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Guest: What is the highest devotion, the highest bhakti, please?
Srila Prabhupada: To love Krishna. If you become expert how to love Krishna… The idea of loving is not unknown to you. You love somebody. You love your wife. You love your children. You love your country. You love your society. There are so many loving aspect. But when you love Krishna, then your life is perfect. That we have to…
sa vai pumsam paro dharmo
yato bhaktir adhoksaje
ahaituky apratihata
yayatma samprasidati
(Srimad-Bhagavatam, 1.2.6)
That is the perfection of life, perfection of religious life, if one learns how to love Kåñëa, and without any motive, ahaituki. Just like here in this world there is no love because within this so-called love there is a motive. I love a beautiful girl because she is beautiful. A girl loves a man because he has got money. So this is the meaning of this material love. But that, not that kind of love. Here there is a motive. So ahaituki, without any motive; apratihata, without being debtor, without any obstacle. Love of God cannot be checked by any material impediments. You cannot say that “I am very poor. Oh, how can I love God?” You cannot say, “I am very rich,” or “I am black,” “I am white,” “I am this,”
“I am that.” No. These material impediments has nothing to do for loving God. In any condition you can love God. Ahaituky aprati…, yayatma samprasidati. And if you attain that stage, then you become completely happy. (CC. Madhya 22.42): “I have no more want.” That is perfection of life. And so long you’ll have want… The karmis, jnanis, yogis, they are in want. The karmis, they are simply wanting material happiness = “I want this, I want this, I want this, I want this.” Modern material civilization means to create wants. That is karmi. So they want. They will never be happy. They want this, that, that, that, that, that. There is no end. And jïäné, when they are baffled, they want to become one with God, mukti. And yogis, they want to show some magic, the magical power. So the karmis, jnanis, yogis – everyone is in want. They cannot be happy. And when you come to the position, “My Lord, I do not want anything. Simply I want to serve You. Give me this opportunity,” that is perfection.
From a lecture by Srila Prabhupada on Bhagavad-gita 9.4, Melbourne, April 22 1976