In plain words
We must try to reach God at the natural level itself. How are we to describe Him? How are we to call Him? ‘O You who roam in Bṛndāvana, O You who roam in the city of Mathurā! O merciful One, O treasure of compassion, O form that holds the light of ten million suns!’: merely by describing Him so, God goes further away from us. The moment we ask, ‘O friend, O dearest, O my image, O my own form, bless me,’ the Paramātma keeps drawing near. We must trust Him as a beloved. We must trust Him as a friend. We must trust Him as the image that has been our companion and our shadow. Precisely because the great ṛṣis and the yogis of old described Him in this way, God did not come near them, though hundreds and hundreds of years went by. The Gopikās too did not dress Him as a king and adorn Him and describe Him as a great emperor, a very great one. Calling Him ‘Gopāla, Gopāla’ by His own natural name, they held conversations with Him and received His help and support. So we must not describe God. What is the reason? When we describe Him, He becomes a stranger; we and He have had a bond for many births. He is an old acquaintance of ours. We are old acquaintances of His. We are not new. The very word mānava brings out the meaning that we are old ones. Mā, not; nava, new: the one who is not new is the mānava. So it tells us. In many births we have many mothers and many children. How many mothers we have lost, how many fathers we have lost! Yet we have no bond of any kind with them. However many births we take, God alone has been with us, then and always.
When a new friend comes to our house, we say, ‘Come in, sit down.’ We offer them honour of this kind, spreading mats or setting out chairs. If it is an old friend instead, we use such words as ‘Come on, go on, sit down.’ So with all this honour we are treating God as a stranger. That is the fault in us. God is your close kin, your close friend. Honoured in this way, such a One keeps going away, saying, ‘Hey, a friendship? I have no need of it.’ We must open our hearts and welcome Him lovingly, with Prema. So all the devotees of old, using the familiar singular for God, kept begging Him, kept calling Him, and experienced the experience of Him. Tyāgarāja too experienced Rāmacandra in just this way.
Rāma, protect me! Rāma, protect me! With Prema, O Lokābhirāma, protect me!