252 Teachings of Lord Chaitanya

to be composed by Ramananda Roy himself. The purport of the verse is:
“So long as there is hunger within the belly and one has a feeling for eating
and drinking—so long, by taking anything eatable, one becomes happy.
Similarly, there may be much paraphernalia for worshipping the Supreme
Lord, but when that is mixed with pure love of Godhead, it becomes an actual
source of transcendental happiness.“ There is another verse in that connection
composed by Ramananda Roy, in which it is stated that even after millions and
millions of births one cannot achieve a sense of devotional service. But if,
somehow or other, one becomes desirous of achieving the stage of devotional
service, the association of a pure devotee will help such a strong desire for
serving the Lord to become prominent. One should try to have such a strong
desire to become engaged in devotional service, if it is available from any
source. In these two verses, Ramananda Roy has described first the regulative
principles, and, second, the developed love of Godhead. Lord Chaitanya
wanted to bring him up to this stage of developed love of Godhead, and to
speak from that basis. Therefore, the discussion between Ramananda Roy
and Lord Chaitanya will now proceed on the basis of love of Godhead:

If love of Godhead becomes elevated to personal affinity, that is called
Prema Bhakti. In the beginning of Prema Bhakti there is no establishment of
a particular relationship between the Supreme Lord and the devotee, but when
this stage of Prema Bhakti develops further, there is manifested, in different
transcendental flavors, a relationship with the Supreme Lord. The first stage
is called servitude—to accept the Supreme Lord as the Master, and the devotee
as the eternal servitor. When Lord Chaitanya accepted this process, Ramananda
Roy described the relationship of the servitor and the Master. As cited in the
Srimad Bhagwatam, Ninth Canto, Fifth Chapter, Durbasamuni was a great
mystic Yogi and considered himself to be very elevated. Yet he envied Maharaj
Amburish, who was known as the greatest devotee of the time. Durbasamani
wanted to harass Maharaj Amburish, and as a result he met with great catas-
trophe, and Durbasamani was defeated by the Sudarsan Chakra of the Lord.
The Yogi admitted his fault and said, “For pure devotees who are always
engaged in the transcendental loving service of the Lord, nothing is considered
impossible to obtain, because they’re engaged in the service of the Supreme
Personality of Godhead, hearing Whose very Name is sufficient for liberation.”

Yamunacharya has composed various verses in his book, Strotraratna. In this
Strotraratna, Yamunacharya writes a nice verse, the purport of which is as fol
lows: “My Lord, persons who are keeping themselves independent of Your
service are helpless. They’re working on their own account, and they have no
