(Gurus and Puranas)

In the 16th century, a princess of Rajasthan decided that her only true husband was Krishna.

Her worldly husband’s family tried to poison her. She drank it and sang.

They sent snakes. She worshipped them as Shiva’s ornaments.

They locked her in a room. She sang there until the walls seemed to dissolve.

Mirabai — Mira — is one of the most beloved saints in Indian history not because of what she achieved but because of what she surrendered. Everything. Security. Reputation. Safety. Comfort. The approval of every person who mattered in her social world.

She surrendered it all for one thing: the love she felt for the Divine in the form she knew — Krishna, the dark, flute-playing Lord she had worshipped since childhood.

Her songs — bhajans that are still sung five hundred years later — carry something that theological texts sometimes miss. They carry the ache of separation. The longing that is itself a form of union. The love that does not require the beloved to be physically present to be utterly real.

Mera toh Giridhar Gopal, dujjo nahi koi. My support is Giridhar Gopal. There is none other.

When she sang this, she was not being poetic. She meant it literally. She had tested it in the most extreme circumstances and found it absolutely true.

This is the testimony of a scientist, not a romantic. Mira put the hypothesis to the test — is God enough? Is the inner support real when the outer support is removed? — and reported her findings in song.

The answer: yes. Completely. Without question.

You don’t have to be a princess giving up a kingdom. But you do have to be willing to love something beyond what society tells you to value.

What is your Giridhar Gopal? Find it. Hold it.