The First Stages of Devotion 21

Now this sadhana-bhakti, or practice of devotional service, can also
be divided into two parts. The first part is called regulative principles:
one has to follow these different regulative principles by the order
of the spiritual master, or on the strength of authoritative scriptures,
and there can be no question of refusal. That is called vaidhi, or
regulated. One has to do it without any argument. Another part of
sadhana-bhakti is called ragdnuga. Raganuga refers to the point at
which, by following the regulative principles, one becomes a little
more attached to Krsna and executes devotional service out of
natural love. For example, a person engaged in devotional service may
be ordered to rise early in the morning and offer aratrika, which is
a form of Deity worship. In the beginning, by the order of his
spiritual master, one rises early in the morning and offers aratrika,
but then he develops real attachment. When he gets this attachment,
he automatically tries to decorate the Deity and prepare different
kinds of dresses and thinks of different plans to execute his devo-
tional service nicely. Although it is within the category of practice,
this offering of loving service is spontaneous. So the practice of devo-
tional service, sddhana-bhakti, can be divided into two parts—namely,
regulative and spontaneous.

Rupa Gosvami defines the first part of devotional practice, or
vaidhi-bhakti, as follows: “‘When there is no attachment or no
spontaneous loving service to the Lord, and one is engaged in the
service of the Lord simply out of obedience to the order of the
spiritual master or in pursuance of the scriptures, such obligatory
service is called vaidhi-bhakti.”

These principles of vaidhi-bhakti are also described in the Srimad-
Bhagavatam, Second Canto, lst Chapter, verse 35, where Sukadeva
Gosvami instructs the dying Maharaj Pariksit as to his course of
action. Maharaj Pariksit met Sukadeva Gosvami just a week before
his death, and the King was perplexed as to what should be done
before he was to pass on. Many other sages also arrived there, but
no one could give him the proper direction. Sukadeva Gosvami,
however, gave this direction to him as follows: “My dear King, if you
want to be fearless in meeting your death next week (for actually
everyone is afraid at the point of death), then you must immediately
