Appreciating Radharani universal, Gaudiya and personal perspectives, Radhashtami 2022

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Disclaimer: This transcript was generated using AI and may contain occasional errors or inaccuracies.

Lecture Summary

This insightful transcript explores the profound universal and spiritual significance of Srimati Radharani on the auspicious occasion of Radhashtami, shedding light on divine consciousness, love, and devotion.

Key Highlights of Radhashtami and Srimati Radharani

• Inclusive Theology of the Divine: The Bhakti tradition recognizes that the Divine is both male and female, representing a holistic reality where we ultimately understand ourselves as spiritual beings beyond physical designations.
• The Power of Raised Consciousness: Modern challenges stem from a lowered consciousness driven by selfishness and power struggles; true transformation occurs when love is elevated and directed toward the highest reality, Krishna.
• The Dual Role of Srimati Radharani: She is revered both as God in female form (whose love controls even Krishna) and as the topmost devotee who exemplifies the pinnacle of pure devotion.
• Embodiment of Total Selflessness: During the Rasleela pastime, even when specially chosen by Krishna, Radharani’s immediate concern was for the emotional well-being of her sakhis (friends), demonstrating the highest form of expanded consciousness.
• Divine Madness vs. Ordinary Madness: Unlike ordinary madness—which disconnects a person from physical reality into imagination—divine madness connects the soul profoundly to spiritual and ultimate reality.
• The Legacy of Srila Prabhupada: Prabhupada embodied Radharani’s compassionate mood by combining a deep internal absorption in Krishna with an active, inclusive mission to share that love with the world.

Full Transcription

All of you today. Grateful to be here with all of you today on the occasion of Radhahashtami. And I’ll speak broadly on three main themes of how, from a universal perspective, what is the significance of Srimati Radharani? From the specific perspective of the Gaudiya Vaishnav tradition of which we are a part, what is the significance of Srimati Radharani? And then for our spiritual lives at whatever stage we are in, what is her significance? What is her relevance? What is the importance of her blessings? So let’s begin with some verses from the Chaitanya Charita Amrit which illustrate the significance of Srimati Radharani’s very special position.

Now, so here, before I go into the verses, there is two important things to understand. That it is very difficult to actually understand things if we don’t see them in their context. Now, what does seeing things in their context mean? It can mean many things, but specifically, it means that we learn to see where they are being spoken and look at who was speaking to them, what was their intent in speaking to them, and what is the result of speaking to them.

We live in a world today where we live in a world today where there is increasing polarization, increasing violence, increasing demonization of others, and often that results because of a lowered consciousness. And Radharani is the manifestation of the most elevated consciousness that actually, if you consider, it is love that has the greatest potential to elevate our consciousness. When love is replaced by selfishness, by lust, then our consciousness shrinks to what’s in it for me? What can the other person do for me? When people exploit or abuse or violate others, they’re thinking of the other person, they’ve reduced the other person to an object, and what can this person do for me? So when our consciousness shrinks, we don’t even sense the consciousness of the other person.

We see the other person as an object meant for our pleasure. But as our consciousness expands, then we start sensing realities beyond ourselves, and it is love that can cause the expansion of consciousness. But unfortunately, when our love is misdirected or not directed toward the eternal object, then the expansion of our consciousness brings with it the potential to cause great hurt for ourselves.

That means that if we expand our consciousness, we care for someone, we care for something, then what happens is often that person can disappoint us, that person can betray us, that particular cause for which we work could end up disappointing us or turning out to be not all that glorious. So what happens is there is love and there is the object of love. Love can expand our consciousness, love can raise our consciousness, but at whom we are directing that love, that is extremely important.

When we direct that love toward Krishna, who is the highest object of consciousness, who is the highest reality, then our consciousness expands in the fullest way, in a way that is joyful, that is not disappointing, that is not frustrating. So the world, if it needs anything today, it doesn’t need more. We have climate change problems, we have inflation, we have shortage of resources, so many problems, but actually the biggest problem is that people’s consciousness is shrunk, it is lowered and we need to raise consciousness.

And Radharani, her example and her blessings can both enable us to raise our consciousness. So she embodies love, but not just she embodies love at the highest degree, to the highest degree, but she also embodies love directed toward the highest object. So, for example, one way the consciousness has shrunk today is by re-envisioning human history and even current human interactions in terms of power struggles.

That, oh, the whole of human history is what men have been exploiting women. And now it is the time for women to rise. Well, well, yes and no.

Yes. Have people been exploited? Yes. Throughout history, it is just the human tendency with the powerful to exploit the powerless.

It is not just men who exploited women, it is powerful men have exploited powerful men also. So what happens is that we have particular perspectives through which we view things and then that perspective can extend to divinity also. That why should God be male? Well, the Bhakti tradition explains that God is not just male.

In the Abrahamic traditions, God is portrayed as male, but in the Bhakti tradition, it is understood that God is not just male. But before we can understand, is God male or female? Well, the answer in the Bhakti tradition is both, is both male and female. But a more important answer is that before we can understand whether God is male or female or how God is both male and female, we need to understand that we ourselves are neither males nor females.

We are spiritual beings. So we are neither male nor female and God is both male and female. So if we take simply our particular preconceptions, our particular lens and apply it to the divine, then we may not understand things holistically.

Still, even with those lens, the Bhakti tradition is more inclusive because we don’t have God just in a male form. We have God as the divine couple as both male and female. Now Radharani is understood in two ways.

One is that she is, as I said, God in the female form. Radha Krishna ek atma doi deha dhari. She is one soul.

They manifest into two bodies. Ananya nila kari. That they perform pastime.

They rejoice in the pastimes. So there’s God in the male form, there’s God in the female form. And in some ways, God in the female form is considered higher because her love controls even Krishna.

In fact, that is one of the key differences between the various consorts of Krishna that Radharani, her love is so great that when she’s upset, Krishna goes out of her way to please her. So now another understanding that she is God in the female form, but she’s also God manifesting as his topmost devotee. So there are both these roles.

And when we approach Radharani, we approach in both ways that she’s God and she’s also the greatest devotee of Krishna. So as God in the female form, she can bless us through her potency, through her mercy. As a devotee, as the topmost devotee in the female form, of course, devotee is also blessed.

But as the topmost devotee in female, topmost devotee, she exemplifies devotion. She shows what the topmost devotion looks like. So this brief understanding of Krishna is God and Prabhupada said he is establishing international society for Krishna consciousness.

Somebody may say that, okay, that if we say God is both male and female, then why is it not international society for Radha consciousness? Why is it international society for Krishna consciousness? Well, that’s interesting. One of my friends, he’s from a traditional South Indian background. South Indians, they worship God very much in the mood of awe and reverence.

So they said, he says, you people have got it all wrong. Krishna is God. I just referred to him as simply Krishna.

There is no Sri Krishna, no Bhagwan Krishna, just Krishna. Isn’t that disrespectful? And he said, on the opposite, you have Radha and you have a double honorific for Radha. You have first Srimati and then you have Rani.

So it’s a double honorific, not just Radha, Srimati Radharani. So there are double honorific for Radha and zero honorifics for Krishna. What’s wrong with you people? So I explained to him how actually Shri Prabhupada coined an entire term, the English equivalent of Bhagwan, Prabhupada said is the Supreme Personality of God.

And that’s the honorific that Prabhupada used consistently. So it is not that we don’t respect Krishna. It is that actually Prabhupada wanted us to have a personal relationship with Krishna.

Prabhupada had a personal relationship with Krishna. Krishna is the most accessible personal divinity. And Krishna, we worship Krishna in Vrindavan.

And in Vrindavan, nobody refers to Krishna as Bhagwan Krishna, even as Sri Krishna. It’s a Krishna. So Prabhupada brought some glimpses of that Vrajabhav into our relationship with Krishna.

And yes, Prabhupada did systematically talk about Krishna’s position in his books. So anybody who reads the Shastras as an expression of Krishna Prabhupada’s commentary, you will understand Krishna is the ultimate reality. But at the same time, he’s not just the ultimate reality.

He’s the ultimate intimate reality. He’s the ultimate intimate reality. He’s far away.

He’s further than the furthest. And he is closer than the closest. So Prabhupada emphasized that.

Now, on the other hand, okay, that’s the case, then why Radha is having a double honorific. Now, if you see, if you read the commentaries of the books of Rupa Goswami or Jiva Goswami or Vishnu Acharya Thakur, they’re all prominent Acharyas in our tradition, and they have written a lot on Vraja Leela, including the Radha Krishna pastimes. And there they refer to her simply as Radha.

So, I’m sure Bhakta Sudhanshu Thakur would use Sri Radha. But it is Prabhupada who is the first person who coined this term Srimati Radharani. Now, Rani means queen.

Srimati is honorific that refers to one who is imbued with Sriman and Srimati. Srimati means, Sri can mean wealth, it can mean fortune, it can mean opulence, one who is infused, imbued, enriched with all this. So Srimati Radharani.

Now, what was Prabhupada’s point? That in India, there was a tendency that came up, especially after the empirical, the reductionistic lens were applied to the Bhakti tradition and to Brahmin tradition. There’s a tendency to see the Radha Krishna relationship as mundane. And especially because their relationship was in the, what is called the paracurus, I’ll explain what it is soon, that their relationship was often seen as mundane and not just mundane, but as indecent.

And there are people who frivolously claim to justify their own mundane and often immoral activities by saying, actually, you know, they claim to be devotees, and they claim to be saying that, actually, when we do these activities, it’s not we who are doing these activities. It is Krishna who is entering into the male body, it is Radha who is entering into the female body. And when people do immoral activities, it is not we were doing it, it is they were doing through us.

Now, this is perversion. Now, there is an English word called rationalize. Now, rationalize, it’s a verb, which is spelled normally as r-a-t-i-o-n-a-l-i-z-e or s-e depending on which British or American English is used, but rationalize.

However, it can be spelled in different way. And that is a revealing spell, rationalize, r-a-t-i-o-n-a-l-i-z, rationalize. So, when we rationalize, we tell lies, and we use our rational faculty to justify those lies.

So, rationalize. So, what happens is that in such situations, we end up trivializing and distorting that which is sacred, we make it profane. And Prabhupada wanted to prevent that.

And that is why Prabhupada was very emphatic that Radharani should be approached in a very reverential. So, that was still Prabhupada’s that Krishna is approached in a very intimate way, and Radharani is approached in a very respectful way, very reverential way. Actually, Prabhupada even, there is a kund of Radharani, the Radhakund.

And Prabhupada, in our tradition, Radhakund is considered the topmost of holy places. It is considered the embodiment of Radharani’s love in liquid form. And Rupa Goswami and the Gaudiya Vaishnav Acharyas, they talk about bathing in Radhakund as the most purifying and most elevated of activities.

But what happened is, but what happened, unfortunately, is that when devotees went for the first time to bathe over there, they started, they were frivolous, they were swimming and tossing water on each other. And just, they thought it was like a swimming pool. Prabhupada, this is not a swimming pool, this is a sacred place.

And just so frivolous, better don’t bathe in this. Now, some devotees may take that as, I think that is absolute instruction that we should never bathe in the Radhakund. However, I already said that there is context.

Prabhupada has translated the books of the previous Acharyas, the message of the previous Acharyas, where he does say Radhakund, bathing Radhakund is a great fortune and we should tap that opportunity when we get it. But the point is, Prabhupada emphasized the reverential attitude very much. And that’s why Srimati Radharani, that’s why the strong caution when bathing in Radhakund.

And that’s why Srila Prabhupada, he didn’t speak much about Srimati Radharani or Radhashtami. In the entire Bhagavad Gita, Prabhupada refers to Radha only twice. If you do a search for Bhagavad Gita as it is, the word Radha comes only twice in Bhagavad Gita.

And where are those two things? In the introduction, when you… That prayer is there, the Sanskrit of the prayer and the translation of the Sanskrit. Those are the only two places where Radharani is mentioned. So Prabhupada maintained a very reverential attitude.

And what is the idea is that, I earlier said that, I said first in terms of today’s world, Radharani is the embodiment of the highest consciousness and the inspiration for raising our consciousness higher. Now I’m looking at in the Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition, what is the position of Srimati Radharani? So Prabhupada approached Radharani from a very reverential perspective. At the same time, she is at the heart of our tradition.

So I’ll talk about two pastimes of Srimati Radharani that reveal her heart. Or rather, it is one pastime and two parts within that pastime. The Rasleela is considered to be the topmost pastime between Krishna and the gopis, on all of Krishnleela.

So Krishna plays his flute and calls the gopis to the forest for performing pastimes with them. And then the gopis come. And when the gopis come, at that time, Krishna exchanges, talks with the pleasantries and he says, okay, now you go back.

You came here, now you go back. He says, no, we want to be with you. When they insist like that firmly, Krishna says yes.

And then they are performing the dance. And then it seems as if they become proud and Krishna leaves them and goes away. And the gopis are shattered.

And as they’re shattered, they’re looking around, where’s Krishna gone? Now all the gopis, they are of a similar age, they’ve grown up together, they know each other very well. And they look and they see, they’re all here, but one person is not here. And that one person is mentioned in the Bhagavatam, that is elaborated in the, in the, elaborated in the, not in the Bhagavatam, but in the Goswami’s literature and that is Srimati Radharani.

Initially, the reaction is, who is this special person that Krishna has gone with? It’s Radha. They all know that their love, that their love for Krishna is nowhere in compared to the love of Radharani for Krishna. So what happens is, as Radharani is going with Krishna, Krishna is leading her deeper and deeper into the forest.

Initially, she’s elated that Krishna is going with me alone. She feels overwhelmed that, oh, Krishna has selected me for this special attention. But then her heart turns towards others.

She starts thinking that what will be the plight of my Sakhis, of Lalita, of Vishaka, of Dungavidya, of Champaklata, of Suderi, of Rangadevi? They will be shattered by the, by being away from Krishna, by the thought that Krishna has abandoned and rejected them and gone away. And how can I be happy when my dearest friends are so unhappy? This is what is a summit of selflessness. Radharani could have said, I didn’t want that.

I told Krishna come with me. Krishna chose to go with me. If Krishna turned away from them, Krishna is God.

It is Krishna’s choice. And they must have done something because of which Krishna turned away from them. Why should I care? That’s between them and Krishna.

But Radharani does not do that. This is the level of our expanded consciousness. In the yoga tradition, the idea is our consciousness expands, expands, expands, expands till it reaches the ultimate reality.

And then we become immersed in the ultimate reality. That is, that is the yoga tradition. But the bhakti yoga tradition takes it further.

Our consciousness expands from self-centeredness toward bigger and bigger realities till it reaches Krishna. But then when our consciousness reaches Krishna, it doesn’t stop. It’s like our consciousness reaches Krishna and then with Krishna in our consciousness, our consciousness comes back to the world and then embraces the whole world.

That is considered to be the most evolved form of consciousness. Prabhupada was in Vrindavan. Prabhupada’s heart was always in Vrindavan and he was physically in Vrindavan.

And at that time, people of his age were way past 50 or 60. They would go to Vrindavan primarily to retire. And Prabhupada was repeatedly leaving Vrindavan, going to Vrindavan, leaving Vrindavan, going to Vrindavan, leaving Vrindavan.

And finally, Prabhupada left Vrindavan to come to America. However, that is really an external vision. Prabhupada didn’t leave Vrindavan to go to America.

Prabhupada took Vrindavan in his heart and went to America. Now, we can take a pure devotee out of the dham, but we cannot take the dham out of the pure devotee. We can take a pure devotee out of the dham, but he can’t take the dham, dham and a lot of dham out of their heart, out of the pure devotee.

So, wherever Prabhupada went, he manifested in Vrindavan. So, Prabhupada was in Vrindavan and he was relishing, relishing the remembrance of Krishna, the absorption in Krishna. That’s what his heart longed for.

When Prabhupada was in college, his biggest dream, when most of us are in college, our dream is we want to see some some some maybe some Disneyland or something like that. We want to go to some amusement park, some adventure sports. But Prabhupada’s dream was, you know, when can I get enough money to buy the train ticket to go to Jagannath Puri and see Lord Jagannath.

That is Prabhupada. Prabhupada longed to be in the dham, but his consciousness didn’t just expand to reach the Lord. From the Lord, it reached the world again.

And Prabhupada was concerned about all the souls in the world who are bereft of Krishna consciousness, whose shrunk consciousness is causing suffering to them and is causing suffering to others. Prabhupada wanted to reach out to them. So, Prabhupada may not have talked much about Radharani, but he embodied the mood of Srimati Radharani.

He embodied her mood through his service attitude, not just caring for Krishna, but caring for everyone in relationship with Krishna. And then what happened? Srimati Radharani, as she was thinking about her Sakhis, oh, they must be shattered in the absence of Krishna. So, what to do? Krishna was taking her along.

So, she came up with various excuses. Oh, Krishna, that flower is so beautiful. Can you get that flower for me? Now, the Vrindavan forest was filled with many beautiful flowers, but Radharani deliberately pointed to a flower which is high up.

And what would happen is, Krishna would have to jump up, jump up to try to reach that flower. And getting that flower, what would happen is, their movement into the forest would be delayed. And if their movement in the forest would be delayed, the chance of the other Sakhis finding them would increase.

And Krishna would reach out and give the flower. He gave the flower to Radharani. Radharani said, can you put it in my hair? And he put the hair in her head.

And they kept moving forward. And then Radharani again, Krishna, do you see how beautiful this sight is? Look at the moon, how beautiful it is. Can you just stop and look at the moon? In this way, she was making various excuses.

And one time she said, Krishna, that flower, you know, it’s so nice. Can you get it? Now, there was no way even Krishna could jump and reach that flower. Krishna is God, but Krishna does not manifest his Godhood usually during intimate pastimes.

Sometimes he manifests, but most of the time, just acts like a normal human being. So then finally, Krishna told Radharani that, okay, I can’t reach it. I’ll do one thing.

I’ll lift you up. I’ll lift you up and you can reach up and you can take the flower. And he lifted Radharani up.

Radharani was trying to reach, reach. She was deliberating a long time to reach. I can’t reach.

Can you lift me up a little more? Can you lift me up a little more? Now, at one level, this is a very intimate pastime. But another level, it is also reflecting Radharani’s love, not just love between Radharani and Krishna, but it is all Radharani’s concern for her sakhis. And now what happens is the Bhagavatam tells this story, not directly, but through the lens of the sakhis.

And the sakhis, they see that in all the other gopis, Krishna has disappeared. Where has he gone? Then they become like transcendental detectives going on a treasure hunt. And then for them, the treasure is Krishna.

And all along, they’re looking at the footsteps. Oh, there is Krishna’s footstep here, Radharani’s footsteps here. There’s a male footstep, there’s a female footstep.

And they keep going forward. Hey, what happened over there? This one footstep is very deep. Oh, that means Krishna must have been rising up.

That’s why his heels are not there, but his front of the legs are very deep. And here is only one footstep. Oh, here Krishna must have picked up this gopi.

And what were they doing? Oh, they were sweeping a flower. So what happens is the Bhagavatam tells this narrative from this perspective. And then as we go on and on throughout, Radharani is coming up with various excuses.

And still Krishna just keeps moving forward. And then finally Radharani says, what to do now? And she says, Krishna, I’m feeling very tired. Can we just sit for some time? No, she says, Krishna, I’m feeling very tired.

I cannot walk anymore. She doesn’t say, can we sit? I cannot walk anymore. And Krishna apparently becomes angry.

He speaks in a very stern voice. Because this is a forest, I cannot get a palanquin for you, although you are a queen. Therefore, you can climb on my back and I’ll carry you.

And he’s speaking this, but he’s speaking in such an angry tone. Radharani is looking here, there, she’s looking to see, are any of the Sakhis coming? How far can I, how long do I have to keep Krishna waiting? So when she hears Krishna’s voice, she turns around. She’s shocked to hear the sternness, the anger in Krishna’s voice.

And she looks around and she says, Krishna has disappeared. And then she understands what has happened. Because Krishna thought that I was taking his association for granted.

And that’s why Krishna got angry with me. And Krishna went away. And she shattered.

And now actually what happens is she just, it’s, she goes mad. There is mad, there is, there is ordinary madness and there is divine madness. Divine madness is called as Divya Unmad.

Now, if you consider that this is our ordinary reality that we experience, and then somebody goes mad, they become disconnected with the ordinary reality and just go into their mental world, into their imagination. So somebody who is mad, somebody who has gone mad, they may hear voices, although there’s nobody around them. They may start talking with somebody where nobody is next to them, for them to talk with.

So basically, normally we talk about somebody who has become unhinged, that their perceptions and actions have no connection with reality. That’s when we say that that person has gone mad. So there is ordinary madness, but then there is divine madness.

So when a person becomes disconnected from ordinary reality, that is ordinary madness from daily reality. But when somebody becomes disconnected from ordinary reality, but they become connected with the higher reality, that is divine madness. And Ratherhani starts exhibiting this divine madness.

So illustrate this divine madness. If you consider that this is physical reality. So in our day to day, there are, there are cars and buildings and people and our workplace and this physical world, that is where we perceive and we act our perceptions.

Our perceptions go in the direction we perceive outward, we perceive inward and we act outwards. That’s what normally happens. But now when what happens is when somebody is becoming a little imbalanced, unhinged, their connection with the physical world becomes thinner.

That’s why you see this thinner arrows and their connection with their own imaginary world. They’re imagining that becomes too strong. So here, somebody might imagine that there are flying horses and there are all kinds of imaginary objects.

So when a person’s connection with the physical world diminishes and their own, they’ll get lost in the head. That’s the beginning of madness. But this is ordinary madness.

In contrast with that, there is spiritual madness or divine madness. And divine madness is what? Mahaprabhu exhibited that madness. So Ratherhani exhibits that madness.

So what is that? A person may still have some connection in the physical world. They may still have capacity for imagination, but their connection with the spiritual reality where they are communicating with Krishna, they become absorbed in Krishna and they become disconnected from the world. That is divine madness.

And Ratherhani starts exhibiting this divine madness. How? What happens is, although Krishna has disappeared, as if we had stumbled into the forest of Vrindavan at that time, you see Ratherhani all alone, this divinely beautiful goddess standing alone. And it’s almost like she’s talking and talking to the wind or talking to the trees or talking to the sky, talking to the night sky.

There’s nobody there. Who am I talking with? But what happens is Ratherhani sees Krishna there and she’s, although Krishna has gone, she sees Krishna and she’s desperately beseeching Krishna. Please come back.

Please come back. He says, Krishna, Krishna, please don’t leave me and go away. So, Kavi Karanapuri in Anvandavan Champu describes this whole conversation.

So, Ratherhani says, Krishna, please don’t leave me and go away. And Krishna says, I don’t like anyone who becomes proud. Even if you are a great devotee, I don’t tolerate pride.

Krishna, but I had not become proud. I was only concerned about my Sakhis. You had left them and they would be heartbroken.

I said, no, I choose you. I wanted to be with you. Why are you concerned about them? Why are you not concerned about me? I’m concerned about you, Krishna.

But they love you. I was concerned about them because you care for them and they care for you also. Krishna says, I don’t like it when my devotees disrupt my plans.

Krishna, please, please come back. I’ll be with you. I’ll do whatever you tell me.

Ratherhani says, Krishna, it’s too late now. I’m going. Krishna, please don’t leave me.

I’m all alone in this forest. I’m in this forest, in this dark. How will I be with you, without you? Krishna says, the Sakhis you care for so much, they’re also in the dark.

They’re also in the forest. Just as they are well, you’ll also be well. Krishna says, Ratherhani says, but no, Krishna, they at least have each other.

I am completely alone. It is you who brought me here alone. And how can you abandon me now? Krishna is very stern.

He says, everyone has to pay for the consequences of their actions. And then, when Ratherhani hears finality in Krishna’s words, she says, Krishna is gone. And Krishna goes, it’s almost like life goes out of her body.

And she fades. She fades. She swoons over there.

So what’s happening here is that, actually speaking at such a time, the human body has the capacity to experience a certain amount of pain. If the pain becomes too much, if somebody has a terrible accident, then what happens is, if the pain is too much, you become unconscious. There’s bodily injury, but our bodily injury is already there.

But our capacity to tolerate pain is limited. And when the pain seems to be going beyond our threshold capacity to tolerate, then the defense mechanism is to just turn off our consciousness. And this can happen because of physical pain.

This can also happen because of emotional pain. So Kavikaranapu describes that actually Ratherhani would have died over there. But it is, he says, Murcha Devi.

Murcha is personal. So Murcha Devi is the goddess of fainting. So the goddess of fainting comes over there and she embraces Ratherhani.

And because of her embrace, Ratherhani, she doesn’t pass away. She fades. She doesn’t pass away.

She passes out. She fades. And then she’s just lying on the ground shattered.

And all the Gopis are searching. And they’re searching, searching, searching. Sometimes they stumble on her.

And when they see she’s lying over there, so shattered and alone. Initially, they’re feeling, why did Krishna leave all of us to go with her alone? They know this Gopi must be someone special. Krishna loves her so much.

That’s why they’ve gone. Krishna must have gone with her. But still they feel a little, they feel a little bad.

Why did Krishna leave us? But then when they see this Gopi, Krishna has left her also and gone away, then immediately the empathy in their heart comes up. That how much great must have been her pain, her agony. Krishna has gone away from us, but none of us have fainted.

Krishna has left her and she has fainted. So great must be her agony. And so great is her agony.

That means so great must be her love. And immediately they look for a pond nearby, they get some water, they sprinkle water on Radharani’s face and they bring her back to consciousness. And they bring her back to consciousness at that time.

They all, they all, they talk, she’s so broken hearted, she can’t even speak. But somehow in broken words, she tells what has happened. And all the Gopis become resolute.

We have to find Krishna. And they all start searching for Krishna. They search, search, search, they go deep into the forest in searching for Krishna.

But they cannot find Krishna. And this is symbolic. We humans, even if we have a longing for transcendent, longing to know the ultimate reality, longing to know the divine.

No, we cannot know the divine by our own effort. We can perceive the existence of the divine, that God exists, we can make a rational argument for God. But the nature of God, that God is a bluish black cowherd boy who plays a flute and wears a peacock feather, that we cannot arrive at by any reasoning.

For that rational theology is not enough. We need revelational theology. It is only by God’s revelation that we can find him in his fullness.

So the Gopis are searching frantically for Krishna, but they can’t find it. And then they all decided they can’t find Krishna by searching. So they come back.

They come back to the place where they have had the deepest experiences with Krishna. Dhyanamangalam Rathasisamvido Yaro Deshprushaha Kuhakono Manaha Shobha Yantive So they come to the banks of the Yamuna, where Krishna has smiled sweetly at them. Krishna has cast side-long glances at them.

Krishna has revealed his heart and confidence to them. They’ve had the most intimate exchanges of love with Krishna. And there, with their hearts and minds infused with the deep remembrance of Krishna, they sit down in a circle.

And all the Gopis are sitting in a circle, and they’re envisioning that Krishna is in the middle of that circle. And they all start offering prayers to Krishna. And that prayer is the Gopi Gita, in the 31st chapter of the 10th Canto of the Srimad Bhagavatam.

So it is described as Gopyaha Uchuhu. So Gopyaha and Uchuhu, both are plural words. So now what does this mean? Is it that all this Gopi Gita is some song which all the Gopis have memorized before, and all of them are reciting it in chorus? No, not at all.

They are composing it at that moment. Their devotion is expressing itself in exquisite poetry. And each verse, Jiva Goswami explains in the Gopal Champu, that each verse in the Gopi Gita is composed by one one Gopi.

And he explains which Gopi it is. However, when each Gopi is speaking, she is both speaking her heart as an individual, and she is expressing the heart of the entire group as a representative of that group. So there is this, there is individuality and unity in Bhakti.

Sometimes it is unicity and unity in diversity. But that is, you could say individuality and unity, both are demonstratorial. Unity in diversity and diversity in unity.

All the Gopis are praying to Krishna and all their prayers are basically, Krishna, please come back, please come back, please come back. They’re using different arguments to reason with Krishna, please come back, please come back. So the prayer is one.

In that sense, there is unity in diversity. But at the same time, there is also diversity in unity. One prayer, but each prayer is coming from, there’s one request, but each request is coming from different hearts.

Each of those requests are coming from each individual heart, made with a call, impassioned call from a different perspective. And finally, as the Gopis complete their prayer, they’re sitting in a circle, they’re envisioning as if Krishna is there. And then at the end of their prayers, Krishna actually appears.

Krishna appears and reveals himself. So this is actually an amazing pastime at many levels. So Radharani’s love is revealed over here.

But Radharani does not delight, she’s undoubtedly the greatest devotee. But she does not delight in one-upsmanship. I’m the greatest devotee and everybody should know I’m the greatest devotee.

No, the greatness of her devotion is that even when Krishna selects her, she is concerned about other devotees. And eventually Krishna comes back and says to all the Gopis that you have conquered my heart, that you have rendered such service that I can never repay you. So bhakti is both an individual activity and a collective activity.

And Radharani, by her example, demonstrates that. Krishna is pleased when we remember him exclusively. We focus our heart on remembering him.

But Krishna is also pleased when we are concerned about the devotees. We seek their welfare. We try to serve them.

And in this combination of expanding our consciousness toward Krishna and expanding our consciousness toward other devotees. Through both of these, we can actually become more and more Krishna conscious. So we could say extending our consciousness toward Krishna directly is reclusive bhakti.

Reclusive bhakti means we turn away from the world to turn toward Krishna, focus directly on Krishna. But bhakti is not just reclusive. It is also inclusive.

Where we include the world, we include other devotees, include not just other present devotees, but other potential devotees also. And we try to connect them with Krishna. We try to provide them an opportunity to raise their consciousness.

That was Shri Prabhupada’s mood. Shri Prabhupada could immerse himself in his bhajan. When Prabhupada would sing Vaishnav bhajans, he would just get transported to another world.

Prabhupada would do kirtans, sometimes close his eyes and just absorb himself. Prabhupada could do that. Prabhupada would then open his eyes wide.

And then you pay attention to who was there. And he would share Krishna’s love with them, offer prayers for them on their behalf of Krishna. One time in Australia, one woman asked Prabhupada, Swamiji, can you pray for me? And Prabhupada replied, I’m always praying for you.

Otherwise, what reason would I have to travel so far all over the world? So Prabhupada was actually, Prabhupada’s Krishna consciousness was both reclusive and inclusive. And that Prabhupada was manifesting Radharani’s mood. And we can pray to both Srimati Radharani and to Shri Prabhupada to give us mercy by which we all can raise and expand our consciousness so that our consciousness reaches Krishna and our consciousness reaches others in a mood of service to Krishna, drawing them closer to Krishna and thereby drawing ourselves closer to Krishna.

So I’ll summarize. I spoke three main points today. First, I talked about how Bhakti tradition has a very inclusive theology that God is not just male, but both male and female, but it is a spiritual theology.

So we need to understand that we are neither male or female because we are spiritual beings. And then within that, talked about how within the Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition, Radharani is central. Prabhupada was very reverential because Radharani’s dealing with Krishna could be easily misunderstood as mundane or as even immoral.

So Prabhupada was, that’s why he used Srimati Radharani. He didn’t talk much about Radharani. But he introduced us to the whole tradition where there’s so much discussion about Radharani.

And in that connection, I talked about two pastimes of Radharani or two incidents in the same pastime. First is, even when she is with devotees, even when she’s with Krishna, she’s concerned about others, about her sakhis. So a devotee doesn’t want to enjoy Krishna for himself or herself.

A devotee wants to share Krishna with everyone else. And then, and Krishna left her also, she went to a state of divine madness and discussed how that is different from ordinary madness. Ordinary madness is where we just become disconnected about physical reality and go into imagination.

Whereas in divine madness, we can disconnect with physical reality, but we get connected with higher reality, the ultimate reality. And finally, there’s the Gopi Gita in which Radharani is central, but she does not take a central position. She actually embodies with all the Gopis, unity in diversity and diversity in unity.

Actually, Prabhupada had that similar mood of Radharani, not just absorption in the Lord, but absorption in compassion for all living beings. And with that, he attracted millions of people towards Krishna. And we can also pray for Radharani’s mercy and Prabhupada’s mercy.

Thank you very much. Thank you so much for this wonderful class. We want to express on behalf of Hare Krishna Africa platform, a deep appreciation for honoring our invitation to come and give this wonderful sharing on this day.

We know you’re busy and then we know that you have next engagement in the short term, but I don’t know if it is not going to be too inconvenient. Can you give like 10 minutes so that we can ask one or two questions? This will be one question. I had to leave for a program immediately.

I’m sorry about that. One question. There’s a question.

Okay. Who’s going to be the person to have the questions? Well, Hare Krishna, thank you so much for giving me the opportunity and Shri Kirtanjali Prabhu. I think we may have to let you go and we’ll ask you a question next time because you are very busy.

The question may take different turns. We really appreciate your presence here and the love and guidance given to us. Thank you so much.

Thank you very much for this opportunity to speak and wish you all a very happy Radhashtami. Hare Krishna. Thank you.