Text 15]
The History of the Life of Ajāmila
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“My dear Uddhava, devotional service in relationship with Me is like a blazing fire that can burn to ashes all the fuel of sinful activities supplied to it.” How devotional service vanquishes the reactions of sinful life is explained in  Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam  (3.33.6) in a verse spoken during Lord Kapiladeva’s instructions to His mother, Devahūti. Devahūti said:
yan-nāmadheya-śravaṇānukīrtanād 
    yat-prahvaṇād yat-smaraṇād api kvacit 
    śvādo ’pi sadyaḥ savanāya kalpate 
    kutaḥ punas te bhagavan nu darśanāt
“My dear Lord, if even a person born in a family of dog-eaters hears and repeats the chanting of Your glories, offers respects to You and remembers You, he is immediately greater than a  brāhmaṇa  and is therefore eligible to perform sacrifices. Therefore, what is to be said of one who has seen You directly?”
In the  Padma Purāṇa  there is a statement that persons whose hearts are always attached to the devotional service of Lord Viṣṇu are immediately released from all the reactions of sinful life. These reactions generally exist in four phases. Some of them are ready to produce results immediately, some are in the form of seeds, some are unmanifested, and some are current. All such reactions are immediately nullified by devotional service. When devotional service is present in one’s heart, desires to perform sinful activities have no place there. Sinful life is due to ignorance, which means forgetfulness of one’s constitutional position as an eternal servant of God, but when one is fully Kṛṣṇa conscious he realizes that he is God’s eternal servant.
In this regard, Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī comments that  bhakti  may be divided into two divisions: (1)  santatā , devotional service that continues incessantly with faith and love, and (2)  kādācitkī , devotional service that does not continue incessantly but is sometimes awakened. Incessantly flowing devotional service ( santatā ) may also be divided into two categories: (1) service performed with slight attachment and (2) spontaneous devotional service. Intermittent devotional service ( kādācitkī ) may be divided into three categories: (1)  rāgābhāsamayī , devotional service in which one is almost attached, (2)  rāgābhāsa-śūnya-svarūpa-bhūtā , devotional service in which there is no spontaneous love but one likes the constitutional position of serving, and