CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Devotional Service in Attachment
Out of sheer misunderstanding some transcendentalists think that knowledge and renunciation are some of the items necessary for rising to the standard of devotional service. This is not so. The cultivation of knowledge and the renunciation of fruitive activities may be necessary to understand one's spiritual existence in relation to the material conception of life, but they are not part and parcel of the devotional service. The results of knowledge and fruitive activities are liberation and material sense gratification, respectively. Therefore, they cannot be part and parcel of devotional service. Rather, they have no intrinsic value in the discharge of devotional service. When one is freed from the resultant action of knowledge and fruitive activities, then one can be situated in devotional service. A devotee of Lord Krishna is by nature nonviolent and self-controlled, both in the mind and the senses. Therefore, he does not have to try separately to acquire the qualifications which result from cultivating knowledge and fruitive activities.
When Sri Uddhava was asking Krishna about the rules and regulations,
113