Chapter 3: The Means of Achievement

Bhaktivedanta VedaBase: Nārada Bhakti Sūtra

NBS 34: Standard authorities have described the methods for achieving devotional service.

NBS 35: One achieves bhakti by giving up sense gratification and mundane association.

NBS 36: One achieves bhakti by worshiping the Lord ceaselessly.

NBS 37: 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.

NBS 38: Primarily, however, one develops bhakti by the mercy of great souls, or by a small drop of the Lord's mercy.

NBS 39: The association of great souls is rarely obtained, difficult to understand, and infallible.

NBS 40: The association of great souls can be attained — but only by the Lord's mercy.

NBS 41: [One can attain bhakti either by the association of the Lord's pure devotees or directly by the Lord's mercy because] the Lord and His pure devotees are nondifferent.

NBS 42: Strive, strive only for the association of pure devotees.

NBS 43: One should give up all kinds of degrading association.

NBS 44: Material association is the cause of lust, anger, confusion, forgetfulness, loss of intelligence, and total calamity.

NBS 45: Rising like waves from material association, these bad effects mass into a great ocean of misery.

NBS 46: Who can cross beyond illusion? One who abandons material association, serves the sages, and becomes selfless.

NBS 47: [Who can cross beyond illusion?] That person who stays in a secluded place, cuts off at the root his attachment to mundane society, becomes free from the influence of the three modes of nature, and gives up hankering for material gain and security.

NBS 48: [Who can cross beyond illusion?] That person who renounces material duties and their profits, thus transcending duality.

NBS 49: That person who renounces even the Vedas obtains exclusive and uninterrupted attraction for God.

NBS 50: Such a person, indeed, is delivered, and he also delivers the rest of the world.

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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