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Begin where the name begins. Set down everything you were carrying, every pursuit and plan, and let the lips form one sound: Rā. Just that much. The first syllable has not even finished leaving the breath, and already, somewhere among the kadamba groves of Gokula, the dark Beloved lifts His head. He has been called. The Brahma-Vaivarta Purāṇa holds the secret of it and sings it plainly: rā śabdoccāraṇād eva sphīṭo bhavati mādhavaḥ, at the mere sounding of "Rā," Mādhava blooms open like a flower struck by morning, His whole being brightening into joy; and then, dhā śabdoccārataḥ paścād dhāvaty eva sasambhramaḥ, when the second syllable comes, "Dhā," He no longer walks, He runs. He runs in eager haste, breathless, headlong, toward the one who spoke it, or even toward the one who merely pronounced Her name aloud, so that He might run to reward even that fortunate tongue. O wonder of wonders. The King of all the worlds, before whom the cosmos trembles, undone and set running by two syllables.

Picture Him there in the running. The yellow cloth loosening at the waist, the peacock feather tilting, the garland swinging against His chest, His feet finding the path without thought because His heart has already arrived. He does not pause to ask who called or why. The name itself is the summons He cannot refuse. This is the power Prabodhānanda places before us first, the wonder the tradition has gathered into this verse: yajjapaḥ sakṛd eva gokula-pater ākarṣakaḥ, whose single utterance, even once, drags the Lord of Gokula instantly to the one who speaks it. Not by long austerity. Not by ten thousand repetitions. Once. Sakṛd eva. The name of Rādhā is a hook of pure sweetness lowered into the world, and the great Fish of Gokula, who has slipped free of every net the yogis ever cast, swallows it gladly and is caught.

And now feel what happens to the one who speaks it, not once in passing, but again and again until love begins to stir. Yatra premavatāṁ samasta-puruṣārtheṣu sphuret tucchatā. Wherever that love wakes, all the goals men spend their lives chasing turn suddenly to ash in the mouth. Consider how the world ordinarily climbs the ladder, rung by rung: a man keeps his dharma so that he may gain wealth; he gathers wealth so that he may taste pleasure; he tastes pleasure until, sickened and frustrated and emptied, he longs at last for release, for liberation, for an end to the turning. Dharma, artha, kāma, mokṣa: the four great prizes, and every one of them, even the highest, even liberation itself, the dream of every renunciate, is still only the soul's flight from its own pain, still a thing wanted for the self. But loving devotion to Kṛṣṇa is the selfless fifth thing, the prize beyond the four. And beyond even that, in the inmost dimension of rasa, is the service of Śrī Rādhā, which the great ācāryas have cherished above all, holding it dearer even than the direct service of Śrī Kṛṣṇa, as Raghunātha Dāsa breathes in the Vilāpa-Kusumāñjali and as this very treasury sings in its eightieth verse and in many places beside. So when Rādhā's name has flowered into prema, all four prizes go small. Tucchatā: trifling, contemptible, not worth the bending to pick up. What is a kingdom to one who has begun to love Her? What is heaven? What is even the dissolution of the self into formless light, when here, breathing, is a name that makes the Beloved of all beings come running?

Then comes the most astonishing turn of all, the one that makes the heart go still. Yan nāmāṅkita-mantra-japana-paraḥ prītyā svayaṁ mādhavaḥ śrī-kṛṣṇo'pi. Not only does this name draw Kṛṣṇa. Kṛṣṇa Himself chants it. The mantra is marked, stamped, sealed with Her name, and Mādhava bends to that mantra with love. Now, the tradition is careful here, and the carefulness only deepens the marvel: this "Mādhava" is first Lord Nārāyaṇa of Vaikuṇṭha; but the verse will not stop there, for it adds śrī-kṛṣṇo'pi, even Śrī Kṛṣṇa, who is the very aṁśī, the origin and fountainhead of Nārāyaṇa, the source from which Viṣṇu flows. He is called the origin of Viṣṇu for one reason only: His unrivalled sweetness. And even He, the wellspring of all forms of God, sits and tells these two syllables over to Himself with love, like a beggar counting his only coin. O Rādhe, see what You have done to Him.

For this is the One whose beauty has no equal anywhere. The girls of Mathurā stood marvelling at the sight of Him and cried out, in the Śrīmad Bhāgavata, gopyās tapaḥ kim acaran yad amuṣya rūpaṁ lāvaṇya-sāram asamordhvam ananya-siddham, what penances must the gopīs have performed that they could drink in this form whose loveliness is the very essence of beauty, asamordhvam, with nothing equal to it and nothing above it, ananya-siddham, perfect with a perfection borrowed from nowhere and owed to no one. No form stands beside His; no form stands over it. His beauty enchanted even Lord Viṣṇu, the Bhāgavata records it in golden letters; His beauty enchanted Goddess Lakṣmī herself. And this same enchanter of all the worlds, the one who maddens Viṣṇu and Lakṣmī, is in His turn enchanted, by a name. By Your name, O Rādhe.

The tradition tells how it began, and one can scarcely bear the sweetness of it. When the boy Gopāla was small, His mother and father, for His welfare, had Him initiated by the sage Bhāgurī into the Nārāyaṇa-mantra, and each morning, bathed and dressed, He was sent off to the shrine of Lord Nārāyaṇa to sit and do His prescribed chanting. But what does the child do once He is alone in the temple room? He sits, and a thought rises in Him, the very thought Kṛṣṇadāsa records in the Caitanya-Caritāmṛta: all three worlds are made ecstatic by Me, He thinks, but is there anyone anywhere who can make Me glad? Only one a hundred times more wonderful than Myself could gladden this heart of Mine, and it is impossible that anyone in all creation should be more qualified than I am. And then, the marvel breaks open: ekāli rādhāte tāhā kori anubhava, only in Rādhā, He says, only in Her do I find that One. And so the boy who was sent to chant Nārāyaṇa's name lets it slip from His tongue, and in its place, in topmost loving ecstasy, He chants instead the mantra sealed with Her name, Rā-dhā, Rā-dhā, alone in the shrine, the Lord of all worship Himself become a worshipper. This is what is meant by tad adbhutam: not a doctrine but a marvel, a thing that ought not to be possible and yet is the truest thing there is.

These two letters, the tradition sings in its sweet refrains, are rasāmṛta-paripūrṇa, brimming to the lip with nectarean rasa; they are jagajana-āhlādaka, pouring bliss into every creature of the world, and they draw the very mind of Gokula's King; the name is a dwelling-place of the sweetest elixir, sumadhura rasāyana-dhāma. Japite japite rādhā, repeat the mantra of Her name, repeat it and repeat it as the great mantra, the mahā-mantra, and love is born of the repetition, premera udoy, prema rising up out of the syllables like fragrance from crushed petals, until the four great prizes lie in the mind like worthless things, apadartha, and the name alone tastes of honey, madhumoy. It is the crown-jewel of all mantras, the mantra-cūḍāmaṇi, the gem set highest in the diadem of every sacred sound, and Śrī Mādhava tells it over for His own delight. So Prabodhānanda, in his own longing, lays down his whole prayer in the last breath of the verse, as the tradition records his cry, sphurti hauk mora mone, may that name be manifest in my mind, rādhā-nāma parama sampad, the name of Rādhā is the greatest treasure. Śrī-kṛṣṇo'pi tad-adbhutaṁ sphuratu me rādheti varṇadvayam: let it shine, that wonder; let it become manifest in me; let these two syllables, Rā and Dhā, rise of their own accord upon this tongue and in this heart.

For the holy name is self-luminous. It is not seized by the dull instruments of the body; it cannot be grasped by the senses as one grasps a thing, for Rūpa Gosvāmī fixes it forever in the Bhakti-Rasāmṛta-Sindhu, that ataḥ śrī-kṛṣṇa-nāmādi na bhaved grāhyam indriyaiḥ, sevonmukhe hi jihvādau svayam eva sphuraty adaḥ: the names and forms and qualities of Śrī Kṛṣṇa can never be grasped through the material senses, but to the one who turns toward them as a servant turns toward the master, beginning with the tongue and its glad service, they manifest of themselves, unveil of their own accord. And the one who chants this name with that service-attitude will see Kṛṣṇa directly, will behold the Beloved standing shining through the syllables. May that supreme treasure, then, Rādhā-nāma, the parama sampad, the greatest of all wealth, dawn in me. May it be all my fortune.