Narada Bhakti Sutra - Sutra 46
kas tarati kas tarati mayam yah sangam tyajati yo mahanubhavam sevate nirmamo bhavati
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Who can cross beyond illusion? One who abandons material association, serves the sages, and becomes selfless.
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Who can cross beyond illusion? One who abandons material association, serves the sages, and becomes selfless.
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Material association is the cause of lust, anger, confusion, forgetfulness, loss of intelligence, and total calamity.
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One should give up all kinds of degrading association.
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The association of great souls is rarely obtained, difficult to understand, and infallible.
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One achieves bhakti by hearing and chanting about the Supreme Lord's special qualities, even while engaged in the ordinary activities of life in this world.
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One achieves bhakti by worshiping the Lord ceaselessly.
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One achieves bhakti by giving up sense gratification and mundane association.
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Standard authorities have described the methods for achieving devotional service.
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Therefore seekers of liberation should take to devotional service alone.
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Some say that knowledge is the means for developing devotion.
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Furthermore, the Lord dislikes the proud but is pleased with the humble.
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Pure devotional service, on the other hand, is far superior to fruitive work, philosophical speculation, and mystic meditation.
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In such false devotion one does not find pleasure exclusively in the Lord's pleasure.
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Even in the case of the gopis, one cannot criticize them for forgetting the Lord's greatness.
In today's class Srila Dhanurdhara Swami continues Sutra 21.
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The cowherd women of Vraja are an example of pure bhakti.
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The cowherd women of Vraja are an example of pure bhakti.
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Now the characteristics of devotional service will be described according to various authoritative opinions.
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For as long as the body lasts, one should engage minimally in social and political activities and in such matters as eating.
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There is no question of lust in the execution of pure devotional service, because in it all material activities are renounced.
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Renunciation also means being exclusively dedicated to the Lord and indifferent to what stands in the way of His service.
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Upon achieving that stage of transcendental devotional service in pure love of God, a person becomes perfect, immortal, and peaceful.
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This pure love for God is eternal.
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Devotional service manifests as the most elevated, pure love for God.
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Now, therefore, I will try to explain the process of devotional service.