CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Devotional Service in Attachment

Out of sheer misunderstanding some transcendentalists think that knowl-
edge 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 ate not part
and parcel of the devotional service. The results of knowledge and fruitive
activities are liberation and material sense gratification, respectively. There-
fore, 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 from fruitive activities.

When Sri Uddhava was asking Krishna about the rules and regulations,

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