Real bhakti… that is raganuga-bhakti. This raganuga-bhakti, we have to come after surpassing the vaidhi-bhakti [regulative process]. In the material world, if we do not try to make further and further progress in devotional service, if we are simply sticking to the shastric [scriptural] regulation process and do not try to go beyond that...
The shastric process is kanishtha-adhikara, lowest stage of devotional service… This is nice beginning, but one has to go above this… If I become satisfied only with these regulative principles for worshiping… but if I have no other idea, then sa bhaktah prakrtah smrtah. Prakrta means on the material platform.
…So any devotee can fall down if he remains prakrta-bhakta. So he has to raise himself above this in the madhyama-adhikara [intermediate stage]…
Therefore, if we do not associate with the advanced devotees, uttama-adhikari, if we simply want to remain in the lowest stage of devotional service, then we are not making progress. Then we shall si
want (2)
"I CAME HERE TO TAKE THEIR SUFFERING", SAID PRABHUPADA
It was the beginning of 1977. Prabhupada was in Bombay temple. He was very sick. He had stopped all food intake – he was taking 1/4 a cup of orange juice per day. His body had only bones left – there was no flesh. And yet, he was insisting that he wanted to go to London. The doctors had given up responsibility. But as always, he was adamant
At this time, one Pancaratrika Pandit from Bangalore named Sampat Kumar Bhattacarya came to know about Srila Prabhupada’s situation. So, he took a flight from Bangalore to Bombay – which in those days was a huge thing for a Brahmin priest – and met Prabhupada, and asked for a private meeting. Generally, nobody was allowed a private meeting, but when he said that he specially came by flight from Bangalore to meet Srila Prabhupada, he was allowed a private meeting. So, everybody was asked to go out, and they talked.
The conversation was like this: Sampat Kumar: ‘Swamiji, I am feeling very pained
