Spiritual Import of Religious Festivals : 11.9.

Chapter-11.The Sport of the Infinite-9.
  ( Rasa-Lila message given on the 22nd of October, 1972.)

So, in this wondrous phenomenon called the Rasa dance, the Spirit is dancing with its own manifestations. The Srimad Bhagavata beautifully and significantly puts it, "Reme rameso vrajasundaribhih yatharbhakah svapratibimba-vibhramah": As a child plays with its own reflection seen in a mirror, so did the Lord play with the eternal devotees of Vrindavana. He did not play with personalities, even as a child does not play with anybody when it looks at its own self through the mirror. This is the interpretation given in the Srimad Bhagavata itself in the Dasama Skandha.

So it is God playing with God, like a child playing with itself or the Original dancing with its own reflections, connoting the spiritual dance of the cosmos, the attraction of the part towards the Whole, man's inseparability from God, and the soul's agony on account of its bereavement from the Supreme. The restless adventure of the soul in respect of its Original, of which it is an integral part, nay is It Itself, is the quintessence of the dance called the Rasa Dance. 'Rasa' means quintessence. "Raso vai sah; rasam hyevayam labdhva anandi bhavati," says the Taittiriya Upanishad. It is Ananda that is manifest everywhere in the world. It is Bliss and not pain that we see in the world. Pain is only a refusal on the part of our consciousness to recognise the bliss of God's creation. Ananda is the reality.

Swami Krishnananda
  To be continued ...