Developing Detachment

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Caracas, Venezuela
19 September 2009

Question: I read some books by A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Maharaj Prabhupad and I understand that I must become detached from this body, but how can I get that detachment from the body?

Through service.

There are these four kinds of people who come to Lord Krishna and worship Him: arto, jijnasur, artharthi, jnani (the afflicted, the seeker of knowledge, the seeker of happiness, and the self-realized; Bg, 7.16)—somebody is poor and is asking for money; somebody is a scholar and wants to get knowledge; somebody already has so much wisdom, and so on. In our heart we have our chaitya-guru, and if we serve to Lord Krishna, Lord Gaura, Lord Nitai, that detachment will come automatically.

There is karma-misra-bhakti, jnana-misra-bhakti, jnana-sunya-bhakti, and suddha-bhakti, and each is described in 'Ramananda Ray sambad' in Chaitanya-charitamrita. This is Mahaprabhu's conception. Also, in Srimad Bhagavad-gita, when Arjuna said, "I do not want to fight," because he had some attachment to his family, Krishna Himself said to him, "I have already done everything. You think you are going to kill them, but I have already killed them. You are not doing anything."

Karma-misra-bhakti means you serve the Lord but in leu of that you ask the Lord for something; then you do everything, but you do it for the Lord (for example, you are cooking, but you are cooking for the Lord), and in this way, slowly, slowly devotion progresses. There is also kanistha adhikari, madhyam adhikari, uttam adhikari. It is a gradual process. You must serve with full faith and surrender—if you can serve with full surrender, then attachment will be removed automatically. If you think about service more and more, if you think and remember, "This is not my body, this child is not my child, this house is not my house," then eventually that attachment will go.

বিষয়ে যে প্রীতি এবে আছয়ে আমার ।
সেই মত প্রীতি হউক চরণে তোমার ॥

visaye ye priti ebe achhaye amara
sei-mata priti hauk charane tomara

"May I have the same affection and attraction to your feet that I now have for material things."

(Gitavali, 4.5, Srila Bhakti Vinod Thakur)

How can you understand that devotion is coming? You are attached to your husband, your daughter, son, family, but if you feel that this kind of attachment comes to Lord Krishna, then you can think that devotion is coming.

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