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Picture the lanes of Varsānā in the soft hour, the dust of the pathways gone golden, the doorways of the village leaning close. Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī is staying for a while in Her parental home, here in Varsānā with Her girlfriends, and this is a glad season for them all. Here the watchful house of Yāvata, the home of Her mother-in-law, does not reach; here there is less restraint, and the air itself feels lighter. Here it is so much easier for Rādhikā to slip toward Kṛṣṇa, easier for the two of Them to fall into the pastimes Their hearts are forever reaching toward. And so down these very pathways They come.

To the older women of the village, leaning in their doorways with the warm ache of motherly love in their breasts, what is it they see? They see a beautiful little boy and a beautiful little girl, no more than children, walking the lane. Their hearts melt. "Aha," they sigh to one another, "blessed is the Creator who fashioned such a boy and such a girl, and blessed is He twice over, for He did not keep Them hidden but showed Them to the eyes of the world." O how the sweetness of Rādhikā and Mādhava lights the dusty lanes of Varsānā, so that the simple villagers stand enchanted, unable to look away. This is the loveliness that steals the minds of the fortunate.

But understand, O heart, what one sees depends on the eyes one brings. Everyone tastes Kṛṣṇa in his own way, and no one beholds Him in all His aspects at once. To the older women He is a small child; to Pūtanā and the demons He is all-devouring time; to His own mother He is simply her boy; to the young girls of Vraja He is the most romantic of lovers. For God is the gathered whole of every rasa, the aggregate of all flavors, and each soul tastes of Him only what its own love can hold. Śrī Śuka Muni sings it in the Śrīmad Bhāgavata, that when Kṛṣṇa stepped with His elder brother Balarāma into the arena of Kaṁsa He appeared as a thunderbolt to the wrestlers, as the best of men to the people, as Cupid made flesh to the young women, as one of their own to the cowherds, as the chastiser to the wicked kings, as their child to His parents, as death personified to cruel Kaṁsa, as an ordinary human child to the ignorant, as the Supreme Truth to the mystics, and as the Supreme Godhead to the Yadus. He did not change; the eyes that beheld Him changed. And Śrīdhara Svāmī seals it in his commentary: the Lord is the aggregate of all mellows, the amorous and the rest, shining to each according to his mood, never disclosed in fullness to every eye. So it is here upon the lane of Varsānā: one and the same Couple, children to the tender mothers, the eternally young lovers to the servants of Their love.

And weigh well, O heart, who these fortunate souls are. The blessed ones, the sukṛtina, are not those who have piled up some heap of pious deeds, some ledger of religious merit that buys this vision the way coin buys grain. No amount of worldly good works can purchase a single glimpse of Rādhikā and Mādhava sweet upon the path; only pure devotion can. The tradition is gentle but firm on this. Jīva Gosvāmī fixes it in his commentary on the Bhāgavata, that the saying "the cowherd boys performed many pious deeds to win Kṛṣṇa for their friend" is only a fond popular way of speaking; in truth that puṇya consists of nothing but the greatest mercy of God Himself. And he reminds us, by the Amara Koṣa, that the very word puṇya also means beautiful: the beautiful favor of the Lord falling upon a soul. These fortunate ones are the eternal associates of Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa, and what they "earned" was His boundless kindness and nothing else.

Now see more deeply, for the same lane holds two visions at once. Where the village mothers see only two enchanting children at innocent play, the sakhīs and the mañjarīs, the close handmaids of love, behold what the others cannot: the full glory of new youth blazing forth, nava-kaiśora, the splendor of adolescence already arrived. To the ordinary eye, children; to the eye dipped in service, the supreme youthful Couple in the fullness of Their bloom.

And here the dearest secret unfolds. Śrīpāda himself, in his kiṅkarī-form, his maidservant-self, witnesses these pastimes and longs for one thing only: to arrange somehow for the Couple's hidden meeting. Who else is so expert in this service? Her single wish is Rādhikā's happiness, with not the faintest thread of wanting anything for herself. On the pretext of a game she draws Śrīmatī away toward a garden on the outskirts of Varsānā, and with a flicker of her eyes she signals to Śyāmasundara: Come, come here too. There, away from every common eye, in the secret bower, Rādhā and Mādhava meet.

Then, of a sudden in childhood, the wonder breaks open. After the divine Couple have met in the garden They become absorbed in laughing and joking with each other, while all the while Their eyes betray a deeper eagerness, a longing for the loving meeting itself. The maidservant sees it, draws her veil across her face, and giggles behind it: "O Ma! What is this? How has full youth come blooming all at once upon Your child-like bodies?" This is the confidential explanation the tradition gives to akasmāt kaumāre prakaṭa nava-kaiśora-vibhavau: the childhood seen on the open road becomes, in the hidden grove, the blossoming radiance of new youth, witnessed only by the trusted handmaid. And she remembers, even as she giggles, how the older people of Vraja in their parental love had praised the Creator for making such beautiful children, never guessing what only the servants are given to see.

Hear too the small words and what they carry. Parihāsa is laughter, jest; and the little word that follows, ādi, "and so on," carries within it the whole of the amorous meeting of the Couple. And rahasi, in secret, tells us plainly that only the maidservants may stand witness to these innermost games, no one else at all. These, these alone, are truly the sukṛtina, the fortunate ones.

So the longing rises like a wave, the very wave Prabodhānanda lets break in his closing song. Like an ordinary boy and girl, Hari the prince of Vraja and the youthful golden Śrī Rādhikā play upon the pathways of the lovely villages, visible to everyone; but invisible to all others this greatest of youthful Couples is engaged in laughter and jest and sweet intimate games, known only to the confidential devotees. The sweetness brims over the very limbs of the youthful Couple, spilling onto the pathways and into the grove. And the servant-heart cries out across the centuries: Alas, when will these eyes of mine behold that mounting sweetness upon Their bodies? When will I be drowned in the waves of that bliss and at last made full, at last called blessed? O Rādhe, O prince of Vraja, when will this servant be given the sight that makes a life complete?