Among the Gopis, the foremost devotees of Krishna were Radhika and Neeraa. Before Uddhava left, he heard them address Krishna as the Rama-parrot and pleaded for a vision of Krishna to assuage their grief-stricken hearts. Uddhava asked Radhika, who was lying unconscious on a sand-dune, whether she had any message for for Krishna. Recovering her senses, Radhika thought only Krishna. She cried:
Were you a tree, growing upwards,
I would cling to you like a creeper;
Were you a blossoming flower,
I would hover you like a bee;
Were you the mountain Meru
I would cascade like a river;
Were you the boundless sky,
I would be in you like a star;
Were you the bottomless deep
I would merge in you like a river;
Where are you, Oh Krishna?
Whither have you gone, Krishna!
Have you no pity, Krishna! Krishna!
On seeing Radhika in this piteous state, Uddhava’s heart melted. He realised that Krishna had sent him on this mission to the Gopis to make him learn what is true Bhakti (devotion) Uddhava realised that Krishna had enacted that episode to show to him that even those well versed in the Shastras had to learn the inner truth about true devotion from the one-pointed, unalloyed devotion shown by the Gopis towards Krishna Love of God is the means and goal. This was the secret revealed by the Gopis. They saw love in everything – in the music of Krishna’s flute, which filled the world with love and flooded the parched earth with love. (SSS Vol.16, pp. 128-129)
‘O bee, why don’t you go back and tell Krishna
That He should look at us at least once?
Can you not tell Krishna to illumine
Our dark hearts with His resplendent form?
Our life has become like a dried tree,
Please tell Krishna that
He should look at us at least once?
Can you not tell Krishna to illumine
Our dark hearts with His resplendent form?
Our life has become like a dried tree.
Please tell Krishna to out some life into it? ( Song in Telugu)
(Message sent to Krishna through Uddhava by Gopikas)
Radhika prayed:
‘O Krishna, we are anyway going to die
Because of separation from You.
Please allow us to be with You
At least in Your next incarnation,
If You take the form f a tree,
Allow us to be the creepers that will twine around You.
Let us be the honeybees hovering over You.
If You stand like Meru mountain,
Let us be like a waterfall flowing from it,
If You become a mighty ocean,
Let us become the rivers ready to merge in it. (Poem in Telugu)
(SSS Vol.32 Part II, pp. 209-210)