Hare Kṛṣṇa,
SB 10.31.19: O dearly beloved! Your lotus feet are so soft that we place them gently on our breasts, fearing that Your feet will be hurt. Our life rests only in You. Our minds, therefore, are filled with anxiety that Your tender feet might be wounded by pebbles as You roam about on the forest path.
The gopīs’ love for Kṛṣṇa is as deep as a bottomless ocean and as vast as an endless expanse of sky. Such love is inconceivable and wholly unimaginable to the material mind.
Who other than the most exalted gopīs’ can say “Those extremely tender lotus feet, which we hesitate to place upon our breasts for fear of injuring them, are wandering about in the forest.” (SB 10.31.19 Sārārtha-darśini)
Or “O dear one! We hold them because we see that You gain satisfaction when Your feet are held on our breasts. Seeing that You derive pleasure from pressing Your feet on our breasts, we accept that, but we experience grief imagining that Your tender feet are feeling pain. Therefore, we will hold them very carefully.” (SB 10.31.19 Sārārtha-darśini)
Or “Our lives are only in You, for our life is You. As long as You are comfortable, then even if we have to suffer this much tribulation, we will remain alive. “ (SB 10.31.19 Sārārtha-darśini)
These statements are possible to be made by one who has intense prema for Kṛṣṇa. This is a state of maha-bhava. The gopis’ feeling of grief in fearful anticipation of the beloved’s distress, even in the midst of a mood of intimacy, is a symptom of mahā-bhāva.
The gopis are the most exalted devotees of Kṛṣṇa because they have given up social customs, scriptural injunctions, bodily demands, fruitive action, shyness, patience, bodily pleasures, self-gratification, the path of varṇāśrama-dharma, as well as their own relatives and their punishment and scolding, for the sake of serving Lord Kṛṣṇa. (CC Adi 4.167-169)
“Their relationship with Kṛṣṇa is only for the sake of His enjoyment. There is not the slightest taint of lust in the gopīs’ love. The gopīs do not care for their own pleasures or pains. All their physical and mental activities are directed toward offering enjoyment to Lord Kṛṣṇa. Among the gopīs, there is not a pinch of desire for sense gratification. Their only desire is to give pleasure to Kṛṣṇa, and this is why they mingle with Him and enjoy with Him.” (CC Adi 4.172, 174, 218)
The speciality of gopīs’s bhava is that it is pure, uncontaminated emotion. They have no knowledge or consciousness of the Lord’s opulence (aiśvarya-jñāna-yukta). Obsessed with pure love, without knowledge of opulences, the gopīs sometimes chastise Kṛṣṇa. That is a symptom of pure ecstatic love. (CC Antya 7.41)
This is why Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu concluded that ramya kacid-upasana vrajavadhu-vargena ya Kalpita – The highest and most pleasing type of worship of Krishna is done by the Vraja gopis.
We, in the Gaudiya parampara, are expected to follow in the footsteps of the Vraja gopis. Even Uddhava desires to take on his head the dust of the gopīs’ lotus feet.
“The gopīs of Vṛndāvana have given up the association of their husbands, sons and other family members, who are very difficult to give up, and they have forsaken the path of chastity to take shelter of the lotus feet of Mukunda, Kṛṣṇa, which one should search for by Vedic knowledge. Oh, let me be fortunate enough to become one of the bushes, creepers or herbs in Vṛndāvana, for the gopīs trample them and bless them with the dust of their lotus feet.” (SB 10.47.61)
“One who is attracted by that ecstatic love of the gopīs does not care about popular opinion or the regulative principles of Vedic life. Rather, he completely surrenders unto Kṛṣṇa and renders service unto Him. If one worships the Lord on the path of spontaneous love and goes to Vṛndāvana, he receives the shelter of Vrajendra-nandana, the son of Nanda Mahārāja.” (CC Madhya 8.221-222)
The heart of this lesson is that one should aspire solely for Kṛṣṇa’s happiness, regardless of the sacrifices required—just as the gopīs so perfectly demonstrated. Though it is a lofty ideal, it becomes possible when we sincerely follow the footsteps of the devoted servants of the Vraja gopīs.
“I am not a brāhmaṇa, I am not a kṣatriya, I am not a vaiśya or a śūdra. Nor am I a brahmacārī, a householder, a vānaprastha or a sannyāsī. I identify Myself only as the servant of the servant of the servant of the lotus feet of Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa, the maintainer of the gopīs. He is like an ocean of nectar, and He is the cause of universal transcendental bliss. He is always existing with brilliance. ” (Padyavali 74)
All glories to Srila Prabhupada!
Krsna Katha 