Chapter 4: Pure and Mixed Devotion

Bhaktivedanta VedaBase: Nārada Bhakti Sūtra

NBS 51: The true nature of pure love of God is beyond description.

NBS 52: [Trying to describe the experience of pure love of God] is like a mute's effort to describe what he tastes.

NBS 53: Nonetheless, from time to time pure love of God is revealed to those who are qualified.

NBS 54: Pure love of God manifests as the most subtle consciousness, devoid of material qualities and material desires, increasing at every moment, and never interrupted.

NBS 55: Having obtained pure love of God, one looks only at the Lord, hears only about Him, speaks only of Him, and thinks only of Him.

NBS 56: Secondary devotional service is of three kinds, according to which of the three material modes predominates, or according to which material motivation — distress and so on — brings one to bhakti.

NBS 57: Each earlier stage should be considered better than the one following it.

NBS 58: Success is easier to attain by devotional service than by any other process.

NBS 59: The reason devotional service is the easiest of all spiritual processes is that it does not depend on any other authority for its validity, being itself the standard of authority.

NBS 60: Furthermore, bhakti is the embodiment of peace and supreme ecstasy.

NBS 61: After consigning to the Lord all one's mundane and Vedic duties, one no longer need worry about worldly loss.

NBS 62: Even after one has achieved devotional service, one should not abandon one's responsibilities in this world but should rather continue surrendering the results of one's work to the Lord. And while still trying to reach the stage of pure devotion, one must certainly continue executing prescribed duties.

NBS 63: One should not find entertainment in news of women, money, and atheists.

NBS 64: One should put aside false pride, hypocrisy, and other vices.

NBS 65: Offering all one's activities to the Lord, one should feel desire, anger, and pride only with regard to Him.

NBS 66: After breaking through the aforementioned coverings of the three modes of nature, one should act only in pure love of God, remaining perpetually in the mood of a servant serving his master, or a lover serving her beloved.

NBS 67: Among the Lord's devotees, the greatest are those who are dedicated to Him solely as His intimate servants.

NBS 68: Conversing among one another with throats choked, hair standing on end, and tears flowing, the Lord's intimate servants purify their own followers and the whole world.

NBS 69: Their association makes holy places holy, works auspicious, and the scriptures authoritative.

NBS 70: The intimate servants of the Supreme Lord are fully absorbed in loving Him.

NBS 71: Thus the pure devotees' forefathers become joyful, the demigods dance, and the world feels protected by good masters.

NBS 72: There are no distinctions among such pure devotees in terms of social class, education, bodily beauty, family status, wealth, occupation, and so on.

NBS 73: Pure devotees are not distinguished by externals like social class, for they belong to the Lord.

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His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda, Founder Ācārya of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness
Satsvarupa dasa Goswami
Gopiparanadhana dasa Adhikari