Śrī Śrī Utkalika Vallari

A Vine Of Eager Aspirations After The Service Of  Śrī-Śrī-Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa
(Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī)

With ‘Makaranda Kaṇā-Vyākhyā’ – (Commentary called ‘A drop of the honey from this vine of eagerness’) by Rādhākuṇḍa Mahānta Paṇḍita Śrī Ananta dāsa Bābājī Mahārāja

VERSE 34:

sākṣāt-kṛtiṁ bata yayor na mahattamo’pi
kartuṁ manasy api manāk prabhutām upaiti
icchannayaṁ nayanayoḥ pathi tau bhavantau
jantur vijitya nijagāra bhiyaṁ hriyaṁ ca

O Śrī Rādhā-Mādhava! How amazing! Although even the greatest accomplished souls were not able to get Your majestic audience even slightly within the mind, this living being has now swallowed all shame and fear by desiring You to cross the path of his eyes!

DURĀŚĀḤ (Vain Hope)

Makaranda Kaṇā Vyākhyā:

In the previous verse Śrī Rūpa Gosvāmī prayed that his eyes may become astonished by the sweetness of the Divine Pair, and he laments in sādhakāveśa (the consciousness of an aspirant), in great humility, considering himself to be quite unworthy. Humility breeds love and love breeds humility, they are each other’s cause and effect. This goes especially for the supremely humble love-in-separation of the devotees of Vraja.

Eager and humble prayer is the very life of devotion, and this attracts the mercy of the Lord. Although the Gosvāmīs are eternal associates of the Lord they came down to earth and acted like ordinary sādhakas just to show the real aspirants the path of humility and eager devotion. Even now innumerable aspirants benefit from their great example, keeping it before their eyes and thus treading the path of greatly enthusiastic devotion, following in their footsteps.

Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī says: “How rarely the lotus-feet of Rādhā and Mādhava, that are not perceived even once in the meditations of the greatly advanced sages, are attained!” Śrīpāda Prabodhānanda Sarasvatī has written:

yo brahma rudra śuka nārada bhīṣma mukhyair
ālakṣito na sahasā puruṣasya tasya
sadyo vaśīkaraṇa cūrṇam ananta śaktiṁ
taṁ rādhikā caraṇa-reṇum anusmarāmi
(Rādhā Rasa Sudhānidhi – 4)

“I constantly remember the foot dust of Śrī Rādhikā, whose unlimited power instantly subdues even the Supreme Person (Śrī Kṛṣṇa), Who Himself cannot be easily seen even by the greatest souls like Lord Brahmā, Lord Śiva, Śukadeva, Nārada Muni and Bhīṣma.”

The purport of this is that Lord Brahmā and Nārada Muni were somewhat able to see Kṛṣṇa playing some of His childhood pastimes, but they were not able to see His enchanting adolescent pastimes with the Vraja-sundarīs, because it is in all respects difficult to enter into these pastimes for anyone who is in a male consciousness.

The worship of Vraja is one of pure sweetness. Kṛṣṇa as the prince of Vraja, the embodiment of spiritual sweetness, is unattainable through respectful and reverential worship.

Caitanya Caritāmṛta says – aiśvarya jñāne nā pāya vrajendra-nandana and – rāga bhaktye vraje svayaṁ bhagavān pāya; vidhi bhaktye pārṣada dehe vaikuṇṭhe yāya:

“Through the practise of spontaneous devotion one attains the Original Form of Godhead Kṛṣṇa in Vraja, and through the practice of formal, reverential devotion one attains the spiritual body of an associate of Lord Viṣṇu in Vaikuṇṭha.”

What to speak of these liberated souls, even the friends, servants and parents of Kṛṣṇa in Vraja cannot enter into the amorous pastimes of Śrī Rādhā-Govinda!

sabe eka sakhī-gaṇa ihāra adhikāra
(C.C.)

“Only the sakhīs can enter into it.”

Boyfriends like Subala, who are able to enter into these pastimes, have also taken shelter of the mood of the sakhīs.

Once Kṛṣṇa sent His eternal servant and friend from Mathurā and Dvārakā, Uddhava, to Vraja to console the gopīs, who were suffering the pangs of separation from Him after He had left Vraja for Mathurā, and when Uddhava saw the high waves of the gopīs’ ecstatic love-in-separation he became stunned of astonishment and realised how inferior his love for Kṛṣṇa was to theirs. Seeing this superexcellent love of the gopīs, that is vaster than millions of oceans, Uddhava prayed for birth even as grass or a vine in Vraja, so that he could have at least their footdust on his head.

āsām aho caraṇa reṇu juṣām ahaṁ syāṁ
vṛndāvane kim api gulma latauṣadhīnām
yā dustyajaṁ svajanam ārya-pathaṁ ca hitvā
bhejur mukunda padavīṁ śrutibhir vimṛgyām
(Śrīmad Bhāgavata 10.47.61)

“O! What a rare thing I am desiring! All the blades of grass, vines and herbs in Vṛndāvana are most blessed and fortunate, because they can easily carry the foot dust of the cowherd wives on their heads! If I could just take birth as any of these vines, straws and bushes myself then I could also attain this rare footdust of the gopīs and become blessed. These gopīs have given up the path of local tradition and virtuous behaviour, which is normally hard to renounce even for the goddess of fortune, who worships the Lord as being the goal of all the world and all the Vedic scriptures. She also does not have that passionate, eager devotion! The gopīs, though, worship Kṛṣṇa as the prince of Vraja with great passionate love, leaving the path of virtue and their family-members, totally relying on Mukunda, something which is not even found by the Vedas, although they search for it!”

The purport of this is that the gopīs attained Kṛṣṇa with passionate, eager, love-anointed devotion, and the same Kṛṣṇa (in His Vraja-feature) was and is not perceivable by (following) the Vedic regulations and by great saints like Uddhava. The Vedic scriptures and the great Vedic saints may instruct us to follow the path of injunctions, but how can they ever understand this great loving thirst?

From this it is easily understood how rarely the desire to see the crown jewel of gopikās, Śrī Rādhārāṇī, and the Lord of Her Life Śrī Govinda is attained, and that actually counts for the saints and the scriptures in all ages.

After each day of Brahmā, viz. at the end of each kalpa, at the end of each Dvāpara-yuga, Śrī Kṛṣṇa descends to earth, and in the following Kali-yuga Vrajendra-nandana, assuming the mood and complexion of Śrīmatī Rādhārānī, descends again in Śrī Navadvīpa to fulfill three wishes He could not fulfill in His Vraja-pastimes in the Dvāpara-yuga , as Śrī Gaurasundara, to preach the confidential worship of Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa. That is why the mahājanas (great Bengali poets) sing:

yadi gaura nā hoto, ki mene hoito,
kemate dharitām de.
rādhāra mahimā, prema rasa sīmā,
jagate jānāto ke

“If Gaura would not have come, how would it have been? Who would have shown the world the limits of Rādhā’s glorious love for Kṛṣṇa?”

madhura vṛndā- vipina mādhurī,
praveśa cāturī sāra.
varaja yuvati, bhāvera bhakati,
śakati hoito kāra.

“Who would have been able to enter into the devotional mood of the young girls of Vraja, which is the essence of cleverness, and into the sweetness of sweet Vṛndāvana?”

Śrī Rūpa Gosvāmī is Vraja’s Rūpa Mañjarī herself, descending along with Śrīman Mahāprabhu to bless the world with mañjarī bhāva, bringing the storehouse of mañjarī bhāva down, keeping this treasure within his own books, and also giving the perfect example of devotional eagerness and humility, the ornaments of a devotee.

That’s why Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī says:

“Alas! What a vain hope for a foolish and lecherous person like me to see that Divine Pair, Whose audience is not even attained by the greatest souls in the mind? Alas! Have I completely swallowed all fear and shame?”

he śrī govinda rasikendra cūḍāmaṇi!
he vṛndāvaneśvari! rādhā ṭhākurāṇi!
yogīndra munīndra yoto mahājana
tāhādera-o sudurlabha yugala darśana
sei sthāne manda buddhi āmi akiñcana;
sākṣāt korite cāhi yugala caraṇa
asambhava prārthanāte āmi lajjā bhaya
sab jaya koriyāchi heno mone loy

“O Śrī Govinda! Crown jewel of relishers! O Vṛndāvaneśvari! Rādhā Ṭhākurāṇi!
Who am I, a wretched fool, that I covet the direct darśana of the lotus-feet of this Pair, which cannot be perceived even by the greatest mystics and philosophers?
I think I must have conquered all shame and fear when I offer such an impossible prayer!”