Q. 250. IS DEVOTIONAL SERVICE BASED ON KNOWLEDGE ? ARE THEY INTERDEPENDENT ? OR IS DEVOTIONAL SERVICE ITS OWN FRUIT ?

Q. IS DEVOTIONAL SERVICE BASED ON KNOWLEDGE ? ARE THEY INTERDEPENDENT ? OR IS DEVOTIONAL SERVICE ITS OWN FRUIT ?

A. BY SRILA PRABHUPADA.

tasyā jñānam eva sādhanam ity ekeSYNONYMStasyāḥ — of it (bhakti); jñānam — knowledge; eva — alone; sādhanam — the means; iti — thus; eke — some.TRANSLATIONSome say that knowledge is the means for developing devotion. (Narada bhakti sutra).PURPORTIn this and the following two sūtras Nārada discusses the relation between knowledge and bhakti.Is bhakti based on knowledge? Acquiring knowledge is certainly an important part of Kṛṣṇa consciousness.In the beginning of the Bhagavad-gītā, Kṛṣṇa reprimands Arjuna for "speaking learned words" but acting like one in ignorance. Kṛṣṇa thus becomes the guru of Arjuna and begins by teaching him about the immortality of the soul. Indeed, throughout the Bhagavad-gītā Kṛṣṇa gives Arjuna essential knowledge concerning devotional service.Lord Caitanya also took the role of teacher in His pastimes with Sārvabhauma Bhaṭṭācārya, Prakāśānanda Sarasvatī, and Srila Rūpa and Srila Sanātana Gosvāmīs.Kṛṣṇa conscious knowledge is not jñāna in the impersonal sense but is rather knowledge of the soul, God, and God's energies, with a bhakti conclusion. It is obvious, therefore, that knowledge helps one practice bhakti.Sometimes Śrīla Prabhupāda was asked, "How can a person without knowledge know if a spiritual master is bona fide?" Śrīla Prabhupāda replied that to know who a bona fide spiritual master is, one must first have some idea of what a spiritual master is.He gave the example that if someone wants to buy gold, he had better learn about gold and the gold market. Otherwise, he will be easily cheated. Or if someone wants to attend a college, he has to research the qualifications of various universities, their entrance requirements, and so on.So knowledge is certainly an important component of bhakti. Śrīla Prabhupāda wrote his books with the aim of distributing transcendental knowledge, and in his Bhagavad-gītāhe wrote, "Religion without philosophy is sentiment, or sometimes fanaticism, while philosophy without religion is mental speculation."Yet although knowledge is important, it is not an absolute requisite for bhakti. If Kṛṣṇa likes, He can immediately bestow enlightenment upon any person, regardless of his education. And in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam Sūta Gosvāmī declares:-vāsudeve bhagavatibhakti-yogaḥ prayojitaḥjanayaty āśu vairāgyaḿjñānaḿ ca yad ahaitukamSYNONYMSvāsudeve — unto Kṛṣṇa; bhagavati — unto the Personality of Godhead; bhakti-yogaḥ — contact of devotional service; prayojitaḥ — being applied; janayati — does produce; āśu — very soon; vairāgyam — detachment; jñānam — knowledge; ca — and; yat — that which; ahaitukam — causeless.TRANSLATIONBy rendering devotional service unto the Personality of Godhead, Śrī Kṛṣṇa, one immediately acquires causeless knowledge and detachment from the world.Therefore, while knowledge may help one to take up and prosecute bhakti, the contention that knowledge is the source of bhakti is false.In the Narada Bhakti Sutra it is stated:-anyonyāśrayatvam ity ekeSYNONYMSanyonya — mutual; āśrayatvam — dependency; iti — thus; eke — some.TRANSLATIONOthers consider bhakti and knowledge interdependent.PURPORTThe spiritual harmony of knowledge and devotion is well expressed in the phrase bhakti-vedānta. Some observers think of bhakti and jñāna as separate or in opposition to each other.The Advaitins claim a monopoly on jñāna through the study of the Vedānta-sūtra according to the commentary of Śańkara. But Vedāntic study is not in opposition to bhakti-yoga. The author of the Vedānta-sūtra is Śrīla Vyāsadeva, who also compiled the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, which is a masterpiece of bhakti as well as the natural commentary on the Vedānta-sūtra.The Vaiṣṇava ācāryas Rāmānuja, Madhva, and Baladeva Vidyābhūṣaṇa all wrote commentaries on the Vedānta-sūtra and proved Vedānta to be harmonious with devotional service. So when a Vaiṣṇava studies the Vedānta-sūtra and other Vedic literatures in order to understand the glories of the Supreme Lord, then we have bhakti-vedānta.Knowledge is especially required by the Kṛṣṇa conscious preacher, who has to meet opposing arguments. The Vaiṣṇava ācāryas were all highly learned in Sanskrit, philosophy, and logic, but they were never dry speculators like the academic or impersonalist scholars. They knew that Kṛṣṇa is the conclusion of the Vedas. As Śrī Kṛṣṇa says in the Bhagavad-gītā:-sarvasya cāhaḿ hṛdi sanniviṣṭomattaḥ smṛtir jñānam apohanaḿ cavedaiś ca sarvair aham eva vedyovedānta-kṛd veda-vid eva cāhamSYNONYMSsarvasya — of all living beings; ca — and; aham — I; hṛdi — in the heart; sanniviṣṭaḥ — situated; mattaḥ — from Me; smṛtiḥ — remembrance; jñānam — knowledge; apohanam — forgetfulness; ca — and; vedaiḥ — by the Vedas; ca — also; sarvaiḥ — all; aham — I am; eva — certainly; vedyaḥ — knowable;vedānta-kṛt — the compiler of the Vedānta; veda-vit — the knower of the Vedas; eva — certainly; ca — and; aham — I.TRANSLATIONI am seated in everyone's heart, and from Me come remembrance, knowledge and forgetfulness. By all the Vedas, I am to be known. Indeed, I am the compiler of Vedānta, and I am the knower of the Vedas.Knowledge and devotion are harmonious, but to say that they are interdependent is too strong. Love of Kṛṣṇa often arises without along development of jñāna. Nārada Muni once blessed a sadistic hunter with pure devotion to Kṛṣṇa. This type of spontaneous development of bhakti is known as kṛpā-siddhi, perfection via the good graces of the Lord and the Vaiṣṇavas.In the eternal pleasure pastimes of the Lord, Yogamāyā sometimes covers the devotee's knowledge that Kṛṣṇa is God. This is another example of how knowledge and bhakti are not always interdependent.Sometimes the eternal associates of Kṛṣṇa remember that He is the Supreme Lord, and sometimes they forget, depending on the requirements of their particular devotional mood, or rasa.At Kṛṣṇa's name-giving ceremony, the sage Garga said, "This child will grow in power, beauty, opulence, everything, on the level of Nārāyaṇa, the Supreme Personality of Godhead." Still, mother Yaśodā treated Kṛṣṇa as her dependent child.Once Yaśodā ordered Kṛṣṇa to open His mouth so she could see if He had eaten dirt. Kṛṣṇa obeyed, and when mother Yaśodā looked into her child's mouth, she saw the universal form, including all time, space, and planets.Realizing that Kṛṣṇa was the Supreme Person, she prayed:-Let me offer my respectful obeisances unto the Supreme Personality of Godhead,... under whose illusory energy I am thinking that Nanda Mahārāja is my husband and Kṛṣṇa is my son, that all the properties of Nanda Mahārāja belong to me, and that all the cowherd men and women are my subjects.But then Lord Kṛṣṇa expanded His internal energy to cover mother Yaśodā's sense of awe and reverence with maternal affection. She immediately forgot that Kṛṣṇa was God and again accepted Him as her child.In cases like these, in the eternal pastimes of the Lord, knowledge of Kṛṣṇa's divinity comes and goes, but always in the service of bhakti.It is stated in the Narada Bhakti sutra:-svayaḿ phala-rūpeti brahma-kumāraḥSYNONYMSsvayam — itself; phala-rūpā — manifesting as its fruit; iti — thus; brahma-kumāraḥ — the son of Brahmā (Nārada).TRANSLATIONBut the son of Brahmā says that bhakti is its own fruit.PURPORTNārada now gives his opinion — that bhakti is not dependent on anything else for nourishment. In other words, Kṛṣṇa consciousness is the natural, transcendental state of the living being, and this state manifests automatically when we take up the process of bhakti-yoga.As Śrīla Prabhupāda puts it in his lecture entitled "On Chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa," "Kṛṣṇa consciousness is not an artificial imposition on the mind. This consciousness is the original energy of the living entity." The chanting of Hare Kṛṣṇa, Śrīla Prabhupāda says, "is directly enacted from the spiritual platform, surpassing all lower stages of consciousness — namely, sensual, mental, and intellectual."In His Śikṣāṣṭaka (1), Lord Caitanya declares that the chanting of the holy name of Kṛṣṇa cleans the mirror of the mind. When the mirror of the mind is clean, one can see one's original, spiritual self along with the Supreme Lord. The initial activities of bhakti, therefore, clear away ignorance and false ego and reveal to the living entity his eternal state of devotional service. So bhakti is not produced by something else; rather, the practices of sādhana-bhakti remove the obstacles to our original loving relationship with the Lord.Śrīla Prabhupāda would sometimes say that Kṛṣṇa consciousness is causeless. For example, "Revival of the dormant affection or love of Godhead does not depend on the mechanical system of hearing and chanting, but it solely and wholly depends on the causeless mercy of the Lord" (Bhāg. purport).This means that the Lord freely bestows bhakti upon the devotee. The Supreme Lord is not bound to respond to any religious act or austerity we may perform, as if in mechanical obedience to law. This theory, put forward by the Karma-mīmāḿsakas, is rejected in bhakti-yoga.Kṛṣṇa is svarāṭ, supremely independent, and so is bhakti. In other words, one's advancement in devotional service does not depend on any of the various departments of human accomplishment, such as karma, jñāna, or yoga. If a person happens to be lacking in any department — even in devotion itself — Lord Kṛṣṇa can supply the requirements as He likes.In a purport describing the free wandering of Nārada Muni, Śrīla Prabhupāda gives an eloquent expression of the independence of bhakti-yoga:There is no reason or obligation for [Nārada's] traveling, and no one can stop him from his free movement. Similarly, the transcendental system of devotional service is also free.It may or may not develop in a particular person even after he undergoes all the detailed formulas. Similarly, the association of the devotee is also free. One may be fortunate to have it, or one may not have it even after thousands of endeavors. Therefore, in all spheres of devotional service, freedom is the main pivot. [Bhāg. purport]The Māyāvādīs sometimes twist a sūtra like this one in an attempt to prove that the individual ātmā needs no assistance to attain self-realization. They say that the scriptures and gurus and even God Himself are just inventions that may help us achieve self-realization but that then must be thrown away, just as one may remove a thorn in his flesh with another thorn and then throw them both away.The misconception here is that the bhakti-śāstras and pure devotees are finite products of the material world. In truth, the śāstras are eternal manifestations of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, as stated in the Bhagavad-gītā:-karma brahmodbhavaḿ viddhibrahmākṣara-samudbhavamtasmāt sarva-gataḿ brahmanityaḿ yajñe pratiṣṭhitamSYNONYMSkarma — work; brahma — from the Vedas; udbhavam — produced; viddhi — you should know; brahma — the Vedas; akṣara — from the Supreme Brahman(Personality of Godhead); samudbhavam — directly manifested; tasmāt — therefore; sarva-gatam — all-pervading; brahma — transcendence; nityam — eternally; yajñe — in sacrifice; pratiṣṭhitam — situated.TRANSLATIONRegulated activities are prescribed in the Vedas, and the Vedas are directly manifested from the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Consequently the all-pervading Transcendence is eternally situated in acts of sacrifice.Elsewhere it is stated that the Vedas are the "breathing of Nārāyaṇa." The Vedic scriptures are sometimes manifest and sometimes not, but they exist eternally.Similarly, the Supreme Lord and His eternal associates sometimes appear within the material world, and after a time they disappear, but they are always manifest in the spiritual world, where they engage in unlimited varieties of pastimes.Śrīla Prabhupāda writes,Persons with a poor fund of knowledge conclude that a place devoid of material qualities must be some sort of formless nothingness. In reality, however, there are qualities in the spiritual world, but they are different from the material qualities because everything there is eternal, unlimited, and pure. [Cc. Ādi-lila purport].Lord Kṛṣṇa, His expansions, and His devotees are not "dispensable," as the Māyāvādīs contend. On the contrary, it is the Māyāvāda doctrine that is a temporary creation, introduced at a certain time for a special purpose but intended to be discarded later.Śrīla Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja writes:-tāńra doṣa nāhi, teńho ājñā-kārī dāsaāra yei śune tāra haya sarva-nāśaSYNONYMStāńra — his (Lord Śiva's); doṣa — fault; nāhi — there is none; teńho — he; ājñā-kārī — obedient order-carrier; dāsa — servant; āra — others; yei — anyone;śune — hears (the Māyāvāda philosophy); tāra — of him; haya — becomes; sarva-nāśa — everything lostTRANSLATIONŚańkarācārya, who is an incarnation of Lord Śiva, is faultless because he is a servant carrying out the orders of the Lord. But those who follow his Māyāvādī philosophy are doomed. They will lose all their advancement in spiritual knowledge.(Sri Caitanya Caritamrta).prākṛta kariyā māne viṣṇu-kalevaraviṣṇu-nindā āra nāhi ihāra uparaSYNONYMSprākṛta — material; kariyā — taking it to be so; māne — accepts; viṣṇu — Lord Viṣṇu's; kalevara — body; viṣṇu-nindā — defaming or blaspheming LordViṣṇu; āra — beyond this; nāhi — none; ihāra — of this; upara — above.TRANSLATIONOne who considers the transcendental body of Lord Viṣṇu to be made of material nature is the greatest offender at the lotus feet of the Lord. There is no greater blasphemy against the Supreme Personality of Godhead.(Sri Caitanya Caritamrta).The opinion of Nārada Muni, here describing himself as "the son of Lord Brahmā," is that bhakti is eternal and self-manifested, not dependent on any lesser process. When such devotional service is revealed to a sincere devotee, he realizes that its nature is like the Lord's sac-cid-ānanda, full of eternity, bliss, and knowledge.

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padmavati mataji August 2, 2011 at 12:46pm
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padmavati mataji August 2, 2011 at 12:46pm

Pranam Dearest Devotee. Hare Krishna.
1. Select a question and answer.
2. Read it. Re-read it.
3. Little by little, memorize the verses and translations.
4. Learn also the word-for-word meaning.
5. When you have done this with one question and answer,
do the same with the others. Take your time.
6. As you engage in this spiritual study daily,
Lord Krishna showers blessings upon you.
I wish you success in your studies.
With love and best wishes.
Take care. Bye.
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padmavati mataji August 2, 2011 at 12:45pm

Pranam Dearest Devotee. Hare Krishna.

Select a few prayers from the list below,

(which is in the Krishna Consciousness group).

1. TWO PRAYERS TO SHRIMATI RADHARANI.

2. ELEVEN OM PRAYERS FROM SHRIMAD BHAGAVATAM.
3. SHRI GURVASTAKAM. (eight prayers to the Spiritual Master).
4. TWO PRAYERS FROM SHRI VRINDAVANA MAHIMAMRTA.
5. TWO PRAYERS FROM MUKUNDA MALA STOTRA.
6. SIX PRAYERS FROM SHRI BRAHMA SAMHITA.
7. THE EIGHT YUGALASHTAKAM PRAYERS.
Everyday read them.

But if you can spare more time,

then I highly recommend that you read all of them.

At the time of reading these sacred prayers,

Lord Krishna showers blessings upon you.

With love and best wishes.

Take care, bye.
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padmavati mataji August 1, 2011 at 1:17pm
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padmavati mataji August 1, 2011 at 1:16pm
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padmavati mataji August 1, 2011 at 1:16pm

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PERFECT QUESTIONS PERFECT ANSWERS.

Q. IS DEVOTIONAL SERVICE BASED ON KNOWLEDGE ? ARE THEY INTERDEPENDENT ? OR IS DEVOTIONAL SERVICE ITS OWN FRUIT ?

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