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This morning as I was reading from the Srimad Bhagavatam, my mind was drawn to the following verse:
The devotees of the Lord are accustomed to licking up the honey available from the lotus feet of the Lord. What is the use of topics which simply waste one’s valuable life? (SB 1.16.6)
Our duration of life is not very long, and there is no certainty of when we shall be ordered to leave everything for the next stage. Thus it is our duty to see that not a moment of our life is wasted in topics which are not related with Lord Kṛṣṇa. Any topic, however pleasant, is not worth hearing if it is devoid of its relation to Kṛṣṇa. (from purport)
Which lead me to remember another very beautiful verse from an earlier chapter entitled “The Passing Away of Bhīṣmadeva in the Presence of Lord Kṛṣṇa”
Let my mind be fixed upon Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa, whose motions and smiles of love attracted the damsels of Vrajadhāma [the gopīs]. The damsels imitated the characteristic movements of the Lord [after His disappearance from the rāsa dance].
Srimad Bhagavatam
By His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
First Canto, Chapter 9, Text 40
The Passing Away of Bhīṣmadeva in the Presence of Lord Kṛṣṇa
lalita-gati-vilāsa-valguhāsa-
praṇaya-nirīkṣaṇa-kalpitorumānāḥ
kṛta-manu-kṛta-vatya unmadāndhāḥ
prakṛtim agan kila yasya gopa-vadhvaḥ
lalita—attractive; gati—movements; vilāsa—fascinating acts; valguhāsa—sweet smiling; praṇaya—loving; nirīkṣaṇa—looking upon; kalpita—mentality; urumānāḥ—highly glorified; kṛta-manu-kṛta-vatyaḥ—in the act of copying the movements; unmada-andhāḥ—gone mad in ecstasy; prakṛtim—characteristics; agan—underwent; kila—certainly; yasya—whose; gopa-vadhvaḥ—the cowherd damsels.
TRANSLATION
Let my mind be fixed upon Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa, whose motions and smiles of love attracted the damsels of Vrajadhāma [the gopīs]. The damsels imitated the characteristic movements of the Lord [after His disappearance from the rāsa dance].
PURPORT
By intense ecstasy in loving service, the damsels of Vrajabhūmi attained qualitative oneness with the Lord by dancing with Him on an equal level, embracing Him in nuptial love, smiling at Him in joke, and looking at Him with a loving attitude. The relation of the Lord with Arjuna is undoubtedly praiseworthy for devotees like Bhīṣmadeva, but the relation of the gopīs with the Lord is still more praiseworthy because of their still more purified loving service. By the grace of the Lord, Arjuna was fortunate enough to have the fraternal service of the Lord as chariot driver, but the Lord did not award Arjuna with equal strength. The gopīs, however, practically became one with the Lord by attainment of equal footing with the Lord. Bhīṣma’s aspiration to remember the gopīs is a prayer to have their mercy also at the last stage of his life. The Lord is satisfied more when His pure devotees are glorified, and therefore Bhīṣmadeva has not only glorified the acts of Arjuna, his immediate object of attraction, but has also remembered the gopīs, who were endowed with unrivalled opportunities by rendering loving service to the Lord. The gopīs’ equality with the Lord should never be misunderstood to be like the sāyujya liberation of the impersonalist. The equality is one of perfect ecstasy where the differential conception is completely eradicated, for the interests of the lover and the beloved become identical.