Devotional platform

Expressions researched:
"devotional platform"

Bhagavad-gita As It Is

BG Chapters 13 - 18

The lotus feet of Viṣṇu are the supreme devotional platform.

BG 17.24, Purport: Oṁ tad viṣṇoḥ paramaṁ padam (Ṛg Veda 1.22.20). The lotus feet of Viṣṇu are the supreme devotional platform. The performance of everything on behalf of the Supreme Personality of Godhead assures the perfection of all activity.

Srimad-Bhagavatam

SB Canto 4

Anyone who hears the narration of Dhruva Mahārāja, and who repeatedly tries with faith and devotion to understand his pure character, attains the pure devotional platform and executes pure devotional service.

SB 4.12.46, Translation: Anyone who hears the narration of Dhruva Mahārāja, and who repeatedly tries with faith and devotion to understand his pure character, attains the pure devotional platform and executes pure devotional service. By such activities one can diminish the threefold miserable conditions of material life.

Self-realization is not complete unless one comes to the devotional platform.

SB 4.20.29, Purport: The karmīs are generally engaged in fruitive activities for material bodily comforts. The jñānīs, however, are disgusted with searching after material comforts. They understand that they have nothing to do with this material world, being spirit souls. After self-realization, the jñānīs who are actually mature in their knowledge must surrender unto the lotus feet of the Lord, as stated in Bhagavad-gītā (bahūnāṁ janmanām ante [Bg. 7.19]). Self-realization is not complete unless one comes to the devotional platform. Therefore it is stated in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam that those who are ātmārāma, self-satisfied, are freed from all contaminations of the material modes of nature. As long as one is affected by the modes of material nature, especially by rajas and tamas, he will be very greedy and lusty and will therefore engage in hard tasks, laboring all day and night. Such false egoism carries one from one species of life into another perpetually, and there is no rest in any species of life. The jñānī understands this fact and therefore ceases to work and takes to karma-sannyāsa.

SB Canto 7

Only when one is fully freed from material desires can one be purified, and only in that purified state can one serve the Lord. Hṛṣīkeṇa hṛṣīkeśa-sevanaṁ bhaktir ucyate. This is the pure devotional platform.

SB 7.10.4, Purport: Sometimes materialists go to a temple to offer flowers and fruit to the Lord because they have learned from Bhagavad-gītā that if a devotee offers some flowers and fruits, the Lord accepts them. In Bhagavad-gītā (9.26) the Lord says:

patraṁ puṣpaṁ phalaṁ toyaṁ

yo me bhaktyā prayacchati

tad ahaṁ bhakty-upahṛtam

aśnāmi prayatātmanaḥ

"If one offers Me with love and devotion a leaf, a flower, fruit or water, I will accept it." Thus a man with a mercantile mentality thinks that if he can get some material benefit, like a large amount of money, simply by offering a little fruit and flower, this is good business. Such persons are not accepted as pure devotees. Because their desires are not purified, they are still mercantile men, even though they go to temples to make a show of being devotees. Sarvopādhi-vinirmuktaṁ tat-paratvena nirmalam: [Cc. Madhya 19.170] only when one is fully freed from material desires can one be purified, and only in that purified state can one serve the Lord. Hṛṣīkeṇa hṛṣīkeśa-sevanaṁ bhaktir ucyate. This is the pure devotional platform.