216

Picture the one who is speaking. Before grace found him he was Prabodhānanda, a crown-jewel of Vedāntists, a master of the holy books, the kind of learned man who could stand in the assembly of sannyāsīs in Kāśī and question even premāvatāra Śrīman Mahāprabhu Himself. He pressed Him there: a sannyāsī's whole duty is to study Vedānta and to meditate, so why do You dance and sing with emotional people, why have You given up the books for these low activities, when by Your very prowess I can see You are Nārāyaṇa? That was the man. And now hear him. The grace he doubted has touched him, his old learning lies set aside, and out of him comes a cry that no library could ever teach.

He is not idle here. The relish of his transcendental visions is so wonderful, so much like a personal meeting with his beloved, that when the vision breaks he is left in anxiety and lament. This is his sādhakāveśa, the seeker's mood, where the longing only deepens the more it is denied. The vision disappears; humility floods his heart; and all at once Śrī Rādhā's lotus-feet seem most difficult, almost impossible, to reach. He weeps intensely. And it is from inside that weeping, not from any cool detachment, that he draws the sweet picture of his one aspiration and offers it as a prayer.

His old māyāvādī friends come back to him, and they are kind in their way. Śrīpāda, they say, you were such a great scholar of Vedānta, and look, since you gave it up and became a devotee you are miserable and restless. Pick up the study again and your peace of mind will return; the disturbances in your heart will cease. And he answers them: O friends, I have no need of any holy book that does not speak of the nectarine glories of Śrī Rādhā and Her ecstatic love. A su-śāstra is a good thing; the paths it teaches are real; the great saints do walk them. He does not call any of it false. He says only that a scripture silent about Her, a path empty of Her glory-nectar and of love for Her, has nothing in it that he wants. Mark his word naḥ, "to us," not "to me." Not a single Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava, once the sweet taste of Vraja has taken him, keeps an appetite for books that leave Her out, or for the road of reverence. So entirely is this so that he no longer even feels the need for that reverential worship by which great devotees like Nārada and Prahlāda adore the Supreme Lord. The moment one is drawn into the pure sweet taste of Vraja, untouched by even a whiff of awe, the taste for awe-filled worship simply falls away on its own.

Then the reverential worshippers make their own offer. Śrīpāda, they say, worship the Lord with awe and reverence and you will gain all the opulences of Vaikuṇṭha. Do you not desire that? And here comes the cry that breaks from his lips: ahaha. There may be unlimited opulence in Vaikuṇṭha, but my Rādhā is not there, is She? What is the use of all that splendor, even of its supreme Lakṣmī, if Śrī Rādhārāṇī is not in it? I have no taste for endless opulence without Her. The tradition sets beside this the story of Gopa Kumāra in the Bṛhad Bhāgavatāmṛta. He stood in shining Vaikuṇṭha and was distressed, because he could not see his own Madana Gopāla there; so Lord Nārāyaṇa appeared before him in the very form of Madana Gopāla, and the goddess of fortune took up the role of Śrī Rādhā. And still his mind found no bliss. Even the borrowed form, even the played role, could not satisfy him in that opulent sphere. So Śrīpāda cries the same: keep your Vaikuṇṭha; my Rādhā is not in it. He is given to the service of Śrī Rādhā, which is itself the highest flavor in all of Vraja, and once that is so, the path of reverence is something he can only set down.

And if someone presses further: Śrīpāda, you call Rādhā most difficult to attain, and yet you want neither the Lord's reverential worship nor Vaikuṇṭha's opulence; then what do you want? He answers from the depth of his lament: what I want is that my sweet aspirations for Śrī Rādhā's playground, Śrī Vṛndāvana, should always go on increasing. But, comes the last question, if you never attain that precious Rādhā Herself, what is the use of nourishing a hope for Her playground? And here he says the most tender thing of all. Even if I could only die with the sweet aspiration for Vṛndāvana held within my heart, that alone would be the highest attainment. Not in one lifetime only: may the light of that aspiration keep shining in the jeweled abode of my mind for millions of births. I will gladly bear the pain of birth and death ten million times over, in topmost ecstasy, if only I may carry the longing to taste the sweetness of Śrī Rādhā's playground constantly in my heart. What a sweet aspiration this is. And this very relish, the tradition says, should awaken in the heart of every sādhaka who hears it.

These words are the very culmination of the topmost humility. And the secret hidden in that humility is this: for so pure a devotee there would not be even the slightest delay in attaining what he aspires to. The tradition fixes the proof in the Caitanya Bhāgavata. Mahāprabhu once announced that He would not grant His audience to His singer Mukunda anymore, because Mukunda had slighted the path of devotion. Mukunda sent his question to the Lord through Śrīvāsa: how long, then, before I attain You? And the Lord replied that even after ten million births, Mukunda would surely receive His audience. But it was the word "surely," niścoy, that Mukunda's ear caught. Hearing from the Lord's own beautiful mouth that the attainment was certain, he was drenched in the very pinnacle of bliss, and he danced frantically, crying, I will get it, I will get it. Such is the ecstatic love of Lord Caitanya's servants. The Lord, pleased, had him brought near; Mukunda fell in prostrated obeisance; and the Lord lifted him with the gentlest words: Get up, get up, My Mukunda, you have not committed even a hair's-breadth of offense. When I said you would attain Me after ten million births, in half an instant you wiped that whole sentence away. You know My words always come true, and by that knowing you have captured Me in your heart forever. In just the same way, while Śrīpāda humbly held in his heart the desire to relish the sweetness of Rādhā's Vṛndāvana, even for millions of births, even if he should never directly attain Her, Śrīmatī in Her mercy revealed Herself to him. And in the very next breath of the poem we will see him behold his bhāgya-devatā, his goddess of destiny, the līlā-nidhi, the ocean of playful sports, Śrīmatī Herself, risen up within his relish.