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Begin where the night is at its ripest. The kunja stands hushed at the heart of Vraja, the leaves unmoving, moonlight pooled in the cleared space within the bower, and one thin thread of perfume loose upon the air. Picture it: a maidservant has followed Śrīmatī here down the dark path, walking a half-step behind the hem of Her garment, and the jewel among all lovers has been waiting in the arbour, restless, anxious for the one He aches for above all. Countless gopīs offer up their love to Him; millions desire Him. Yet it is for Rādhārāṇī alone that Śyāmasundara goes mad, and the maidservants who serve Her carry that knowledge in their breast like a quiet pride, holding it close, treasuring whose He truly is.

Now the meeting comes, and the ocean rises. There is a sea here with no shoreline and no decorum to hold it in: the swelling deep of surata-rasa, the nectar-flood of amorous tenderness between the Two, amaryāda, having overstepped every bound and limit. When They come together its waters heave up into towering crests, uttuṅga taraṅga, wave upon wave, and the maidservant, her near service rendered, withdraws softly from the arbour so that the Divine Pair may be wholly alone in Their love. What passes between Them she will not intrude upon. But afterward, when she is summoned back to the bower, the sight that meets her undoes her.

For Śrīmatī rests now in Her Beloved's lap, preya-aṅke, and Her body is swaying, restless, cañcala, lifted and rocked in a way no tongue can name, kim api dolāyita-tanuḥ, as if the high waves of that bottomless ocean of love were themselves cradling Her, tilting Her this way and that on the swell. The Rādhāvallabha reading lingers here tenderly: by the supremely nectarous limbs of that overflowing sea Her very form is set trembling, andolita, agitated with an indescribable beauty and youth, rūpa-yauvana past all telling. In the viparīta-vilāsa, the reversed pastime where She becomes the giver of joy, Her slender golden vine of a body had moved in the strong current of love until at last, sweetly weary, She sank down upon Śyāmasundara's chest. And there She lies.

O what the maidservant sees then, and this is the very title the tradition gives this prayer: a golden lotus in a blue lake. Upon the bluish lake of Śyāma's broad chest there blooms a golden lotus, and the lotus is Rādhā. Her vine-thin waist is the slender stem; Her face is the open flower at the top, sphuṭa-kanaka-paṅkeruha-mukhī, a blossom of beaten gold from which the honey of sweet beauty trickles down. Blue water and golden bloom, the dark Beloved and His radiant Love set one upon the other in a single image so sweet the eyes can scarcely hold it. And Śyāma Himself is lost. Gazing on the loveliness of Her form in the aftermath of love, He forgets His own self. The tradition keeps His own confession in the Caitanya-caritāmṛta: "līlā ante sukhe ihāra ye aṅga mādhurī, tāhā dekhi sukhe āmi āpanā pāsari": when I see the sweetness of Her limbs after Our love-pastimes, in My very joy I forget Myself. The master of all rasa is overcome by Her. And She, seeing how utterly She has filled Him, floats on Her own ocean of bliss to have made Him so happy. Each is drowned in the other.

The maidservant stands and drinks it in. While she fans, while she waits, while she keeps watch at the bower's edge, she is immersed in relishing the beauty of that lotus-like face. This is her service and her whole wealth: to behold the honey-light spilling from that golden flower. She does not gaze upon her own pleasure. The treasure is the seeing of Her, the serving of Her, the being near enough to watch. And here the tradition speaks its first and deepest teaching, plainly: the aim of devotional service is never to enjoy the bliss that comes along with it, but the service itself. It remembers Dāruka, the aiśvarya devotee who fanned Dvārakānātha Śrī Kṛṣṇa and grew so flooded with ecstasy that his hand trembled and faltered, and who cursed his own rapture for daring to obstruct his service. So the Caitanya-caritāmṛta sings: "nija premānande kṛṣṇa sevānanda bādhe, se ānandera prati bhaktera hoy mahā krodhe": the devotee grows greatly angry at his own loving ecstasy when it obstructs his ecstatic service. One cannot, of course, be angry at ānanda itself, for bliss is the natural goal of every living being; but when bliss interrupts the serving, the servant turns upon it in holy anger, because the beloved One must be tended first.

And here, at the height of all this, comes the ache. For suddenly the maidservant's inner vision dims. The grove fades; the golden lotus on the blue lake slips from her sight; the nectar withdraws and she is left in the dark of separation, her hands empty, her eyes starved. And out of that emptiness she lifts her cry. O Rādhe. O golden lotus blooming upon a sapphire lake. When I behold how sweet You are, bliss itself takes a body and stands before my eyes. We are Your own girlfriends, Your sakhīs; we belong to You. Surely, when You hear how we suffer in the fire of being parted from You, Your tender heart will be touched, and You will gather us up and carry us back into that kingdom of bliss-for-the-eyes, that we may stand once more at the edge of Your bower and watch the honey drip from Your lotus-face. O Svāminī, O Rādhe, nayana-sukham ādhāsyasi kadā, when, when will You give the eyes their bliss?