Chapter Four: The Perfected Body and Entry into Līlā

Form

Regarding “form,” it should be noted that once the practitioner has become an adolescent girl endowed with beauty and youth, Gurudeva determines her perfected form in accordance with her taste. Who could become an attendant of Sri Radharani without possessing a particular, inconceivable spiritual form?

Group

To know the group in which the practitioner has been accepted in her sakhī form, one must understand that Srimati Radhika alone is the sovereign of every group. One must belong to the group of one among Radhika’s eight principal sakhīs. Joining the group of Lalita, Vishakha, Chandravali, or another sakhī, one serves Sri Radha-Madhava under her command.

Chandravali and the other sakhīs remain constantly intent upon accomplishing Radha-Madhava’s līlā. They adopt their respective dispositions—including those of ally and apparent rival—so that rasa may shower forth. In reality, Sri Radhika herself is the sovereign of all the groups and presides over Sri Krishna’s manifold līlā. Each attendant’s service is her particular identity and cherished self-conception. Gurudeva directs her to cultivate the many qualities required for the service she has received.

Command

Command is of two kinds: perpetual and occasional. Whatever perpetual service the compassionate sakhī commands should be performed impartially throughout the eight periods of the day, wherever it is required, with complete dedication. From time to time, other services are also assigned according to circumstance and need.

Residence

Gurudeva instructs the practitioner concerning the village of Vraja in which she is to reside, where she was born as a gopī, the village into which she was married, and the grove near a particular pond in which she is to live.

Service

Service means doing whatever the group-sovereign commands, for she herself remains absorbed exclusively in Sri Radhika’s service. If Krishna displays amorous attraction toward such a sakhī, she should not accept it, because that would be improper for Radhika’s maidservant. One must never serve Krishna independently without Radhika’s permission. This alone is true service. The maidservant’s duty is Radharani’s service throughout the eight periods of the day.

Supreme aspiration: the protected maidservant

A pālya-dāsī is one who, inundated by the dense nectar of love, acquires confident intimacy through dearness—who becomes truly “mature”—and who daily arranges, step by step, the līlā pastimes of the dearly beloved Radha and Krishna. With graceful skill she also teaches her own friend Sri Radhika the art of lovingly jealous māna suffused with rasa. The practitioner’s aspiration is that Sri Lalita accept her as just such a protected maidservant.¹