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Begin where the singer himself begins, not on a height but on his knees. This is the last breath of the garland, and he does not end it with a flourish or a boast. He ends it with a confession and a plea. He looks at his own heart and calls it pāpaika-bhājam, a vessel made of nothing but sin, and into that same admission he sets the highest prayer a soul can frame: hṛdi sphurjatu, let it burst into light within my heart. Not "let me reach Vṛndāvana on foot," for any pilgrim's feet can do that. He asks that the real Vṛndāvana, the inner one, the sweet and secret one, wake up and shine inside the very heart that has no right to it.

Hear why he must beg, O seeker, and not merely strive. Vṛndāvana is duṣpraveśa: hard to enter, its door drawn shut. To the one who only fears God and admires Him from across a respectful distance, in the mood of awe and reverence, the gate does not even appear. The tradition will not soften this. Even the great architects and sustainers of the worlds stand baffled at that threshold. Brahmā the maker, Śiva the lord of dissolution, Ananta Śeṣa upon whose hood the worlds rest: none of these can pry open the true glory of Vraja. Prabodhānanda Sarasvatī, in whose name the tradition holds this poem, sings it again in his Vṛndāvana Mahimāmṛta, that Vṛndāvana is the abode where Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa play Their most sweet and astonishing pastimes, the very summit of Hari's amorous taste, adorned with the limitless fortune of the most relishable divine flavors, and that it "cannot be perceived by Lord Śiva, Lord Brahmā, or by Ananta Śeṣa." If the makers of worlds are turned back, what hope has a sinner at the door?

And yet there is a key, and it is not strength. Picture the only ones who pass: those whose hearts have been remade into rādhā-pada-kiṅkarī, the footmaidens of Rādhā. To them, and to them samyak, fully, Vraja becomes gocaram, visible at last in its true form. The Bengali singers of the lineage put it plainly: those who have become Rādhā's footmaidens understand Vṛndāvana's glories in all respects. But mark the next breath, for it pulls even the maidservant to her knees. Not even she earns it. The verse stands firm: dhyeyaṁ naiva kadāpi, never, not even once, can this be held in meditation vinā tasyāḥ kṛpā-sparśataḥ, without the touch of Her mercy. Without Rādhā's grace it will not stir within the heart, and without that grace, the singers say, all one's endless meditations are wasted, vṛthā dhyāna, empty labor poured into the dark.

What, then, does this sealed and guarded place give? It gives the unguardable thing. It is premāmṛta-sindhu-sāra-rasadam: the bestower of the essence of the ocean of nectarean love. The tradition names that essence: mahā-bhāva, the supreme flowering of love that lives only in the gopīs. The deepest distillate of the deepest ocean, the rasa of rasas, and the verse insists it is given pāpaika-bhājam api, even to a vessel of sin. The two streams of glory braid together here and the wonder rises: the harder a place is to enter, the more freely its treasure is poured upon the one who cannot earn it. So the singer, watching this, can only marvel: how can a great sinner like me even begin to describe this rarely attained Vraja, the essence of the essence of nectarean love?

This is why he stops striving and starts pleading. He asks Vṛndāvana to reveal itself by its own mercy, not by his merit. He turns to the dhāma as a living, conscious sweetness and, as in the Mahimāmṛta, cries: what can the Upaniṣads say of you, when they grow tongue-tied even before the full nectar of brahman, stammering "neti, neti," it is not this, it is not that? O Śrīmad Vṛndāṭavi, reveal your most astonishing, blissful, confidential form within my heart. And then, in the closing breath of the lineage, the plea is laid at the only feet that can answer: O merciful Rādhe, fulfill the longing of this heart; and all of you, give your blessing too, that the dhāma may shine forth in me, holding myself to be nothing but Rādhā's maidservant. That is the whole secret of the garland's end. He names himself the worst of sinners and still hopes, because the gift was never about being clean enough to deserve it. It was always, only, about being touched.