Guest (4): Does devotion come before wakefulness, or does wakefulness come before devotion?
Prabhupāda: Before?
Guest (4): Wakefulness, awareness.
Devotee: (explaining) Does devotion come before wakefulness, or does wakefulness come before devotion?
Prabhupāda: What do you mean by wakefulness?
Guest (4): Awareness. You know, feeling the presence, being aware of yourself.
Prabhupāda: No. First you have to execute devotion; then awareness comes. If you do not read or labor for passing your examination, how you can pass examination? So therefore devotion is the prescribed rules and regulation. That is not very difficult. The primary rule is that you chant Hare Kṛṣṇa. Just see. It is not difficult.
Yes?
Guest (5): Should not one try to purify one's heart first, and personality?
Prabhupāda: Yes. That will go. Just like if you take proper medicine for curing your disease, the more your disease is cured, you feel healthy life. Pure life means healthy life, and impure life means unhealthy life.
So there is a process of bhakti-yoga, how one becomes purified. The first stage is ādau śraddhā. Just like you have, all ladies and gentlemen, come here with little respect for this, I mean to say, movement, Hare Kṛṣṇa. This is the basic principle. A little faith: "Oh, all right. Let us hear about it. Let us see." This is the beginning. Ādau śraddhā tato sādhu-saṅga (CC Madhya 23.14).
Now, if you think, "Oh, it is very nice. Oh, Swāmījī explains very nicely," then you come again. That is called sādhu-saṅga, association. We have got our class. If you want, you can associate with us. Ādau śraddhā tato-sādhu-saṅga tato bhajana-kriyā. Bhajana-kriyā means practice. Just like my students, they came also like this.
Not in the beginning they accepted, but he came after attending some lectures, then advanced, then offered that "Swāmījī, I want to be your student." That is called bhajana-kriyā. So if he practices the bhajana-kriyā, then anartha-nivṛttiḥ syāt. Then he becomes purified. This is the process of purification. Anartha-nivṛttiḥ syāt.