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Picture the grassy lanes that thread between the kuñjas of Vṛndāvana, the secret bowers where Rādhā plays. The leaves overhead are still warm from the day. Somewhere down one of these alleys She is at Her pastimes with the Beloved of Her life-breath, and the whole grove seems to lean toward that single spot, holding its breath. Into this hush a longing soul comes walking, slowly, footstep after footstep on the soft path, and from the mouth, unbidden, rises one word: Rādhe. Rādhe. This is not recitation. This is calling. The seeker walks from bower to bower the way a soul searches for the one it cannot live without, and the only sound it makes is Her name.

O hear the whole shape of this prayer, for it is built of nothing but longing. The soul does not say I walk Her lanes, I serve Her feet, I have surpassed the Vedas. It says karhi syām: when shall I. When will the blessed day come, the seeker asks, that I may walk the pathways of Rādhikā's keli-kuñjas, clearly experiencing the very pastimes She plays there with Her Prāṇa-Vallabha? When I meditate on these sweet pastimes, goosepimples of ecstasy will rise across this skin, and as the wave breaks, everything She is will become clearly visible to these longing eyes.

The tradition keeps a tender memory here, and Sanātana Gosvāmī fixes it in the Bṛhad-Bhāgavatāmṛta, that Nārada Muni in the upper world of Ūrdhva-Dvārakā bade Gopa Kumāra go to Puruṣottama, to Puri; yet Gopa Kumāra ached only to see his sweet beloved Śrīman Madana-Gopāla in Vraja. So Uddhava himself pleaded with Nārada: O Devarṣi, do not let him wander around anymore, send him straight to the terrestrial Vṛndāvana. And why straight to earthly Vraja? Because there, and only there, do the great souls grow truly humble, and there they always develop love for Kṛṣṇa. To them the saints, the forest, the Yamunā, the very hill of Govardhana all seem empty, and with mouths overcome by "hā hā," with hearts scorched by a great burning, they wander searching for their own beloved Lord, lamenting, Alas, alas. That emptiness is no lack. It is the open wound through which the whole flood of prema pours in. Gopa Kumāra's heart was pure, and when he came to Vraja at Uddhava's word he swiftly attained the mercy of his beloved Madana-Gopāla. The seeker of this verse longs for exactly that wound, exactly that mercy.

And hear how the name is itself the savour. Narottama Dāsa Ṭhākura sings, jaya jaya rādhā nāma, vṛndāvana yāra dhāma, kṛṣṇa sukha vilāsera nidhi: glory, glory to Rādhā's name, whose abode is Vṛndāvana, the very ocean of Kṛṣṇa's happiness. All the sweetness of Her, all Her rasa, is folded into the sound of Her name, the way the whole flower sleeps inside the bud. So when the soul says my mouth will always loudly sing Rādhā-nāma, it is not describing a practice but a person drunk on a single syllable, the tongue overwhelmed, the skin rising in horripilation at the touch of that nectar. When will I wander kuñja to kuñja, the cry goes up, searching for my beloved Rādhājī, loudly calling out Her holy name? When will that day be mine?

Then the prayer deepens: to live Her supreme duty, and to live it with rasa, rādhāyā anurūpam eva paramaṁ dharmaṁ rasena ācaran. O understand what is meant by the highest duty. The Bhāgavata fixes it (1.2.6): sa vai puṁsāṁ paro dharmo yato bhaktir adhokṣaje, ahaituky apratihatā yayātmā suprasīdati: the supreme duty for any soul is loving devotion to the transcendental Lord, devotion with no ulterior motive, devotion nothing can obstruct, the devotion in which the very Self at last grows fully serene. And the tradition glosses it gently: the highest religion is that devotional practice which awakens in us a real taste, a hunger, for hearing and chanting His glories. So this seeker's supreme duty is no cold list of observances. It is to drink in nectarean Rādhā-kathā from the mouths of the rasika souls who carry it, to chant Her sweet glories aloud, to turn them over and over in remembrance.

This is what the tradition calls mano-dharma, the religion of the mind and heart, the inward way of rāgānugā-bhakti. The Caitanya-caritāmṛta sings it: mane nija-siddha-deha kariyā bhāvana, rātri-dina kare vraje kṛṣṇera sevana: think of your own perfected spiritual form, your true siddha-deha, and in that form serve in Vraja day and night. And here the Rādhāvallabha voice of Swami Śrī Hitdas ji speaks it plainly and in a maidservant's own mouth: the parama-dharma that befits Rādhā is one's own kiṅkarī-svarūpa, the handmaiden-self, served with rasa. The soul of this verse prays to be exactly that handmaiden, to serve as Her own, after Her own heart, in the manner that befits Her alone.

And the verse leaves a tender warning in passing, for the one just setting out. Let the remembrance never harden into a habitual drag, never become a weight dragged through. The pastimes are to be remembered the way you remember the face of one you love, spontaneously, because the heart cannot help returning to it. When smaraṇa is loving and self-arising, the perfection of prema comes swiftly. When it is mere routine, it stalls at the gate. So the prayer is not only to remember but to remember with rasa, with taste, with the helpless gladness of love.

Then the hands begin to move: rādhāyāś caraṇāmbujaṁ paricaran nānopacārair mudā. The soul sees itself tending Her lotus feet with all the varied offerings of worship, fresh Tulasī leaves, flowers gathered in the grove, fragrant incense, cooling perfumes, every loving article a servant can bring. And mark the secret intimacy of the hope: surely, surely I will feel it when She is pleased with my service, if I serve Her with attention and attachment. The soul does not serve into a void. It serves a living Mistress whose pleasure it can sense, and when it senses that pleasure its own joy doubles, and it serves again with more abandon, and the joy doubles once more, on and on, until it is serving Her with every single sense it owns. This is what it means to worship Her with mudā, with overflowing gladness.

And now the wonder gathers into the final cry: karhi syāṁ śruti-śekhara-upari caran āścarya-caryāṁ caran, when will I walk an astonishing walk over the very crowns of the Vedas? O this is the boldest line. The service of Śrī Rādhā entirely transcends the limits of Vedic injunction; the Lord Himself says in the Gītā, śabda-brahmātivartate, that the awakened soul passes beyond the realm of mere scriptural word. The service of the Divine Couple is the secret hidden inside the Vedas, and the Vedas count themselves blessed if they may carry that service upon their heads like a jewel on a crown. Narottama Dāsa sings it: veda-vidhi-agocara, ratana-vedi-ropara, bhajo niti kiśora kiśorī: worship eternally the Kiśora and Kiśorī who sit upon a jewelled throne, the Youthful Pair whom even the Vedas cannot perceive. Imperceptible to the Vedas, and yet they long to bear Their service on their brow. And śruti here can also be read as the Upaniṣads themselves. So the seeker dreams of placing the feet upon that crown, walking a path the scriptures themselves bow to hold.

And the verse knows there will be doubters. The old Vedāntist companions of such a soul may turn and say: Śrīpāda, why did you abandon the study of Vedānta to be enchanted by the charms of a mere cowherd girl? See how weak your heart has grown. And the soul answers them without flinching: the service of Śrī Rādhā is glorified in the very srutis as their hidden secret, as that which dances upon their heads; the truth of this can never be reached by intellect or study, but descends only by Her own personal grace. This is no turning of the back on the highest knowledge. It is the finding of the very secret that the highest knowledge was always pointing toward, and the asking, with folded hands, only for the grace to enter it. And so the maidservant of the Rādhāvallabha reading completes the cry in her own feminine voice: when will I at last become fit for this vedātīta conduct, this walk beyond the Veda altogether? When, O when, will that day be mine?