The Story of Uddhav and Radha: Love's Supremacy

In fact, the whole story of Udhav Ji meeting Radha Ji is about this. All of you know this story. I think maybe on Zoom they may not be, so I'll just share a quick—and I'm the worst teller of the story, so please don't rely on my telling of it. So Lord Krishna had a very close friend who was a Mahagyani. His name was Udhav Ji. So what happened is that one day Lord Krishna was missing Radha Ji so much that he was physically ill in bed with the amount that he was missing her. You see, now Udhav Ji was Ashtavakra variety of sage, so he went to Lord and said, 'My Sakha, my friend, don't you see that your Maya has got you? You see, what are you crying over a woman? You are the Lord of this universe. None of this is real. You see, how could you be so badly caught in Avidya?'

So the version of the story I like, Krishna being the only trickster more than Maya who's ever been, said, 'Yes, yes, thank you brother, you open my eyes. I now see how badly I was caught up in Maya. You see, but now there's a problem. All these villagers of Vrindavan, they are caught up in the same affliction, you see. So can you do me a favor? I have some busy, you know, kingdom stuff to run. Can you go to my dear Vrindavan and explain to all of them that this is all Maya? You see, they're wasting time remembering me and crying.' And this part I wish I could tell better, but so Udhav Ji takes it on to himself, the Mahagyani, that 'I will go and enlighten people,' see. So he gets to Vrindavan and there he sees everybody is missing Krishna like they've lost their very breaths. They just crying out of love for him. And he said that there was a river which was not on the maps, and that river was because they had all cried so much since he had left. You see, so they saw that the king's chariot is coming.

Remembering me and crying. And this part I can't—I wish I could tell better—but so Uddhav Ji takes it on to himself, the Mahagyani, that 'I will go and enlighten people,' you see. So he gets to Vrindavan and there he sees everybody is missing Krishna like they've lost their very breaths. They are just crying out of love for him. And he said that there was a river which was not on the maps, and that river was because they had all cried so much since he had left. You see? So they saw that the king's chariot is coming. So they thought that their beloved Krishna, who played with them when he was a baby and a young child, he has come. And all of them got their hopes up saying, 'We get to see our beautiful Krishna again.' And they see that not Krishna, but somebody else who is looking very royal has come. So they welcome him first and they say, 'Oh, have you got us a message from our beloved one?'

So he says yes, you see. And some Gopis are there, some of Krishna's friends, Sakhas, are there. So he says, 'Yes, Krishna has told me, he has sent me here to enlighten all of you that you are badly stuck in Maya because you are attached to a form. You're badly stuck.' So they hear his report and all of them got deeper into that missing of Krishna and say, 'See this trickster? He didn't come. Not only has he not come, he sent a friend who is telling us such bitter things—that our love for our Krishna was just Maya, it was never real, that what we feel for him was not reality, it was just an attachment.' So like this, and something is starting, as seeing their love and how much they love Krishna, something is starting to happen to Uddhav Ji. He's starting to waver a bit, you see.

Then—it's a long story, a beautiful one, and in Hindi it's available, maybe we can translate—but then he meets Radha Ma herself, the very embodiment of the love of God. So she tells him that... so she hears what he has to say. And for a long time she doesn't know what to say because here's a man who's telling her that her very existence, her very being, the light in her heart itself is false, is Maya, is something to be thrown away. So then she tells him that... so which means that your seeing is incomplete. Is it? You have seen the truths, but your intellect has gotten hold of that truth and you missed the love.

But just seeing how she was and how much in the outer grief, but how much she was shining, having given up on herself, her body, her mind, her intellect, having handed over everything to the Lord and in that apparent grief of separation, of not being with him. And yet she was the most shining being that he had ever encountered. So he couldn't make sense of it. How can this one be such a beautiful embodiment of light and yet seemingly be caught up in some worldly Maya attachment, you see? So then what happened is that in that love that he felt with everyone, he himself started to fall in love in his heart and he just wanted to taste that love more and more.

So they told him, 'Go now, go. We are not listening to you. We are not going to be enlightened your way. We are happy with our way. We are happy in our separation, in that bittersweet love in our heart for the Lord. You go, go.' He said, 'No, I want to stay at Radha's feet. Can she teach me? Can she become my teacher?' So then, the discipleship of Radha Ji, then Uddhav Ji became a real sage where he understood the value of Bhakti, the value of devotion, the value of unconditional love for God.

And we lose the pride of knowledge itself and have only one of two things: we can have knowledge of our pride, or we can have pride of our knowledge. Humility is to have knowledge of our pride. Arrogance is to have pride of knowledge. And that knowledge which makes us proud is not capital K Knowledge anyway. It has been now contaminated and it has become intellectual knowledge. This is spiritual pride. So we must never feel that one path is lower. 'These stupid villagers of Vrindavan, let me go teach them what is reality. What Krishna, Krishna they keep doing.'