Krishna's Rasa Dance

 

This is not like any worldly dance wherein people try to satisfy their material senses. While the gois live as cowherd maids, they embody the highest expression of the soul's love for God, for pleasing the Lord is their exclusive aspiration.

This dance represents the most perfect intimacy between the soul and God, free of any tinge of selfish desire, but charged with the fullest bliss. On this night, when Krishna called them from their homes with the sweet song of His flute, the gopis forsook everything they had and risked dangers and social rejection all to satisfy the Lord.

When they reached Krishna, the Supreme Lord, He admitted that in the span of creation, He had no power to sufficiently repay the gopis for their devotion. But in reciprocation, He expanded Himself to dance simultaneously with each gopi in their eternal spiritual bodies, for a night of endless joy.

- Autobiography of an American Swami by Radhanath Swami