12

Begin in the hush before the meeting, in the kuñjas of Vṛndāvana when the gold light is going soft and the leaves hold their breath. And begin, strangely, in fire. For the one who sings this poem, Śrīpāda, is not at peace. Svāminī has not turned Her glance upon him, and the ache of that absence sits in him like a thorn that will not draw out. He folds his hands and cries the small, true cry of the servant: "O Svāminī, cast one merciful glance upon Your lowly maidservant." And a doubt rises with the cry. Her compassion has no edge to it, no floor; how can such mercy rest easy while Her own maidservant burns?

The tradition leans close and answers gently. This burning is not Her cruelty. Separation is the very washing of the cloth. Rūpa Gosvāmī fixes it in the Ujjvala-Nīlamaṇi, in the chapter on the kinds of love: na vinā vipralambhena sambhoga puṣṭim aśnute, that as alkali draws the grime from a garment and gives back not only its first color but a color brighter than before, so no heart can taste the fullness of meeting that has not first wept in being apart. And remember, O seeker, the word in that verse, rāga, means both the color of the cloth and the love of the heart; what the washing deepens is both at once. Nor is this only a road to union, for the Gosvāmīs teach that the ecstasy of separation stands even higher than the ecstasy of meeting, and this is why the sweet pastimes of Vraja are flooded through and through with it. The gopīs carry mahābhāva, and so they feel torn from Kṛṣṇa even while He is held in their very arms; the tradition gives this wonder its name, prema-vaicittya. And when Uddhava came among the Vraja maidens he bowed before that love-in-separation and confessed, virahena mahābhāgā mahān me 'nugrahaḥ kṛtaḥ, words the Bhāgavata keeps for us, that these greatly fortunate girls had shown him great mercy; for had they not burned so, Kṛṣṇa would never have sent him to Vraja, and he would never have witnessed a love so astonishing.

So Śrīpāda, sunk in that same fire, sees at last there is no other recourse: parama-śītalaṁ tavaiva padāravindam āśrayāmi, I take shelter of Your most cooling lotus feet, and of these alone. And as he says it, his love-anointed eyes are given a sight.

Behold Her. Śrīmatī sits in the trysting-bower, restless, agitated, because the appointed hour has slipped past and Her Kṛṣṇa has not come. She draws Her sakhīs to Her and laments, and the wretched Caṇḍī Dāsa sang Her lament so that we might tremble with Her waiting: She has spread the bed for Her lover and strung the flower-garland with Her own hands; She has made ready the betel and lit the lamps until the bower-house glows; She deceived the watchful eyes at home, mother-in-law and sister-in-law both, and slipped away into the deep forest; She has decorated all Her youth and beauty for this one meeting. And now She watches the road, telling Her own mind, "Surely the crown-jewel of all relishers will come now, now." And Śrīpāda, as Her maidservant, leans in to soothe the virahavatī, the one wounded by absence: "Stay calm a little, dear one. Your lover comes even now."

And indeed, after that small cruel delay, Kṛṣṇa arrives. Watch what blooms in Her, and watch what rises just behind it. Joy lifts Her like a flower opening; but Her own nature, Her vāmya-svabhāva, the sweet unsubmissive crookedness the tradition prizes, pulls the veil across Her face and turns Her shoulder to Him. And now the vidagdha-rāja, the king of clever charmers, must sue for grace. In the breath of Jñāna Dāsa's song He sits at Her beautiful feet, and with folded hands He pleads: "Lift Your face, O Rāi, and look at Me. Set down Your pride and look but once, and the darkness drains from My heart. How much longer will You test Me? Take My flute, take everything, only let Me touch the dust of Your feet. You are the ointment of My eyes that ache from gazing at You; You are the thief of My heart. The Maker has poured the whole world's wealth of beauty and youth and grace into You alone, O loveliest one; why be miserly when You hold all this treasure?"

But today not even the jewel of all lovers can soften Her. And so a different heat begins to rise in Him. His own heart burns with the fire of longing, and a daring thought flashes through Him: "Let Me see what happens if I touch those beautiful feet but once." And as the thought forms, a wave of bliss moves through Him. She sits upon a jewelled throne, Her feet resting on a footstool. He reaches, He catches those feet, He would lift them to His own head in worship; but She, even in this, draws them back, and in the drawing they come to rest instead upon His chest. O the wonder of it. There the red lac of Her soles glows against His breast, and Kavi Karṇapūra sings that this lac outshines the Śrīvatsa mark, the Kaustubha gem, and Lakṣmī herself who dwells upon that chest; it is praised by the rising sun at the end of night, and it blossoms there like a great red lotus opening in the dark water of the Yamunā. May that radiance protect us all.

And here is the marvel the verse holds out. The terrible fire of longing in Hari's heart is put out, and it is put out by the touch of these cool feet pressed to His breast. For madhupati means the relishing bee. A bee soothes its own heart with a cooling draught of honey; but this bee cools Himself by pressing lotus-flowers to His chest, and these are no ordinary lotuses. For an ordinary man inflamed by desire, the sight of a lotus only stokes the fire, reminding him of his beloved's feet; but Kṛṣṇa, the supreme rasika, quenches the fierce blaze in His heart with the very coolness of Rādhikā's feet, feet brimming with the sweetest nectar-stream of love. And nectar, remember, is both cooling and intoxicating at once, both balm and rapture.

The honey of these feet, the makaranda-rasa, is no single sweetness but a whole flood of flavors, rasaugha, and Rūpa Gosvāmī gives that flood its name in the Ujjvala-Nīlamaṇi: this is madhu-sneha, love like honey, madīyatvātiśaya-bhāk priye sneho bhaven madhu, the self-manifest sweet love made of many mellows, the love that lets the lover think, "Kṛṣṇa is Mine." Candrāvalī's love is ghṛta-sneha, love like clarified butter, steady and smooth; but Rādhā's love is madhu, honey, and because these feet hold so many mellows at once the verse calls them rasaugha, a flood. And when this honey-love deepens it rises into māna, for Rūpa Gosvāmī tells us further, snehas tūtkṛṣṭatāvāptyā mādhuryaṁ mānayan navam, that sneha at its height shows an ever-fresh sweetness and bends the beloved into a proud, unsubmissive crookedness, and this is māna. So when Kṛṣṇa, Rasarāja, presses Her feet to His chest, He is soothing His burning heart upon the very excellence of this love, and in the same instant He is melting Her pique, dissolving Her māna, drawing Her back to Him. And Śrīpāda, blessed beyond measure, is permitted to taste the whole sweetness of Their meeting.

And then, as suddenly as it came, the vision slips away. The bower fades from his love-anointed eyes, and his heart kindles once more in the fire of separation. But now he knows where the water is. "Those same cooling feet," he says, "that quench the fire in Kṛṣṇa's own heart, are the one and only thing that can quench the pain of separation burning in me." O Vṛndāvaneśvarī, enchantress of Hari's heart, ever-new delight of the eyes, moon of Mahārāja Vṛṣabhānu's line: Your feet are the abode of love's nectar-honey, the treasure of countless devotees, the highest dwelling-place of bliss. To those feet, in the topmost joy of surrender, Śrī Prabodhānanda takes his refuge, and so, O Rādhe, do we.