O lotus-eyed Lord, your words are sweet and charming, filled with wisdom that delights the mind. You bewilder us with your gentle speech, O hero, and nourish us with the nectar that flows from your lips. The stories you tell are a source of life for those who suffer; praised by poets, they wash away sin and bring auspiciousness and prosperity to all who hear them. Those who spread your tales throughout the world are truly generous, for your pastimes are a blessing to all. Your laughter, beloved, your playful glances, your games, and your meditations are all auspicious, filling our hearts with joy. The secret words you whisper, so intimate and touching, stir and disturb our minds, O enchanter. When you wander from Vraja, herding the cows, your lotus-like feet tread upon stones, grass, and tender sprouts. Our hearts, pained by longing, follow you wherever you go, beloved. At dusk, you return, your blue-black hair shining, your face adorned with forest flowers and dust from the pastures. Again and again, you reveal yourself, O hero, stirring ever-deeper love in our hearts. Your lotus feet, which fulfill the wishes of those who bow to you, are worshipped by Lakshmi herself, the ornament of the earth. In times of hardship, they are worthy of meditation, bringing peace to all. Beloved, place those sacred feet upon our breasts and relieve our pain. Your lips, so often touched by the sweet notes of your flute, awaken love and dissolve sorrow, making us forget all other desires. O hero, grant us the nectar of your lips. When you wander through the forest by day, for those who cannot see you, each moment stretches into an age. Your curly locks and beautiful face are hidden from our dull eyes, veiled even by our own eyelids. We have left behind husbands, sons, families, brothers, and kin, and have come to you, O infallible one. Knowing your path and enchanted by your song, what woman could possibly return home at night? The secret conversations, the rising tide of love in our hearts, your smiling face, your loving glances, and the splendor of your broad chest, O abode of fortune, again and again bewilder our minds and fill them with longing. O embodiment of auspiciousness for the people of Vraja, your very presence destroys all suffering and brings blessings to the world. Yet, if you withdraw even a little from those whose hearts ache for you, your absence alone can cure the pain of separation among your loved ones. Beloved, we gently place your beautiful lotus feet upon our breasts, though we fear their hardness. Is this why you wander the forest—do your feet not feel pain from the sharp stones? Our minds, sustained by your very life, never stray from you. Thus concludes the thirty-first chapter, known as "The Song of the Gopīs," in the first half of the Tenth Book of the Śrīmad Bhāgavatam, the great Purāṇa and scripture of the supreme renunciates. Afterwards, when the time of departure came, the wives of Rāma, united in spirit with him, embraced his body and entered the fire. The wives of Vasudeva, and the daughters-in-law of Hari, including those of Pradyumna, did the same. The wives of Kṛṣṇa, led by Rukmiṇī, also entered the fire, their hearts forever joined with him. Arjuna, overwhelmed with sorrow at the loss of his beloved friend Kṛṣṇa, found solace by singing songs and recalling wise sayings about Kṛṣṇa. He performed the proper funeral rites for his relatives whose lineages had ended, arranging the ceremonies for those who had fallen in battle. In a single moment, the ocean flooded Dvārakā, the city abandoned by Hari, leaving only the Lord’s splendid abode untouched. There, Lord Madhusūdana remains eternally present, removing all evil by the mere act of remembrance, the most auspicious among all things auspicious. Arjuna, taking the surviving women, children, and elders, brought them to Indraprastha and installed Vajra as king. When Arjuna’s grandfathers heard of the deaths of their friends, they made you, O King, the bearer of the lineage, and then all departed upon the great journey. Whoever, with faith, recounts the deeds and birth of Viṣṇu, Lord of the gods, is freed from all sins. By hearing and reciting the charming descents, heroic deeds, and childhood exploits of Hari, the Lord, whether here or elsewhere, one attains supreme devotion along the path of the highest renunciates. Yet, a person filled with pride, anger, and desire, engages in conflict with others, all seeking their own passions, and thus brings ruin upon himself. In this body, made of the five elements, the ignorant soul clings to the false ideas of ‘I’ and ‘mine,’ and such delusions lead only to a faulty understanding. If, again, a person follows the path of the wicked, seeking only to satisfy their appetites and desires, he indulges and falls back into darkness, as before. Truth, purity, compassion, silence, intelligence, fortune, modesty, fame, forgiveness, tranquility, self-control, and prosperity—all these virtues diminish when one associates with those who lack them. Therefore, one should not associate with those who are restless, foolish, broken in spirit, or unsaintly, nor with those who are pitiable or with women who are like playthings. Delusion and bondage do not arise so much from association with others as they do from association with women, and even more so from associating with those who are attached to women. Once, the lord of creatures, seeing his own daughter who had taken the form of a roe deer, was overcome by her beauty and, ashamed, pursued her in the form of a stag. Among all beings, created and recreated, who—except for the sage Nārāyaṇa, whose mind is never disturbed—can resist a woman like me, fashioned by illusion? Behold the power of my illusion, embodied as a woman, which conquers even the victorious of all directions; she subdues those who have walked the earth, merely by the arching of her brows. One who seeks to ascend to the highest stage of yoga should never associate with women; those who have realized the true self through serving me declare that such association is the gateway to hell. The illusion, in the form of a woman, created by the gods, approaches slowly; one should recognize her as death for the self, like a well hidden by grass. Deluded, a man thinks of her as his wife, though she is my illusion, appearing even as a cow; by associating with women, he enters womanhood and becomes bound to wealth, children, and home. He should understand her—who embodies husband, child, and home—as death itself, sent by fate, just as the song of a hunter is death for the deer. With a body endowed with life, a man wanders from world to world, continually performing actions and experiencing their results without end. The living being’s body, composed of elements, senses, and mind, follows him; its dissolution is his death, and its manifestation is his birth. When the means of perceiving an object and the capacity to perceive it are lost, that is called dissolution; the sense of ‘I’ arises with the perception of objects, and that is called birth. Just as when the eye or its components lose the ability to see, the seer’s vision ceases—so too, when both are unfit, vision ends. Therefore, one should not be afraid, nor feel pity or confusion. Knowing the journey of the soul, the wise, free from attachment, should live in this world accordingly.