Comparing the discussions of Srimad Bhagvatam 6.1.1-6.1.30 with their consideration in the first Text of NOI

In the last chapter of canto 5 Sukadeva Gosvami describes how people who live a sinful life will be put into various hellish planets depending on the kind of sinful activity they engaged in. Now, being a compassionate Vaishnava Maharaja Pariksit asks Sukadeva Gosvami: ‘O greatly fortunate and opulent Śukadeva Gosvāmī, now kindly tell me how human beings may be saved from having to enter hellish conditions in which they suffer terrible pains.’

As a response Sukadeva Gosvami suggests that depending on the severity of sins one had performed in his life, he must undergo a specific kind of atonement as described in various dharma-śāstras. For example Manu-saṁhita prescribes that a murderer should be hanged so that he doesn’t have to suffer the reaction in multiple lives and suffer in hellish planets. This idea of atoning for sins is also there in other religions. This topic forms the basis for Śrīla Prabhupāda’s commentary on text one of Nectar of Instruction, NOI. The text one of NOI explains that one who controls the urges of body, mind and speech is eligible to make students all over the world. This sense control is an important aspect of spiritual progress. Mahārāja Parīkṣit rejects his guru’s solution of atonement on the grounds that atonement may temporarily relieve a person from suffering the reactions to his sin but the tendency to commit sinful acts will still be there in that person. Because of that tendency he will commit sins again and gets stuck in the cycle of sinning and atonement. This is like an elephant that takes a bath in the river and puts dirt on its body as soon as it returns to the land.

Śukadeva becomes pleased with Maharāja Parīkṣit and suggests that a better atonement is to ‘prāyaścittaṁ vimarśanam‘, cultivation of knowledge. He also suggests practicing austerity (tapasya), celibacy (brahmacarya), cleanliness, truthfulness and so on. By these means one can avoid committing sinful activity. Śukadeva says that this process is like the burning of the leaves of a creeper under a bamboo tree. Viśvanātha Cakravarti Ṭhākura says that Maharāja Parikṣit was still dissatisfied because the roots of the creeper are there and it can grow at the first opportunity. It is also stated in Srimad Bhagavatam 10.2.32 that a person who has no taste for the lotus feet of Kṛṣṇa and undergoes various processes like tapasya(austerities) andjñāna(speculative knowledge) must fall down from his imagined position of liberation.

Śukadeva then presents the best process for permanent purification of the jīva, a process that completely uproots the sinful tendencies. He says:

Only a rare person who has adopted complete, unalloyed devotional service to Kṛṣṇa can uproot the weeds of sinful actions with no possibility that they will revive. He can do this simply by discharging devotional service, just as the sun can immediately dissipate fog by its rays.

One can enter into this devotional service by accepting a bonafide spiritual master, engaging in his service and learning the devotional process from him. This process of devotional service is the most auspicious path. In NOI Text 1 Śrīla Prabhupāda explains that by the association of a pure devotee one can surpass all other methods of sense control. In the association of pure devotee, the practitioner follows the four regulative principles, chants 16 rounds of Hare Kṛṣṇa mahā-mantra and engages all his senses in Kṛṣṇa’s service. He controls his tongue and belly by eating prasāda at regulated intervals. He engages his mind in thinking of Kṛṣṇa and furthering the mission of Kṛṣṇa consciousness. He engages his anger by using it against those who blaspheme the Lord and His devotees. He engages his speech for chanting Kṛṣṇa’s glories and his genitals, with in the system of marriage, for producing Kṛṣṇa conscious children . By this process he quickly achieves sense control and all the sinful tendencies gradually disappear in him.