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Picture it. The heat of the day has passed, and the divine Couple has rested awhile on the bank of the Yamunā. Now They rise and the forest-wandering begins again, the slow sweet vana-vihāra through the bowers of Vṛndāvana. And behind Them, never ahead, never grasping, Śrīpāda himself goes in his kiṅkarī-form, a maidservant following Them like Their own shadow, asking nothing but the grace to watch and to serve. Hold that posture, O seeker, before you look at anything else, because everything you are about to see is seen from there, from the back of the procession, from the place of the servant.

Now watch what the clever Couple does. At one bower They gather Their pet female parrots close, the bright sārikās, and with sweet voices Rādhā and Śyāma teach the birds Their own verses, syllable by syllable, the way a fond master coaxes a song from a beloved pupil. And there is a tenderness hidden in the lesson, O Rādhe, that breaks the heart: They are not teaching for the parrots' sake alone. They are storing up Their own joy. For at the proper moment, on some later wandering, these very parrots will pour the nectar of these verses back into Their ears, and the young Couple and Their girlfriends will be delighted to hear the songs They Themselves once gave. The tradition fixes this in the thirteenth chapter of the Govinda Līlāmṛta, where the śuka and sārikā parrots ramble with the Couple through the autumn forest and drench Their ears in nectarean verse. Śrīla Yadunandana Ṭhākura loved this scene so much that he cast it into Bengali song, and the saints of the line could not resist setting down a portion of it, begging forgiveness for the trespass of so much sweetness.

And here, O wind, is the secret the parrots keep. They quarrel. Up in a tree heavy with fruit sweet as nectar the male and female parrots meet, and all the creatures of the forest settle blissfully at the foot of that tree to listen to their rasika talk. It begins as a taunt. The śuka, the boy-parrot, puffs himself up as a twice-born Vedānta paṇḍita and scolds the śārīs: leave our forest, this is Kṛṣṇavana, the Lord's own forest, why are you maidservants eating its fruit? But the śārī, the girl-parrot, will not yield an inch. This is Rādhikā's forest, she answers; the Purāṇas themselves declare, "Rādhā is the Queen of Vṛndāvana," and no one may disregard the smṛti. The śuka counters that the Upaniṣads call it Kṛṣṇavana and that śruti outweighs smṛti, that all the world knows Vṛndāvana belongs to Govinda. And the śārī rises higher still: Vṛndāvana is flooded with Rāi's own luster, the whole forest is the very reflection of Her body, while your Gopāla is crooked within, fair only on the surface, like a ripe Mākāla-fruit, lovely to look at and rotten at the core.

So the loving war goes on, image answering image. The śuka says the gopīs are coconuts, their love sealed under a hard shell of opposition with a backbone of pride, while his Kṛṣṇa is a grape, juicy within and without. The śārī laughs: no, He is a sugarcane stalk, barked over with crookedness and deceit, and without the press of māna, the squeeze of a lover's proud refusal, not one drop of juice will run from Him; what good is sweetness inside if it cannot be reached? The śuka says the gopīs are Javā-flowers, all color and no fragrance, while Kṛṣṇa is the blue lotus, soft and sweet and fragrant and fair. And the śārī, teasing, gives the verse its heart: my Īśvarī is the Mañjiṣṭhā-vine, the same deep rāga, the same one unchanging color of love, inside and out, and who in all the worlds can describe Rādhā's sohāga, Her unrivaled love; but your master is a crystal, throwing a new color, a new mood, with every new companion who comes near. The śuka makes his last great boast: who is the equal of Kṛṣṇa, who burns the moth-like demons in the forest-fire of His glance, who lifted Govardhana on His left hand for seven days and nights? And even here the śārī claims the final word: it was Vrajeśvara Nanda who worshiped Viṣṇu, and Viṣṇu who poured His own strength into Kṛṣṇa's arms; Govardhana, content with the king's worship, rose of himself to shelter Vraja, and Kṛṣṇa had only to hold up His hand beneath it, though ignorant people say He lifted the hill. So the praise of Rādhā shines out at the end, and the whole forest, listening at the foot of the tree, seems quietly to take Her side.

And the wonder of it, O Rādhe, is that this entire scripture of love is Your own composition sung back to You. Rādhikā and Mādhava and Their sakhīs are delighted to hear from the parrots the very delicious verses They had taught the birds Themselves. Then the play turns again. At another spot the Couple meets and claps Their hands, and the peacocks and peahens spread their splendor and dance, and the dancing of the peacocks delights the amorous Couple in return. And at yet another spot They need no birds at all: the adolescent boy and the adolescent girl, hemagaurī and śyāma, simply stand close, and the golden vine winds around the dark Tamāla tree, Rādhā the kanaka-vallarī clasping Kṛṣṇa the tamāla, until you cannot tell the gold from the blue. This is the līlā-dhana, the treasure that is nothing but play; They own no other wealth and want no other. Yadunandana sings Their names into the scene, Vinodinī and Vanamālī, kiśora and kiśorī, and says that Sarasvatī, the goddess of speech herself, can only stand and describe these enchanting pastimes as she watches them rise like a wave of bliss.

And do not for a moment, O seeker, think the birds and the trees are scenery. The tradition is fierce on this point: every parrot, every peacock, every tree and creeping vine in Vṛndāvana is a transcendental assistant in the pastimes of Rādhikā and Mādhava, and this is true not only in the eternal unmanifest Vṛndāvana but in this manifest Vṛndāvana that pilgrims walk. There is no dead matter whatsoever in Vraja. The teachers add a warning sharp as a blade: if one cannot learn to see it this way, one's bhajana will not succeed. The clever Couple does not perform before an audience of objects. They play in a world that is wholly alive, wholly willing, wholly in love with Them, and that is the wonder (adbhutam) that arises in Vṛndāvana.