Krishna and the Gopis - The Rasa Lila Explanation

They found him by the river, alone, playing his flute as if nothing had happened. As if he hadn't just vanished mid-dance, leaving each gopi bereft, each one convinced she had been abandoned.

The Gopis: "How could you? We left our homes, our husbands, our duties—everything—to come to you. And you disappear?"

Krishna lowered his flute.

Krishna: "You came because you love me?"

The Gopis: "Of course we love you!"

The chorus came from a hundred throats.

Krishna: "And when I was dancing with each of you—when there were a hundred Krishnas for a hundred gopis—were you happy?"

The Gopis: "Yes!"

Krishna: "Were you aware of the other gopis? Of the other Krishnas?"

Silence. Each gopi realized with sudden shame that during the dance, she had seen only her Krishna. The others might as well not have existed.

Krishna: "Pride, Each of you thought, 'He chose me. He is dancing with me. I am special.' And in that pride, you stopped loving me. You started loving the idea of being chosen."

The Gopis: "But you did choose each of us!"

Krishna: "I chose all of you. Equally. Simultaneously. And that wasn't enough. Each of you wanted to be the only one. Each of you wanted exclusive claim to the infinite."

Radha stepped forward.

The Gopis: "Are we wrong to want that?"

Krishna: "You're human. Of course you want that. But let me ask you: the Yamuna river—do you love it less because it also flows past other villages? The moon—is it less beautiful because others also see it? The sun—does it love you less because it also warms my enemies?"

The Gopis: "That's different."

Krishna: "Is it? You love me as if I were a finite thing. A person who can only be in one place, love one heart, dance one dance. But I am not finite. My love for each of you does not diminish my love for any other. It is not a pot that empties. It is an ocean that only grows."

The Gopis: "Then why disappear? Why break our hearts?"

Krishna: "Because your hearts needed breaking. You came to me with expectations, with demands, with the certainty that if you loved me enough, you could own me. But divine love cannot be owned. It can only be received."

The Gopis: "Then teach us, Teach us how to love you without owning."

Krishna smiled.

Krishna: "You learn it by losing me. Again and again. Every time I disappear, you face the truth: I was never yours to keep. And in that truth, something breaks—but what breaks is not love. What breaks is the cage you tried to build around love."

The Gopis: "So we will always lose you?"

Krishna: "You will always find me again. That's the dance, Radha. That's the real Rasa Lila—not the choreography of bodies, but the movement of hearts. Seeking, finding, losing, seeking again. Each loss teaches you to hold more loosely. Each reunion teaches you to love more fully."

The Gopis: "It hurts."

Krishna: "Yes."

The Gopis: "You could make it not hurt."

Krishna: "I could. But then you wouldn't learn. And you came to me not just for happiness, but for truth. Didn't you?"

The gopis were silent. One by one, they sat by the river, the anger draining out of them.

The Gopis: "Will you stay tonight?"

someone asked quietly.

Krishna: "I will stay every night in your hearts. Even when my body is in Dwaraka, even when I am on distant battlefields, even when this form has returned to dust—I will be in every heartbeat that remembers this moment. That is the only permanence I can offer. That is the only permanence that is real."

He began to play his flute again. One by one, the gopis began to dance—not competing this time, not grasping, not possessing. Just dancing. With him. With each other. With the night itself.

And this time, when dawn came, they let him go. Not because they loved him less. But because they finally understood what love was.