Love :)

Born in a family where everyone is a Krishna devotee, i grew up listening to Krishna stories in my childhood. There was one thing about him though, that bugged me too much. Everyone said that Radha and Krishna are incarnations of love, born on earth to teach mankind the essense of love. It made no sense to me, as Krishna left Radha forever, went on to become a king, had a sixteen thousand wives, but never thought of calling his girl friend back. To me, it looked more like a teenage fling than an attempt to teach humans what love is.

However, one year back, I went to Gokul and Vrindavan, the place where Radha and Krishna grew up. While we were doing a pradakshina around the Govardhan Parvat, I asked a rickshawallah the same question about the relevance of Radha and Krishna’s love. What he said illuminated me more than any pandits ever had.

“Radha’s love for Krishna was not just the love of a woman for a man as we look at it today. She loved him like a woman loves her lover, like a daughter loves her father, like a sister adores her brother, like a student respects her teacher, and like a devotee worships her god. Krishna was everything to Radha, and He understood that. Who says marriage is the ultimate expression of love? It wouldn’t have been so for Radha and Krishna for sure, because the love they shared was so much more than that. This was the message they wanted to give to the world – a nameless non-judgemental love.”

I understood what he meant. We always try to name love, to analyse it, explain it. But we forget that the real beauty of love is in its mystery. There’s no rationale behind it, and no boundaries ahead of it. We always try to reason about every relationship.

‘He’s a very good friend, you know, just a friend.’
‘But u spend so much time with him!‘
‘I know its weird.’
‘No but you should explain… there has got to be something. What exactly is it, you are what? friends, lovers, friends wanting to be lovers, friends trying not be lovers, what??‘
‘I have no idea.. ‘

Thats perfectly ‘lovely’. We don’t have to give love a name, and make it some kind of ‘relationship’. Love is just… it. Its Love 🙂