Annie Besant on Lila (Hinduism)

“What but an unclean mind can see aught that is impure in the child [Krishna] dancing there as lover and beloved? It is as though He looked forward down the ages and saw what later would be said, and it is as though He kept the child form in the Lila, in order that He might breathe harmlessly into men’s blind unclean hearts the lesson that He would fain give.”

“The gods themselves had come down and taken birth as men; and when you think of all that took place throughout the wonderful childhood of the Lila of Sri Krishna, you must remember that those who played that act of the drama were the ordinary men, no ordinary women; they were the Protectors of the worlds incarnated as cowherds around Him. And the Gopis, the graceful wives of the shepherds, they were the Rishis of ancient days, who by devotion to Vishnu had gained the blessing of being incarnated as Gopis, in order that they might surround His childhood, and pour out their love at the tiny feet of the boy they saw as boy, of the God they worshipped as supreme.”