a person withdraws this spark of the bliss potency from impermanent, momentary, sorrow-filled enjoyments that delusively appear as happiness, and directs it toward the joy of Bhagavan's beauty and sweetness, then in exchange for that transient, deceptive, and trivial pleasure of the senses, one may receive eternal, boundless bliss. When this bliss-receiving power in a person is elevated and purified, it becomes free from deception and from every scent of lust, and longs only to savor the rasa of Sri Krishna's beauty and sweetness. But so long as the soul's power to receive bliss remains submerged in sense enjoyment, it cannot move toward Krishna.

Therefore one should cast off attachment to sense objects as a poisonous vine; constantly hear and sing Sri Radha-Krishna's lila with supreme faith; accept as guru one of Sri Krishna's loving sakhis; and, under her direction, meditate upon Sri Krishna's lila until awareness of body and mind is forgotten and one becomes wholly absorbed in prema.

The gopis' love is filled with divine rasa. How can an ordinary person obtain that rasa, and how could speech or pen describe it? We should bow at the feet of the supremely loving gopis and beg them for the gift of prema,

and make our birth and life fruitful by singing the Name and virtues of their beloved Shyamasundara. Sri Lalita-kishoriji says:

"If Shyama-Shyama, adorned by beauty itself, have not delighted every limb, Shame on pursuing the multitude of other acts. If these hands have not washed Their feet and drunk that water, Friend, may embers fall into the cool water we drink. If one has not wandered beneath Vrindavana's bower-vines, May lightning strike the pleasure taken in any other flower garden. 'Lalita-kishori,' many years have passed and these eyes Have not seen the Beloved of my life - ashes upon such living!"

Shyamasundara is present even today, and His lila is eternal. But how shall we behold Him, and how shall we receive the good fortune of washing His feet? The means are these: constantly repeat His Name with selfless prema; sing His virtues; seek the company of His loving devotees; act in ways pleasing to Him; follow His commands; remain content with every dispensation of His will; abandon worldly delusion and practice offering oneself to the sweetness of His form; reflect upon His lilas; and cry for Him with one's whole being, from the deepest chamber of the heart. If you truly desire Him, abandon attachment to sense objects and take refuge in these means. As you continue, bhava will unfold of itself, and Sri Krishna will be attained as your all in all. Glory to the pollen of the lotus feet of the gopis and Gopinatha!

The Ocean of Prema in the Gopis' Hearts

Loving remembrance of Hari. I received your gracious letter. These women of Vraja are the supreme ideal in the realm of love, and even in the world of women no one compares with them. What need is there to speak of this world? Even in Bhagavan's realm, no woman's character has manifested such a naturally beautiful and exemplary embodiment of the glorious service that is the crown of womanhood. Savitri, Arundhati, Lopamudra, Uma, and Rama - none can be compared with the Sri gopis. Gopi-prema is to sustain life solely to bring happiness to one's beloved Sri Krishna, wholly free from even the scent of longing for one's own pleasure; to forget this world and the next, enjoyment and liberation; and naturally to perform every act of every moment according to the Beloved's pleasure.

Sri Krishna is Bhagavan Himself. No desire or longing exists in Him as something separate. Yet to savor and bestow the joy of the Sri gopis' love, the supremely beloved Bhagavan causes ever-new and wondrous longings to arise continually within His divine mind. Only the Sri gopis possess the power and capacity to shape themselves in harmony with those eternally fresh longings that arise in Bhagavan at every moment and thereby bring Him joy. The very form of their life is simply to fulfill the Beloved's preference and desire. Every inspiration, every resolve, every effort, every word, and every act is a natural and unfailing endeavor to fulfill the divine, love-born longing of their beloved Sri Krishna. Nowhere can the Sri gopis be compared with anyone.

Madhura-bhava finds its complete expression in the Sri gopis, and madhura-rasa manifests from that bhava alone. A great soul has explained that this madhura-rasa is of three kinds. All three are exceedingly precious, yet each succeeding one is more excellent and valuable than the former. Gems, for example, are of three kinds: an ordinary jewel, the wish-fulfilling chintamani, and the Kaustubha gem. An ordinary

gem has ordinary value; similarly, Kubja's affection for Sri Krishna is of ordinary value. Though contact with Sri Krishna made her greatly blessed, her purpose in serving Him was to obtain happiness for herself alone. For this reason she was called unfortunate. A chintamani is not easily found everywhere, and its price is very high; not everyone can pay so much. Such is the divine affection of Sri Krishna's queens. In them remains a disposition that seeks both Sri Krishna's happiness and their own. Their rati is therefore called samanjasa.

The love of the Sri gopis resembles the Kaustubha gem itself. Ten or twenty chintamanis may be found, but there is only one Kaustubha. It adorns Sri Bhagavan's neck alone and is found nowhere else. Likewise the Sri gopis' love exists nowhere except Vraja, the field of Sri Krishna's sweet lila. Only the Sri gopis know and embody such love, and it can be directed only toward the one recipient worthy of it: Sri Krishna, Vrajendra-nandana, Shyamasundara, Murali-manohara, and Beloved of the gopis. The infinite and unfathomable ocean of this divine nectar-rasa of prema surges forever in the gopis' hearts. It is therefore beyond comparison, measure, or conception.

The Glory of the Gopis' Love

Loving remembrance of Hari. Many days have passed since I received your letter. Ask a true lover about the gopis' love. I am not even qualified for it. If it gives such joy even to an unqualified person like me, nothing can be said of the great souls who are qualified to savor its true rasa. Sri Radhikaji is Sri Krishna's own essential hladini potency, who immerses Bhagavan Sri Krishna, Rasaraja and crown jewel of rasikas, in the ocean of rasa. The supremely exalted and selfless rati directed toward Sri Krishna is called prema. Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita explains that as this rati increases and successively becomes sneha, mana, pranaya, raga, and anuraga, it assumes the form of bhava. At that point it becomes exceedingly

wondrous. When that bhava attains the form of mahabhava, it is called the highest state of love. Srimati Radhikaji is the divine embodied form of this mahabhava. Her supremely fortunate sakhis, who remain engaged in arranging Her union with Sri Krishna, sovereign of rasa, are renowned as the Sri gopis.

Their love is so divine and extraordinary that even a moment's remembrance of it carries an aspirant far beyond the realm of maya into that divine empire of love where everything is wondrous and nothing ever grows old. Just as Sri Krishna is eternally fresh and beautiful, and although ever one in essence His beauty increases at every moment in ever-new forms, so every creature and object there - cows, cowherd men and women, animals, birds, insects, trees, and vines - remains filled with the rasa of sat-chit-ananda and manifests in a divine and eternally fresh form. In the same way, the gopis' love remains eternally new.

This does not occur in our world. When worldly love first appears, its object seems exquisitely beautiful and sweet; after some time that beauty and sweetness are no longer felt in the same way. It grows old, its original attraction fades, and the former restlessness to meet the beloved disappears. Not so with the gopis' love. Its transcendent stream of nectar-bliss bestows ever-new joy, for through this divine love one continually beholds the ever-new beauty of rasa-filled Sri Shyamasundara, the crown jewel of rasikas, eternally fresh and beautiful. Even the faintest shadow of this love makes the majestic pleasures of all the universes, and even the joy of liberation, tasteless and contemptible. Then one longing alone remains in life, and though continually fulfilled it is never exhausted: at every moment, forever and without interruption, to behold the ever-new beauty and sweetness of Shyamasundara, the support of one's life and embodiment of the nectar of every rasa.

What can be written? Nothing can describe the condition of one who has entered even slightly into this realm of bhava, the gopis' love. This ocean of prema-rasa is unfathomable and limitless. What does one who sinks into it obtain? It cannot be said. Ah, what wonder dwells within this boundless and homogeneous ocean!

Though eternally still, it is supremely dynamic. Ever-new waves of bhava continually rise within it, without the slightest pause or repose. Blessed are those who, immersed in this ocean, rise and fall with its waves. If even once, for a single instant like a flash of lightning, one glimpses this love and its object, Shyamasundara, the concentrated embodiment of rasa, that vision submerges one forever in the ocean of bliss-rasa.

The gopis' love is attained only by one who relinquishes attachment to karma and formal dharma, enjoyment and liberation, knowledge and detachment, and desires prema alone; who entirely abandons longing for every enjoyment as well as falsehood, violence, lust, anger, wounded pride, self-glorification, discussion of others, and worldly talk; who worships the Sri gopis' feet in the understanding that they are the supreme refuge; and who, filled with a single longing for prema, continually begs them for this love alone.

The Gopis' Sri Krishna

A story is told of five sakhis, all devotees of Sri Krishna. One day they sat in the forest weaving flower garlands. A sadhu passed that way. Stopping him, the maidens said, "Great soul! The Lord of our lives, Sri Krishna, has become lost somewhere in the forest. If you have seen Him, please tell us where He is."

The sadhu replied, "Foolish girls! Is Sri Krishna found so easily? One must perform severe austerity for Him. He is the Emperor of emperors: when displeased He punishes, and when pleased He rewards."

The sakhis answered, "Great soul, your Sri Krishna must be someone else. Our Sri Krishna is not an Emperor of emperors; He is the Lord of our lives. What reward could He give us? The key to His treasury remains with us. And He never punishes. If we should take something harmful and He makes us drink bitter medicine, that is not punishment but love."

Hearing their words, the sadhu became intoxicated with love. The sakhis remembered their Sri Krishna and began to dance, and the sadhu too became absorbed and danced with them.

The Greatness of the Sri Gopis

Loving remembrance of Hari. There is not the slightest doubt that the gopis fully knew Bhagavan's true nature. They were Bhagavan's internal potencies, whose minds and lives remained forever fixed in Him. How could they not know His nature and greatness?

In the twenty-ninth chapter of Srimad Bhagavatam, Sri Shukadevaji says, "Though they approached that very Supreme Self with the understanding that He was a paramour, their bonds were immediately destroyed and they cast off the body composed of the gunas." King Parikshit then asks, "O sage, they knew Krishna as their supreme beloved, not as Brahman." Accepting the question, Shukadevaji replies, "I have already explained to you how Shishupala attained perfection. If even one who hated Hrishikesha attained it, what then of those dear to Adhokshaja?" All this is correct, and the passage illuminates the gopis' greatness.

Sridharaswami writes in his commentary: "In ordinary souls, the nature of Brahman is veiled; in Krishna it is unveiled because He is Hrishikesha. Therefore no particular cognition is required there." The conscious nature of living beings, their form as consciousness, is covered, so knowledge is needed to discern it. Sri Krishna, however, is the ruler of every sense and the indwelling Lord; His spiritual form is not veiled. Therefore knowledge is not required either to experience His form or to attain the liberation that arises through contemplation of Him. The passage simply establishes Sri Krishna's unveiled form as the concentrated embodiment of sat-chit-ananda. It should not be taken to mean that the gopis did not understand Him as the Supreme Self or did not know His real nature. Expressions such as "the indwelling witness of all embodied beings" confirm this understanding.

Even so, Bhagavan's own maya-shakti or lila-shakti keeps the gopis' knowledge withdrawn and their bhava of love predominantly awake. They do not remember that Sri Krishna is the Supreme Self or Brahman. They experience only this: "Sri Krishna is our Beloved, the Lord of our lives." The expression "even with the understanding of a paramour" may trouble you. Brahmaji worships the dust of these gopis' feet,

and learned devotees such as Uddhava yearn to receive it. That one should have to defend the purity even of these women of Vraja, that any occasion for doubt about their character should arise, causes pain not only to you but to every lover of Bhagavan.

Those who say, "The gopis possessed lust, not love," speak only because they do not know the Sri gopis' greatness. Srimad Bhagavatam itself refutes them. Scripture says: "The prema of the cowherd maidens became renowned by the name kama." The gopis were embodiments of prema. Not even the scent of worldly lust existed in their minds. The expression "even with the understanding of a paramour" is itself an indication of their greatness.

Where there is no worldly lust and no desire for bodily union, how can worldly paramour-love or illicit relationship be imagined? The question whether the gopis were Sri Krishna's wedded beloveds or belonged to another arises only when the true nature of Sri Krishna and the gopis has been forgotten. Sri Krishna alone is the one husband of past, present, and future. The Lord who dwells as Self and Supreme Self in the hearts of the gopis, their husbands, their relatives, and every being in the universe is Sri Krishna Himself. Sri Krishna is a stranger to no one. He is everyone's own, and all are His.

Sri Krishna is the concentrated embodiment of sat-chit-ananda, the indwelling Lord of all, the form of prema-rasa, and the Supreme Self filled with lila-rasa. The gopis are the countless manifestations of Sri Radharani, His hladini potency, who is His own essential form and is suffused with the conscious rasa of bliss. Therefore Sri Krishna is neither a paramour nor another's beloved in relation to them, and they are not women belonging to another in relation to Him. In truth, no distinction of wedded or unwedded existed between them. They were nondifferent from Sri Krishna, and Sri Krishna was nondifferent from them. Bhagavan Himself manifests as that which is tasted, the taster, the abode of lila, and the many supports and stimulants of rasa, and through these forms He eternally savors and causes others to savor the infinite rasa of His own being.

It has already been explained that imagining paramour-love or another's possession in relation to the gopis or Sri Krishna

is inconsistent. What meaning, then, do expressions such as "understanding of a paramour" or "illicit beloved" possess? This is a question worth considering.

The answer is that the gopis were not parakiya, women belonging to another, but they possessed parakiya-bhava. From this perspective their hearts held jara-bhava toward Sri Krishna, though in reality Sri Krishna was wholly their own. The difference between actually belonging to another and possessing parakiya-bhava is as vast as heaven and earth; the same distinction applies between a paramour and jara-bhava.

Four qualities are especially important in parakiya-bhava: (1) constant contemplation of the Beloved, (2) intense longing for union, (3) the total absence of fault-finding, and (4) desiring nothing from the Beloved. To say that the gopis were parakiya in relation to Sri Krishna or worshiped Him in jara-bhava means only that they contemplated Him constantly; an unbroken longing to meet Him remained awake in their hearts; they never saw fault in Him; and desiring nothing from Him, they always regarded themselves as completely surrendered. They viewed every act of His solely through the eyes of love. Expressions such as "understanding of a paramour" are used to convey this bhava. We should constantly remember the gopis' causeless love, which existed only to bring happiness to Sri Krishna.

The Practice of Gopi-bhava

Loving remembrance of Hari. Five matters are foremost in gopi-bhava:

1. Complete knowledge of Sri Bhagavan's true nature, although that knowledge does not remain outwardly manifest.
2. The bhava of regarding Sri Bhagavan as one's Beloved.
3. Offering everything to Sri Bhagavan.
4. Complete abandonment of the desire for one's own happiness.
5. Conducting every action and thought of life solely for Bhagavan's happiness - sustaining life only for His pleasure.

These five were fully present in the gopis of Vraja, who are suffused with conscious bliss-rasa, whose minds are steeped in the rasa of Sri Krishna-prema, whose very lives rest in Sri Krishna, and who are wholly devoted to Sri Krishna's happiness.

Those whose minds are caught in sense objects, who are drawn by material beauty,

who remain attached to objects of enjoyment and possessive toward the body and things related to it, who desire bodily comfort and sensual pleasure, and whose current of life has not begun to flow ceaselessly toward Bhagavan are not qualified for the discipline of gopi-bhava. Such people will mistake divine madhura-rasa - the highest expression of Bhagavan's transcendent principle of love - for gross lust or worldly erotic sentiment. Attempting to imitate Bhagavan and the Sri gopis, they will fall into a terrible pit of hell.

Only the supremely fortunate whose hearts possess genuine detachment from enjoyment, whose minds have turned away from lustful pleasure, and whose senses have become inward-facing and eager to savor Bhagavan's spiritual rasa may follow gopi-bhava.

Sri Bhagavan has three intrinsic potencies: samvit, sandhini, and hladini. Bhagavan's sweet descent occurs through the blissful potency of love called hladini. That hladini potency is Sri Radhikaji Herself. All the gopis are the infinitely varied embodiments of that hladini potency. Their lives are naturally offered to Bhagavan, and every action naturally assumes the form of His service. They make no effort with any purpose other than bringing joy to Bhagavan and arranging the happiness of Sri Krishna and Radhika's union. Their intellects, minds, senses, bodies, and selves are forever offered to Sri Krishna. Through them, Sri Krishna is served without interruption. Their minds never turn elsewhere even by mistake or accept any other object. They are happy in Sri Krishna alone and experience supreme happiness only upon seeing Him happy. Their own happiness is contained wholly within Sri Krishna's happiness.

Srimad Bhagavatam says:

"Their minds rested in Him; they spoke only of Him, acted only for Him, and became wholly one with Him. Singing His virtues alone, they forgot even their bodies and homes." (10.30.43)

Their minds had become Bhagavan's mind: no resolve arose in them apart from Bhagavan-bhava.

They spoke only of Him, and every effort they made was for His sake. Thus they became filled with Bhagavan; while singing His virtues they forgot even their own bodies and homes. Even while performing household work, in their minds, speech, and eyes they continually experienced Sri Bhagavan's touch and beheld Him alone.

Therefore Uddhavaji, Bhagavan's most beloved devotee, overwhelmed by the great glory of the gopis' love, worshiped the dust of their feet while longing to become a vine or shrub in Vraja:

"Ah, may I become one of the shrubs, vines, or herbs of Vrindavana that receives the dust of these women's feet. They abandoned relatives difficult to forsake and the path of propriety, and followed Mukunda's path, which even the Vedas seek. Those lotus feet of Bhagavan Sri Krishna that Sri herself worships and that Brahma and other fulfilled masters of yoga contemplate only within their hearts, the gopis placed upon their breasts during the rasa gathering and, embracing them, dispelled the burning pain of separation. Again and again I bow to the dust of the feet of the women of Nanda's Vraja, whose songs of Hari-katha purify the three worlds." (Srimad Bhagavatam 10.47.61-63)

"Ah, what fortune would be mine if I became a vine, a grain plant, or a shrub in Vrindavana upon which the dust of these maidens' feet continually falls. Blessed are the gopis of Vraja: they abandoned relatives exceedingly hard to leave and the eternal path of sacred propriety, and followed the path of Mukunda, which the Vedas themselves seek yet do not attain. Ah! At the time of loving conversation before the rasa dance, they placed upon their breasts those lotus feet of Bhagavan Sri Krishna which Lakshmiji herself worships and which fulfilled yogic lords such as Brahma contemplate only in their minds but do not obtain in manifest form. By embracing them, they extinguished the fire of separation. I bow again and again to the dust of the feet of those women of Nanda's Vraja, whose songs filled with Hari-katha purify all three worlds."

At every moment the gopis' hearts cry out, "How may the desire of our beloved Sri Krishna be fulfilled? How may this wealth and home, this mind and life, this body and dwelling bring joy to dear Kanhaiya? Ah, these already belong to Him; they are His materials. How, then, could I wish to take them, employ them in my own service, and make myself happy? One gives away only what belongs to oneself, but here everything is already His. Ah, He possesses the exclusive right even over me. How, then, can I say, 'Take me and employ me in Your service'? Do I possess any right over myself? Very well, there is nothing more to say. You are the operator and I the instrument; You are the dancer's master and I the puppet. Do whatever You desire - only that, and nothing else."

What an exalted state! They do not care in the slightest for any object or condition. Scripture describes eight nooses in which a bound person continually suffers and cannot advance toward the loving and blissful Bhagavan:

"Hatred, doubt, fear, shame, and aversion as the fifth; family, conventional virtue, and honor - these are proclaimed the eight bonds."

Hatred, doubt, fear, shame, aversion, family status, conventional virtue, and honor are the soul's eight bonds. Look now at the gopis: not one of them can be found there. They broke these eight powerful snares and became free. Therefore they could abandon everything, turn the entire current of life away from every other direction, and direct it toward Bhagavan Sri Krishna. When, through suitable spiritual practice and earnestness received by Bhagavan's grace, a person reaches this state, that person becomes endowed with gopi-bhava and immediately sets out to attain Bhagavan. Then, abandoning concern for family and propriety, shame and fear, honor and dishonor, dharma and adharma, and this world and the next,

one runs like a mad person, crying, "O Beloved! O dearest Lord of my life! O my Manamohana! I cannot remain even one moment without beholding Your sweet form. Every blink now passes like an age." Taking every effort of life along, one runs toward Sri Krishna. One who can do this is supremely fortunate; that life alone is blessed.

There are five bhavas: shanta, dasya, sakhya, vatsalya, and madhura. All living beings are governed by these five. The fortunate person who withdraws these bhavas from this impermanent and sorrow-filled world and directs them toward Bhagavan is a true aspirant. This alone is the supreme human purpose. Of the five bhavas, madhura is highest. It includes within itself the other four - shanta, dasya, sakhya, and vatsalya. Of a wife endowed with madhura-bhava it is said:

"In affairs she is a counselor, in service a maid; in dharma a wife, in forgiveness the earth; at meals a mother, in bed Rambha; in delight a companion - endowed with these six qualities, she is my beloved."

From the standpoint of bhava, parakiya-bhava is higher even than the madhura-bhava of husband and wife, for she abandons everything and worships her Beloved. When this bhava is born from worldly lust, it is gravely impure and leads to terrible hells filled with dreadful torment. When that same bhava is directed toward Vrajendra-nandana - sovereign of rasa, crown jewel among relishing lovers, embodiment of rasa, and root of bliss - it is utterly faultless, supremely excellent, and the highest level in the exalted realm of spiritual practice.

This bhava arises only through Bhagavan's grace, and only in great souls who abandon longing for even enjoyments rare among the gods in this world and the next, and even for kaivalya liberation; who, with discipline, faith, trust, and complete earnestness, worship Sri Radhikaji, the direct form of Bhagavan, or one of the gopis who is Her concentrated manifestation and essentially nondifferent from Her. The Sri gopis, whose minds are steeped in the rasa of Sri Krishna-prema, experience this rasa in its fullness. In them alone it shines completely. They say:

"Clothe me in sackcloth, load my feet with chains, bind me in tight fetters, and flay my tender skin. Make me drink poison, strike me with a heated fist, drown me midstream with an enormous stone tied to me. Spread scorpions beneath me and make me sleep upon them; then wrap me in a heavy shawl and set it aflame. Hurl me from a mountain or make a black serpent bite me - ah, ah! But never sever my love for dear Mohana Nandalala.

Let one call me unchaste, high-born or low-born; let another call me destitute, disgraced, or a wicked woman. Whatever may happen in the mortal world, the higher worlds, or any world, I have chosen a path called false by society, a path unlike the world's. Let body go, mind go, gods and elders go, even life itself may go; I shall never abandon my vow. I am offered to that form: Banavari of Vrindavana, crowned and clothed in yellow silk.

My heart has accepted Nandalala - what can anyone do? I cling to His lotus feet; let whatever must happen, happen. Husband, mother, and father threaten me, and travelers laugh; but now my heart has come to this, for destiny itself has woven our union. If this world of mine is lost and the next world destroyed as well, still I shall not leave Nanda's son; I shall go openly to meet Him, banners sounding. This body will not be obtained again, O friend; Murari wears the Beloved's form. Upon the Lord of Paramananda I cast and sacrifice my all."

These are certainly the utterances of poets, yet they clearly reveal the outer contours of gopi-bhava. Only a lover endowed with gopi-bhava knows its true mystery; no one can describe it. This is merely a very external, gross, and partial manifestation. Nor should one suppose that parakiya-bhava is an exact example of the gopis' love. That

love is so indescribable and incomparable that it can neither be expressed in words nor compared with anything else.

Briefly stated, the following ten disciplines are necessary for attaining gopi-bhava.

1. Take refuge in a true guru who is entirely free from lust, anger, greed, and the like; pure inwardly and outwardly; devoted to righteous conduct; peaceful, free from envy, and loving; versed in the truth of Sri Krishna-rasa and in the Krishna-mantra; convinced that Sri Krishna's grace is the sole means of attaining Him; compassionate and supremely detached; and one who spends life hearing and singing Sri Krishna's lila and virtues. If such a guru cannot be found, one should accept Jagadguru Sri Krishna Himself as the supreme guru.

2. Make every effort to cultivate within yourself the same virtues described in Sri Gurudeva.

3. Accept Bhagavan Sri Krishna alone as the fullest Supreme Lord: supreme over all, omnipotent, all-pervading, present as all, transcending all, endowed with infinite inconceivable virtues, the ocean of the nectar of every rasa, the wish-fulfilling tree of His devotees' desires, the eternal enjoyer of lila, unborn and imperishable, Parabrahman, worshiped by all gods and Himself the form of all gods, the supreme ground even of Parabrahman, eternally beyond the gunas, formless, changeless, stainless, immeasurable, faultless, indivisible, unmoving, free from affliction, the concentrated embodiment of sat-chit-ananda, and possessed of an inconceivable spiritual form. Make Him alone your supremely worshipful chosen Lord.

4. Regard every enjoyment of this world and the next as an absolute obstacle on the path to attaining Bhagavan, and completely withdraw the mind's attachment from it. Use only those enjoyments that necessity requires, and use them for Bhagavan's pleasure by turning them into materials for His worship. Not the slightest attachment, possessiveness, or desire should remain toward any object of enjoyment.

5. Never regard Bhagavan Sri Krishna's sweet lila of Vraja as the lustful play of material women and men. Maintain perpetual and complete faith in Sri Krishna's divinity and in the transcendent, sat-chit-ananda nature of every one of His lilas.

6. Without causing the slightest harm to any creature, faithfully practice, for Bhagavan's pleasure and as appropriate, the Vaishnava virtues and sacred deeds of truthfulness, nonviolence, love, humility, celibacy, service, and the like; and reverently serve Sri Tulasiji, Gangaji, Yamunaji, the sacred image, devotees, saints, and others.

7. At the proper times, duly perform japa of the mantra of the Divine Couple, and constantly continue the repetition and singing of Sri Bhagavan's Name.

8. Devotionally serve Sri Sri Radhikaji, Sri Lalitaji, and the others.

9. Continually surrender yourself in every way at Bhagavan's feet and keep pleading compassionately with Him to grant you the right to serve.

10. Make a special effort to destroy the impurity of lust, for so long as even a trace of lust remains, one can in no way become qualified for the discipline of gopi-bhava.

In the Padma Purana, Bhagavan Sri Shankara disclosed to Devarshi Narada many confidential truths about worshiping Sri Radha-Krishna, Their nature, Their mantras, and related matters. Some of them are quoted here. Bhagavan Shivaji says that Sri Krishna has two supremely excellent mantras known as mantra-chintamani: one of sixteen syllables and another of ten.

The Mantras

The sixteen-syllable mantra is:

"I take refuge at the feet of the Beloved of the gopis."

The ten-syllable mantra is:

"Obeisance to Radha and Krishna, the two Beloveds of the gopis."

Men and women of every varna, every ashrama, and every community are qualified for these mantras when they have devotion to Bhagavan Sri Krishna, the Lord of all lords: "May they have devotion to Krishna, the Lord of all lords." Those who perform sacrifices, give charity, follow tantra, speak truth, have mastered the Vedas and Vedangas, are born into noble families, practice austerity, undertake vows, or abide in Brahman, but lack devotion to Sri Krishna,

none of these is qualified. Therefore these mantras should not be disclosed to people who are not devotees of Sri Krishna, who are ungrateful, consumed by false pride, or devoid of faith. They should be given only to an exclusive devotee of Sri Krishna who is free from hypocrisy, greed, lust, anger, and similar faults. Having duly installed the mantras through nyasa, one should worship Sri Krishna and then meditate on Him as follows.

Meditation

In beautiful Vrindavana, beneath a wish-fulfilling tree, Bhagavan Sri Krishna sits with Sri Priyaji upon a lovely jeweled throne. Sri Krishna's complexion is deep blue like a fresh raincloud. He wears yellow garments and has two arms. He is adorned with garlands of many jewels and flowers, and His face is lovelier than millions of moons. His eyes glance obliquely. On His forehead is a circular tilaka, formed with sandalwood around its edge and a dot of kumkuma in the center. Beautiful earrings adorn His ears, and a pearl hangs from the tip of His shapely nose. His reddish lips resemble ripe bimba fruit and gleam in the radiance of His teeth. Jeweled bracelets and armlets adorn His arms, and gem-set rings shine upon His fingers. He holds the flute in His left hand and a lotus in His right. A charming jeweled girdle circles His waist, and anklets beautify His feet. His curling locks are exceedingly captivating, and a peacock feather shines upon His head, which is also ornamented with oleander blossoms. The luster of Bhagavan's body is soft and radiant like millions upon millions of newly risen suns. Drops of perspiration beautify His mirror-like cheeks, and His restless eyes are fixed upon Sri Radhikaji.

Sri Radhikaji sits at His left. Her bodily radiance resembles molten gold; She wears blue garments and smiles gently. Her pair of restless eyes rests upon the moon of Her Lord's face, and like a chakori bird She drinks the nectar of that dark moon. With thumb and forefinger She places betel into Her Beloved's lotus mouth. Garlands of divine jewels and pearls adorn Her neck. A girdle beautifies Her slender waist. Anklets and bracelets adorn Her feet, and rings grace Her toes. Loveliness radiates from every limb. All around Them, before and behind in their proper places, the sakhis stand rendering many kinds of service.

Sri Radhikaji is wholly filled with Krishna; She is Sri Krishna's hladini-shakti, the potency of bliss embodied. Powers such as Durga, composed of the three gunas, are comparable to one ten-millionth of one ten-millionth part of Her. In truth, everything is filled with Sri Radha-Krishna. Nothing exists apart from Them. The entire world, conscious and insentient, consists of Sri Radha-Krishna:

"The whole universe, characterized by consciousness and nonconscious matter, is pervaded by Radha and Krishna."

Yet They are not merely this. They transcend the infinite totality of universes, are beyond all, are the ground of all, dwell within all, and are utterly distinct from all. This is only a slight indication of Sri Krishna's majesty.

Just as a devoted wife whose husband has long been abroad desires only his company and, in humble longing, continually reflects upon, sings, and hears of her lord's virtues, so an aspirant whose mind is attached to Sri Krishna should spend all time reflecting upon, singing, and hearing of Sri Krishna's virtues and lilas. And just as, when her husband returns home after a very long absence, the faithful wife, absorbed in him with exclusive love, serves and embraces him and drinks with her eyes the nectar of his beauty, so during worship the aspirant should serve Sri Hari with body, mind, and speech in supreme joy.

One should take refuge in Sri Krishna alone, and do so for Sri Krishna's sake alone, with no other purpose. Serve Sri Krishna with an undivided mind. Apart from Sri Krishna, neither worship anyone nor revile anyone. Do not eat another person's remnants or wear clothing that another has worn. Neither converse with those who denounce Bhagavan nor listen to criticism of Bhagavan or His devotees.

Throughout life, worship the mantra of the Divine Couple with the disposition of the chataka bird and with understanding of its meaning. The chataka forsakes readily available waters such as lakes, rivers, and oceans and passes its life tormented by thirst, hoping only for rainwater. Even if its life should end, it asks water from none but the cloud. In the same way, the aspirant should practice with a concentrated mind fixed solely upon Sri Krishna.

With perfect faith, one should offer the following prayer to the sovereign Divine Couple:

"O Lords, You two alone are my protectors from the ocean of worldly existence, crowded with children, friends, and home; You destroy the fear of those who take refuge in You. Whatever I am and whatever is mine, in this world or the next, I offer it all today at Your feet. I am an abode of offenses and have abandoned all spiritual means. Being without recourse, O Lords, You two alone are my refuge. O Beloved Lord of Radhika, I am Yours in deed, mind, and speech. O Beloved Lady of Krishna, I am Yours alone. You two are my sole destination. I have taken refuge in You, O abundant mines of compassion. Be gracious and grant service to me, wicked and offensive though I am."

(Padma Purana, Patala-khanda)

"O Lords! You two alone can rescue me from this ocean of worldly existence filled with children, friends, and household ties; You alone destroy the fear of those who seek refuge. Whatever I am, and whatever belongs to me in this world or the next, I offer it all today at Your lotus feet. I am a storehouse of offenses; my offenses have no end. I possess no spiritual means and have nowhere else to go. Therefore, O Lords, You alone, Beloved Lady and Beloved Lord, are my refuge. O Sri Krishna, Beloved of Radhika! O Radhika, Beloved of Sri Krishna! In body, mind, and speech I am Yours alone, and You are my sole destination. I have taken refuge in You and fallen at Your feet. You are the source of all compassion. Mercifully take pity on me and make this wicked offender Your servant."

Aspirants who wish to receive very quickly the right to serve Bhagavan Sri Radha-Krishna should remain at Bhagavan's lotus feet and repeat this prayer-mantra every day.

Bhagavan Shankara then said to Naradaji: "Devarshi! While repeating Bhagavan's mantra and meditating upon Him,

I remained on Kailasa for many days. Then Bhagavan appeared before me, granted me His vision, and told me to ask for a boon. Bowing again and again, I prayed: 'Ocean of grace! O Supreme Lord, I wish to behold with my own eyes that eternal embodied form of Yours which bestows every joy and is the foundation of all bliss, and which the learned call the attributeless, actionless, tranquil Brahman.'

"Bhagavan said: 'Go to My Vrindavana on the western bank of Sri Yamunaji. There you will behold My true form.' Saying this, Bhagavan vanished. At once I went to the beautiful bank of the Yamuna and saw Bhagavan Sri Krishna, Lord of the lords of all the gods, dressed in the captivating attire of a cowherd. He was in the loveliness of adolescence. Resting His exceedingly beautiful left arm upon Sri Radhaji's shoulder, He stood smiling in the graceful threefold-bending posture. A circle of gopis surrounded Him. The luster of His body was soft and dark like a rain-laden cloud. He is the sole foundation of every blessing.

"Then Bhagavan Sri Krishna spoke to me in a sweet voice like nectar:

"The supremely transcendent form of Mine that you have beheld today is the embodied concentration of stainless prema and sat-chit-ananda. O sinless one, the hosts of Upanishads call this very form of Mine formless, beyond the gunas, all-pervading, actionless, and higher than the highest. O Lord, because I lack qualities born of prakriti, because My own qualities are infinite, and because those qualities cannot be established by material means, they call Me nirguna. O Maheshvara, because this form of Mine cannot be seen with physical eyes, all the Vedas call Me without form. Because I pervade all through My conscious potency, the wise know Me as Brahman. Because I am not the direct agent of the manifested cosmos, they call Me actionless. O Shiva, My divine portions, working through the gunas of maya, perform creation and the other cosmic acts. I Myself do nothing such as creation."

(Padma Purana, Patala-khanda)

"Shankaraji! Today you have seen this supremely transcendent form of Mine. All the

Upanishads call this concentrated, stainless, prema-filled form of Mine, this embodiment of sat-chit-ananda, the formless, attributeless, all-pervading, actionless Brahman beyond the highest. I possess no quality produced by prakriti, while My own qualities are infinite and cannot be described. Since those qualities cannot be established through material vision, everyone calls Me nirguna. O Maheshvara! No one can see this form of Mine with physical eyes; therefore the Vedas call it formless. I am all-pervading through My conscious potency, so the learned call Me Brahman. Because I am not the creator of this phenomenal universe, the scholars describe Me as actionless. O Shiva! In truth I Myself perform none of the acts of creation and the rest. My portions - Brahma, Vishnu, and Rudra - perform creation, dissolution, and the other functions through the gunas of maya."

"Devarshi! After Bhagavan had spoken in this way and given some further teachings, I asked Him: 'O Lord, graciously tell me by what means Your form as the Divine Couple may be attained.' Bhagavan replied: 'Only one who takes refuge in Us both and worships Us in gopi-bhava attains Me; no one else does.'

"Through gopi-bhava, O lord of the gods, one attains Me and not otherwise."

"There is one further truth: to attain this bhava one must worship Sri Radhika with complete endeavor."

"O Rudra! If you wish to bring Me under your loving sway, take refuge in My beloved Sri Radhikaji."

"Taking refuge in My Beloved, O Rudra, you may bring Me under your sway."

This account makes clear that the goal of the discipline of gopi-bhava is to attain Bhagavan Sri Radha-Krishna and serve Them. To attain this, one should practice with faith, devotion, and earnestness in the manner described above. With the unsated and unwinking inner eyes of the mind, one should meditate within the heart on Bhagavan Sri Krishna's supremely captivating, sage-enchanting form, filled with the nectar of beauty. As you continue meditating, when by His grace you directly behold the sweetness of His exquisite form, you will indeed be blessed beyond measure. Then you too will desire only this:

Behold the crown upon His brow, behold the moon-bright plume, Behold the swaying grace of His beauty, and drink the nectar of His form. Behold His vast eyes, behold the gunja garland at His throat, Behold His nectar-filled lips, and let the heart delight. Behold His earrings moving, behold His curling locks, Behold the flutter of His eyelids, and surrender everything. Behold the edge of His yellow robe, behold the deep call of His flute; Look toward the Dark One, and make beholding Him your only occupation.

Gopi-bhava is the bhava of complete self-surrender. In it, the desire for one's own happiness is utterly renounced. To attain gopi-bhava, one need not wear a skirt, sari, or blouse, nor anklets on the feet or a nose-ring. One must follow the Sri gopis themselves. Contemplate this: Sri Krishna is being playful and demanding, and Mother Yashoda coaxes Him with butter. Sri Krishna is arriving at the bower, and Srimati Radhikaji is preparing to welcome Him. The essential feature of gopi-bhava is the experience of rasa. Merely saying, "Sri Krishna alone is the Lord of my life. He alone is my supremely beloved. Apart from Him I have nothing," does not bestow rasa. Rasa requires a heart filled with rasa. Words convey only an outward indication of it.

When a wife whose very life belongs to her husband calls him "lord of my life" and "beloved" from a loving heart, that bhava is truly embodied within her. Therefore she experiences rasa. Therefore she does not hesitate to give up her life for the lord of her life - or rather, her husband truly possesses the right over her life. When she calls him her beloved, a natural thrill arises in her heart and a wave of the nectar of joy overflows. In the same way, only when a devotee's heart truly accepts Bhagavan as its "Lord of life" and "Beloved" does it become qualified to attain gopi-bhava. Only when Bhagavan has been chosen as husband, exactly as a wife chooses her lord, can He truly be called "Beloved" and "Lord of life."

Attaining Gopi-bhava

Loving remembrance of Hari! I received your letter. You aspire to attain the love of the gopis - this is indeed a sign of great good fortune. Concerning the three questions you have asked about it, I offer my thoughts below.

1. The love of the gopis can be attained by anyone. Without attaining this bhava, one cannot enter the Beloved's intimate lilas. Yet no one can determine when or to which soul this supreme good fortune will come. It depends entirely upon the causeless grace of that Lord of one's life. Only when He graciously chooses a soul does that soul receive this highest qualification. At most, the soul can surrender itself at His feet. Surrender is its spiritual means - a "means" because this is the most a soul can do. In truth, however, this bhava is not achieved by practice; it is attained by grace alone.

2. Gopi-bhava is indeed attained when everything has been relinquished, but this relinquishment of all does not depend upon any external act. It may occur while one remains at home, and may fail to occur even after one goes to the forest. When did the gopis go away to the forest as renunciants? This is a supremely exalted state of bhava that arises only when love has fully ripened. For the lover, everything belongs to the Lord of one's life. What does the lover possess that could be relinquished? The very act of renouncing something still carries a subtle trace of possessiveness. If one has no possessiveness toward anything, what is there to renounce? Therefore one should not make a display of renunciation, but should increase love. One who offers the self at the Beloved's feet retains nothing as one's own; everything becomes the Beloved's.

3. Guru, attire, and sacred place are certainly aids to attaining bhava, yet more often people gain from them only a kind of narrow sectarianism. How can one who has not attained gopi-bhava lead others to it, and where can a guru who has attained that bhava be found? As for attire, without knowing the Beloved's preference, how can one decide

in what form He wishes to see you? The Beloved's true abode lies beyond this world; the Vrindavana of this world is only its symbol. That eternal and conscious Vrindavana is everywhere, and it can be perceived only with eyes filled with bhava. The true lover cannot remain outside that Beloved's abode even for a single moment.

The Aspirant's Perfected Body

Dear Sir, respectful and loving remembrance of Hari. I received your gracious letter. Your question concerning the perfected body in the realm of spiritual practice points toward a very elevated discipline of raganuga-bhakti. In truth, all these questions concern a confidential divine practice.

Two bodies are recognized for service: the aspirant's body and the perfected body. When this gross body composed of the five elements is engaged in spiritual practice, it is called the aspirant's body. Beyond it is the perfected body. At first, great souls who still inhabit the aspirant's body contemplate such a form and serve Bhagavan through that contemplative perfected body. Those in whose hearts genuine rati has arisen, however, do not need to imagine the perfected body. It manifests spontaneously to them. Through that perfected body, these supremely fortunate aspirants remain engaged in Sri Radha-Madhava's sweetest service in the secluded bowers and are perpetually immersed in the unsurpassed ocean of supreme bliss.

This perfected body is neither a material body of bone, flesh, and blood, nor the subtle or causal body described by Sankhya. It is an eternally pure, graceful, radiant, supremely beautiful form of sat-chit-ananda and rasa, illumined by divine bliss and conscious rasa. In the field of Vaishnava practice, this embodiment of sat-chit-ananda-rasa is called a manjari. With the sakhis' permission, the manjaris engage in Sri Radha-Madhava's service and experience supreme bliss. Their bodies remain eternally beautiful, eternally sweet, eternally endowed with ever-new loveliness, and eternally radiant. Place and time exert no influence upon them. At the mature stage of practice on this path, the perfected body manifests by itself. The body of five elements falls away, but these beauties of Vraja, embodied forms of sat-chit-ananda-rasa, become manifest in Bhagavan's abode of love and remain forever engaged in serving the Divine Couple.

In this field of practice and in Bhagavan Sri Radha-Madhava's abode of love, the names, complexions, garments, and ages of Bhagavan Sri Vrindavaneshvara and Sri Vrindavaneshvari, Their eight sakhis and eight manjaris, together with the directions occupied by the sakhis and manjaris and their services, are traditionally listed as follows:

The Sakhis

The Manjaris

Variations in their names, services, and other particulars are also accepted.

Different lists of the eight principal manjaris are likewise accepted. In place of the preceding list, these names are also given: (1) Sri Ananga-manjari, (2) Sri Madhumati-manjari, (3) Sri Vimala-manjari, (4) Sri Shyamala-manjari, (5) Sri Palika-manjari, (6) Sri Mangala-manjari, (7) Sri Dhanya-manjari, and (8) Sri Taraka-manjari. Each of these in turn has two attendant manjaris, or beloved intimate companions, as follows:

Thus the following sixteen are accepted: (1) Sri Lavanga-manjari, (2) Sri Rupa-manjari, (3) Sri Rasa-manjari, (4) Sri Guna-manjari, (5) Sri Rati-manjari, (6) Sri Bhadra-manjari, (7) Sri Lila-manjari, (8) Sri Vilasa-manjari (a), (9) Sri Vilasa-manjari (b), (10) Sri Keli-manjari, (11) Sri Kunda-manjari, (12) Sri Madana-manjari, (13) Sri Ashoka-manjari, (14) Sri Manjulali-manjari, (15) Sri Sudhamukhi-manjari, and (16) Sri Padma-manjari. In some traditions the eight principal sakhis are ordered as Sri Rangadevi, Sri Sudevi, Sri Lalita, Sri Vishakha, Sri Champakalata, Sri Chitra, Sri Tungavidya, and Sri Indulekha; or as Sri Lalita, Sri Vishakha, Sri Champakalata, Sri Indulekha, Sri Tungavidya, Sri Rangadevi, Sri Sudevi, and Sri Chitra. The names of the principal eight sakhis also vary in some accounts.

The sakhis and manjaris are not limited to this number. These are simply the chief groups of eight. In the perfected body, the manjaris become manifest to the devotee and identification with their form is attained. This belongs to the supremely confidential realm of spiritual practice. One should know that eight stages are recognized on this path of raga: rati, sneha, mana, pranaya, raga, anuraga, bhava, and mahabhava. Rati is the first. It is truly called rati only when a person has become utterly detached from every enjoyment of this world and the next, including Brahmaloka, and even from liberation, and has developed loving attachment solely to Bhagavan's lotus feet. One conviction alone must take deep and unshakable root in the aspirant's mind at every moment: everywhere in this world and the next, always and in every way, Sri Krishna alone is mine. Apart from Sri Krishna, no one and nothing has ever been mine at any time. Here, therefore, every other object and reality ceases to exist. Faults such as lust, anger, greed, delusion, pride, envy, jealousy, and malice cannot even be imagined. They come to an end while one is still in the aspirant's body. In the perfected body nothing remains at any time except the ceaseless experience of Sri Krishna.

The Perfected Body of a Sakhi

Loving remembrance of Hari! There are three kinds of loving devotees: eternally perfect, perfected by grace, and perfected through spiritual practice. The eternally perfect are Sri Krishna's eternal companions; wherever Sri Krishna Himself dwells to enact His lila, they remain there with Him. Those perfected by grace obtain the company of lovers of Bhagavan through Sri Bhagavan's causeless grace, and ultimately attain Him. Those perfected through practice undertake the discipline of divine love for Bhagavan's pleasure, in accordance with His liking, so that they may receive His grace. Among such aspirants, those who have reached an elevated stage of love accept a sakhi or manjari as guru and remain under her guidance. From time to time such persons leave the material body, reach the realm of lila in a perfected body, and become fulfilled by serving Sri Radha-Govinda there. Such devotees may exist even today. It is said that the great soul Srinivasa Acharya was a devotee who had attained this state. In his perfected sakhi-body, he would follow his sakhi-guru into Sri Vraja-dhama to behold the eternal lila of Sri Radha-Govinda.

On one such occasion, his gross body lay lifeless as if absorbed in samadhi. Three days passed. At first the Acharya's wife thought it was samadhi, since such absorptions often occurred to him. But after three days, when the body appeared entirely without life, she became frightened and summoned his disciple and devotee Ramachandra. Ramachandra too had ascended to a high spiritual level. He discovered what had happened, reassured his guru's wife, and traveled in his perfected body to search for his guru, while his own gross body remained lying there.

Entering the perfected body, Ramachandra saw that while Sri Radhikaji had been sporting in Sri Yamunaji, one of Her earrings had fallen somewhere into the water. Sri Krishna and the sakhis were searching for it, but could not find it. Ramachandra saw that his Gurudeva, Srinivasaji, was also present in his perfected body among the company of sakhis, so Ramachandra joined in his guru's service. After searching for some time, Ramachandra found Sri Radhaji's earring lying in the mud beneath a lotus leaf. He brought it and gave it to his Gurudeva, who gave it to the sakhi who was his guru. She

gave it to the leader of her group. The group-leader went to Sri Radhaji and, with Her permission, placed it in Her ear. Everyone was filled with joy. Sri Radhaji learned which sakhi had found the earring and, greatly pleased, gave her betel that She had chewed. At that very moment, the samadhi of Srinivasaji and Ramachandra ended. Both were overjoyed when they saw Sri Radhaji's chewed betel in Ramachandra's hand.

The Practice and Perfection of the Gopis' Love

The first discipline on this path is inwardly to renounce enjoyment of the senses, And to cherish deeply all sacred actions that increase one's love for Hari. Utterly destroy the grievous sin of lustful desire; Bring to an end hypocrisy, arrogance, conceit, greed, pride, anger, and wounded vanity. Abandon talk about others and relinquish every longing for sense objects; Contemplate the nectar-filled Name and Form, with firm trust in the Lord within the heart. Hear Hari's virtues, reflect upon His lila, and love the nectar of lila without selfish desire; Always behold Mohana as the Beloved, with a pure and lovely longing for divine love. Offer everything to Hari, renouncing both enjoyment and liberation; Find all happiness in Hari's happiness alone, and love only His feet. Seek the stainless company of intimate saints who love Hari, Who have no taste for enjoyment or liberation, and dissolve your own preference into theirs. Then, as aspirants on the sacred path of love, contemplate the lila; By the grace of Shyama and Shyama, you will come to behold it. Understanding the gopis' bhava, you become pure and perfected through practice; Attaining perfection in the discipline of rasa, you receive a stainless gopi-form. Then, forever participating in the lila, you become love embodied; This is the supreme perfection of the path of love, the immaculate form of prema itself.

Those Qualified for the Gopis' Love

Those perfected on the paths of karma-yoga and jnana do not come to this place; By their own pure, prescribed paths they ever advance toward their respective goal. This mysterious divine ordinance governs the lovely play of Radha and Krishna; Even within the bhavas of servitude, friendship, and parental affection, it cannot be conceived. Only the pure bhava of the women of Vraja has qualification here; There alone this radiant rasa blossoms, bears fruit, and expands.

The Glory of the Gopis

The glory of the gopis is beyond compare; The Vedas long eternally to obtain their bhava, as do sages and ascetics absorbed in austerity. Pure Brahma-vidya practices austerity like the gopis, desiring their supremely sacred love, Through which one meets the Supreme beyond Brahman in His captivating, sweet, rasa-filled form. Hari is forever conquered by their love and holds them in the highest honor within His heart; Drawn irresistibly, He always remains beside them and cannot bear to leave them even for a moment. He dwells within their minds, lives, and eyes, becoming the dear child of their hearts and the pupils of their eyes; Forever He enjoys the rasa dance with them, filled with rasa, forgetting all His Godhood and the entire moving and unmoving world.