“There is no bar for anyone in any part of the creation to chant and glorify the Lord by the particular name of the Lord as it is locally understood. They are all auspicious, and one should not distinguish such names of the Lord as material commodities” – A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (purport to Srimad Bhagavatam 2.1.11)
Last year in New Mexico, I was attending a retreat led by Richard Rohr when I was introduced to the group as “our Eastern brother.” I smiled at the phrase. It was offered with genuine affection—and it made sense from a Western Christian vantage point. Still, I couldn’t help reflecting on the irony: Christianity, too, is an Eastern tradition in its origins. But because it adapted so thoroughly to the Western mind, it is no longer perceived as Eastern. Meanwhile, many of us in the Bhakti tradition remain unmistakably marked as “Eastern,” even when we live, speak, and serve in the West.
This raises important questions: How much have we truly adapted the Eastern aspects of the tradition to Western sensibilities? Should we adapt more? And, if necessary, how might we do so without compromising the essence of what we´ve received?
Unlike early Christianity, which reinterpreted itself in Greek, Roman, and later European languages and thought forms, Gaudiya Vaishnavism has largely retained its Bengali and Indian context. There is great beauty in that—but perhaps also a limitation. When the cultural form becomes too tightly wedded to the essence, it can obscure rather than reveal the universal appeal of divine love.
Bhakti is universal. Yet how much of the way we speak, think, and even feel about it is culturally bound? And how can we hold space for both the timeless and the timely?
The Srimad Bhagavatam (11.27.45) encourages the praise of God’s glories in one’s native tongue. Divine love longs to be sung in the language of the heart, not only the tongue of a foreign tradition. And yet, we find very specific cultural sensibilities in the descriptions of krishna-lila: anklets, forests, saris, monsoons, and mangoes. So, we must ask: Is this eternal form or temporal garment?
There’s a moment with Srila Prabhupada that comes to mind. Someone asked him whether there was harmonium-playing in the spiritual world. He paused, smiled, and said, “A little.” The harmonium, of course, isn’t mentioned in scripture. It’s a relatively modern instrument and foreign from India in its origin. But Prabhupada loved it and, in that love, perhaps it became part of eternity—at least a little.
This speaks to something vital. Although the eternal realm could be understood in some way as unchanging, it is not a museum. Krishna is not a fossilized deity locked in a fixed set of symbols. He is Lila Purusottama—ever-playing, ever-fresh. Goloka Vrindavana, his eternal realm of divine play, is not static. The Sweet Absolute remains ever himself, yet always unfolding; always coherent, never rigid. The love of God does not contradict itself by growing—it fulfills itself.
Such fulfillment expresses itself in various forms of the Divine, each having a corresponding mood, a lila, and a cultural canvas. In the Gita and Bhagavatam, we hear again and again that the Lord reciprocates with each soul in the manner they approach him. This doesn’t mean that anything and everything is equally valid, but it does open-up immense—perhaps endless—space for cultural and personal variation. The Divine bends—not out of weakness, but out of love. He adjusts himself to meet each heart, each yearning, each song.
Even within the Gaudiya tradition itself—and more broadly within Hindu culture—we find a remarkable range of depictions of Krishna across time and geography. In painting, sculpture, and iconography, the divine form is rendered in different colors, postures, proportions, and emotional expressions. Deity forms carved in South India differ noticeably from those in Bengal, Manipura or Rajasthan—what to speak of the contemporary Western gaze!
This leads us to a crucial question—is there a distinction between Indian culture and Sanatana Dharma? The latter refers to the eternal function of the soul: loving relationship with the Supreme. It transcends time, geography, and language. Indian culture, while beautiful and deeply interwoven with the unfolding of that eternal dharma, is not itself the Absolute. It carries historical conditions and specific sensibilities. To conflate the two is to risk reducing a divine reality to a cultural container.
Vraja-bhakti must not be confined to those with Indian samskaras or aesthetic inclinations. It cannot be the sole territory of Indophiles. If the gopis’ love for Krishna only moves those with a background in Hindu culture, then something has been lost in translation—or perhaps, not yet translated. And that loss matters—because it turns a universal invitation into a local custom, and risks obscuring the soul’s deepest longing beneath unfamiliar forms.
Yet, while earthly culture should not define transcendence, an argument comes: Vaishnava depictions of eternity do include clear cultural elements. However, there are differences of opinion among Vaishnavas. Speaking with Vaishnava scholar Shrivatsa Goswami, he once told me that whatever depictions we find in scripture about Vrindavana, those correspond with its earthly expression—not eternity. Yet Jiva Goswami mentions in his Krishna Sandarbha that Gokula (Vrindavana on Earth) and Goloka (Vrindavana in transcendence) are basically nondifferent. Maybe they are identical in their essence, but we can still find some cultural nuance and variety among them?
In this connection, the story of the Hopi people of Arizona stands out with remarkable clarity. Their folklore tells of Kokopelli, a mischievous flute-playing deity who dances every full moon with the “corn-girls.” Of all the corn-girls, his heart is most drawn to the golden corn-girl. For Gaudiya Vaishnavas, this offers substantial food for thought. Is this not uncannily reminiscent of our beautiful rasa-lila?
It seems the mystics of both the Hopi people and the Vaishnavas of India touched the same mystery but depicted it differently, using the symbols and language of their own land. In Arizona, there were no cows or milkmaids. The Hopis’ lifeblood was corn—hence, the corn-girls. Different land, different symbols. But maybe same longing?
In our North Carolina ashram, there´s a gorgeous painting in an ancient Egyptian style: a young boy playing a flute in a boat, surrounded by feminine figures—one standing out among them. Likewise, Sufism depicts Majnun’s longing for Layla as representative of the soul’s madness for the Beloved. In Greek myth, Dionysus dances with the Maenads in a forest of ecstasy and surrender. And the list continues.
Are these mere coincidences? Or archetypal echoes? What if all these are cultural expressions of one same, deeper rasa, glimpses of that same sweetness and divine madness appearing in slightly different vessels?
While the Gaudiya tradition may offer the most developed theological vision of divinity as the source and summit of rasa, it need not claim monopoly over divine intimacy. Perhaps these myths and symbols are scattered hints—fragments of a deeper whole—intimations of how reality looks when it is fully alive, playful, and drenched in love.
Mystics across time have known this. Their visions come clothed in the fabric of their people—olive trees and deserts, rivers and mountains, dances and dreams. It seems that the language of divine romance is always local, but its referent is transcendent. And so the Hopi speak of corn-girls, the Sufis of wine and longing, the Greeks of satyrs and stars.
From the above examples, it could be said that the essence of what makes our vraja-lila so unique—its combination of sweetness, spontaneity, intimacy, and even divine mischief—exists as an archetype that surfaces across human cultures. This archetype points not just to story or symbol, but to an existential truth: that the soul longs for playful union with the Divine, beyond duty and formality. That love, when it reaches its most innocent and profound expression, takes on the qualities we find in Vraja as Gaudiyas—even if the names, places, and costumes change in other cultures and traditions. But behind each symbol, a shared intuition glows: that the soul was made for intimacy with the Infinite.
And ultimately, we must remember—we are speaking of God here. The endless mystery. The One whom no words, no thoughts, no theology can ever fully contain. To even begin to speak of him (even to refer to God as merely “him”!) is already to fall short. That is not a reason for silence, but it is a call for humility. Our concepts will always fail to capture the whole, and yet, through love, we still try.
So perhaps the core question is this: If the essence of divine love is sweetness, intimacy, risk-taking, full dedication, and self-forgetfulness, then how might that mood express itself differently across cultures?
If we are to present bhakti as a living, breathing path in the modern world, we must consider: What metaphors, aesthetics, and emotional languages would be able to convey the experience of rasa in a different soil? What if Krishna’s song echoed through pine groves or snowy landscapes? What if Radha’s voice resounded through folk tunes and not Indian ragas?
I remember once participating in a kirtana in the hills of Colombia. The devotees sang with such devotion—but the rhythm was unmistakably Andean, the harmonies leaning into local folk traditions. In that moment, I didn’t feel we were adapting the tradition—I felt we were uncovering a forgotten expression of it.
To be clear: I am not suggesting we abandon Sanskrit poetry or Bengali kirtana. I am suggesting we listen for how that song wants to keep singing—through other mouths, other melodies, other settings. The harmonium made it into Goloka because someone loved it. What else might love allow in?
Perhaps this is the conclusion—not a closure, but a doorway. Yes, the ultimate reality is the sweetness and intimacy and risk and self-forgetfulness in divine love, embodied most vividly for us in the parakiya-bhava of the vraja-gopis. And yet, as many Indian theologians explain, parakiya is, in essence, svakiya, for the soul and God belong to each other eternally. If this is so, is it not plausible that the externals of the drama—the costumes, the language, the customs—of apparent separation and heightened longing take on various forms as the play unfolds across time, culture, and tradition? Still, the heart—the inner stage upon which the essence dances—remains the perfect host. And love remains the exchange.
Some might argue that the adaptation of lila´s expression risks losing its depth or distorting its original flavor. And that’s a legitimate concern. Not every form of creativity is devotional. But love has its own discernment. When rooted in sincere longing, adaptation becomes revelation.
A clear example of this is Srila Prabhupada’s Light of the Bhagavata, composed for a Japanese audience. This work included his vision of Krishna and the gopis in traditional Japanese style—a powerful example of cultural adaptation rooted in devotion.
One of our great masters, Bhaktivinoda Ṭhakura, repeatedly emphasized essence over ritual, encouraging thoughtful creativity and adaptation in both presenting and experiencing bhakti—becoming a saragrahi. He wrote and acted boldly, showing that genuine devotion seeks ever-new ways to speak of timeless truths. It is in deep listening to the call itself of such expression, that artificiality is not imposed.
Adapting our expression of bhakti, then, is not a matter of trend or concession. It is fidelity to the movement of spirit. To translate is not to dilute, but to trust that truth can walk on different legs, speak in different tongues, and still carry the same heart. We are not betraying Vrindavana by wondering what its spirit would look like expressed here and now, where each of us stand. We are honoring it.
Perhaps this is what it means to truly follow in the footsteps of the gopis: not only to imitate their outer gestures, but to allow the impulse of divine love to shape our own lives, cultures, and languages. Not to fossilize their example, but to extend it—into forests of our own, under moons of a new era, with songs and symbols still unfolding from the same eternal source.
Perhaps one day, we’ll no longer be introduced as “Eastern” or “Western.” We’ll sit as brothers and sisters of the heart—singing in many tongues, yet listening to the same flute call.
