Krishna's Smile - Always Gives Him Away - Blog - ISKCON Desire Tree

One cool autumn evening, Radha and Her sakhis gathered in raasa bhoomi to meet Krishna. Govinda also arrived followed by some of His dearest sakhaas. Krishna was eager to perform the raasa dance and hoped that the gopis would be agreeable; however, Radhika decided She did not wish to perform raasaleela on that day, but instead wanted to play hide and seek! Govinda gently suggested that perhaps hide and seek was not a good game to play in raasa bhoomi, as it was an open space and there was no place to hide. But Radha was adamant. Furthermore, She established three more rules to make the game more interesting. First, that nobody should leave the raasa bhoomi for the duration of the game. Second, that the person hiding should be found without clues but by the seeking person only. And third, that no one could hide behind another person.

Krishna was never one to back down from a challenge, especially a challenge from Radha and Her sakhis, so He agreed to the terms of the game. Radha declared that Krishna must hide first, and Krishna agreed. Radha and Her sakhis closed their eyes and allowed Krishna time to hide. When they opened their eyes, they were astounded by what they saw: not one Krishna but ten, twenty, thirty Krishnas... through Krishna's maya, all the sakhaas had taken the form of Mukunda. Which one was the real Krishna? The sakhis were in a panic.

But Radha remained calm. She asked all the sakhaas to line up. One by one She asked them to smile, and when she reached the eleventh sakhaa, she recognized Krishna. Radhika exclaimed that this was the true form of Her beloved. Krishna asked how She was able to identify Him so quickly, to which She replied that there may be many with a similar form as Krishna's, but there is only one Person in the Universe who can smile like that!

Then it was Radha's turn to hide! Krishna and His sakhaas all closed their eyes, and when they opened them they were amazed to see many mounds of white mogra flower buds. In each mound of flowers, a sakhi was hiding. The sakhaas urged Sri Krishna to accept defeat at the hands of Radha and the sakhis, but Krishna simply walked around the mounds until He found one which had fully-bloomed flowers instead of flower buds, wherein Swaminiji was hiding. With Sree Krishna around, Radhika is always happy, and her joyous touch made all the flower buds happy too, and caused them to blossom into flowers.

Such is the power of the smile of Sri Krishna, which is absolutely unique in the Universe, which gives joy to the gopis, and makes Radha and everything She touches bloom with joy.

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