Additional Symptoms 276

leave all of my wealth and fortune? I am becoming older and older.
What shall I do? Shall I execute devotional service from here at home?
This I cannot do, because my mind is being attracted by the transcen-
dental land of Vrndavana.”

This is an instance of hopelessness, pride, doubtfulness, patience,
lamentation, determination and eagerness—an aggregation of seven
different symptoms in ecstatic love for Krsna.

There is a proverb in Sanskrit which says, “Disappointment gives
rise to the greatest satisfaction.” In other words, when one’s senti-
ment or ambition becomes too great and is not fulfilled until after
seemingly hopeless tribulation, that is taken as the greatest satisfac-
tion. Once the cowherd boys in Vrndavana were vainly searching
after Krsna for a long time, and for that reason their faces became
blackened, and their complexions appeared faded. Just then they
could hear on the hill a faint vibration from Krsna’s flute. Imme-
diately all of them became very much engladdened. This is an in-
stance of satisfaction in the midst of disappointment.

Srila Ripa Gosvami says that although he has no expert knowledge
about the sounds and meanings and mellows of the symptoms of
ecstatic love, he has tried to give some examples of different varieties
of love of Krsna. He further states that the thirty-one disturbing
symptoms of ecstatic love, plus nine other symptoms, all taken to-
gether equal forty primary symptoms of ecstatic love. These symp-
toms create transformations of bodily activities as well as movements
of the senses. All of them can be accepted as different feelings of the
heart. Sometimes some of the feelings are quite natural. Sometimes
some of the feelings are just temporary appearances. Those symp-
toms which are very natural always remain, both within and without
the devotee.

As one can detect the color of dye a cloth was soaked in by look-
ing at the cloth, so, simply by understanding the different signs of
these symptomatic features, one can understand the actual position.
In other words, although attachment for Krsna is one, nevertheless,
because there exist different kinds of devotees, such attachment is
manifested in many varieties. As clothing tinged red appears red, so
the temporary appearance of a certain type of feeling can be detected
