216
ريز بو ور في وجو في جانور جانور جو جانور جانور جو جانور جو جانور جو جانور جو جانور جو جانور جو جانور جو جانور جو جانور جو جانور ج
[[Madhya-lilā Ch 8]
THE MAN OF THE STARS  by  MARTIN LUTHER KING  and  EDWARD GREEN  ( MARTIN LUTHER KING  and  EDWARD GREEN   M
The means for returning home, for going back to Godhead, is devotional service, but everyone has a different taste in the Lord's service. One may be inclined to serve the Lord in servitude ( dāsya-rasa ), fraternity ( sakhya-rasa ), or paternal love ( vātsalya-rasa ), but all these cannot enable one to enter into the service of the Lord in conjugal love. To attain such service, one has to follow in the footsteps of the  gopīs  in the ecstasy of  sakhī-bhāva . Then only can one understand the transcendental mellow of conjugal love.
In the  Uiivala-nilamani , Śrila Rūṇa Gosvāmī advises:
prema-lilā-vihārāṇāṁ  
 samyag vistārikā sakhī  
 viśrambha-ratna-peṭī  ca
One who expands the conjugal love of Kṛṣṇa and His enjoyment among the  gopīs  is called a  sakhī . Such a person is a confidential  gopī  in the conjugal affairs. Such assistants are like jewels in the form of Kṛṣṇa’s confidence. The actual business of the  sakhīs  is described thus in  Ujjvala-nīlamaṇi :
mithaḥ prema-guṇotkīrtis  
 tayor āsakti-kāritā  
 abhisāro dvayor eva  
 sakhyāḥ kṛṣṇe samarpaṇam
narmāśvāsana-nepathyaṁ hṛdayodghāṭa-pāṭavam chidra-saṁvṛtir etasyāḥ paty-ādeḥ parivañcanā
śikṣā saṅgamanaṁ kāle sevanaṁ vyajanādibhiḥ tayor dvayor upālambhaḥ sandeśa-preṣaṇaṁ tathā
nāyikā-prāņa-samrakṣā prayatnādyāḥ sakhī-kriyāḥ
In the conjugal pastimes of Кṛṣṇa, Кṛṣṇa is the hero ( nāyaka ), and Rādhikā is the heroine ( nāyikā ). The first business of the  gopīs  is to chant the glories of both the hero and the heroine. Their second business is to create gradually a situation in which the hero may be attracted to the heroine and vice versa. Their third busi-