The Enigma of Radha
Secret of a Divine Mystery
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**Yato vaacha nivarthanthe
aprapya manasaa saha**
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Devotees of Sri Krishna relate a lot about Radha.
But I can only call her a Divine Mystery.
This has ever remained a mystery, because God's relation to the world, and His devotees is an unsolved mystery.
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The specific significance attached to the relationship between Sri Krishna and Radha is the supernal LOVE that operates between God and the world.
The world is ruled by LOVE, which is the quintessence of God. The basic stuff of God's Being may be said to be Love, Joy, Delight, Bliss, Ananda.
The human mind is not expected to understand God.
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Read any Purana or any Epic: you will never be able to understand the relation between Krishna and Radha.
For the human vehicle to contain Divine Mystery, it has to have the capacity to bear the fire of God's Glory.
The embrace of God is the embrace of fire, and no man has lived as man after having seen and embraced God.
The Radhakrishna mystery is a secret, even as God Himself is a secret. What can be a greater secret than God's Existence!
You cannot know where God is, or what God is doing, or why God has created the world.
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Thus it is that when we read the Srimad Bhagavata Purana, the Brahma-vaivarta Purana and certain other texts where such extreme forms of divine relation are expounded, we retrace our steps and turn back dumbfounded.
"Speech and mind turn back from that which they are not supposed to express or understand or think. "
There is a fear in the human individual, a fear, on the one hand, of losing the meaning that one attaches to the laws operating in human society and, on the other hand, the fear of losing oneself in what devotees call Love of God.
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The term 'Love of God' may mean either love that a devotee evinces in regard to God, or the love that God has for a devotee.
Either way, we can take this term, 'Love of God'.
There is no half-hearted and mediocre attitude in respect of God. Either it is a whole-souled dedication or it is a nothing.
There are other shackles by which we are bound to this earth, all of which are, as it were, steel chains with which we are bound to our own personalities and prejudices, which have to melt into a liquefied form before God.
The very thought of it will melt the human individual.
This melting of the human individuality is called Love of God.
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We can never entertain true affection and true love in regard to anything in this world, because we are mostly hypocrites.
We are never true to ourselves nor true to others.
This is why we cannot understand the relationship between Radha and Krishna,
The attempt on the part of the soul to understand this mystery, is an attempt to dissolve one's personality, and no one is prepared for it.
Man today is unfit for this sacrifice.Nothing can be worse for man than man's own individuality.
He carries this impurity before God and refuses to understand superhuman operations in this divine world, the Kingdom of God which is this very earth.
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Our blessedness and well-being consist in realising that we cannot understand God and His Leelas and in expecting and praying for His divine grace for our spiritual uplift in any way that He thinks fit.
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Raasalila is the other aspect of this Divine Mystery. It is very magnificently, gloriously and touchingly described in the Rasa-Panchadhyayi of the Srimad Bhagavata,
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( Extracted from the Sri Radha-Ashtami message given by Sri swami Krishnananda,a great disciple of swami Shivananda Saraswathi of Rishikesh. The original, along with other messages given by Swami Krishnanada during various spiritual festivals, can be found in Swamiji's book, "Spiritual Import of Religious Festivals". published by the Divine Life Society ,Rishikesh, India. It is also available for free download on the Society's web site.)
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