Now the characteristics of devotional service will be described according to various authoritative opinions.
In the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam (7.5.23), Prahlāda Mahārāja very clearly states what the essential activities of devotional service are:
śravaṇaḿ kīrtanaḿ viṣṇoḥ smaraṇaḿ pāda-sevanam
"Devotional service consists of (1) hearing about the Lord, (2) chanting His glories, (3) remembering Him, (4) serving and meditating upon His lotus feet, (5) worshiping Him, (6) praying to Him, (7) thinking oneself His eternal servant, (8) becoming His friend, and (9) surrendering everything to Him."
One should surrender to the Lord as much as an animal purchased from the market surrenders to its master. Such an animal never thinks of his maintenance because he knows that his master will look after him. A soul totally surrendered to the Supreme Lord is similarly never anxious for his maintenance. Śrīla Sanātana Gosvāmī gives further symptoms of full surrender in his Hari-bhakti-vilāsa (11.417):
ānukūlyasya sańkalpaḥ prātikūlyasya varjanam
"The six divisions of surrender are: accepting those things favorable to devotional service, rejecting unfavorable things, the conviction that Kṛṣṇa will give protection, accepting the Lord as one's guardian or master, full self-surrender, and humility." Nārada will gradually explain these principles of devotion in the remaining sūtras.

15

Śrīla Vyāsadeva, the son of Parāśara Muni, says that bhakti is fond attachment for worshiping the Lord in various ways.
In the previous sūtra, Nārada Muni promised that he would tell us some of the symptoms of devotional service according to various authoritative opinions. The Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam (6.3.20) mentions twelve mahā-janas, or Kṛṣṇa conscious authorities, and among them, one mahā-jana may emphasize a different aspect of bhakti than another. The Supreme Lord possesses an unlimited variety of qualities and pastimes, and it is natural that devotees favor particular modes of service. All devotees, however, agree on the siddhānta, or accepted conclusion. Bhakti is not open to continual speculation, such as the kind Western philosophers indulge in.
The first opinion Nārada offers is that of Śrīla Vyāsadeva, one of Nārada's many exalted disciples. Besides being a faithful disciple of Nārada's, Vyāsadeva is the compiler of the Vedas, and so his opinions are not contrary to Nārada's.
The words Vyāsa uses to describe bhakti are pūjā and anurāga. These refer to worship of the Lord performed with sincere love and great attachment. Nondevotees may perform pūjā, but they think of it as an external ritual. The Māyāvādī, for example, has an offensive concept of worship. He sees it as "a great aid in fixing one's mind on the Supreme." But what the Māyāvādī really has in mind is that his pūjā will lead him to see God and Brahman and the Ātman, or self, as one. In other words, he thinks that by worshiping God he will become God. The Māyāvādīs plainly advocate that while a person worships the Deity his first and foremost meditation should be on his unity with Brahman. This is a faithless and duplicitous form of "worship." The Māyāvādī may even offer a fruit or flower to the Deity, but his motivation is not to develop love for God but to attain absolute oneness with the Supreme, which he thinks he can do by imitating the activities of a devotee. Kṛṣṇa declares in the Bhagavad-gītā (4.11), ye yathā māḿ prapadyante tāḿs tathaiva bhajāmy aham: "As they approach Me, I reward them." And so those who desire to merge into the effulgence of the Supreme Person are awarded that impersonal status.
to time and circumstances, when the opportunity arises they do not avoid offering flaming lamps, incense, and
so on, as prescribed for temple worship. Moreover, whether mentally or externally, they always worship the spiritual for m of the Personality of Godhead.
A sincere devotee's pūjā is never merely mechanical but is offered with anurāga, strong feelings of attachment for the Lord. True worship is performed with the mind, the senses, and all the bodily limbs. Therefore the meaning of worship is not limited; it includes the engagement of all one's sensory and mental functions in service to the Supreme. As Lord Kṛṣṇa says,
ahaḿ sarvasya prabhavo mattaḥ sarvaḿ pravartate
"I am the source of all spiritual and material worlds. Everything emanates from Me. The wise who perfectly know this engage in My devotional service and worship Me with all their hearts" (Bg. 10.8). Lord Kṛṣṇa also describes the mahātmās as "great souls [who] perpetually worship Me with devotion" (Bg. 9.14).
Worship may include many activities, but the word pūjā particularly refers to the worship of the arcā-vigraha, the form of the Deity in the temple. Although Lord Caitanya was Śrī Kṛṣṇa Himself, He worshiped Lord Jagannātha at the temple in Purī. Lord Caitanya went to see the Deity every day and experienced great transcendental bliss. When Lord Jagannātha was absent from the temple during His renovation before Ratha-yātrā, Lord Caitanya acutely felt the pain of His absence and went into solitude at Ālālanātha.
Thus Deity worship is not just for beginners, nor is it merely an aid to impersonal meditation. It is a necessary part of devotional service. Although in this age the chanting of the holy names is the foremost method of devotional service, the bhakta should also worship the arcā-vigraha to counteract his tendencies for contamination, which are so strong in the Kali-yuga. This is the opinion of Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī.
We know from reading Vyāsadeva's Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam that his understanding of what constitutes worship of the Lord is not confined to temple worship of the arcā-vigraha. In the Seventh Canto of the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Prahlāda Mahārāja mentions nine processes of devotional service. Śrīla Vyāsadeva — and Śrīla Prabhupāda — often stressed the first two items, hearing and chanting the glories of the Lord, as the most important, especially in the present age. But by faithfully executing any of the nine processes of bhakti, one can achieve fond attachment to worshiping the Lord.
Garga Muni says that bhakti is fondness for narrations about the Lord, by the Lord, and so on.
As Garga Muni taught the importance of attachment for hearing kṛṣṇa-kathā, so Śrīla Prabhupāda also stressed kṛṣṇa-kathā. One type of kṛṣṇa-kathā consists of words directly spoken from the mouth of the Lord, such as the Bhagavad-gītā. Lord Caitanya advocated that we repeat the words spoken by Kṛṣṇa (kṛṣṇa-upadeśa) to whomever we meet. Another kind of kṛṣṇa-kathā consists of words spoken about Kṛṣṇa, such as those spoken by Śukadeva Gosvāmī to Mahārāja Parīkṣit in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. Śukadeva speaks throughout all twelve cantos about the wonderful pastimes of the Lord in His various incarnations. In the Tenth Canto he describes the original form of the Personality of Godhead, Lord Kṛṣṇa in Vṛndāvana, Mathurā, and Dvārakā. All of this is kṛṣṇa-kathā.
It is a characteristic of pure devotees that they speak only on transcendental subjects. A devotee practices mauna, or silence, by refraining from all mundane talk, but he is always pleased to speak kṛṣṇa-kathā. As Kṛṣṇa states in the Bhagavad-gītā (10.9),
mac-cittā mad-gata-prāṇā bodhayantaḥ parasparam
"The thoughts of My pure devotees dwell in Me, their lives are fully devoted to My service, and they derive great satisfaction and bliss from always enlightening one another and conversing about Me." Before beginning his Tenth Canto descriptions of Lord Kṛṣṇa, Śukadeva tells Mahārāja Parīkṣit,
nivṛtta-tarṣair upagīyamānād
"Descriptions of the Lord spoken by those who are free of material desires are the right medicine for the conditioned soul undergoing repeated birth and death, and they delight the ear and the mind. Therefore who will cease hearing such glorification of the Lord except a butcher or one who is killing his own self?" (Bhāg. 10.1.4).
Nārada Muni attributed his own Kṛṣṇa consciousness to the pure devotees (bhakti-vedāntas) whom he had served and heard speaking kṛṣṇa-kathā when he was only a five-year-old boy: "O Vyāsadeva, in that association and by the mercy of those great Vedāntists, I could hear them describe the attractive activities of Lord Kṛṣṇa. And thus listening attentively, my taste for hearing of the Personality of Godhead increased at every step" (Bhāg. 1.5.26). And so the opinion of Garga Muni — that bhakti consists of attraction for kṛṣṇa-kathā — is approved and practiced by the mahā-janas.
Śāṇḍilya says that bhakti results from one's removing all obstructions to taking pleasure in the Supreme Self.
Śāṇḍilya speaks of ātma-rati, "taking delight in the self." But what does "taking delight in the self" mean? According to the science of bhakti, that which delights the individual self (jīvātmā) is devotional service unto the Supreme Self, the Personality of Godhead. Śrīla Prabhupāda comments in The Nectar of Devotion (p. 288), "The devotees and self-realized persons who are engaged in preaching the glories of the Lord always maintain an ecstatic love for the Lord within their hearts. Thus they are benefited by the rays of the ecstatic moon, and they are called saintly persons." The state of brahma-bhūta, or the joy of discovering one's eternal nature, is only the beginning of spiritual life. Mukti, or liberation, when conceived of as impersonal liberation from birth and death, is also not the ultimate goal. As stated in the Ādi Purāṇa, "A person who is constantly engaged in chanting the holy name and who feels transcendental pleasure, being engaged in devotional service, is certainly awarded the facilities of devotional service, and never given just mukti" (The Nectar of Devotion, p. 104). There are many other statements in the Vedic scriptures that prove devotional service surpasses all other forms of liberation. In the Dāmodarāṣṭaka, part of the Padma Purāṇa, a devotee prays,
varaḿ deva mokṣaḿ na mokṣāvadhiḿ vā
"O Lord Dāmodara, although You are able to give all kinds of benedictions, I do not pray to You for the boon of impersonal liberation, nor for the highest liberation of eternal life in Vaikuṇṭha, nor for any other, similar boon. O Lord, I simply wish that this form of Yours as baby Gopāla in Vṛndāvana may ever be manifest in my heart, for what is the use to me of any other boon besides this?" (Dāmodarāṣṭaka 4).
A transcendentalist may seek ātma-rati in impersonal realization before he hears the glories of devotional service from pure devotees. For example, the four Kumāras and Śukadeva Gosvāmī were all Brahman-realized — but they were never offensive to the Supreme Personality of Godhead. As soon as the Kumāras and Śukadeva were introduced to pure Kṛṣṇa consciousness, they at once gave up their impersonal conceptions and became eager to render devotional service to the Lord. But stubborn Māyāvādīs who deride devotional service are in a different category. Lord Caitanya declared that the Māyāvādīs are great offenders to the Lord and that one should avoid their association.
A typical example of Māyāvādī poison is their interpretation of the word ātma-rati in this sūtra. The Māyāvādī claims that the worship (pūjā) and talking of the Lord (kṛṣṇa-kathā) mentioned in the two previous sūtras are meant to lead one beyond the Personality of Godhead to the ātmā. This is the impersonalist's timeserving attitude toward bhakti. He will worship the Lord and hear His līlā, but with the aim of finally denying the Personality of Godhead. He mistakenly thinks his meditation will lead him to realize that he is the all-pervading Brahman: "I am everything."
But if, as the Māyāvādīs claim, the ultimate bliss is to know that "I am God," then why has that bliss been missing up until now? If my identity is actually one in all respects with the all-pervading Godhead, then how did that identity become covered? What force has overcome the supreme ātmā? The fact is that the individual ātmās, being tiny, are prone to be covered by māyā, while the supreme ātmā, the Personality of Godhead, is never covered by māyā or separated from His sac-cid-ānanda-vigraha [Bs. 5.1], His spiritual form of eternity, bliss, and knowledge. So while the individual soul can never become God — because he never was God — he can strive for his constitutional perfection as the eternal loving servant of God.
The Māyāvādīs are consistently defeated by the direct statements of Vedic scriptures. In the beginning of the Bhagavad-gītā (2.12), Lord Kṛṣṇa makes it clear that both He and the individual ātmās eternally exist as distinct entities. On the Battlefield of Kurukṣetra, where two huge armies had massed for war, Kṛṣṇa said to Arjuna,
na tv evāhaḿ jātu nāsaḿ na tvaḿ neme janādhipāḥ
"Never was there a time when I did not exist, nor you, nor all these kings, nor in the future shall any of us cease to be." Kṛṣṇa reiterates this idea later in the Bhagavad-gītā (15.7): mamaivāḿśo jīva-loke jīva-bhūtaḥ sanātanaḥ. "The living entities in this conditioned world are My eternal fragmental parts." Also, the Ṛg Veda and the Upaniṣads state that the individual ātmā and the Paramātmā both reside in the heart of the living being, just as two birds sit in a tree. By the mercy of the Paramātmā, or "God in the heart," the individual ātmā may come to realize his eternal, blissful state of loving service to the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Attempts at concocting a bhakti devoid of eternal service to the Supreme Personality of Godhead are the works of demoniac minds. For genuine bhakti to exist, there must always be three factors: Bhagavān (the Supreme Lord), the bhakta (the eternal, subordinate servitor), and bhakti (loving exchanges between Bhagavān and the bhakta).
The Māyāvādīs ignore or distort the direct statements of the scriptures, as well as the words of the mahā-janas. We need not discuss their interpretations here, except to note that the Māyāvādīs are often attracted to the bhakti-śāstras because they find their own meditations too dry. Thus they approach books like the Bhagavad-gītā, the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, and the Nārada-bhakti-sūtra, but with an intention opposed to the aims of bhakti. By preaching that the forms of Lord Viṣṇu and His incarnations are material, the Māyāvādī commits a severe offense against the Lord. As Lord Kṛṣṇa says in the Bhagavad-gītā (9.11-12),
avajānanti māḿ mūḍhā mānuṣīḿ tanum āśritam
"Fools deride Me when I descend in the human form. They do not know My transcendental nature as the Supreme Lord of all that be. Those who are thus bewildered are attracted by demoniac and atheistic views. In that deluded condition, their hopes for liberation, their fruitive activities, and their culture of knowledge are all defeated."
We can experience true ātma-rati only in the context of our eternal loving relationship with Kṛṣṇa, the reservoir of all pleasure. Even when we seek happiness with our material senses, we are indirectly seeking ātma-rati. We derive pleasure with the eyes or tongue or ears only because the ātmā is present within the living body. Therefore bodily pleasure depends on the existence of the ātmā. Furthermore, the ātmā's pleasure is dependent on the Paramātmā. And the Paramātmā is an expansion of Śrī Kṛṣṇa, the original form of the Personality of Godhead. So in all circumstances we are looking for our blissful relationship with Kṛṣṇa. Self-satisfaction actually means the satisfaction of serving and loving Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Self.
Nārada, however, says that bhakti consists of offering one's every act to the Supreme Lord and feeling extreme distress in forgetting Him.
Nārada previously gave three definitions of bhakti, according to three sages: (1) fondness for worshiping the Lord in various ways, (2) fondness for hearing narrations by or about the Lord, and (3) removing all obstacles to enjoying pleasure in the Self. Now Nārada gives his own opinion, which does not contradict these views but is their culmination.
Among all forms of the Supreme Lord, Śrī Kṛṣṇa is the original and most attractive. Similarly, among all Vaiṣṇavas, the pure devotees of Kṛṣṇa in Vṛndāvana are the best. Lord Caitanya declared that there is no better method of worshiping Kṛṣṇa than that practiced by the gopīs of Vṛndāvana. Here Nārada says that a pure devotee feels great distress upon forgetting the Lord even for a moment — but in the case of the gopīs there was never any question of forgetting Kṛṣṇa. They were so absorbed in thinking of Him that they could not even perform their household duties. In their intense loving dealings, the gopīs sometimes accused Kṛṣṇa of unfaithfulness, and they expressed a wish that they could forget Him. But they could not. As stated by Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī, the chief of all the gopīs:
We know all about Kṛṣṇa and how ungrateful He is. But here is the difficulty: In spite of His being so cruel and hardhearted, it is very difficult for us to give up talking about Him. Not only are we unable to give up this talk, but great sages and saintly persons also engage in talking about Him. We gopīs of Vṛndāvana do not want to make any more friendships with this blackish boy, but we do not know how we shall be able to give up remembering and talking about His activities. [Kṛṣṇa, p. 377]
Out of intense humility Lord Caitanya once said that He did not have even a drop of love for Kṛṣṇa. he claimed that if He actually loved Kṛṣṇa, then how could He live in His absence? Far from proving a lack of love, of course, this kind of sentiment proves just the opposite — that Lord Caitanya was filled with the most exalted pure love for Kṛṣṇa. Although it was not possible for Lord Caitanya or the gopīs to forget Kṛṣṇa at any time, they still experienced the pain of separation from Him. In His Śikṣāṣṭaka (7), Lord Caitanya prays,
yugāyitaḿ nimeṣeṇa cakṣuṣā prāvṛṣāyitam
"O Govinda! Because of separation from You, I consider even a moment a great millennium. Tears flow from my eyes like torrents of rain, and I see the entire world as void."
Here Nārada says that an essential ingredient of bhakti is dedicating one's every act to the service of the Lord. Unlike what passes for commitment to a cause in the material world, such dedication to Kṛṣṇa is all-encompassing. Because Lord Kṛṣṇa is the summum bonum of existence, the pure devotee can be with Him in every circumstance. And because the Lord is all-attractive, the devotee becomes increasingly attached to his beloved. As Kṛṣṇa declares in the Bhagavad-gītā (6.30),
yo māḿ paśyati sarvatra sarvaḿ ca mayi paśyati
"For one who sees Me everywhere and sees everything in Me, I am never lost, nor is he ever lost to Me." To the materialists, with their splayed interests in sense gratification, the devotee's love may appear to be obsessive madness. But love for Kṛṣṇa actually brings one in touch with the truth, that Kṛṣṇa is everything.
One may ask whether the devotees' intense anguish experienced in separation from Kṛṣṇa contradicts Sūtra 18, wherein Śāṇḍilya defined bhakti as the bliss of self-realization. There is no contradiction, because the pain of separation felt by Lord Caitanya and other pure devotees is a variety of transcendental bliss. In the realm of spiritual emotions experienced by those at the stage of prema, love of God, both sadness and happiness are absolute and blissful. Speculative philosophers and less advanced devotees cannot know this, but we may hear about it from the scriptures and see it in the lives of self-realized saints.
A devotee's self-surrender means that he wants nothing in return for his loving service. He only wants Kṛṣṇa to be pleased. Selflessness does not mean a complete loss of ego. Total self-annihilation is impossible (despite the wishes of the voidists), but ahańkāra, or false ego, is dissolved by devotional service and replaced by true ego, the understanding that "I am an eternal servant of the Lord." The true self-interest of the living being lies in freedom from selfishness and, as Nārada says here, "the offering of one's every act to the Supreme Lord." We are all eternally part and parcel of the Supreme Being, Kṛṣṇa; as such, we can experience full satisfaction only through giving Him pleasure. Kṛṣṇe tuṣṭe jagat tuṣṭam: "When Kṛṣṇa is satisfied, everyone is satisfied."
The beginner in devotional service can practice selflessness by surrendering to the bona fide spiritual master. The devotee is advised to give all he has to the service of his guru and to always consider his guru his well-wisher. Devotees who practice such selfless service of the guru and the Supreme Lord never want anything in return, yet they eventually receive the greatest reward — the Lord's intimate association. As Kṛṣṇa says,
man-manā bhava mad-bhakto mad-yājī māḿ namas-kuru
"Always think of Me, become My devotee, worship Me, and offer your homage unto Me. Thus you will come to Me without fail. I promise you this because you are My very dear friend" (Bg. 18.65).
Bhakti is, in fact, correctly described in each of these ways.
The definitions of bhakti given above — by Śrīla Vyāsadeva, Garga Muni, Śāṇḍilya, and Nārada Muni — are not in conflict. While Nārada has given us his own definition, here he says that the others are also valid. Bhakti is in fact a universal principle present at least partially in all theistic religions. Indeed, within many religions one could find a definition of love of God that would not contradict the conclusions of Nārada Muni and the principles of Kṛṣṇa consciousness taught by the followers of Lord Caitanya.
Nārada has defined the highest form of bhakti. But is such a perfect state possible? The answer is yes. Unless devotees from time to time manifest pure bhakti, aspirants on the spiritual path would have nothing to emulate and strive for, and they might conclude that parama-bhakti is only an imaginary ideal. As Lord Caitanya says, dharma-sthāpana-hetu sādhura vyavahāra: "A devotee's behavior establishes the true purpose of religious principles" (Cc. Madhya 17.185).
Once Sanātana Gosvāmī pretended to be devoted to a sannyāsī named Mukunda Sarasvatī, rather than to Lord Caitanya. When Lord Caitanya's intimate servant Jagadānanda Paṇḍita saw Sanātana's behavior, he became very angry and threatened to beat Sanātana. Sanātana then revealed his purpose: "My dear Jagadānanda Paṇḍita, you are a greatly learned saint. No one is dearer to Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu than you. This faith in Lord Caitanya befits you quite well. Unless you demonstrate it, how could I learn such faith?" (Cc. Antya 13.59).
We have seen the example of complete self-surrender and dedication of one's activities to Kṛṣṇa in the life of His Divine Grace
A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda. Śrīla Prabhupāda's sanctity was not a private affair: he gave of himself profusely and was empowered to bring thousands of people to Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Thus he perfectly fulfilled the criterion given by Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura — that one can tell the quality of a Vaiṣṇava by how many persons he convinces to become Vaiṣṇavas. By his personal preaching, by his books, and by the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement he created and nurtured, Śrīla Prabhupāda showed the example of a life dedicated purely to pleasing Kṛṣṇa. The potency of his acts continues as an ongoing legacy, accessible to anyone interested in taking up the path of bhakti-yoga. We are assured, therefore, of finding examples of perfect bhakti in the past, at present, and in the future.
Here Nārada states that each authority he has quoted has described bhakti in his own authentic way. But in the next sūtra Nārada will say that the gopīs of Vraja are exemplars of bhakti. Of the brief definitions of bhakti given in Sūtras 16 through 19, we find that Nārada's own definition best fits the gopīs: "Bhakti consists of offering one's every act to the Supreme Lord and feeling extreme distress in forgetting Him."
The cowherd women of Vraja are an example of pure bhakti.
In Sūtra 19, Nārada gave the ultimate definition of bhakti. This has led him inevitably to mention the topmost of all devotees, the gopīs of Vraja. Nārada might have mentioned other renowned bhaktas, such as Uddhava, Arjuna, Prahlāda Mahārāja, or mother Yaśodā, but he has chosen to give the singular example of the gopīs. Nārada's opinion is shared by all realized Vaiṣṇavas, because the gopīs are renowned as the best lovers of Lord Kṛṣṇa. The gopīs are most exalted because they gave everything, and sacrificed everything, for their beloved. As Śrīla Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja writes in the Caitanya-caritāmṛta (Ādi 4.167-69),
Social customs, scriptural injunctions, bodily demands, fruitive action, shyness, patience, bodily pleasures, self-gratification on the path of varṇāśrama-dharma, which is difficult to give up — the gopīs have forsaken all these, along with their families, and suffered their relatives' punishment and scolding, all for the sake of serving Lord Kṛṣṇa. They render loving service to Him for the sake of His enjoyment.
The gopīs' rasa with Kṛṣṇa is mādhurya, or conjugal love. But even bhaktas who worship the Lord in other rasas acknowledge the supermost place of the gopīs in the kingdom of bhakti. Nārada Muni, for example, usually associates with Lord Kṛṣṇa in His opulent features in Vaikuṇṭha or Dvārakā. In his exchanges with Lord Kṛṣṇa, Nārada often praises the Lord's inconceivable opulence. For example, once when Nārada visited Kṛṣṇa in many of His sixteen thousand palaces, he was astonished to see how the Lord had expanded Himself so He could be alone with each of His queens. "Your transcendental position is always inconceivable to everyone," said Nārada. "As far as I am concerned, I can simply offer my respectful obeisances to You again and again" (Kṛṣṇa, p. 603). Since Nārada is one of the Lord's learned and intimate devotees, he is aware that the gopīs exemplify the topmost expression of love for Kṛṣṇa. Similarly, devotees such as Śukadeva Gosvāmī, Bhīṣmadeva, and Vyāsadeva appreciate the gopīs' exalted position.
Even the impersonalists are attracted to Kṛṣṇa's loving affairs with the gopīs, although they cannot understand them. Attempting to praise the gopīs of Vṛndāvana, one impersonalist "Swami" said, "Gopī-līlā is the acme of the religion of love, in which individuality vanishes and there is communion." But it's not a fact that "individuality vanishes," either for the gopīs or for any other living entity. As we have pointed out above, Lord Kṛṣṇa clearly and repeatedly states that both His individuality and the living entities' are eternal. The gopīs did, however, completely lose their selfish interest — their interest became entirely one with Lord Kṛṣṇa's. To consider the gopīs' rāsa dance with Kṛṣṇa merely a stage leading to merging into the impersonal Brahman is a great insult to the gopīs and to gopī-līlā, even though one's intent is to praise. When they appeared before Kṛṣṇa in the moonlit forest of Vṛndāvana, the gopīs certainly did not want Him to instruct them about "merging" with Him through jñāna-yoga, nor did they see the rāsa dance in that way. Speaking in the mood of Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī as She met with Kṛṣṇa at Kurukṣetra, Lord Caitanya once complained to Him about His attempt to teach yoga and meditation to the gopīs:
My dear Kṛṣṇa, formerly, when You were staying at Mathurā, You sent Uddhava to teach Me speculative knowledge and mystic yoga. Now You Yourself are speaking the same thing, but My mind does not accept it. There is no place in My mind for jñāna-yoga or dhyāna-yoga. Although You know Me very well, You are still instructing Me in dhyāna-yoga and jñāna-yoga. It is not right for You to do so. I would like to withdraw My consciousness from You and engage it in material activities, but even though I try, I cannot do so. I am naturally inclined to You only. Therefore Your instructions for Me to meditate on You are simply ludicrous..... It is not very good for You to think of Me as a candidate for Your instructions.
Even in the case of the gopīs, one cannot criticize them for forgetting the Lord's greatness.
Nārada is replying to a possible criticism: Although all Vaiṣṇavas praise the gopīs, and though even the impersonalists join in the chorus, some philosophers think the gopīs' love is uninformed. Because the gopīs were attracted to Kṛṣṇa as a beautiful young boy, and because they ran from their homes in the dead of night to dance with Him in the moonlit Vṛndāvana forest, foolish critics think the gopīs did not know that Kṛṣṇa is the Supreme Personality of Godhead.
The accusation against the gopīs is false, says Nārada. The gopīs knew that Śrī Kṛṣṇa is the Supreme Person, but in their intimate rasa with Him they put aside the awe and reverence usually offered to the Supreme Lord. The Lord's internal potency, Yogamāyā, allows loving intimacy to overshadow God's majesty. But this does not mean that pure devotees like the gopīs lack spiritual advancement. Except for the gopīs Kṛṣṇa brought with Him from the spiritual world, all the gopīs came to their position of mādhurya-rasa only after many lifetimes of austerity and spiritual cultivation. Regarding the cowherd boys (gopas) who play with Kṛṣṇa, the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam states that they attained their position "only after accumulating heaps of pious activities" in many lives. So although it may sometimes appear that the liberated devotees have forgotten that Lord Kṛṣṇa is God, this is actually an arrangement by Yogamāyā for increasing the pleasure of the Lord and His devotees.
For example, as Vasudeva carried his baby son Kṛṣṇa across the Yamunā River, the baby fell into the river. Śrīla Prabhupāda writes, "Just to test the intense love of Vasudeva, Lord Kṛṣṇa fell down into the waters of the Yamunā while His father was crossing the river. Vasudeva became mad after his child as he tried to recover Him in the midst of the rising river" (Bhāg. 3.2.17, purport). Lord Kṛṣṇa did not want Vasudeva to think, "Oh, Kṛṣṇa will save Himself; He's God," but He wanted to evoke the paternal rasa in full intensity. In a similar way, mother Yaśodā sometimes expressed her maternal love for baby Kṛṣṇa by punishing Him. And when His mother came to punish Him, Kṛṣṇa reciprocated by running away in fear. Śrīla Prabhupāda describes this apparent contradiction as follows:
The Lord's pure devotee renders service unto the Lord out of unalloyed love only, and while discharging such devotional service the pure devotee forgets the position of the Supreme Lord. The Supreme Lord also accepts the loving service of His devotees more relishably when the service is rendered spontaneously out of pure affection, without any reverential admiration.... If mother Yaśodā had been conscious of the exalted position of the Lord, she would certainly have hesitated to punish the Lord. But she was made to forget this situation because the Lord wanted to make a complete gesture of childishness before the affectionate Yaśodā.... Mother Yaśodā is praised for her unique position of love, for she could control even the all-powerful Lord as her beloved child. [Bhāg. 1.8.31, purport]
Another prominent example is Arjuna, Kṛṣṇa's friend, who accepted the infallible Lord as his chariot driver.
As for the gopīs of Vraja, they often manifested deep knowledge of Kṛṣṇa's divinity. But they never diminished their conjugal mood in order to become scholars or meditators. Kṛṣṇa wanted to dance with the most beautiful girls in the universe, and so the gopīs, His completely surrendered servants, happily complied. When Kṛṣṇa called the gopīs to Him in the dead of night, He first began to lecture them on morality. The gopīs complained to Him about this attitude, and yet their statements indicate that they knew very well who He was. The gopīs said to Kṛṣṇa,
Within these three worlds there is no distinction between men and women in relation to You because both men and women belong to the marginal potency, or prakṛti. No one is actually the enjoyer, or male; everyone is meant to be enjoyed by You. There is no woman within these three worlds who cannot but deviate from her path of chastity when she is attracted to You because Your beauty is so sublime that not only men and women, but cows, birds, beasts, and even trees, fruits, and flowers — everyone and everything — become enchanted, and what to speak of ourselves? [Kṛṣṇa, p. 252]
After Lord Kṛṣṇa left Vṛndāvana, He sent Uddhava to deliver a message to the gopīs. When Uddhava saw the gopīs' undying devotion for Śrī Kṛṣṇa, he praised their transcendental perfection:
My dear gopīs, the mentality you have developed in relationship to Kṛṣṇa is very, very difficult to attain, even for great sages and saintly persons. You have attained the highest perfectional stage of life. It is a great boon for you that you have fixed your minds upon Kṛṣṇa and have decided to have Kṛṣṇa only, giving up your family, homes, relatives, husbands, and children for the sake of the Supreme Personality. Because your minds are now fully absorbed in Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Soul, universal love has automatically developed in you. I think myself very fortunate that I have been favored, by your grace, to see you in this situation. [Kṛṣṇa, p. 380]
The gopīs were always impatient when either Uddhava or Kṛṣṇa spoke philosophy to them, because all they wanted was to be alone with Kṛṣṇa in the Vṛndāvana mood. So when Uddhava praised them, they did not find it very pleasing. Sometimes they even denounced Kṛṣṇa's behavior, and yet they remained aware of His supreme and independent position. As one gopī said, "Kṛṣṇa is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, the husband of the goddess of fortune, and He is self-sufficient. He has no business either with us — the girls of Vṛndāvana forest — or with the city girls in Mathurā. He is the great Supersoul; He has nothing to do with any of us, either here or there" (Kṛṣṇa, p. 386).
It is offensive to judge the gopīs according to ordinary standards of human behavior. The intimacy Kṛṣṇa allowed them is inconceivable, and no one can understand it except those who are completely free of material desires. The gopīs' love is certainly beyond awe and reverence, and yet it is never mundane.
The impersonalist sometimes tries to jump on the bandwagon of praise for the gopīs. He says that the gopīs cannot be understood by people infected with worldly lust, but then he himself commits an even worse offense: he thinks Kṛṣṇa's affairs with the gopīs are "allegories that contain profound spiritual truths." Behind the Māyāvādī's admiration of gopī-bhāva is the desire to commit spiritual annihilation, to become one with God. In other words, the impersonalist thinks that at the last stage of perfection, a gopī will realize that her beloved Kṛṣṇa is her very self. We have already pointed out the foolishness of these claims, but we do so again just to expose the impersonalist's so-called praise of kṛṣṇa-līlā.
By contrast, Nārada Muni's praise of the gopīs' devotion to Lord Kṛṣṇa is upheld by all śāstras and sages.
On the other hand, displays of devotion without knowledge of God's greatness are no better than the affairs of illicit lovers.
The gopīs' loving exchanges with Kṛṣṇa have nothing to do with mundane passion, but because they resemble lusty activities in the material world, those with impure minds mistake them for such. Śrīla Prabhupāda was therefore always very cautious in presenting Lord Kṛṣṇa's rāsa-līlā. Lord Caitanya was also very cautious in discussing such topics. Although He was always merged in gopī-bhāva, He discussed Kṛṣṇa's loving affairs with the gopīs only with a few intimate disciples. For the mass of people, Lord Caitanya distributed love of God by propagating the congregational chanting of the holy name.
Śrīla Prabhupāda would sometimes tell a story to show how most people mistake the transcendental loving affairs of Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa as mundane dealings between an ordinary boy and girl. Once there was a fire in a barn, and one of the cows almost died of fright. Afterward, whenever that cow saw the color red, she would think a fire was burning and become panic-stricken. Similarly, as soon as an ordinary man or woman sees a picture of Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa, he or she immediately thinks Their relationship is just like that between an ordinary boyfriend and girlfriend or husband and wife. Unfortunately, professional reciters of the Bhāgavatam promote this misconception by jumping into Lord Kṛṣṇa's conjugal pastimes in the Tenth Canto, although neither they nor their audience are fit to hear them. The authorized approach to the Bhāgavatam is to first carefully read the first nine cantos, which establish the greatness of the Supreme Lord, His universal form, His material and spiritual energies, His creation of the cosmos, His incarnations, and so on. Reading the first two cantos is like contemplating the lotus feet of the Lord, and as one gradually progresses, one looks upon the Lord's various bodily limbs, until finally one sees His smiling face in the Tenth Canto's account of His pastimes with the gopīs.
If Kṛṣṇa's pastimes with the gopīs' were lusty affairs, neither pure brahmacārīs like Nārada and Śukadeva nor liberated sages like Uddhava and Vyāsadeva would have praised them so highly. Such great devotees are free from all mundane passion; so how could they be interested in Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa if Their love were a worldly sex affair?
From the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam we learn that all the gopīs had spiritual bodies. This is another proof that Kṛṣṇa's pastimes with the gopīs are supramundane. When Kṛṣṇa played His flute in Vṛndāvana on the full-moon night of the autumn season, the gopīs went to Him in their spiritual bodies. Many of these gopīs are eternal companions of Kṛṣṇa, and when He exhibits His transcendental pastimes within the material world, they come with Him. But some of the gopīs who joined Kṛṣṇa's pastimes within this material world came from the status of ordinary human beings. By always thinking of Kṛṣṇa as their beloved, they became purified of all material contamination and elevated to the same status as the eternally liberated gopīs. Śrīla Prabhupāda writes, "All the gopīs who concentrated their minds on Kṛṣṇa in the spirit of paramour love became fully uncontaminated from all the fruitive reactions of material nature, and some of them immediately gave up their material bodies developed under the three modes of material nature" (Kṛṣṇa, p. 242). Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura explains in his commentary on the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam that here "giving up the material body" does not mean dying but rather purification of all material contamination and attainment of a purely spiritual body.
When Śukadeva Gosvāmī began reciting Kṛṣṇa's rāsa-līlā pastimes, Mahārāja Parīkṣit raised a doubt similar to that addressed in this sūtra. He asked, "How could the gopīs attain liberation by thinking of a paramour?" Śukadeva replied that even if one thinks that the gopīs were motivated by lust, any association with Kṛṣṇa will purify one of all material desires. Because He is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, even someone like Śiśupāla, who was absorbed in thinking of Kṛṣṇa out of envy, gained salvation. As Śrīla Prabhupāda explains in Kṛṣṇa (p. 245):
The conclusion is that if one somehow or other becomes attached to Kṛṣṇa or attracted to Him, either because of His beauty, quality, opulence, fame, strength, renunciation, or knowledge, or even through lust, anger, or fear, or through affection or friendship, then one's salvation and freedom from material contamination are assured.
The society girl Kubjā is an example of how even lusty attraction to Kṛṣṇa frees one from material contamination. She approached Kṛṣṇa with lusty desire, but her lust was relieved just by smelling the fragrance of Kṛṣṇa's lotus feet.
While the word kāma (lust) is used to describe the gopīs' feelings toward Kṛṣṇa, in their case it is actually a transcendental emotion. The gopīs wanted Kṛṣṇa to be their husband, but there was no possibility of His marrying all of them in the usual sense. So they married regular husbands (though some were unmarried at the time of the rāsa dance) but retained their love for Kṛṣṇa. Therefore Kṛṣṇa's loving relationship with the gopīs is known as pārakīya-rasa (paramour love). But whereas in the material world the relationship of a married woman with a paramour is abominable, in the spiritual world it is the most exalted relationship one can have with Kṛṣṇa. Just as a tree reflected in the water appears upside down, so that which is topmost in the spiritual world — Kṛṣṇa's loving dealings with the gopīs — becomes abominable when reflected in the material world as illicit sexual affairs. When people imitate Kṛṣṇa's rāsa dance with the gopīs, they enjoy only the perverted reflection of the transcendental pārakīya-rasa. Śrīla Prabhupāda writes in Kṛṣṇa (p. 240), "It is stated in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam that one should not imitate this pārakīya-rasa even in dream or imagination. Those who do so drink the most deadly poison."
Another characteristic of mundane paramour love is that it is unsteady. As soon as one's sex pleasure is disrupted, one seeks out a new partner. The Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam predicts that in the Age of Kali marriage will become degraded to a mere convenience for sex pleasure and will break apart as soon as that pleasure abates. But once one revives one's loving relationship with Kṛṣṇa, that relationship will remain steady and ever fresh.
The gopīs' love for Kṛṣṇa is within Śrī Kṛṣṇa's hlādinī-śakti, or internal pleasure potency. When Śrī Kṛṣṇa wants to enjoy, He associates with the gopīs, not with women of the material world. This is another indication of the gopīs' superexcellent spiritual position. In Kṛṣṇa's exchanges with the gopīs through the hlādinī-śakti, there is unlimited and unending ecstasy; this pleasure is far different from the quickly satiated lusts of sexual affairs, which are soon followed by painful entanglements and karmic reactions.
Even after Śukadeva Gosvāmī had explained the spiritual nature of the love that Kṛṣṇa and the gopīs exchanged during the rāsa dance, Mahārāja Parīkṣit questioned Śukadeva as to why Kṛṣṇa would act in a way that would make ordinary people see Him as immoral. Śukadeva replied that because Lord Kṛṣṇa is the supreme īśvara, or controller, He is independent of all social and religious principles. This is simply more evidence of His greatness. As the supreme īśvara, Lord Kṛṣṇa may sometimes violate His own instructions with impunity, but that is possible only for the supreme controller, not for us. Since no one can imitate such astounding activities of Lord Kṛṣṇa's
as creating the universe or lifting Govardhana Hill, no one should try to imitate His rāsa dance, either. To further clear up all doubts about Kṛṣṇa and the gopīs, one may read Chapter Thirty-two of Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Personality of Godhead.
In such false devotion one does not find pleasure exclusively in the Lord's pleasure.
As already explained, lust is as different from love as iron is from gold. Śrīla Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja states,
ātmendriya-prīti-vāñchā — tāre bali 'kāma'
"The desire to gratify one's own senses is kāma [lust], but the desire to please the senses of Lord Kṛṣṇa is prema [love]" (Cc. Ādi 4.165). Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī expresses Her pure love for Kṛṣṇa in this way:
"I do not mind My personal distress. I only wish for the happiness of Kṛṣṇa, for His happiness is the goal of My life. However, if He feels great happiness in giving Me distress, that distress is the best of My happiness" (Cc. Antya 20.52).
Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja informs us, "The gopīs have no inclination for their own enjoyment, and yet their joy increases. That is indeed a contradiction." The solution to this contradiction is that "the joy of the gopīs lies in the joy of their beloved Kṛṣṇa" (Cc. Ādi 4.188-89). Although the gopīs are the leaders in this selfless love for the Lord, all Vaiṣṇavas share in this sentiment. When Lord Nṛsiḿhadeva wanted to offer a benediction to Prahlāda Mahārāja, who had undergone so much suffering on the Lord's account, Prahlāda declined. He said he had not performed his devotional service in the mood of a merchant seeking profit in exchange for service: "O my Lord, I am Your unmotivated servant, and You are my eternal master. There is no need for our being anything other than master and servant. You are naturally my master, and I am naturally Your servant. We have no other relationship" (Bhāg. 7.10.6).
In a similar mood, Mādhavendra Purī underwent difficult austerities in order to carry a load of sandalwood for the sake of his beloved Gopāla Deity. Mādhavendra walked thousands of miles through territory governed by Muhammadans and filled with thieves and watchmen. Describing Mādhavendra's service, Lord Caitanya said, "This is the natural result of intense love of Godhead. The devotee does not consider personal inconveniences or impediments. In all circumstances he wants to serve the Supreme Personality of Godhead" (Cc. Madhya 4.186).
Like the gopīs, all pure devotees feel great happiness when serving Kṛṣṇa, even when that service entails severe austerity. Śrīla Prabhupāda writes, "It is said that when one sees apparent unhappiness or distress in a perfect Vaiṣṇava, it is not at all unhappiness for him; rather it is transcendental bliss" (Cc. Madhya 4.186, purport).
We may ask, Why does a devotee approach Lord Kṛṣṇa with pure selfless love, seeking only to please Him? To understand the answer to this question, one has to personally experience such love. There are glimmers of such love even in the material world, as in the love a mother feels for her child. Even within the animal kingdom a mother sometimes risks her life to protect her offspring. But pure selfless love exists only in relation to the all-attractive Personality of Godhead. One cannot precisely analyze this love in intellectual terms, but one can experience it with a purified heart.
The secret driving force for the devotees is the all-attractive nature of Kṛṣṇa and the fact that He is the Self of all selves. Śukadeva Gosvāmī explains this in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam (10.14.50-57), after he relates how Kṛṣṇa expanded Himself into all the calves and cowherd boys of Vṛndāvana. When Kṛṣṇa expanded Himself in this way, the parents of the boys and calves felt increased love for their offspring. Upon hearing the account of this miraculous pastime, Mahārāja Parīkṣit asked, "When Kṛṣṇa expanded Himself, why is it that the boys' parents became more loving toward Him than toward their own sons? Also, why did the cows become so loving toward the calves, more so than toward their own calves?" Śukadeva replied that since what is most attractive to the living being is his own self, and since Kṛṣṇa, as the Supersoul, is the Self of all selves, He is the all-attractive center for everyone. Therefore, when He expanded Himself as the calves and boys of Vṛndāvana, the calves' and boys' parents were more affectionate toward Kṛṣṇa's expansions than toward their own offspring.
By loving Kṛṣṇa, a person realizes his love for all living beings. In other words, universal love is a part of God consciousness. This is expressed in two great commandments of the Bible: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might" (Deuteronomy 6:5); and "Thou shalt love they neighbor as thyself" (Matthew 19:19). Prabhupāda would give a homely example to show how love of God implies universal love: When a man marries a woman, he also gains a relationship with her whole family and may quickly develop affection for his new in-laws. Similarly, if one develops love for Kṛṣṇa, the father of all living beings, one immediately becomes aware of one's loving relationship with all Kṛṣṇa's children. A devotee who even partially realizes his love for Kṛṣṇa wants to work to fulfill Kṛṣṇa's mission in this world, which is to help all living beings end their suffering and go back to Godhead. When one does this not for fame as a preacher and not as a professional business — but as a humble servant meeting all difficulties for the sake of spreading Kṛṣṇa consciousness — he becomes the dearmost servant of the Lord. This is the perfection of happiness in spiritual love, and it is completely unlike lust, the desire for one's own pleasure.
Pure devotional service, on the other hand, is far superior to fruitive work, philosophical speculation, and mystic meditation.
Having described the gopīs of Vraja as the topmost example of parā bhakti, Nārada now turns his attention to bhakti-yoga in general. Here Nārada asserts that all bhaktas are categorically superior to other Vedic practitioners. The classification of human beings into karmīs, jñānīs, yogīs, and bhaktas is itself a brilliant gift of Vedic knowledge. Let us see why, out of the full range of possible activities, bhakti is the highest.
Karma refers in the broadest sense to any activity, but it often means activities performed within the bounds of Vedic injunctions with the intention of enjoying the results. (Another term, vikarma, is used for activity forbidden by the Vedas.) So karma, although having religious stature, is still material. The karmī is interested in rewards like money, sense pleasure, and fame in this life, and he also seeks promotion to higher planets in the next life. The great defect of karma is that it always results in reactions, which force the karmī to take another material birth by the process of transmigration of the soul. Therefore, whether "good" or "bad," pious or impious, all karma keeps one bound within the cycle of birth and death.
Jñāna refers to the cultivation of knowledge. The jñānī sees the shortcomings of karma and begins to inquire into higher truth. Jñānīs are generally philosophers and meditators. They are not interested merely in material results, but in knowledge for its own sake. By cultivating jñāna through the study of Vedic śāstras or through meditation, the jñānī can come to the brink of spiritual knowledge, awareness of eternal Brahman. But unless he goes further and understands his relationship with the Supreme Personality of Godhead, he will suffer the same defeat as the karmī — confinement within the cycle of birth and death. A prayer to Kṛṣṇa by the demigods points up the jñānīs' shortcoming:
O lotus-eyed Lord, although nondevotees who accept severe austerities and penances to achieve the highest position may think themselves liberated, their intelligence is impure. They fall down from their position of imagined superiority because they have no regard for Your lotus feet. [Bhāg. 10.2.32]
The third category of human endeavor is yoga. Lord Kṛṣṇa describes the yogī as follows: "A yogī is greater than the ascetic, greater than the empiricist, and greater than the fruitive worker. Therefore, O Arjuna, in all circumstances be a yogī" (Bg. 6.46). There are many types of yoga, such as haṭha-yoga, aṣṭāńga-yoga, rāja-yoga, dhyāna-yoga, and bhakti-yoga. Rudimentary haṭha-yoga has become very popular as a form of exercise and relaxation, but real yoga — as taught by Patañjali in his Yoga-sūtra or by Kṛṣṇa in the Sixth Chapter of Bhagavad-gītā — is an eightfold system of meditation for attaining samādhi, or complete absorption of the mind in the Supreme. The eightfold yoga process is very difficult to perform, and even Arjuna decided it was too difficult for him. And those few who can practice it often become captivated by the siddhis, or perfections, that one can gain through this yoga, such as the ability to walk on water, become extremely small, and control other people's minds. So the mystic yoga process, being very difficult and full of many possible distractions, is not recommended in this age.
Activities of karma, jñāna, and yoga are not condemned as such by those practicing bhakti, devotional service. Rather, when these lesser activities are dovetailed in the service of the Supreme Lord, they are favorable methods of devotional service. For example, when karma, or activity, is joined with devotional service, it becomes karma-yoga, action in Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Lord Kṛṣṇa recommends this in the Bhagavad-gītā (9.27):
yat karoṣi yad aśnāsi yaj juhoṣi dadāsi yat
"Whatever you do, whatever you eat, whatever you offer or give away, and whatever austerities you perform — do that, O son of Kuntī, as an offering to Me" (Bg. 9.27).
Those who cultivate knowledge (jñāna) are often very proud and consider themselves superior to devotees. But the perfection of knowledge is to surrender to the Supreme Personality of Godhead and realize that He is everything. Then jñāna becomes jñāna-yoga and is purified of mental speculation. As Kṛṣṇa says in the Bhagavad-gītā (7.19),
bahūnāḿ janmanām ante jñānavān māḿ prapadyate
"After many births and deaths, he who is actually in knowledge surrenders unto Me, knowing Me to be the cause of all causes and all that is. Such a great soul is very rare" (Bg. 7.19).
Similarly, Kṛṣṇa tells Arjuna at the end of the Sixth Chapter of the Gītā that absorption in Kṛṣṇa consciousness is the ultimate yoga:
yoginām api sarveṣāḿ mad-gatenāntar ātmanā
"And of all yogīs, the one with great faith who always abides in Me, thinks of Me within himself, and renders transcendental loving service to Me — he is the most intimately united with Me in yoga and is the highest of all. That is My opinion" (Bg. 6.47).
So karma, jñāna, and yoga can become favorable for Kṛṣṇa consciousness. But direct parā bhakti is the conclusion of Lord Kṛṣṇa's teachings in the Bhagavad-gītā:
man-manā bhava mad-bhakto mad-yājī māḿ namas-kuru
"Always think of Me, become My devotee, worship Me, and offer your homage unto Me. Thus you will come to Me without fail. I promise you this because you are My very dear friend. Abandon all varieties of religion and just surrender unto Me. I shall deliver you from all sinful reactions. Do not fear" (Bg. 18.65-66).
Thus in the Bhagavad-gītā Lord Kṛṣṇa confirms Nārada's assertion here that bhakti is supreme.
After all, bhakti is the fruit of all endeavor.
Bhakti is more than a process leading to a result: it is the constitutional nature of the living being. As Lord Caitanya states in the Caitanya-caritāmṛta (Madhya 20.108), jīvera 'svarūpa' haya — kṛṣṇera 'nitya-dāsa': "It is the living entity's constitutional position to be an eternal servant of Kṛṣṇa." Even in the beginning stages, bhakti is both the means and the end. To explain this, Śrīla Prabhupāda gives the example of a mango. In its unripe stage, a mango is a mango, and when it becomes ripe and relishable, it is still a mango. So even neophyte activities of bhakti are within the realm of love of God and are pleasing to Kṛṣṇa. But activities of karma, jñāna, and yoga are not pleasing to Kṛṣṇa unless they are dovetailed with bhakti.
When one begins devotional service, the emphasis is on performing obligatory practices ordered by the spiritual master. But even at this stage bhakti-yoga is based on the soul's dormant inclinations. Śrīla Prabhupāda explains in The Nectar of Devotion (p. 20):
[The practice of devotional service] is not for developing something artificial. For example, a child learns or practices to walk. This walking is not unnatural. The walking capacity is there originally in the child, and simply by a little practice he walks very nicely. Similarly, devotional service to the Supreme Lord is the natural instinct of every living entity.
Nārada has defined bhakti as superior to other processes because it is both the means and the end, whereas other processes must ultimately lead to bhakti to have any value. This is one important reason why bhakti is superior, and now Nārada will offer further evidence.
Furthermore, the Lord dislikes the proud but is pleased with the humble.
The humility Nārada praises here is not ordinary modesty but is in relationship to the Supreme Lord. The whole point is that the bhakta does what Kṛṣṇa likes. In the Hari-bhakti-vilāsa (11.417), Sanātana Gosvāmī describes six symptoms of a surrendered soul, and each of them involves humility before the Lord:
ānukūlyasya sańkalpaḥ prātikūlyasya varjanam
"The six aspects of full surrender to Kṛṣṇa are (1) accepting things favorable for devotional service, (2) rejecting things unfavorable for devotional service, (3) believing firmly in the Lord's protection, (4) feeling exclusively dependent on the mercy of the Lord for one's maintenance, (5) having no interest separate from that of the Lord, and (6) always feeling meek and humble before the Lord."
Humility is pleasing to Kṛṣṇa, and therefore the devotee is humble. If Lord Kṛṣṇa had said He preferred pride, the devotee would be proud. In fact, sometimes the Lord likes His intimate friends to show a kind of transcendental pride and reprimand Him. By the influence of the Lord's yogamāyā potency, Kṛṣṇa's cowherd boyfriends think themselves His equals and sometimes challenge Him. A boy will climb on His back and say, "What kind of a big man are You?" Similarly, when mother Yaśodā or Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī chides Kṛṣṇa, He likes it. These are examples of proud behavior in prema-bhakti, but Nārada is discussing a more basic instruction — that pride in one's self and one's activities is not pleasing to the Lord.
Everyone should acknowledge that the Supreme Lord has given him whatever opulence he has. Whatever prowess, wealth, beauty, fame, or learning we possess is nothing to be proud of because it is all "borrowed plumes." Even when we receive Kṛṣṇa's favor in devotional service, we should know that it is due to His mercy and not our own greatness. Sometimes when a devotee displays pride, Kṛṣṇa personally crushes it, as at the beginning of the rāsa dance:
The gopīs. .. soon began to feel very proud, thinking themselves to be the most fortunate women in the universe by being favored by the company of Kṛṣṇa. Lord Kṛṣṇa, who is known as Keśava, could immediately understand their pride caused by their fortune of enjoying Him personally, and in order to show them His causeless mercy and to curb their false pride, He immediately disappeared from the scene, exhibiting His opulence of renunciation. [Kṛṣṇa, p. 253]
The more power one has, the more one is liable to become puffed up. Demigods like Brahmā and Indra sometimes become proud and forget Kṛṣṇa's supreme position. Once when Indra became envious of Kṛṣṇa, he tried to punish the residents of Vṛndāvana by sending torrential rainfall, but Kṛṣṇa protected the Vraja-vāsīs by lifting Govardhana Hill. Indra then approached Kṛṣṇa and sought forgiveness:
[Indra said,] "Within this material world there are many fools like myself who consider themselves to be the Supreme Lord or the all-in-all within the universe. You are so merciful that without punishing their offenses, You devise means so that their false prestige is subdued and they can know that You, and no one else, are the Supreme Personality of Godhead." [Kṛṣṇa, p. 226]
Lord Caitanya considered humility essential for one who is aspiring to chant the holy names of God. He wrote in His Śikṣāṣṭaka (3),
tṛṇād api su-nīcena taror iva sahiṣṇunā
"One who thinks himself lower than the grass, who is more tolerant than a tree, and who does not expect honor but is always prepared to give all respect to others can very easily always chant the holy name of the Lord." Vaiṣṇavas offer respect not only to the Supreme Lord and His direct representatives, but to all living beings. The more one advances spiritually, the more humble one becomes. The greatest devotee, the mahā-bhāgavata, sees everyone except himself as a servant of Lord Kṛṣṇa. As said in the Caitanya-caritāmṛta (Antya 20.25), "Although a Vaiṣṇava is the most exalted person, he is prideless and gives all respect to everyone, knowing everyone to be the resting place of Kṛṣṇa."
If at any point a devotee becomes proud of being a distinguished Vaiṣṇava, then he has developed an anartha (unwanted thing). This is confirmed in the Caitanya-caritāmṛta (Antya 20.28): "Wherever there is a relationship of love of Godhead, its natural symptom is that the devotee does not think himself a devotee. Instead, he always thinks that he has not even a drop of love for Kṛṣṇa" (Cc. Antya 20.28).
Although all transcendentalists may aspire to humility, bhakti-yoga is the best way to cultivate it. In bhakti-yoga one cannot advance without pleasing Lord Kṛṣṇa by acts of humility, whereas karma, jñāna, and yoga do not directly culture humility. Therefore a person who follows these other processes is more likely to think he is advancing by his own effort. The karmī may think he is accumulating wealth by his hard endeavor, the jñānī that he is gaining knowledge by his tedious study, and the yogī that he has attained mystic powers by long years of austerity. By contrast, the pure bhakta knows that the bliss he feels in the course of his devotional service is due simply to the mercy of the Supreme Lord. Thus the devotee alone is always aware that his advancement depends on his humility before Kṛṣṇa. One cannot be puffed up and at the same time be a devotee.
Lord Kṛṣṇa is attracted to the humble. For example, He was very pleased by the unpretentious behavior of Sudāmā Vipra, and He blessed him in many ways

Nārada's statement here — that the Supreme Lord is pleased with the humble and displeased with the proud — does not mean Kṛṣṇa is partial. Lord Kṛṣṇa does not withhold His love from anyone; rather, it is we who withhold our love from Him out of pride and ignorance and thus become unqualified to experience His presence and reciprocate His love. The sun shines for the benefit of all living beings, but creatures like owls hide themselves from its rays. The great devotee Prahlāda Mahārāja puts it this way in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam (7.9.27):
Unlike an ordinary living entity, my Lord, You do not discriminate between friends and enemies, the favorable and the unfavorable, because for You there is no conception of higher and lower. Nonetheless, You offer Your benedictions according to the level of one's service, exactly as a desire tree delivers fruits according to one's desires and makes no distinction between lower and higher.


(Continued ... )

(My humble salutations to the lotus feet of Swamyjis, Philosophers, Scholars and for the collection)