22

Begin with the hour that no almanac records. Somewhere across the dusking groves of Vṛndāvana a flute has sounded, and a heart in Barsānā has already left its body behind. The saṅketa-kuñja waits, that one appointed thicket where two who belong to each other will be, for a little while, alone. And down the winding path, grove behind grove, comes the most beautiful walking the world has ever held.

See how She walks. The tradition gives Her the gait of the elephant, anu-kuñjara manda-gāmini, and you must not hear that as anything heavy. The great elephant moves slowly precisely because it is sovereign; it sways with an unhurried majesty, rocking gently from side to side, certain of its own splendor. So walks Prāṇeśvarī Rādhā, a slowness in Her step that is all royalty and grace. And yet, O wonder, beneath that outward slowness a fire is racing. Inwardly She is not slow at all. The kāma-keli-rabhasa, the rush, the surge, the headlong sweetness of love's eager play, has already swept Her up. The body sways like a regal elephant while the heart runs like a river that has broken its banks.

And here, O devotee, is the thing the tradition will not let us misunderstand, the very thing that keeps this grove holy. These "lusty" longings of Hers wear, on the surface, the same dress as the desire of this lower world. They look the same and they are not the same. Rūpa Gosvāmī fixes it in the Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu, that the love of the gopīs has attained a special, unrepeatable sweetness, and because outwardly it resembles common craving, even the wise have consented to call it "lust." But it is no craving for the self. It is the pure, undivided hunger to please Kṛṣṇa's senses, the longing that wants nothing for itself and everything for the Beloved. The same fire that scorches the worldly heart here becomes the lamp of the temple. Hold that distinction tenderly; the whole purity of this contemplation rests upon it.

Now find yourself, O seeker. You are not the watcher of this procession. You are behind Her, the kiṅkarī, the little maidservant whose only wealth is to be of use. Look at what your arms are carrying: the divine soft sandal paste, cool against the heat of love, divya-mṛdu-candana; the perfumes, gandha; the fragrant garlands strung for the meeting, mālya. These are the sāmagrī of the Yugala-sevā, gathered so that when the two are united you may serve them both, the cooling paste for limbs flushed with longing, the fragrance and the flowers for the bower of their union. You carry the whole apparatus of love's service, and you carry it for them, never for yourself.

And so you run. You run behind Her as She rushes forward, and you do three things at once, three offerings of a servant who lives only to smooth Her path. You show Her the way, upadarśayantī, marking out the saṅketa-kuñja for Her lest She stumble in Her love-blind haste. You keep Her strong and alert, whispering the sweet things, the guṇa-gāna, the singing of Hari's glories, so that the very name of Him who waits becomes wind in Her sails. And you bear the burden of the service-things so Her own hands stay free. To run behind the Beloved of Kṛṣṇa, breathless, useful, unnoticed, this is the maidservant's heaven, and she asks for no other.

Remember, O servant, what you prayed only a moment ago, in the verse just before this one: that you might carry Her lotus feet upon your head so that no pebble, no thorn upon the path could ever wound them, and you begged Her then to walk a little slower. But how can Śrīmatī slow Her step when She is so irresistibly drawn to Śyāmasundara? Can a boat without a helmsman, swept off by the forceful waves of a flooding river, be halted by crying "Stop! Wait!"? Rādhā's body is such a boat, caught in the powerful current that pours out of Śyāmasundara's flute, and no one alive can stop that pull.

So the bittersweet truth of this grove arrives. The paraphernalia are heavy in your arms, and Svāminī walks so fast beneath that swaying slowness that the little one falls behind. The maidservant, arms full, sees Her Svāminī go out of sight around the bend of the bower, and is left alone on the path. Who will show the way now to the one who came to show the way?

Then, O the mercy of it, she looks down. And there in the soft earth are the marks. The footprints of Śrī Rādhā, each sole bearing the auspicious signs, the moonbeam and the barleycorn, the disk, the flag, the flowering vine. And the maidservant follows that track, and the hairs of her body stand on end with the ecstasy of it, for to follow Her very footprints is itself a sweetness almost too great to bear. Now the alternate reading of this same prayer opens of its own accord: not "let me run beside You," but "let me come slowly, with the steps of an elephant, gazing at Your footprints in the ground as I carry the sandal and the perfumes and the garlands, and so at last come where You have gone."

How old and how holy this following-of-footprints is in Vraja. Mother Yaśodā found the little thief of butter by the small curd-smeared prints he left across the courtyard floor. The frightened people of Vraja followed Kṛṣṇa's footmarks all the way to the Kāliya-lake and arrived in time to see Him dancing in triumph upon the serpent's hoods. And on the night of the great circle-dance, when Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa slipped away together from the gopīs, the gopīs found Them again by reading Their marked prints upon the ground. This is how it has always been: the practicing devotees too remember the footmarks of the Lord, and by that remembrance overcome every obstacle on the path, and are blessed at last with His own audience. So too the dedicated maidservant, footprint by footprint, at last reaches the kuñja and is blessed with the sweet service of the Yugala-Kiśora.

And there, when she arrives, hear the sweetness of her mood. For Kṛṣṇa, the anxious hero, has been sitting in the bower out of His own mind with waiting, undone the instant He glimpsed the rasika form of Nāgarī-maṇi Rādhā approaching. The maidservant comes upon Him and chastises Him, half-laughing, with her face and with her words: "You drove Svāminī mad by playing that flute of Yours, and now You just sit here quietly in this kuñja as though nothing had happened. You cannot imagine the care it took me to bring this tender one, this prema-pāgalini sukumārī, mad with love, all the way here to You." And then, with that loving scold still on her lips, she places her Svāminī's hand in His and says: "Here. Take Your beloved." How sweet, how sweet beyond telling, is the heart of the maidservants of Vraja, who guard Her, guide Her, tease Him, and then with their own hands give the two to each other and ask for nothing but to keep serving.

And just here, at the very threshold of the vision, the inner sight goes dark. The grove dissolves. The servant of the bower finds herself again outside the meeting, on this side of the longing, and she can only pray, pitifully and with her whole heart, at the lotus feet of her Svāminī, for one more glimpse, one more chance to run behind Her. The tradition gives this prayer in its own words: O Śrī Rādhe, Queen of the bowers, when You go to the trysting-place overcome by love's eager longing and maddened with feeling, walking like the slow elephant down the kuñja-path, let me follow holding the perfumes and divine garlands and sandalpaste, the very ingredients of Your service, showing You the way and enchanting You by singing the glories of Hari. This is the great longing on this servant's heart, O my Īśvarī Śrī Rādhikā; by Your grace fulfill it, and grant that one day I may dwell forever in the kuñja-abode of Vṛndāvana.