Uddhava's Journey to Vraja and the Love of the Gopis

The learned Uddhava went to Vraja to console the gopis with Krishna's message, but their love in separation taught him that pure love is the highest devotion.

In Mathura, Krishna often remembered Vraja. Uddhava, his dear friend and counsellor, a disciple of Brihaspati and deeply learned, was much like Krishna even in looks. One day Krishna took his hand and asked him to go to Vraja, to comfort his father and mother and to carry a message to the gopis, whose hearts had been given entirely to him.

Uddhava reached Nanda's village at sunset, when the cows were returning and the air was full of their bells and the sound of churning. Nanda embraced him and asked about Krishna with tears in his eyes, recalling one childhood leela after another. Yashoda listened in silence while milk flowed from her breasts out of motherly love. Uddhava told them that their son was not an ordinary child but the Supreme Lord, present in every heart, and that he would surely come back to them. They spent the whole night talking only of Krishna.

In the morning the gopis saw a golden chariot at Nanda's door and feared that Akrura had come again. When they learned that Uddhava was Krishna's messenger, they took him aside. Then one gopi, lost in thoughts of Krishna, saw a bee hovering near her and spoke to it as if it were a messenger from her beloved. She chided it for flattering her and called Krishna fickle, yet in the same breath she asked whether he ever remembered Vraja. These words of love and reproach are known as the Bhramara Gita, the Song of the Bee.

Uddhava then gave Krishna's message. The Lord said that he was never truly apart from them, since he dwells within all as their very Self, and that he had stayed away so that their minds would remain fixed on him. The gopis were consoled, but their longing did not fade, for their only wish was to serve Krishna himself.

Uddhava stayed in Vraja for several months, and his learning melted into devotion. He said that these simple women of the forest had reached the goal that sages seek through long austerity. He prayed that he might be born as a bush, a creeper or a humble plant in Vrindavan, so that the dust of the gopis' feet might fall on him. Bowing to the dust of Vraja, he returned to Mathura with gifts from Nanda and with a changed heart.

This leela teaches that knowledge is complete only when it becomes love, and that love which seeks nothing for itself is the highest devotion.

Source

Shrimad Bhagavatam, Canto 10, ch. 46–47

Place

Mathura – Nandagaon – Vrindavan

Lesson

Knowledge is complete only when it becomes selfless love.