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Begin on the terrace. Picture a small temple of leaves set deep in the groves of Vṛndāvana, a nikuñja-mandira whose walls are woven of living creeper and whose roof lets the sky come down in coins of gold; and before it, a varālinda, an excellent forecourt of cool fragrant earth. Sit there. Let the wind move through the leaves. Very near you, devotees are speaking, not lecturing, not debating doctrine, only telling the rādhā-keli-kathā, the stories of Rādhā at Her play, and with every telling the air grows sweeter.

And as the words rise and fall, the listening heart begins to sway. O mind, do you feel it? You are no longer standing on solid ground. You are a small boat set out upon water, and the water has become an ocean, a rasāmbudhi, an ocean made wholly of the tasted sweetness of Rādhā's līlā. Each new turn of the story is another swell, calad-vīcibhiḥ, the restless moving waves lifting you and setting you down and lifting you again, andolitam, rocked, oscillated, cradled by a love that will not let you sit still. This is what the heart prays for: not escape, not heaven, only this, manaḥ nandatu, may the mind simply rejoice here and be rocked without end.

But to feel why this small prayer trembles with such daring, look up for a moment, away from the grove, to the highest of the gods. Consider Mahādeva, indu-tilaka, chandra-śekhara, the great lord who wears the crescent moon as the ornament of his brow. Of all who love Mukunda, who loves Him with more abandon than Śiva? The tradition remembers it in the Bṛhad-Bhāgavatāmṛta, that very book where Śiva's ecstasy is described in place after place. There, when Nārada wandered searching for the ones on whom Kṛṣṇa's mercy rests most fully and came to Śivaloka, he saw from afar a wonder: Mahādeva, possessed by the mood of Hari, dancing and singing, performing with utmost devotion the worship of Saṅkarṣaṇa; his followers, Nandīśvara and the rest, crying jaya, jaya, praising him; and Umā Herself, the most faithful of consorts, clapping Her hands and keeping the rhythm for Her lord's wild dance. Seeing Śrīman Mahādeva so drowned in devotional ecstasy, Nārada bowed down in joy and let his vīṇā sound.

And the same book tells it again, the tradition fixes it in the Bṛhad-Bhāgavatāmṛta once more, that when Gopa Kumāra reached Muktiloka and beheld the associates of Vaikuṇṭha at their saṅkīrtana, he saw this same Maheśvara plunge into an ocean of supreme bliss, paramānanda-sindhu, and, transformed by mahā-prema, rise up and begin to dance of his own accord, while the chaste goddess Pārvatī, with Nandī and the others, urged her lord on with instruments and song. Hold that picture: the supreme ascetic, the destroyer of worlds, made helpless and beautiful by love of Mukunda's two spotless lotus feet, mukunda-sundara-pada-dvandvāravinda. There is no higher ecstasy among the gods. This premānanda that streams from those feet is the unmāda-kandam param, the supreme root and source of all ecstatic frenzy, the very fountainhead that intoxicates the moon-crested lord and all the rest.

And now hear the daring. The heart here takes even this, even Śiva's matchless dance, even the supreme root of all divine madness, and says mandī-kṛtya: having made it insignificant. It sets that radiance gently to one side as the lesser thing. Why? Why would a lover of God belittle the love of God's own greatest devotee? The tradition voices the very objection that rises here. Kṛṣṇa's devotees might say: O Śrīpāda, you have already set aside even the bliss of brahman, counting it a trifle; now turn and serve Mukunda's lotus feet, for here is bliss enough. Why this hunger that runs past even Mukunda, this eagerness straining only after Śrī Rādhā? Is She not also a worshipper of Mukunda? Does She not also adore those same feet?

And the answer comes, quiet and immovable. Yes. Śiva's love is real and vast and holy; yes, even Pārvatī and Nandī are drowned in it. But there is a sweetness deeper still, and it is not reached by serving the Lord directly. It is reached by entering Rādhā's own love, by tasting what Her companions taste when their fish-like eyes dive into the ocean of Her play with Kṛṣṇa. So Śrīpāda Prabodhānanda, the tradition holds, speaking for all devotees fixed at Śrī Rādhā's feet, sings it plainly in the Vṛndāvana-Mahimāmṛta: that even the greatest festival of ecstasy in the whole kingdom of God does not equal a fragment of a drop of the joy the gopīs feel when they immerse their fish-like eyes in the ocean of the pastimes of Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa. Beside that, every festival of heaven grows faint.

So this is no contempt for Mukunda. How could it be? Rādhā is His own heart, His hlādinī, the very joy by which He Himself is made joyful. To run toward Her is to run toward the innermost chamber of His sweetness, the room behind the room, the love that loves Him best. The one who prays this prayer does not abandon the Lord; he follows the Lord all the way in, past the threshold where even Śiva stands dancing, into the grove where the stories of Rādhā are told.

O Rādhe, this is what the heart is asking. Not the wide bliss of the gods. Not the still ocean of brahman. Not even the dancing rapture of Mahādeva at Your beloved's feet. Only this small terrace of leaves, this varālinda, this excellent forecourt of a bower-temple in Your own Vṛndāvana, where the telling of Your love-play never ceases. Only to sit there and be rocked. Let the waves come; let each story lift me and set me down and lift me again. Let my mind, which has wandered through so many heavens looking for rest, at last find its true rejoicing here, manaḥ nandatu, swaying without end on the nectar-ocean of the telling of You.