Our real timeless Valentine

"SMS your way into your Valentine's heart"
"This Valentine fall in love again at the Leela palace"
"Purchase exclusive diamond jewellery this valentine season"

While I was going thru the pages of Bangalore times enjoying my morning coffee, I was bombarded with advertisements and articles related to the love's day - Valetine's day. The whole last week was such. Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu's 'Shikshataka' was playing on our CD player that morning. The last 3 verses especially glorify the love of the cowherd girls 'the gopis' of Vrindavana for Sri Krishna.
On this day, Lovers across the world express their depth of feelings and the extent of passionate love towards their valentine. But can anybody match upto the Gopis love for Sri Krishna. Love's Nadir can be found in the sacred emotions of the Gopis. It cannot but be - Gopis are established in eternal timeless reality and are loving the complete reality(Purnam) Sri Krishna. The Gopis expereinced love beyond time. The love which had the foundation of extreme selflessness. We are partial components(amsha) and our passionate love will find its fulfillment only when we find Sri Krishna - 'Reality the beautiful'. Love based on the body retires with time since matter dissolves with time. At the soul level, our object of love is only Sri Krishna. Is Sri Krishna our real Valentine? Is this the real message of the Gita?
After having breakfast, I hurried to my car. I had to reach office early that day for an important meeting.As i hit on the ignition, Vidyabhusan's Gita chanting vibrated in my car deck. Coincidentally the chanting was the famous verse Gita:18.56 which had a direct bearing on my contemplation of Sri Krishna as the real Valentine. In this verse Sri Krishna is directly giving a clarion call to all of us to give up all kinds of religion and love and just surrender to him in love in the mood of the Vraja(Vrindavana) gopis. This is the means to eternal fulfillment. 'ma sucah' Dont worry! Si Krishna comforts all of us thru his friend Arjuna