Ras Leela – A Somatic dance

Picture Credit: Lakshmi Ambady

The “Rasleela” is a divine and highly symbolic dance that Krishna performed with the Gopis in the forests of Vrindavan during his youth. The term “Ras” refers to the divine or transcendental nectar, while “Leela” means play.  

During the Rasleela, Lord Krishna would play his flute, and the melodious music would enchant and lure the Gopis. They would be drawn to him irresistibly and would join him in a circle to dance. The Rasleela is a whirl of pure, spiritual love and devotion, symbolizing the eternal love between the individual soul (the Gopis) and the divine (Lord Krishna).

Krishna loved each and every one of the Gopis deeply. This interpretation of divine love and cosmic union is also a deeply embodied phenomena . A phenomena that mirrors a somatic process of attunement, regulation, discharge and ecstatic integration.

In the Rasleela, Lord Krishna mirrors each Gopi beautifully — dancing with all of them at once. This is divine attunement and harmony- the way a regulated nervous system (Krishna) offers co-regulation to dysregulated systems (the longing Gopis). Like a trauma therapist tracking a client’s movement, breath, and arousal —Krishna dances with each nervous system uniquely, helping them return to flow. To get the women to touch the core of the felt sense.

As soon as they hear Krishna’s flute, the Gopis leave behind their homes. their duty, shame and other social constructs. Their attraction is ushered by their bodies and what their felt sense tells them- how to move and where to move. Their bodies are steered by an inner rhythm. They move in spirals and circles, completing cycles that are incomplete in their daily lives and naturally respond to their primeval instinct. Somatically this is the body’s way of discharging movement without fear, of responding to rhythm with repression and expression without consequence.

The ecstasy in Ras Leela is embodied bliss, it is shaking off some semblance of suppression for the Gopis tremble, sweat, cry, and smile — their bodies release emotion, longing, grief, and shame. And it’s replaced with pure love and insane devotion towards Krishna. With him they feel safe and a trust in the body emerges with natural gestures. This is a somatic release of the parasympathetic discharge.

In trauma, the body freezes when fight or flight is not possible. Ras Leela is an unfreezing - a way the feminine reclaims movement, security, confidence, and agency, in the safe presence of a divine masculine who does not dominate, but simply dances with her.

Ras Leela is also the completion of interrupted life force for Krishna’s flute is not just music — it is the call of the body, a somatic call. A tone that pierces the numbness and awakens buried longing.

In the Ras Leela dance, all branches of the nervous system are touched and merely not bypassed, but integrated through movement, rhythm, connection, and divine play. The Gopis remember how to feel freely and to feel free. To them, the dance is a return of movement to unfreeze themselves.

Lord Krishna was not just God. He was regulation incarnate. He was one who stayed, the one who showed how to move. The one who knew how to attune. Within the heart of every Gopi resided Krishna. The one who was within. The one they could not live without. When they lost their minds, Krishna helped them find their bodies. Rasleela is a call to coming back to the body. To reclaiming pleasure. To owning up to truth. To loving God. To loving oneself.