The Kaustubha-gem and the Syamantaka-jewel are friends, like two devotees whose friendship is centered around Śrī-Śrī Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa.

The kiṅkarīs’ friendship is also based on their service to Śrī Radhika. How wonderful is the friendship of Rūpa and Raghunātha! The friendship of Kaustubha and Syamantaka is just like that, accomplished through the līlās! This cannot be experienced without thinking of oneself as Śrī Rādhā’s maidservant.

As long as the mind drags the devotee here and there and keeps him absorbed in bodily consciousness there can be no aim at the truth.
“Why am I always carried away by things that were not there before and that will not remain later? I am ruining myself by forsaking the service of the Lord, who is my all-in-all. I cannot forsake temporary things and strive for the eternal!”

Raghunātha dāsa Gosvāmī lived like a prince before he joined Mahāprabhu. He was as wealthy as the heavenly king Indra, and his wife was as beautiful as an angel, but he gave it all up. Mahāprabhu, being very satisfied with his extraordinary example of loving devotion and renunciation, presented him with a Govardhana-śilā and a guñjā-mālā, thereby offering him to the lotus feet of Giridhārī and Śrī Rādhikā. In this way Śrī Rādhikā took a seat in his heart. The aspirants should also be asleep to the world and be awake to Śrī Rādhārāṇī’s service – that is the teaching of the ācāryas.

Śrī Ānanda Gopāla Gosvāmī