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Begin with the braid. Picture Her dhammilla, Her thick coiled veni, dressed by a maidservant who has been blessed to come this close. The dark hair is wound and knotted, and through it a garland of fresh jasmine has been threaded, blossoms only just opened, still trembling with new fragrance, the scent lifting in waves off the dark coils. O Rādhe, even the seeing of Your hair undoes the heart. And the tradition does not let us mistake these strands for some ordinary thing of the body. They are no mundane physical transformation at all; they are loving thoughts of Kṛṣṇa grown out of Her very head, longing made visible, thought turned into beauty. What in all the worlds could it be likened to? Nothing here is its equal.

And see what happens when that braid is loosened. Kṛṣṇa Dāsa Kavirāja fixes it in the Govinda Līlāmṛta, that vilāsa visrastam, that when Rādhikā's hair falls dishevelled after Her amorous pastimes, the deer flee into the mountains and the peacocks flee into the forest, hiding in shame, for the loveliness of Her loosened hair so far outshines their own that they cannot bear to be seen beside it. Then the maidservant gathers it again, winds the fragrant jasmine back through it, rolls it up into its knot. And how brilliantly that wreath shines as it hangs half-fallen from the knot, slipping loose because Śyāmasundara's hand brushed it in the play of love. O fortunate maidservant, who relishes a beauty made only more tender by His touch, whose heart and mind are simply stolen by the sight.

Now lift the gaze to the forehead. There on the smooth, enchanting brow burns a single bright, deep drop of sindūra, and along the part of Her hair runs the red line of it. How beautiful that vermilion is. It defeats even the rising sun seen through a cloudy sky, and Boḍu Caṇḍī Dāsa sings of it so, that the sindūra in Her hair is like a fresh sun newly risen behind a watery cloud. How much more it glows when She has just met with Kṛṣṇa. And the servants of Her love long to draw that very line. Raghunātha Dāsa Gosvāmī prays in his Vilāpa Kusumāñjali: O Devi, when may I draw the line of sindūra upon Your part with a jewelled pencil, for that will beautify even His dark hair? There is something dearer here than the simple sight of Her form, dearer even than its perfect making. In some intimate pastime the sindūra from Her part brushes off onto His locks, and to a careless eye it would seem the careful work was spoiled. But that, the servant knows, is the true crowning of the work: to see the sindūra I painted now reddening His dark hair is not the ruin of my decoration but its consummation. The tradition tells us that Śrīpāda once knew directly the deep red of that drop in such pastimes, and now, fallen from that fortune, he cries within: Alas, where now is that forehead with its deep red sindūra? If I cannot be blessed to see it before me, then let me at least remember it, let me at least hold it within.

Then the eyes. O the long sidelong glances of Rādhā, the apāṅga that slips toward Kṛṣṇa from the corner of Her eye, an effulgence with no equal in any world. These are no ordinary glances. They are filled with mahā-bhāva, the highest love, and with them She holds the very reins of Śyāma, who otherwise roams Vṛndāvana free and unbound as a wild young elephant. Śrīpāda himself sings it in his own verse, sphuran mādhurī sāra, that from the corners of Her eyes there naturally streams the very essence of sweetness, a vast ocean of amorous rasa flowing out at the edge of Her glance, and that stream alone is enough to make Śyāmasundara, who is bliss itself made body, grow faint and swoon away. O Rādhe, I pray only this: that I may remember the beauty of these glances of Yours.

And the smile. The splendour of Rādhikā's moonbeam smile triumphs easily over the cool light of any earthly moon. Ordinary moonlight can soothe the outer world and silver the night, but it cannot reach within. The moonbeam of Her smile reaches where no moon goes: into the darkness gathered in Kṛṣṇa's own desperate heart, and it smooths that darkness away. The Gīta Govinda sings it, vadati yadi kiñcid api, where Kṛṣṇa sits humbled at the feet of proud Rādhā and pleads that if She would speak even a few words, the moonlight of Her teeth, the brightness flashing in Her smile, would lift the terrible darkness from His heart. So splendid is this smile because it shines with prema, with love itself. None but Rādhā can raise such waves of ecstasy in Him who is ānanda-ghana-vigraha, the very form of condensed bliss. O Rādhe, let me remember the white moonbeams of Your smile.

And last, the chest, the breasts, which the tradition speaks of with reverence as the baskets that hold within them everything for Śyāmasundara, the place where all His treasure is kept. The Rādhāvallabha rendering, spoken softly in a sakhī's own voice, will not name them plainly at all but bows to their rahasyatā, their held sacredness, their mystery. In the play of love Svāminī draws Him close and holds Him fast against Her, and His dark blue lustre falls reflected upon the shining gold of Her form, so that a blue shimmer plays across that golden beauty. I remember this, the servant says, I remember that bluish glow upon Her gold. And the tradition tells the aspirant plainly: train the mind in this remembrance. Hold the braid, the sindūra, the glance, the smile, the breasts, the love that brims and overflows. Do it rightly and the holding ripens into beholding; one begins to enter these pastimes directly, to find the very services one is meant to render. And when the absorption is full, even the last thread of self loosens and falls, until there is no longer any "I" standing apart to say "I am remembering"; there is only the remembering, only Rādhā, only the rasa.

So the tradition sings it through Prabodhānanda's voice, gazing on Her ever-new youthfulness: O golden Rādhe, hema-gaurī, when Śyāma who wears the yellow cloth sees the fragrant shining jasmine garland in Your braid, He is wholly enchanted. The three worlds glorify the drop of sindūra on Your brow, the aura of Your moonlike face, the spotless sweetness of Your glances, the matchless lustre of Your smile that is the very home of moonbeams. Your loving, blissful breasts steal the heart of Madana-Mohana, the enchanter of the god of love himself. Rāi's whole body is the root and source of every rasa. Let me always, always remember that.