Different categories of Sakhīs The next day, Vijaya Kumāra honored prasāda somewhat earlier than usual, and then set out along the seashore towards Kāśī Miśra Bhavan. When he saw the ocean waves, the sentiments of the ocean of rasa began to surge within his heart.
Overwhelmed with bhāva, he thought to himself, “A hā! The ocean is inspiring bhāva to swell within me. Although it is a material substance, it is evoking my deeply concealed transcendental sentiments. It is just like the ocean of rasa that my Prabhu has described to me. “When I leave my gross and subtle bodies far behind, I find myself sitting upon the shore of the ocean of rasa, relishing rasa in my mañjarī-svarūpa. Kṛṣṇa, who is imbued with the luster of a fresh monsoon rain cloud, is the exclusive Lord of my life’s breath. Śrīmatī Rādhikā, the daughter of Vṛṣabhānu Mahārāja, who keeps Her gorgeous presence at Kṛṣṇa’s side, is the be-all and end-all of my very existence. This ocean is the transformation of Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa’s intimate love (praṇaya). The rows of waves are the different types of bhāva that combine to comprise rasa itself. I am a sakhī on the shore, and the manifold waves rising up in this ocean are bhāvas which drown me in prema-rasa. Kṛṣṇa is the ocean of rasa, and that is why the color of the ocean is exactly like His. The waves of love in that ocean are Śrīmatī Rādhājī, and that is why the ocean waves are white. The high towering waves are the sakhīs and the small waves are their maidservants (paricārikā). Among them, I am a follower of a paricārikā, like a particle of spray on a distant shore.”