(Our darling Krishna has deserted us. We are ignorant and unintelligent. We do not possess good qualities to attract him.)
The Gopis are looking for their own faults. They find themselves weak and unintelligent. They felt that they didn’t have any good qualities in them to attract Shree Krishna. They were not courteous nor had the right manners. There was no refinement in their speech or conversations. They were harsh to Shree Krishna. Shree Krishna had deserted them because of this.
The Gopis are lamenting in grief, “O God! O Krishna! We are your humble servants. Please overlook our drawbacks and forget us not. We yearn to see your face and to listen to your sweet speech.
(O God! Please don’t forget us. We are your humble servants. Please be kind to us and favour us with your blissful darshan. We trust in you. We cannot live without you. Pleasure is like pain to us when we do not have your darshan. O Lord of Nishkulanand! Please tell us how to maintain solace without your darshan?)
The Gopis have lost their physical consciousness. They are not at peace. Don’t forget God in your race in life. Remember Him carefully.
A gentleman drove his car from his house. His wife saw him going out. She asked, “Where are you going?”
The husband said, “I don’t know where I will go! All I know is I am just in my car to drive away somewhere.”
His wife said, “Don’t talk nonsense. Act wisely!”
We must know about our destination. How will you go somewhere without knowing where to go? Define your destination. Determine in your mind to get there. Don’t waste time in senseless roaming.
A man has come into the world with his car-like body. He has to decide where he desires to go. Where he intends to go. Have you determined your destination? Where will you go after death? Where? The divine abode? The Lokas? Or the world? The body will have to adhere to the limits of life - the limits of time. Life has to end at some time and one will have to leave the world at an appointed time and day. A reference or introduction is a must when we meet Him at the final destination. Where will you go without this information and knowledge? Therefore, maintain a good rapport in relation to God. Scholars have praised the pure and selfless love of the Gopis:
(A philosopher’s stone cannot be compared to a piece of glass and the gold cannot be compared to a cheap baser metal. He does not like us, due to our attributes.)
The Gopis recall blissful episodes of Shree Krishna and while savouring those happy moments, they realise their own faults. For the Gopis, Krishna is like gold or the philosopher’s stone. God is pure and precious like gold. The Gopis feel that they were cheap and ordinary like baser metals or pieces of glass and Krishna disliked them because of that. Their happiness and pleasure were short lived. The Gopis pain is unbearable.
Pada - 6
The Gopis dwell (in terms of their body and mind) at a higher plane. Their love for Shree Krishna intensifies in the fire of separation. The inner torment chokes them and compels them to cry. They complain to each other, “O Sister! Neither he nor a message from him has come to us”:
(The Gopis are waiting for a message. There is no message from Him. Why is our soul and vital breath still in our body? Why should we continue to live? There is no message from Him.)
Fish dies without water. A goose leaves its homeland after laying eggs. The young emerge from eggs hatched by their own will. The young wait for the mother goose for a period of six months and die when separated from their mother:
(The young of a goose wait for six months after their birth, to see their mother. They wait impatiently and die instantly when their mother has not come to them).
The Gopis compare themselves to the young of a goose and how their life will also end like the lives of those young ones, if Shree Krishna does not came back to them: “O Krishna! Vital breath will leave our body in your absence. Our soul is impatient to do your darshan. Please come to us.”
(It is not proper to live without life. Lord Shree Krishna is our life - he is our vital breath. Why do we not leave this body in the absence of the Lord of Nishkulanandji?)
The Gopis say, “It is meaningless to live without life. We are helpless. There is no message from Shree Krishna.” All-knower Shree Krishna knows everything; he reads the mind of the Gopis.