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Begin where the sweetness has just withdrawn. A breath ago the whole Rāsa lay open before the seer like a sky crowded with moons: the ring of dancers, the Pair at the still center, the night itself singing. And then it closed. The grove sank back into ordinary dark, and the one who had been carried up into that vision found himself once more shut inside a body of blood and flesh, of waste and weariness, a body that cannot follow where the heart has already flown. The cry is born here, not in triumph but in the ache that follows the going of sweetness. "Alas," the heart says, "will a servant of his own lusty desires ever be fortunate enough to enter those loving pastimes? How shall I make this perishable thing clean, this thing of blood and flesh and stool and urine?"

And then, in the very middle of the lament, a remembering rises like cool wind off the water: the Yamunā. O Kālindī, daughter of the friend of the lotus, dark river of Vraja, you are the answer the grieving heart reaches for. Rūpa Gosvāmī fixes your glory in the Śrī Yamunāṣṭakam, that third verse where he prays: śīkarābhimṛṣṭa, a single drop of your spray crushes the bitter ripening of every creature's deeds; nandanandanāntaraṅga bhakti pūra vardhinī, you swell the inner flood of intimate love for the son of Nanda; tīra-saṅgamābhilāṣi-maṅgalānubandinī, you bind blessing to anyone who longs only to live upon your banks. And when Baladeva Vidyābhūṣaṇa lifts the lid on that one phrase, that "stream of intimate devotion for Nanda's son," he tells us plainly what it means: rāga-bhakti, the love that runs of its own helpless burning. So the teaching stands clear as your water once was: anyone who so much as touches a single drop of you becomes fit for the path of spontaneous love, and the very summit of that path is mañjarī-bhāva, the maidservant's secret service at Rādhā's feet. The heart turns to you then, O River, and begs: bathe me, take from me this false belonging to a body made of five dull elements, and let me wake as what I truly am, Her dedicated handmaid.

But why, O Yamunā, are your waters gone so black? The reason is itself the highest mercy. Rādhā and Mādhava play Their endless play in your most purifying flow, and in the course of that play the musk that clings to Rādhikā's breasts loosens and melts and muddies your current. You gather up these remnants, these very traces of mahā-bhāva, and you press them to your heart, and counting yourself the most blessed of all rivers you carry them forever. That is why they call you Kṛṣṇā, the Black One, the river darkened with the perfume of the Beloved's own body. What other water in all the worlds is so favored? You were already the river whose every drop purifies, and now upon that you are clouded with the musk of Svāminī's breast. So the heart pleads to be lost in that fragrant darkness: let me bathe, and bathe again, snāyam snāyam, until the impurity born of this wrong body falls away and I am nirmala, clean.

Now hear what the seer longs to do once that cleansing is granted. He sees himself wandering. From bower to lovely bower he goes, into the mañjula nikuñja, the tender hidden houses of Vṛndāvana where She plays Her sweetest pastimes, and at each one he searches, calling, aching. O Rādhe, where are You? Show Yourself to me! Here, surely here, is the very kuñja where You delight with Your lover, yet my eyes cannot find You. All the scriptures and all the saints, the vidagdha jana, swear that Your bower-play is eternal and never ceases; sa-vidagdha-darśita-pathaṁ, the wise ones have even shown us the very paths that lead into these groves. Why then can I not see what they vow is always happening? In which bower are You hiding, O Prāṇeśvarī? Will You not come out upon the path the great ones have shown? So the heart wishes to weep and wander and search through every grove of Vṛndāvana, never careless, never at rest. For how could anyone stay careless in the very place that is made of Rādhā-Mādhava's sweetness? It is as Narottama dāsa Ṭhākura sings in his Prārthanā, "Hari, Hari! When will I give up wealth and friends and son and wife and all this misery, and go to live in Vṛndāvana on what I beg as alms? When will I drink the Yamunā's water that is nectar itself until my belly is full, and blissfully bathe in Rādhā-kuṇḍa and plunge into Śyāma-kuṇḍa?" When, O when, will that wandering, searching state be mine?

There is a deeper reading the tradition keeps for those who can bear it, and it turns the whole lament inside out. For within the eternal play this is no exile locked out of the vision; this is a maidservant standing right inside it. Picture it. The Rāsa has ended, and the two Lovers, weary with dancing, are seated upon a jewelled throne while the kiṅkarī serves Them. Nāgara grows drunk on the maddening nectar of Rādhā's mādana-rasa, and Svāminī, ever cunning in tenderness, slips away to hide in another bower only to deepen His delight by His own bewilderment. A little while passes; Nāgara comes back to Himself, finds His love vanished, and turning to the maidservant asks, "Where is your mistress?" She knows. Of course she knows. But she feigns ignorance, so that she too may drink in His sweet anxiety. Together they go out searching and come to a charming bower, and He looks all around it for Her, and the bower grows beautiful simply because He is looking within it. At last the maidservant whispers where Svāminī hides, and so she becomes the very one who arranges the meeting of the divine Pair.

And after They have loved like a maddened pair of royal elephants, Rādhā and Mādhava wish to go down and play in the Yamunā, but They are so lost in joy that They cannot find the way out of the grove. So it is the maidservant who shows Them the path, and this is the heart's own cry, spoken now not from exile but from service: "Hā Rādhe! Why will You and Your clever lover not follow the path I am showing You?" Down they come to the bank, and the other gopīs are gathered there, and a great tumultuous waterfight breaks out between Rādhā and Mādhava and all Their sakhīs; and the kiṅkarī, watching with her own eyes, sees the clear water of the Yamunā grow muddied as the musk melts from Svāminī's breasts and clouds the stream. Then, when the play is finished, the Pair pass into a jewelled temple to be dressed. And just there the transcendental vision dissolves, and the seer is left in his outer body with the whole sweet picture still floating before him, weeping: When will I wander the bowers searching for my mistress? When will I be the one to show Her and Her lover the way down to the river? When will I lose this body of five elements and know myself, at last, as Her transcendental handmaid? O Yamunā, O Rādhe, when?