Swami Vivekananda explains the spiritual meaning of the gopis’ divine love for Krishna, which is:
too holy to be attempted without giving up everything, too sacred to be understood until the soul has become perfectly pure. Even the Gita, the great philosophy itself, does not compare with that madness, for in the Gita the disciple is taught slowly how to walk towards the goal, but here is the madness of enjoyment, the drunkenness of love, where disciples and teachers and teachings and books . . . everything has been thrown away. What remains is the madness of love. It is forgetfulness of everything and the lover sees nothing in the world except that Krishna, and Krishna alone.
–Mary Fisher, Living Religions