Baba's Storytime - Love of God is The Means and The Goal

Among the gopees, the foremost devotees of Krishna were Raadhika and Neeraja. Before Uddhava left, he heard them address Krishna as the Raama-parrot and pleaded for a vision of Krishna to assuage their grief-stricken hearts. Uddhava asked Raadhika, who was lying unconscious on a sand-dune, whether she had any message for Krishna. Recovering her senses, Raadhika thought only of 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 over 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 Raadhika in this piteous state, Uddhava's heart melted. He realised that Krishna had sent him on this mission to the gopees to make him learn what is true Bhakthi (devotion). Uddhava realised that Krishna had enacted that episode to show to him that even those well versed in the shaasthras had to learn the inner truth about true devotion from the one-pointed, unalloyed devotion shown by the gopees towards Krishna. 

Love of God is the means and the goal. This was the secret revealed by the gopees. 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. The Divine is in every one. But to realise it, there is only one way. It is to cultivate intense love of God. Only that day when one strives to develop such love for God is the day of Krishna's birth. Krishna is not born on every Gokulaashtami day. Krishna is born in us when we try to develop divine love as the means to overcome our bonds. To live up to the teachings of Krishna is the true way to celebrate His birthday.

(From the Divine Discourses of Bhagawan Sri Sathya Sai Baba)