Hare Krsna
Please accept my humble obeisance. All glories to Srila Prabhupada
Srila Jiva Gosvami explains the various types of bhakti. We shall briefly touch on the main three. The first is aropsiddha bhakti, perfection attained by offering the fruit of one’s karma in devotional service. When works are offered to the Lord, devotion is attributed to them, even though the activity itself is not devotional. This is called attributed devotion.
Aropsiddha is further divided into two types offering of works done against the Vedic rules and offering of works done according to the Vedas. Although works cause bondage in this material world, they can also remedy material suffering if offered to God. A thorn causes pain, but it can also pry another thorn loose.
Here Srila Jiva Gosvami refutes the philosophy of purva mimamsa, which says that the piety of an act resides in the performer and gives its fruit automatically, with no need of consent from the Supreme Lord. The reality is that piety causes bondage as well. Only when pious activity is offered to God does it bring salvation. That is aropsiddha bhakti.
The second type of bhakti is called sangasiddha bhakti. This is devotional service accompanied by other spiritual processes. Karma (work) and jnana (knowledge), for example, are not devotion, but by association with bhakti they take on the nature of devotion. That is to say, something which is not directly bhakti but which helps bhakti is counted as bhakti.
An example that applies is that of electricity. An object may have no electricity, but when put in contact with electricity it becomes electrified and acts like electricity. Another example: detachment of the mind from sense gratification is not devotion, because it has no relation to the Lord, but such detachment helps one perform devotional service; therefore, it is counted as part of abhideya, or the process of devotion.
Sangasiddha bhakti is further divided into three categories. The first is sakama devotional service mixed with material desires. The second is kaivalya kama devotional service mixed with the desire to merge into Brahman. (This is of two types bhakti mixed with work and bhakti mixed with knowledge and work.) The third is bhaktimatra kama desire to attain devotion to the Lord. (This again is of three types: devotion mixed with fruitive work; devotion mixed with fruitive work and knowledge; and devotion mixed only with knowledge.)
After sangasiddha bhakti, the third main type of devotion is called svarupasiddha bhakti devotional service by itself, intrinsic, and not dependent on anything else. Devotional practices such as hearing and chanting, which put one in direct contact with the Lord, are examples of svarupasiddha bhakti. Svarupasiddha is called by various names suddha, kevala, niskama, nirguna, akincana, ahaituki. The list goes on.
Jiva Gosvami states that the purpose of explaining all the other aspects of bhakti is to explain svarupasiddha bhakti, which has two main parts, called vaidhi (devotional service performed according to rules) and raganuga (spontaneous devotional service).
Srila Jiva Gosvami further divides all the categories of devotional service into two sincere and insincere.
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