55

Picture the grove first. Vṛndāvana lies in deep afternoon stillness, the kuñja heavy with the scent of crushed blossoms, and within it the Divine Couple are absorbed in Their play. And there, lower than every glance, lower than the hem of Her garment, moves a small servant in her kiṅkarī form, a maidservant who follows Śrīmatī as Her own shadow follows Her, never ahead, never apart, only at the feet. This is where the heart that sings this verse lives. Not before Kṛṣṇa. At Rādhā's feet, tending the rasa of those soles as though she were nothing but the shadow they cast.

Today the service has been sweet, and Śrīmatī is well satisfied. Something tender passes through Her, and with the smallest movement of Her eyes She signals to Kṛṣṇa: this one, this little maid, embrace her, kiss her, show her favour. And the king of all lovers understands. He knows perfectly well that this maidservant is exclusively His Rādhā's, devoted only to Her lotus feet, dearer to Her than even Her own sakhīs, and that the girl carries no separate wish toward Him at all. And precisely because of that, simply to reveal the wonder of her mood, to lift it into the light, He draws near.

So He kisses her, "nija-prāṇeśvaryā dayanīyā iyam": knowing her to be the very object of His own Prāṇeśvarī's mercy. He embraces her, again and again, "muhuḥ." He pours over her the "surata-madhu," the wine of eros, until her head should swim, and around her He fashions, "vicitrāṁ snehardhiṁ racayati," a strange and astonishing treasure of affection so lavish that any other heart would dissolve into it and forget itself. This is the Lord whom the whole world thirsts to touch, lavishing Himself upon one small servant. And here is the wonder the verse holds up like a lamp: she does not turn. Her mind does not even waver toward Him. O the marvel of it. The very embrace that the three worlds would die to receive cannot move her one finger's breadth from where her love is fixed. Astonishing, the tradition says plainly, because the maidservant does not even desire to meet Śrī Kṛṣṇa herself.

Why? Because her love was never aimed at the embrace. O Rādhe, her mind is set in You, "tava eva pada-rasa-vilāse mama manaḥ." While Śyāma kisses her cheek, her thought is at Your reddened soles. While His arms close round her, her gaze has already slipped down to the rasa of Your wandering feet, those feet that are themselves "adbhuta-gati," the wonderful goal, the flavour and the whole of her wealth. Śrī Jīva Gosvāmī fixes this very fruit in his Mādhava-Mahotsava, in the verse beginning "bakaripu parirambhāsvāda-vāñchā-viraktiṁ," that the sakhīs and maidservants like Kasturī, who took a vow as strict as any ascetic's, renouncing the one thing the world calls heaven, the desire to relish even Kṛṣṇa's own embrace, and who wanted only to see Rādhā made happy by being brought to Her Beloved, have attained the full result of their vow in "harivana-vara-rājye," the great kingdom of Vṛndāvana. Here is that vow standing upright inside a single verse. And the tradition draws out the law beneath it: "siddhasya lakṣaṇaṁ yat syāt sādhanaṁ sādhakasya tat," what stands as the mark of the perfected one is the very practice of the practitioner. So the seeker of mañjarī-bhāva, while still on the path, desires nothing but the service of the Śrī Yugala, exactly as Ṭhākura Mahāśaya sings in his pada "rādhā-kṛṣṇa prāṇa mora yugala kiśora."

There is a second way the tradition turns this jewel to the light, sweeter still. Imagine Śrīmatī setting out at dusk to Her tryst with Kṛṣṇa, and the kiṅkarī following close behind like Her shadow along the path. As they go Her tender feet grow weary, struck with exhaustion, so weary that they are no longer fit for the play that waits. The maidservant reads Her mind without a word, kneels, and takes those exhausted lotus feet into her hands, pressing them, soothing them, tending them until they are ready once more for Their pastimes. Svāminī is overcome with pleasure at this service, and out of sheer overflow She rewards the girl: She draws her close and kisses her, embraces her. And see what happens. Śrīmatī Herself is still remembering Her own coming union, still drunk on the wine of that anticipated love, and the radiance of Her intoxication passes straight into the maidservant through that embrace, so that the little servant grows drunk too. But mark where the servant's drunkenness flows: not into any wish of her own, but into a single urgent pleading. Hurry, O Svāminī, hurry to Him sooner. Even drunk on Rādhā's own kiss, the only thing rising in her is that Rādhā reach Kṛṣṇa faster, and she feels herself wholly blessed to receive such a treasure of affection from Svāminī Herself.

Then she lowers her eyes once more to those feet she has just served and prays from the floor of her being: O Śrī Rādhe, You are the wonderful goal. The taste of Your playful lotus feet is itself the wonder. O Prāṇeśvari, Queen of my very breath, let me never, never forget the ecstatic flavour of Your devotional service. This is the whole secret the verse guards. There is a love so rooted at the feet of Rādhā that it cannot be bought, cannot be turned, cannot even be tempted by the highest sweetness Kṛṣṇa Himself can offer. It is not coldness toward Śyāma. It is a love so total toward Her that He becomes Hers within the servant's heart too, beloved only as Rādhā's beloved, embraced only because His joy is Her joy. The maidservant has nothing of her own to seek. Her body may be kissed; her mind is already gone, far down, resting where it has always rested, in the red rasa of those wandering feet. This is the ananyatā the Rādhāvallabha stream names over the verse, the exclusive, single-pointed devotion that leaves no room for a second wish. O Rādhe, to be that small. O Rādhe, to want nothing but that.