man-mana bhava mad-bhakto
mad-yaji mam namaskuru
mam evaishyasi satyam te
pratijane priyo ‘si me

“Always think about Me, become My devotee by practising bhakti,
worship Me and offer obeisances to Me.
Thus, you will certainly be with Me.
This I promise to you because you are most dear to Me.”
(Bhagavad-gita, 18.65)

This wonderful verse gives us a most inspiring promise. Sri Krishna here tells Arjuna
how he can be with Him for all time.

Interestingly, Krishna starts off with the most important instruction.
His first two words, “man-mana”, are addressing our most important sense, our mind.
He tells us that we should always fill our minds with thoughts about Him.
In this age of Kali, we are most fortunate because we know exactly how to do this in the best way.

Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu came to “engage” our minds in always thinking about Krishna in a most wonderful way which was never possible before.

anarpita-carim cirat karunayavatirnah kalau
samarpayitum unnatojjvala-rasam sva-bhakti-sriyam
harih purata-sundara-dyuti-kadamba-sandipitah
sada hridaya-kandare sphuratu vah saci-nandanah

May the Supreme Lord who is known as the son of Srimati Saci-devi
be transcendentally situated in the innermost chambers of your heart.
Resplendent with the radiance of molten gold,
He has appeared in the Age of Kali by His causeless mercy to bestow
what no incarnation has ever offered before:
the most sublime and radiant mellow of devotional service, the mellow of conjugal love.

The perfect example of this “thinking-about-Me” is Krishna´s most beloved, Srimati Radhika. Not one second is She “not thinking” about Krishna. In fact, it is not even possible for Her to “forget  Krishna”.
Her love is so great and wonderful that even Krishna Himself wanted to come to check it out. She experiences this love at every moment and it increases by the second.

By Sriman Mahaprabhu´s unlimited mercy, we too have the chance to be able to
“think about Krishna” like Radhika does. Her girlfriends, the gopis of Vrindavana are masters of this art of thinking. And of all the gopis, Radhika´s manjaris come very close to her thinking and feeling.
In fact, they feel and think the same as Radhika does by being Her most intimate friends.

By following our Gurudeva who is in the perfect line (parampara) of Sriman Mahaprabhu, we can practise this “man-mana” (thinking about Krishna) in the most perfect way as manjaris for Radhika. We only think about Krishna, because He is
Radhika´s fixpoint in Her thinking and because She loves Him  so much.
As Her dedicated manjaris, we have no “thinking about Him”-business otherwise.

How do we think about Krishna?
We think about Him by imagining our Selves being always together with Srimati Radhika. We think about Him by helping our beloved Radhika in how can She meet with Him.
We think about Him by talking to Her about Him when She is not with Krishna.
All our thoughts about Krishna are centered on our service to Srimati Radhika. Our only thoughts are: “How can we bring both of Them together?”.

So, we start by listening to the wonderful pastimes of Radha and Krishna. In sadhu-sanga we hear about Them and we fall in love with Them.
There is nothing more beneficial for the sadhaka than to hear about the pastimes of Radha and Krishna from the mouth of advanced Vaishnavas, best of all from their Gurudevas.

By listening to and reading these pastimes we develop greed in us to immerse our Self in these pastimes. We begin to desire to become one of the closest friends of Srimati Radhika and by constantly thinking and hearing these pastimes, they get real more and more and we become pure more and more .

Radhakunda Mahanta Srila Ananta das Babaji writes about the stages of “deep thinking (meditation)” and he quotes Sripad Jiva Goswami:

  “There are five stages of smarana (meditation). smarana itself is a random, accidental remembrance of Hari’s names and forms, dharana means drawing one’s mind away from all other topics and holding Sri Hari’s names and forms within the mind in an ordinary way, dhyana means specifically meditating on some forms and names, dhruvanusmriti means to meditate continuously like a stream of nectar, and samadhi means simply to transcendentally envisage the object of meditation.
    On the path of raganuga-bhakti, a practitioner who is fixed in smarana (mediation) firmly fixes his mind on his siddha-svarupa (spiritual form) and forgets about his material body and everything that is related to it, entering into the kingdom of lilass and becoming blessed by attaining a greatly astonishing kind of relish. This is called expertise in meditation, or the relish of nectar.”

So here we learn what it needs to actually take part in the pastimes of Sri Sri Radha and Krishna. And Krishna Himself says so in the words “bhava mad bhakto”:
Our love should transform into love for Him by performing bhakti.
To be with Radha and Krishna in Vrindavana, there is no other way than to perform raganuga-bhakti by following the eternal beloveds of Krishna who are ragatmika-bhaktas.
They are our role models.

We may start with performing vaidhi-bhakti by following a regulated devotion, but when the aforementioned greed awakens in us, we have only one goal:
To serve the Divine Couple in Vrindavana.
Our love and our actions aim at pleasing Them by always being under the guidance of our Gurudeva. We learn how to perform raganuga-bhakti from him and we mature on our way to perfection.
We go through the various stages in our life of bhakti and on the way, we develop more and more love for Radha and Krishna and we become very steady and we will not waver a bit.
We practice the items of bhakti actively with this body and we mediate on our eternal svarupa and its eternal seva with our “now-beginning-to-become-spiritualized” minds.  

“One should serve both in his present sadhaka-form and in his siddha-form, following in the wake of the residents of Vraja, desiring to have feelings similar to theirs.”
(Sripad Rupa Goswami in his BRS 1.2.295).

This means “bhava mad bhakto“: Become a lover of Mine.”

Srila Narottama das Thakur sings in his Prema-bhakti-chandrika:

bhagavata sastra marma,            
nava vidha bhakti dharma,
sadai koribo susevana
anya devasraya nai,
tomare kohilo bhai,
ei bhakti parama bhajana
(11) 

    “The Bhagavata Purana teaches us nine kinds of devotional service, which I will always render nicely. I tell you, brother, I do not seek shelter of other gods. This devotion is the highest worship.”

In theb Srimat Bhagavatam, we can find this verse (7.5.23-24)

sravanam kirtanam vishnoh smaranam pada sevanam arcanam vandanam dasyam sakhyam atma nivedanam.
iti pumsarpita vishnau bhaktis cen nava lakshana kriyeta bhagavatyaddha tan mano’dhitam uttamam.

“Hearing, chanting and remembering Sri Vishnu (Krishna)’s glories, serving His feet, worshipping His image in the temple, praising Him, serving Him, making friends with Him and surrendering oneself to Him — by offering this nine-fold process of devotion directly to the Lord, a living entity performs, in my opinion, the greatest study.”

Under the guidance of our beloved Gurudeva, we practice these limbs of bhakti and thus we become lovers of Radha´s Krishna.
With our material bodies we worship Radha and Krishna with different items and in our at first mentally conceived spiritual bodies we worship Them too.

We offer obeisances, we offer cooked food (bhoga), we offer incense, flowers, etc…
It is a wonderful process and our mind fills up with thoughts about the Divine Couple in all circumstances of our lives.
When our love grows more and more into purer and purer forms until it reaches bhava and then finally prema, it is not us who offer obeisances to Krishna.
Krishna becomes “chained” by our love. Especially when we aspire to become manjaris for His most beloved Radhika.
Sometimes He Himself offers obeisances to the manjaris. For example, when Radhika doesn´t want to be with Krishna and He gets no entrance into Her kunja, it is Krishna Who begs the manjaris to console Their svamini.

Srila Ananta das Babaji writes in a commentary to the book “Radha Rasa Sudhanidhi”:

In order to relish the sweetness of Sri Radhika’s mana, Krishna tells Her:
     “He priye candra-“,
and then, after speaking this half sentence, pretends to realize His mistake.
Sri Radhika assumes that Krishna accidentally wanted to address Her rival Candravali, so She becomes silent out of proud anger. Krishna now continues his broken-off sentence and says:
“Priye Candranane (Dear lotusfaced girl)! Why are You now angry with Me?”
Radhika angrily frowns Her eyebrows and says:
“Ohe! Can You conceal the loud sounds of a thunderclap? The granddaughter of Karala (Candravali) always plays in Your heart! Don’t try to hide Your mistake by suddenly changing the word into Candranane! O Lord! I offer My obeisances unto You from a distance! Go to that girl that Your heart desires!”
Thus Svamini frowns Her eyebrows and falls silent. Krishna is very attracted to Srimati’s enchanting beauty at that time and thinks to Himself:

samaroddhura kama karmuka srir vijayi bhru-yugam akulakshi padmam
vidhurikritam apy ati krudhagre mama radha vadanam mano dhinoti
(Vidagdha Madhava)

“Radha’s beautiful face, that is afflicted by feelings of anger, whose eyebrows defeat the beauty of Cupid’s bow, that is victorious in the erotic battle, and whose eyes defeat the lotusflowers in beauty, is pleasing My mind!”

     Krishna tries all kinds of means to pacify Radhika’s anger, but to no avail, so finally He takes shelter of the sakhis.
He offers obeisances to them, and not just in a dry way, just to get His desires fulfilled, no!
These obeisances are like a veritable festival of joy for Him! How beautiful and relishable Nagara is when He takes shelter of the sakhis! The madana-mahabhava of Sri Radhika is in the sakhis’ hands, that’s why rasika sekhara finds so much relish in offering obeisances unto them. When rasika sekhara offers obeisances to the sakhis and flatters them with folded hands, they console Him and bring Him before Srimati to ask Her why She is angry with Him. When they hear Srimati’s explanation, the sakhis, who are on Syama’s side, make Her understand that She is angry without reason:
Krishna would never make such a verbal mistake, calling Her Candravali!
‘Now He is humble, now’s the right time to give up Your pique and become pleased with Him again! If You continue Your huff He will leave, and You’ll greatly regret that later!’       Hearing the sakhis’ arguments, Srimati thinks:
‘They are right! How many times didn’t Nagara call Me Candranane?’
Looking at Her face, the sakhis understand that Srimati’s huff has diminished and that She will forgive Nagara everything if He comes now to apologize to Her.
They return to Syama and say:
“Look, we think that Her anger is subsiding, but simply by offering Your obeisances to us You cannot please Her. You must now bow down to Manamayi (proud Radhika) Herself and beg forgiveness from Her! Only in this way You can get Her mercy!”
An ocean of bliss swells in Krishna’s heart when He hears that the sakhis give Him permission to apologise to Radhika. Rasika Sekhara floats in an ocean of rasa when He falls at rasamayi’s lotusfeet and She gives up Her mana and forgives Him.
Now the blessed sakhis and manjaris can relish the sweetness of the Yugala meeting!”

So, how wonderful actually pure love of Krishna is?
He is totally “sold-out” to the love of a pure hearted sadhaka.
Therefore Srila Rupa Goswami defined pure bhakti like this:

anyabhilasita sunyam jnanakarmadi anavritam
anukulyena krishnanusilanam bhaktir uttama

“The cultivation of activities which are meant exclusively for the pleasure of Sri Krishna, or in other words the uninterrupted flow of service to  Sri Krishna, performed through all endeavours of the body, mind, and speech, and through the expression of various spiritual sentiments ( bhavas), which is not covered by jnana (knowledge aimed at impersonal liberation) and karma(reward-seeking activity), and which is devoid of all desires other than the aspiration to bring happiness to Sri Krishna, is called uttama-bhakti, pure devotional service.”

By the mercy of Sriman Mahaprabhu, we all can become such lovers of Krishna.
This kind of love is the highest goal of human life. The gopis of Vrindavana are the perfect examples. We should try to follow them, even in our so-called “daily-life”.
Sripad Sadhu Maharaja once told me that we can be like manjaris even in our day-to-day affairs.
“Giving in this world means being in the mood of a manjari. Taking means being the enjoyer and we are out of such a mood.”
When we practice selfless love-in-action, we will surely be with Radha and Krishna.
Krishna Himself promises this in this wonderful “man-mana bhava…”-verse.

mām evaiṣyasi satyaḿ te’ – Certainly, Krishna promises, you all we be able to be with Me. We just have to become – pratijāne priyo ‘si me : Very dear to Him.
And nobody in the eternal lila in Vrindavana is as dear to Him as Srimati Radhika and Her maidservants.

tvam gopika vrisharaves tanayantike ‘se
sevadhikarini guro nija-pada-padme
dasyam pradaya kuru mam vraja-kanane shri-
radhanghri-sevana-rase sukhinim sukhabdhau

“O beloved spiritual master, you are always in the presence of the cowherd girl Radha, the daughter of King Vrishabhanu.
Please award me service at your lotus-like feet, which are the proprietors of devotional service.  Please place me in the ocean of joy by bestowing upon me happiness in the mellows of service at the feet of Sri Radha in the kunjas of Vraja Dhama.”
(Sripad Raghunatha das Goswamipad)

We are very fortunate to be able to practice this topmost, never-given-before bhakti.

All glories to Sri Gurudeva!
All glories to Sriman Mahaprabhu!