ASSOCIATION WITH PURE DEVOTEES
Although many different processes for developing love of Godhead have been explained so far, Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī now gives us a general description of how one can best achieve such a high position. The beginning of ecstatic love of Godhead is basically faith. There are many societies and associations of pure devotees, and if someone with just a little faith begins to associate with such societies, his advancement to pure devotional service is rapid. The influence of a pure devotee is such that if someone comes to associate with him with a little faith, one gets the chance of hearing about the Lord from authoritative scriptures like Bhagavad-gītā and Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. Thus, by the mercy of the Lord, who is situated in everyone’s heart, one gradually develops his faith in the descriptions of such authoritative scriptures. This is the first stage of association with pure devotees. In the second stage, after one becomes a little advanced and mature, he automatically offers to follow the principles of devotional service under the guidance of the pure devotee and accepts him as the spiritual master. In the next stage, under the guidance of the spiritual master, the devotee executes regulative devotional service, and as a result of such activities, he becomes freed from all unwanted occupations. When he is freed from unwanted occupations, his faith becomes steadily fixed, and he develops a transcendental taste for devotional service, then attachment, then ecstasies, and in the last stage there is pure love of Godhead. These are the different stages of the development of pure love.
Only the most fortunate persons can achieve such success in life. Those who are simply academic students of the Vedic scriptures cannot appreciate how such a development takes place. In the Nārada Pañcarātra Lord Śiva therefore tells Pārvatī, “My dear supreme goddess, you may know from me that any person who has developed the ecstasy of love for the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and who is always merged in transcendental bliss on account of this love, cannot even perceive the material distress or happiness coming from the body or mind.”
The affection and the dealings of love that are different branches of the original tree of love precede many varieties of affectionate manifestations that will not be discussed here. These different manifestations have been described by Sanātana Gosvāmī in his Bhāgavatāmṛta. Although the subject of such affections and dealings of love is very confidential, Sanātana Gosvāmī has described them very explicitly.
Śrī Rūpa Gosvāmī thus concludes the first division of the Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu, offering up his treatise for the transcendental pleasure of Sanātana Gosvāmī, who has established the transcendental beauty, and of Gopāla Bhaṭṭa Gosvāmī, Śrī Raghunātha Bhaṭṭa Gosvāmī and Raghunātha dāsa Gosvāmī. It appears from this statement that the great Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī was not yet active when Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu was written.
Thus ends the Bhaktivedanta summary study of the first division of Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu, up to the descriptions of ecstatic love of Godhead, which are to follow next.
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