View source for If you are actually serious to know God, or Krsna, then you must take to this process of devotional service. Without this, you cannot understand. Not through karma, not through mystic yogic exercises, but through devotional service

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[[Category:If You]]
[[Category:You Are]]
[[Category:Actually]]
[[Category:Serious for Krsna]]
[[Category:Serious for God]]
[[Category:Krsna Is God]]
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[[Category:Taking to Devotional Service to God]]
[[Category:Process of Devotional Service to God]]
[[Category:Without Devotional Service to God]]
[[Category:Without Devotional Service to God]]
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[[Category:Cannot Understand God]]
[[Category:Cannot Understand Krsna]]
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[[Category:Karma]]
[[Category:Mystic Yoga]]
[[Category:Yoga Exercise]]
[[Category:Through Devotional Service to God]]
[[Category:Devotional Service to God Enables One to Understand God]]
[[Category:Pages Needing Audio - NABAKUMAR]]
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<h2>Lectures</h2>
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<h3>Nectar of Devotion Lectures</h3>
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The fact is that one should take simply to the devotional path, bhaktyā mām abhijānāti (BG 18.55). If you are actually serious to know God, or Kṛṣṇa, then you must take to this process of devotional service. Without this, you cannot understand. Not through karma, not through mystic yogic exercises, but through devotional service. Bhaktyā mām abhijānāti, yāvān yaś cāsmi tattvataḥ (BG 18.55).
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[[Vanisource:721101 - Lecture NOD - Vrndavana|721101 - Lecture NOD - Vrndavana]]
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The aim is how to live in this material world peacefully. Sometimes religion and God is conceived in that way that, "If we have some conception of God, then we shall be moral, we shall be peaceful. Otherwise, there is no need of presenting God in the society." There are so many different opinions, different philosophers, different religious system, according to the modes of nature.

But actually every system must be targeted towards realization of Kṛṣṇa, or God. Vedaiś ca sarvair aham eva vedyam ([[Vanisource:BG 15.15 (1972)|BG 15.15]]). That is Bhāgavata-dharma. Bhāgavata-dharma means realization of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Prahlāda Mahārāja recommended culture of this Bhāgavata-dharma from the very beginning of life: kaumāra ācaret prājño dharmān bhāgavatān iha ([[Vanisource:SB 7.6.1|SB 7.6.1]]). That is the success of human form of life, to execute Bhāgavata-dharma. The, the process . . . and dharma, as we have several times explained, dharma means the codes of Bhagavān. Dharmaṁ tu sākṣād bhagavat-praṇītam ([[Vanisource:SB 6.3.19|SB 6.3.19]]).

So this Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement is directly touching the point. Not step by step. There is no time. In the Kali-yuga there is very little time to go step by step. Otherwise, there are twenty different types of religious scriptures, viṁśati-prakāśa, dharma-śāstra. So who will read, and who will try to understand? There is no time. Prāyeṇa alpāyuṣaḥ kalāu asmin yuge janāḥ ([[Vanisource:SB 1.1.10|SB 1.1.10]]).

People are very short-living, and they are not very enthusiastic for self-realization. Manda. Even they, somebody becomes interested in self-realization, they accept some wrong path. Mandāḥ sumanda-matayo. They have got different mataḥ, opinion or path. And the so-called svāmīs, they also support that, "Whatever opinion you have got about religious system, that is all right." Yata mata tata patha.

But actually, the fact is different. The fact is that one should take simply to the devotional path, bhaktyā mām abhijānāti ([[Vanisource:BG 18.55 (1972)|BG 18.55]]). If you are actually serious to know God, or Kṛṣṇa, then you must take to this process of devotional service. Without this, you cannot understand. Not through karma, not through mystic yogic exercises, but through devotional service. Bhaktyā mām abhijānāti, yāvān yaś cāsmi tattvataḥ ([[Vanisource:BG 18.55 (1972)|BG 18.55]]). That is stated clearly in the Bhagavad . . .

But people do not know it. Anartha upaśamaṁ sākṣād bhakti-yogam adhokṣaje ([[Vanisource:SB 1.7.6|SB 1.7.6]]). Bhakti-yogam, execution of bhakti-yoga, is the means of anartha upaśama, subduing the anarthas. Material life means we have accumulated some unwanted things. Just like this material body—this is also not wanted. But somehow or other we have developed this, and as we have got this material body, we have got so many material necessities of life. So it is not that abruptly we have to give up. But by yukta-vairāgya ([[Vanisource:CC Madhya 23.105|CC Madhya 23.105]]), everything, the material activities, dovetailing with Kṛṣṇa consciousness, it becomes gradually purified, and we come to the final stage of understanding Kṛṣṇa. That is our success of life.
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