At the end of the third canto of Srimad Bhagavatam, Sukadeva Goswami describes four categories of devotional service, according to the teachings of Lord Kapila. We may think that devotional service is always transcendental, but that’s not the case. Although the propensity of serving Krsna is originally present in the soul, as long as we are conditioned it may be expressed in impure ways through the three modes of material nature, just like the light of the sun can become blue or red when passing through colored glasses.

What are the symptoms of devotional service in the mode of ignorance? “Devotional service executed by a person who is envious, proud, violent and angry, and who is a separatist, is considered to be in the mode of darkness.” (SB 3.29.8)

What about devotional service in passion? “The worship of Deities in the temple by a separatist, with a motive for material enjoyment, fame, and opulence, is devotion in the mode of passion.” (SB 3.29.9)

“Separatist” means someone who has different interests from the Lord, someone who is still acting under material desires, false ego and the dictations of the mind. What he wants is different from what the Lord wants, which creates lots of contradictions in his service. Some of his actions may be positive, while others will be very negative.

Finally, there is service in the mode of goodness, which is based on the idea of achieving liberation (not pure, but almost there) and pure devotional service, which “is exhibited when one’s mind is at once attracted to hearing the transcendental name and qualities of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who is residing in everyone’s heart. Just as the water of the Ganges flows naturally down towards the ocean, such devotional ecstasy, uninterrupted by any material condition, flows towards the Supreme Lord.” (SB 3.29.11-12)

In the 4th canto, Sukadeva Goswami proceeds by giving practical examples of these different qualities of devotional service and what results they award.

Bhismadeva was defeated by Arjuna and Srikandi during the 10th day of the battle of Kuruksetra. Dozens of arrows transpassed his body, but he landed in such a way that the arrows supported the weight of his body, and he didn’t touch the ground. It looked like he was lying on a bed of arrows. Later, at his request, Arjuna added three arrows under his head, that served as a pillow.

Any regular person would die instantly in this situation, but because Bhismadeva had the blessing he would not die until the time he had chosen, he remained alive and conscious. He was waiting for an auspicious moment to leave his body.

The news that the great Bhismadeva was preparing to leave his body quickly spread, and many great sages and other important personalities came to pay him their respects, including Vyasadeva and Sukadeva Goswami. It’s mentioned that “all the great souls in the universe, namely the ṛṣis amongst the demigods, brāhmaṇas, and kings, all situated in the quality of goodness, were assembled there.”

Chronologically speaking, these events happened around the time of the birth of Pariksit Maharaja, many years before Sukadeva Goswami spoke the Srimad Bhagavatam to him.

One point in Vaishnava philosophy that is very different from what most historians believe is the eternality of the Vedas. We believe the Vedas are eternal, being present since the beginning of time. However, when historians study archaeological evidence, it appears that the Vedas although very ancient passed through a process of evolution and change. How is that?

The point is that indeed, the Vedas passed through a process of transformation about 5000 years ago, but it was different from what is believed by most historians.

The point is that in the previous Dvapara-yuga, the knowledge of the Vedas was practically destroyed, with the followers of the Vedas degenerating into six separate schools, none of which conserved the proper understanding of the scriptures.

In the first canto of Srimad Bhagavatam, Narada Muni tells the story of his previous life to Vyasadeva and urges him to write the Srimad Bhagavatam, explaining exclusively about the pastimes of the Lord. At the end of chapter 6, Narada Muni leaves after instructing Vyasadeva.

What happened after that. What did he do after receiving these instructions from his spiritual master? Suta Goswami describes the meditation of Vyasadeva before starting his work. Meditating on the bank of the river Sarasvati, he was able to see the Lord along with His external energy.

The Sarasvati is a river described in the Vedic texts that is not available currently. It was a great, sacred river in the North of India, close to what is now New Delhi, that nourished several important kingdoms in Vedic times. From this description, it seems that Vyasadeva was situated in his hermitage in the Himalayas, close to the nascent of the river.

“Thus he fixed his mind, perfectly engaging it by linking it in devotional service [bhakti-yoga] without any tinge of materialism, and thus he saw the Absolute Personality of Godhead along with His external energy, which was under full control.” (SB 1.7.4)

Mayavadis think that Maya can capture parts of the impersonal Brahman and when these parts realize their real nature they become liberated and merge back into the Supreme Brahman. This verse however dismisses this theory. Maya is not an independent force, but simply one of the energies of the Lord, who is completely under His control. Not only Maya is not capable of touching the Lord, but it is incapable of even touching the individual souls who are engaged in the eternal service of the Lord. Only the souls who reject their eternal nature and become averse to the service of the Lord are put under the care of the external potency of the Lord and become thus covered by Maya.

Originally, the soul has nothing to do with matter. However, when the soul comes in contact with it, he falls under the influence of the three modes of nature, and under the influence of the false ego, identifies with many different temporary forms in this material world. Under the influence of the false ego, the soul is prepared to accept any identity in the material world, be it of a demigod, a human being, or even a hog, a dog, or a plant. Anything except his original position as a servant of Krsna. In all these forms the soul performs material activities and thus becomes more and more entangled in the results of these activities, Karma, suffering perpetually in the material world, life after life.

Vyasadeva however, didn’t just see the causes of the misery of the living entities, but also the solution for such miseries:

“The material miseries of the living entity, which are superfluous to him, can be directly mitigated by the linking process of devotional service. But the mass of people do not know this, and therefore the learned Vyāsadeva compiled this Vedic literature, which is in relation to the Supreme Truth.” (SB 1.7.6)

The goal of the process of devotional service is to reconnect the soul with Krsna, reestablishing our original position. That’s why devotional service is described here as the linking process.

The real goal of all Vedic literature is to bring one to the platform of devotional service, but in most of the books that compose the Vedas and even many of the Puranas, this point is not so clear. Vyasadeva thus meditated on writing a book that would directly convey this message and nothing more. In this way, he conceived the Srimad Bhagavatam, a book capable of extinguishing the lamentation, illusion, and fearfulness from the hearts of people. After compiling and revising this original version of the Srimad Bhagavatam, he taught it to his son, Srila Śukadeva Gosvāmī.

Prabhupada mentions (NoD 2) that “Every living entity under the spell of the material energy is held to be in an abnormal condition of madness.” The original position of the soul is a position of love for Krsna, but somehow or other we forget this and somehow or other become absorbed in material desires and activities.

Sadhana-bhakti is the process of regulated devotional service, offered as a way to gradually elevate our consciousness from this absorption into matter back into our original attitude of loving service to Krsna.

By definition, we start practicing the process of sadhana-bhakti, or vaidhī-bhakti when there is no attachment or love for the Lord. We get in contact with devotees, accept a spiritual master, and out of obedience to the guru we, liking or not, execute a process of regulated service that gradually purifies us.

As Prabhupada mentions (Nod 2):

In the first canto of Srimad Bhagavatam, there is a verse that we may have a little trouble explaining:

“Sūta Gosvāmī said: When the second millennium overlapped the third, the great sage [Vyāsadeva] was born to Parāśara in the womb of Satyavatī, the daughter of Vasu.” (SB 1.4.14)

Prabhupada mentions in the purport:

“There is a chronological order of the four millenniums, namely Satya, Dvāpara, Tretā and Kali. But sometimes there is overlapping. During the regime of Vaivasvata Manu, there was an overlapping of the twenty-eighth round of the four millenniums, and the third millennium appeared prior to the second. In that particular millennium, Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa also descends, and because of this there was some particular alteration.”

Just in case you are wondering, the literal translation of the verse is:

“Coming in the second millennium (Dvāpara-yuga), at the time the third (Treta-yuga) appeared before it, he (Vyasa) was begotten by the great sage Parāśara in the womb of the daughter of Vasu. He is the plenary portion of the Personality of Godhead.”

Srila Ramanujacarya is one of the four Vaishnava sampradaya-acaryas. He is the exponent of the Visistadvaita philosophy (non-duality with distinctions, or purified monism), which was the first serious challenge to the monism of Sankaracarya. We all have a great debt to him.

But who was Ramanujacarya? What was he teaching?

Apart from our material desires and the crazy mind, another formidable obstacle in our spiritual path is karma. Our karma is compared to a bunch of knots in a rope that binds us to this material world. Karma makes us take birth in a certain place, become part of a certain family, live in a certain place, have a certain circle of friends, work on a certain job, have certain positive and negative personal characteristics, and so on. We always have a certain degree of choice, but it is actually much more limited than we like to think.

We may complain that we don’t have enough time to practice spiritual life because we have to struggle so hard to live, because we live too far away from the temple, because our relatives or spouses are not devotees, because other people are mean to us, or cheat us, or even because we can’t wake up early to chant, because our minds are too unstable, and so on. However, what we may fail to realize is that most of it comes from our Karma. In this way, Karma more often than not puts us in situations that are unfavorable to cultivate our spiritual practice.

The scariest of all however is that karma can affect the way we think. The values and mental paradigm we have in this life are also a result of our past actions, and thus also connected with karma. In this way, karma can also make things quite hard for us when we speak about understanding spiritual knowledge.

What is the solution? We have to break through this tangle of knots and gradually free ourselves from these impediments. Only when the knot of our previous karma is destroyed we gain the freedom to change our lives.

Different transcendentalists have different ideas about God. To some (the impersonalists), God is a formless, spirit, that is eternal and transcendental to the material world. To others (the yogis), God has a form, situated inside the heart. For the devotee, however, God is a blue boy who plays the flute and cultivates loving relationships with His devotees. Who is right?

Well, according to Srimad Bhagavatam, all of them:

“Learned transcendentalists who know the Absolute Truth call this nondual substance Brahman, Paramātmā or Bhagavān.”(SB 1.2.11)

At first, these there ideas may appear contradictory, but that’s not the case. God has these three aspects simultaneously. The impersonal Brahmajoti is just the effulgence of His body, Paramatma is his localized aspect, present everywhere, while the Bhagavam aspect is the complete aspect of God as a person, who performs wonderful activities. Paramatma also includes Brahman realization, while Bhagavan realization includes all three aspects simultaneously.

Suta Goswami had many special characteristics that made him qualified to speak the Srimad Bhagavatam. We may never become so qualified as him, but by hearing about his characteristics we can learn how to improve in our own spiritual practice.

He is described as:

• Free from all vice.
• Well-versed in all the scriptures, having studied and explained them many times.
• The most senior learned Vedāntist.
• Acquainted with the knowledge of Vyāsadeva, blessed by Balarama and his spiritual masters.
• Became qualified by submissively hearing from his spiritual masters.

“The sages said: Respected Sūta Gosvāmī, you are completely free from all vice. You are well versed in all the scriptures famous for religious life, and in the Purāṇas and the histories as well, for you have gone through them under proper guidance and have also explained them. Being the eldest learned Vedāntist, O Sūta Gosvāmī, you are acquainted with the knowledge of Vyāsadeva, who is the incarnation of Godhead, and you also know other sages who are fully versed in all kinds of physical and metaphysical knowledge. And because you are submissive, your spiritual masters have endowed you with all the favors bestowed upon a gentle disciple. Therefore you can tell us all that you have scientifically learned from them.” (SB 1.1.6-8)

In his purport, Srila Prabhupada emphasized the importance of hearing the scriptures from advanced devotees. Although reading is essential, hearing has a special quality: