Character of One in Ecstatic Love 143

to merge into the existence of the Supreme Lord. They sometimes
try to imitate a pure devotee’s sentiment for visiting the holy places
where Krsna had His pastimes, but they simply have a view for salva-
tion, and so their activities cannot be considered attachment.

It is said by Rupa Gosvami that the attachment exhibited by pure
devotees for Krsna cannot possibly be perfected in the heart of
fruitive workers (karmis) or mental speculators because such attach-
ment in pure Krsna consciousness is very rare and not possible to
achieve even for many liberated persons. As is stated in the Bhagavad-
gita, liberation from material contamination is the stage at which de-
votional service can be achieved. For a person who simply wants to
have liberation and to merge into the impersonal brahma-jyoti, it is
not possible to acquire attachment to Krsna. This attachment is very
confidentially kept by Krsna and is only bestowed upon pure devo-
tees. Even ordinary devotees cannot have such pure attachment for
Krsna. Therefore, how is it possible for success to be achieved by per-
sons whose hearts are contaminated by the actions and reactions of
fruitive activities and who are entangled by various types of mental
speculation?

There are many so-called devotees who artificially think of Krsna’s
pastimes, which are known asasta-kalika-lila. Sometimes one may arti-
ficially imitate these, pretending that Krsna is talking with him in the
form of a boy, or else one may pretend that Radharani and Krsna
both have come to him and are talking with him. Such characteristics
are sometimes exhibited by the impersonalist class of men, and they
may captivate some innocent persons who have no knowledge in the
science of devotional service. However, as soon as an experienced devo-
tee sees all of these caricatures, he can immediately evaluate such
rascaldom. If such a pretender is sometimes seen possessing imitative
attachment to Krsna, that will not be accepted as real attachment.
It may be said, however, that such attachment is like giving a future
hope to the pretender, so that he may eventually rise onto the actual
platform of pure devotional service.

This imitative attachment can be divided into two headings—name-
ly, shadow attachment and para (transcendental) attachment. If
someone, without undergoing the regulative principles of devotional
