160

Begin in the dark. The one who sings this verse has slipped into the mood of a sādhaka who feels himself wholly unfit, and the sky of his heart has clouded over with despair. "Who am I," he murmurs, "to dream of serving Her? What could these hands offer, these hands that have grasped at the world so long?" The clouds press low. And then, the way a single shaft of moonlight finds a gap in the storm, a picture begins to glow in the chamber of his heart: Her face. Śrī Rādhā's face, rising before the inner eye, and at once the darkness has nowhere left to stand.

See what he sees. Picture a lotus, but not the blue lotus of the ponds we know. Picture one of gold, kanaka-saroja, a blossom whose petals are the soft fire of molten gold, and let that gold be flooded with the rays of countless moons, koṭi-candrāṁśu-pūrṇam, a brimming of moon-light, or call it the white cool of camphor if you will. Here in our world the moon and the lotus are at odds, beloved ones. When the moon climbs the night sky the lotus folds its petals and sleeps, for the night-blooming flower waits upon the sun, not the moon. But in the eternal country of Vraja the old quarrel is healed. There the golden lotus does not close at moonrise; there it opens wider, drinking moonlight, brimming over with it, because that golden lotus is Her face and the moon-rays only deepen its bloom. The tradition lingers over why this image and no other was chosen: Her face and a lotus share their splendour, their softness, their loveliness, their deliciousness, their sweet fragrance, and so the comparison can begin, though it can never finish.

And honey trickles from it. Nava-nava-makaranda-syandi: ever-fresh, never the same drop twice, an unending seep of sweetness from this saundarya-dhāma, this abode of beauty. Taste what is being pointed at. The moonlight lends its cool nectar, its lunar amṛta, its tenderness and coolness; the honey lends its slow intoxication, its power to make the drinker drunk, for honey here is wine. Coolness and fever woven into one. So that the moon-like Kṛṣṇa, gazing at Her face, is by slow degrees made drunk on the sight of it, the moon growing tipsy on the very lotus that should have closed before him. There is a secret folded into the comparison, the tradition whispers, for Her golden face shines brightest of all when the dark moon of Kṛṣṇa draws near and embraces Her in the circle of the Rāsa; Her sweetness, already complete, grows sweeter still for the nearness of His beautiful face. The golden lotus and the moon were always meant for one another; only in our broken world were they ever made to part.

Now mark the two small dancers on the flower. Two wagtails, khañjana-birds, frisky and quick and never still, lasita-cañcat, playing upon the golden lotus. They are Her eyes. O these eyes, this calat-khañjana-dvandva, this restless darting pair, how they flit and tremble and turn, how sweetly they dance their little dance across Her face. And above them, breaking like dawn over the whole lotus, comes the smile. Madhura-hāsyam, the sweet smile, and the moon-rays of that smile pour across Her every feature and set the golden face alight. The despairing heart watches the wagtails dance and watches the smile rise, and something in it loosens.

Rūpa Gosvāmī fixes it in the Vidagdha-Mādhava, that mukhollāsaḥ phullaṁ kamalavanam ullaṅghayati ca: Her blissful face defeats and leaps past the beauty of a whole forest of blooming lotuses. A grove of open lotuses, surpassed and left behind. Then how, beloved ones, could a single flower stand as Her equal? Her face is the very quintessence of beauty, and that transcendental form unveils itself of its own accord before the fortunate devotee who worships Her in the Vṛndāvana-mood; and whoever has tasted even one drop of this loveliness, even in a dream, knows that no words can hold it. This is why Sarasvatīpāda, struggling to say the unsayable, reaches for the most exalted image this or any world can offer: not a lotus but a golden lotus, not gold alone but gold flooded with a million moons, not still but alive with dancing wagtail-eyes, honey streaming, beauty itself given a dwelling place. He has built with words the most beautiful thing imaginable. And then he sets it down at Her feet and says: even this. Even this could not become Her servant. Tad api datta-dāsyaṁ na tasyāḥ. The crown of all created loveliness is not fit to fan Her, not fit to carry Her sandals, not fit to be counted among the maidservants of Her smile.

Feel how the despair has been turned inside out. The heart that began by crying "I am unfit to serve Her" now looks upon a glory that shames the whole cosmos and hears it confess the very same thing: I too am unfit. The golden lotus of a million moons cannot serve Her either. And so the soul takes a strange and tender comfort. If the most radiant beauty conceivable cannot earn Her service by its worth, then service was never a wage paid out for worthiness. It is Her gift. It falls only as mercy. "I think," the singer says at last, the clouds breaking apart within him, "I think this sweet lotus-face will of its own kindness bestow loving service upon anyone who simply looks upon it." Not earned. Bestowed. And with that thought the darkness lifts entirely, and the heart that was drowning in unworthiness floats up on the light of a sweet hope.

O Rādhe, golden lotus of the moonlit grove, honey-streaming home of all beauty, with the two small wagtails dancing on Your face. We cannot serve You by deserving. Nothing deserves You. Let Your smile do what no merit ever could, and turn even us toward Your service by its mercy alone.