Srimad-bhagavatam, (verses 1.2.17-18), describes the progressive stages leading to steadiness in devotional practice:
1. Unsteady practice of devotional service (anistha bhajana kriya).
2. The gradual cleansing of inauspicious elements in a devotee’s heart (anartha-nivrtti).
3. The attainment of steadiness in devotional service (nistha-bhajana-kriya).
One advances through these stages of devotional service by regularly hearing and chanting in the association of devotees.
One might ask, if I’m not steady now, how can I regularly hear and chant?
Solving this conundrum begins with my awareness that unsteadiness is an unhealthy, undesirable condition of life. Next, I must cultivate my desire to recover. (Note: Cultivate means “to improve or develop something usually by study or education.”)
A patient suffering from a disease must realize that she’s sick, should desire to get well, and should consult a physician, agreeing to dutifully take the medicine and diet her doctor prescribes.
Similarly, when I’m troubled by the symptoms of unsteadiness in practicing devotional service, I must admit my unhealthy and abnormal condition. Next, I must approach a devotee physician, the bona fide spiritual master, and follow the guru’s instructions.
As I take my daily dose of hearing and chanting, prescribed by the spiritual master and the scripture, the troubling symptoms of unsteadiness subside and my spiritual health gradually returns.
It is important to remember that it’s natural to be unsteady when beginning any discipline: learning to ride a bicycle, play the piano, or taking our first steps as a baby, all begin with unsteady practice. The process of Krsna consciousness is very powerful and works without fail for those who stick with it, tolerating the initial unsteady stage, anistha-bhajana kriya. The rewards of persistence are great.
Srimad-bhagavatam 1.2.19 lists the symptoms of one who has attained steadiness, nistha:
“As soon as irrevocable loving service is established in the heart, the effects of nature’s modes of passion and ignorance, such as lust, desire and hankering, disappear from the heart. Then the devotee is established in goodness, and he becomes completely happy.”
One who attains steadiness also becomes self-intelligent (due to a purified intellect) and is fully determined to make progress in spiritual life.
No matter what condition I am in now, I can rise to this standard of spiritual life by practice and mercy.
Srimad-bhagavatam assures us that as we hear and chant, Krsna, our best friend within our heart, sees our effort and personally helps us to advance.
Steadiness in devotional service is a noble platform from which one can advance to the highly coveted stages of devotional service: taste (ruci), attachement (asakti), spiritual emotion (bhava), and so on.
Make steadiness your goal. Take your daily medicine. Come to spiritual health and experience joy.
Vaisesika Dasa
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