[Devotees sing Yasomati-nandana]
Srila Gurudeva: All these kirtanas have a very good and deep meaning. We should chant them with so much love and affection. They have been translated in English and a very easy to understand meaning has been given in this book (Gaudiya Giti-Guccha). If you want to really know the meaning of these songs, you can collect this book. It is very useful for sadhana and bhajana. If you will know the meanings, the deep meanings of these songs, then a transcendental mood will come, and that will help you. Otherwise, these songs will not help so much. It will help because these are all transcendental words, but if you will know the meaning it will help so much more. Like Yasomati-nandana, vraja-vara najara. What is the meaning of vraja-vara-nagara?
Devotee: The topmost lover in Vraja.
Srila Gurudeva: But some more meaning is there, the topmost meaning. You know that by marriage, a person becomes the husband and a girl becomes the wife. It may be that she does not want to be with him, but by the order of her father and mother, they were married. Still to this day, any father and mother will give their daughters in marriage to any good boy. But most of the time the girl will not know who her husband is or not. Now a days they are doing something different, but in ancient days it was like this and that marriage was so solid. Nowadays, marriage is not so good. That is why so much divorce comes. In India, there is never divorce. But nowadays, it has begun and people are divorcing.
So, if a girl is married to any husband, it may be that she does not love him totally. It may be that when she was a girl she had so much love and affection for any other boy. If she had given her life and heart to that boy, then she cannot now love her husband so much. So the position of a beloved is more, more, more higher than a husband. So Krsna is the beloved of the gopis, He is not the husband of the gopis. He is the beloved of all the gopis and nagara (hero) is even more superior than a beloved. So He is the nagara of all the gopis and the gopis are nagari (heroine). Especially Srimati Radhika is topmost nagari.
If Krsna will tell any gopi, “You should obey Me because I am like your husband,” she will tell that, “You should obey me. You are not giving me food, lodging, or arranging any of these things. I am not dependent on You, but You are dependent on my love.” So Srimati Radhika will order anything and Krsna will follow that. This is called nagara and nagari. In Dvaraka, in Ayodhya, nagari-bhava will certainly not come, it will never come. Only in Vraja will this nagari-bhava be there.
[Spoken by Srila Gurudeva on December 4th, 1998, Malaysia, published as part of the Bhakta Bandhav Anthology, Volume 25]