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Begin on the long road that runs past Yāvaṭa in the slanting light of late afternoon, the dust still warm underfoot, the cattle-bells sounding far across the fields. Kṛṣṇa comes walking home, and at once the moon of Nanda's house, the vrajendra-kula-candramā, rises in the sky of every gopī heart. Their eyes have waited as the Cakora bird waits for the moon, thirst beyond telling, and now in one instant the thirst is quenched. On a sweet pretext the sakhīs lead Rādhā into the flowergarden, baskets in hand as if for blossoms, but truly so that She may look long and freely upon the One who is the whole reason for looking. There, in the space of a single glance, Rādhā and Mādhava are plunged together into the ocean of love, and the ache of every parted hour dissolves in that meeting of eyes.

But it cannot last on the open road. Quick and careful, Subala and the cowherd boys draw Kṛṣṇa away before any elder of Yāvaṭa should notice; and Lalitā and the sakhīs gather Rādhā homeward too, whispering the one consolation that keeps Her on Her feet: soon, beloved, soon You will meet Him again. And the kiṅkarī, the servant-self through whom the tradition speaks, follows Śrīmatī like Her very shadow, given over wholly to Her service, missing nothing of what passes through Her heart.

At home She is preyaḥ-saṅga-sudhā-sadānubhavinī: She who, even now, even in the empty room, never ceases to taste the nectar of Her Beloved's nearness. So vivid is His presence within Her that She turns to Viśākhā, half in tears and half in the exquisite play of love, and complains of the shameless rake who would not let Her pass on the road, who reached for the very girdle at Her waist, who would not release the most chaste of girls though She wept aloud; and She begs her friend, run home, run quickly, and tell āryā Jaṭilā. O the sweetness of this complaint, in which the longing is itself the love. For the tradition keeps before us the great secret of separation, the one Rūpa Gosvāmī fixes in his Padyāvalī, that separation is the dearer state: "saṅge tribhuvanam api tanmayaṁ virahe", in union She sees Him alone, but in separation She sees the three worlds themselves grown full of Him, every direction Madhusūdana, every breath of wind carrying His name. So separation does not empty Her. It fills the whole cosmos with the Beloved.

And maddened by that fullness She asks Her friends the questions only love can ask: where is My beloved, what am I doing on this road, am I in the garden or in the house, is it morning or evening or night, am I sleeping or awake. See how love unmoors Her from time and place, until the sakhīs gently steady Her: lotus-faced one, You have come back from the garden into the house; Your beloved, the moon of Vraja, has gone home to gladden His parents with the sight of Him, and He will return to make Your lotus eyes bloom once more. Then sweet Induprabhā tells Her of His cow-milking pastimes, and softer still, of how eager He is to meet Her tonight in the trysting-grove of Vṛndāvana. And now She becomes bhūyo bhavad-bhāvinī: one who already lives inside the meeting yet to come, dwelling forward into the future tryst, tasting it before it arrives. And here the Rādhāvallabha stream hears the same word and lets it sing of Her freshness, nitya-navīna-bhāvinī, the ever-new loving One, never twice the same in love. Eager beyond bearing, She eats the nectarean remnants left from His meal, the prasāda of His very mouth, and lies down to rest with that night burning sweetly ahead of Her.

Evening falls. Śyāma lifts the flute, and that enchantment finds Her wherever She is, and Śrīmatī is up and running into the dark, Her maidservants flying after Her. This is līlā-pañcama-rāgiṇī: She in whom the fifth note sounds, the rāga of love at its very height. The tradition unfolds it word by word, "līlāyāṁ yat pañcamaṁ surata-vyāpāraṁ tasmin rāgo yasyāḥ sā": the fifth is amorous union itself, and the passion for it lives in Rādhikā all through Her play. Even the remembrance of what is coming sets the waves of mahā-bhāva moving through Her limbs, and by Her own grace the servant is allowed to read it all, for Śrīmatī can hide nothing from the one who loves Her so.

When the two bodies meet, love itself is born. Govinda dāsa sings it: gold clasped about an emerald, a golden vine winding the young Tamāla tree, a delicious lightning married to a fresh raincloud, the bumblebee come home at last to the lotus. Both bodies break into the trembling thrill of ecstasy, both drink the nectar of each other's lips, while the singer of their glories looks on. And now, through a small opening in the bower, the kiṅkarī beholds Her as rati-kalā-bhaṅgi-śatodbhavinī: the very wellspring from whom a hundred and more arts and graces of love come pouring forth. These are no learned tricks; they rise unbidden from Her mādana-mahā-bhāva, the highest pitch of love, and they undo the transcendental youthful Cupid of Vṛndāvana Himself, sending Him out of His mind with delight. And all the while the little bells of Her girdle murmur at Her waist, and that soft jingling is itself the proof and the music of Her mastery in love: this is kaṭi-taṭe kāñcī-kalāravinī, She at whose hips the girdle sings. Even here the Rādhāvallabha hearing keeps the karuṇa, the tender rasa, as Her own creation, kāruṇya-drava-bhāvinī, She who is the very source of melting compassion.

Then the amorous play is over, and the servant is permitted in, blessed now with the work of service. And here the tenderest turn of all: when Śrīmatī sees how lovingly, how expertly the maidservant serves Her, She is so pleased that compassion overflows Her eyes in a melting stream toward Her servant. This is kāruṇya-drava-bhāvinī: She whose grace does not merely soften but liquefies, so that, as Raghunātha dāsa Gosvāmī sings, not the heart only but the whole body melts with compassion: karuṇā-vidravad-dehā. And at the last the servant is given the supreme fortune, to press and bathe those lotus feet, and seeing their beauty, to understand at once why padayoḥ premāmṛta-sravinī rings true, for from those feet the nectar of pure love is forever streaming. Let a single drop of that nectar touch the bee-like devotee, and he is fixed there for good, every other thing in all the worlds forgotten. And so the heart cries out the only conclusion it can bear: śrī-rādhaiva gatir mamāstu. May Śrī Rādhā alone, and none other, and nothing else, be my shelter.