2004.05.11 - USA. Vaisnava academy for girls
Bhakti Vijnana Goswami · USA · 2004
Chapters
Science of devotional service and association
Honor to be with you. Very happy to be with you too. I'm very thankful to Madhulakṣmī mātājī for inviting me and for giving me this opportunity. And uh Madhulakṣmī mātājī told me that you are studying this one.
So Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī gives in just here the whole science of devotional service. Actually it is explained that once Caitanya Mahāprabhu after having a wonderful vision of the Supreme Lord and a beach in Jagannātha Purī.
And after being in ecstasy, he sat down with his devotees in the evening and the sun was setting. And Rūpa Gosvāmī was there.
And at that time Caitanya Mahāprabhu pronounced all these verses, which Rūpa Gosvāmī later wrote down. So it's coming from Caitanya Mahāprabhu himself. And the main point of many of these verses is that it
describes the progress of devotional service, which ultimately brings us to Rādhā Kuṇḍa, which is the manifestation of the Supreme Love.
But in order to progress from stage to stage, you have to know how to associate properly with devotees. This is a very crucial point of devotional service, that the science of devotional
service is actually a science of association, of taking proper association and giving proper association.
Because you can degrade yourself by association very easily and you can elevate your consciousness by association if you do it properly. Everything depends on association very much and we have to understand this.
This is a very important and essential point of the whole science. Because by association we acquire the qualities of the people which we associate with, of the things which we associate with, and because
we are dependent timing living entities. So we have to know how to associate with each other. And the previous verse, of course, described how to express love. This is a very interesting and essential point again.
The six forms of loving association which are described in the previous verse is actually media how to express love.
We should not think that if I feed somebody with prasāda or if I take prasāda, it's automatically love. It's just a media or means to express love.
In other words, it is said there that you should give gifts and accept gifts, you should give prasāda and accept prasāda and you should open your heart and listen how somebody opens your heart.
But again, this is just external forms. In other words, you know, you can give somebody prasadam, somebody comes to you, and this is an art.
At this point, you have to understand this is my chance to express my love, and you have to give him prasāda with love. And I already said that actually the digestion process is very difficult.
You are young, you probably don't understand this. You have nice digestion. But very soon you will experience that this is a very complicated process.
But in Ayurveda it is said that 80% of digestion depends on with which feeling you are served prasādaṁ. If you are served with love, then prasadam is very easily digestible.
And if you serve without love, you know, somebody comes to you, you're serving prasādaṁ, you know. You go to another one. Or you know if you give some gift to somebody. Again, it's not the gift which counts.
It's the feeling with which you give the gift. You may give somebody something, something big, you know. And you may think he has to be, you know, obliged to me till the end of his life because
I gave him this big... And Rūpa Gosvāmī teaching us very strongly, is teaching us very strongly here in this verse that with vaiṣṇavas we should express love. And whatever we do, we should do with love?
Because it's a science also. Nowadays people, they don't know how to associate with each other with love. Like somebody complained to me that you know nowadays people cannot even accept
gifts, especially vaiṣṇavas, you try to give them something and they say, "No, no, I don't need this, no, no, no, get out of here." So, no, this is, if somebody gives you something, you have to take it with love.
If you give something, you have to give it with love. If someone gives you prasādaṁ, you should take it with love. And when you give prasādaṁ, you should also give it with love.
And if you open your heart you should express love in this way.
Manifestations of love in friendship and compassion
This is a very essential part of being happy. Also Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura says a very beautiful thing.
He says that the very same feeling of love or the very same emotion of love which we want to develop towards God, if it is directed towards Vaishnavas, it becomes friendship.
And if the same feeling is directed towards fallen people, it becomes compassion. It's not a different emotion. The friendship with Vaishnavas is manifestation of love.
Proportionately, as much as we can love Vaishnavas or be friends with Vaishnavas, we love Krishna. Actually, this is the sign of our development of love of Krishna.
Our development of love of Krishna is the love is as strong as we can manifest to express our friendship towards other vaiṣṇavas. This is another very essential point.
So Rūpa Gosvāmī is teaching us that we have to really know how to associate with vaiṣṇavas. And in the previous verse, in the fourth verse, he said that this is the ways of general ways of expressing love and appreciation.
If you want to express love and appreciation, give somebody something, or give him some prasāda, or say something confidentially to him.
And in this way, you're not only expressing your love, but you're also developing your love. That's another very essential point of this verse.
This is the means of expressing love, but it's also the means of developing love. If we know that love is good. If we know that love is this feeling which makes us happy, then this is the way to learn how to love.
You give something, the prasāda, and you do it with as much feeling as you can. And then, uh, you're already feeling some love towards this person.
Like in India, if you go and if you're being served prasāda, it's just unbelievable. They just you, know, whenever you finish something, they already put something else and something else and for the same prasāda.
And and they do it with such a genuine love that you don't feel like rejecting it. You eat and eat and eat and eat and eat until you're this big. But this is an art. This is art which we have to learn every day in our life.
When we serve prasāda and when we take prasāda, we should understand that this is the essence of life, this is the means to be happy, because human beings cannot be happy without love.
I often say this that just imagine that you have everything in the world. Everything which you can imagine. You know, Mercedes cars, big homes, and Hawaiis, and whatever you may imagine in your wildest dreams.
But nobody loves you and you don't love anyone. Would you be happy? No way. No way. You know, no matter how much you have, if you don't have love in your heart, you will not be happy.
And vice versa, if you don't have anything but you have love for everyone and everyone loves you, you will be happy. I guarantee you. Somebody may say it's better to have love and to have something.
But actually, the only sure thing is that we should have love in our heart. And Rūpa Gosvāmī teaches us. This is the way how to develop love.
Discriminating levels of devotees and showing respect
And in this particular verse, he elaborates on the same point actually. Because in general, we have to be friends with Vaishnavas and we have to relate nicely with them and we have to serve them.
But then there is a gradation. We have to develop our intelligence. We have to see who is who who belongs to which category. And here it is said, Krishnati Yasegiretam Manasagriyata.
If somebody is chanting Hare Krishna, right? If somebody is chanting Hare Krishna, he is a vaiṣṇava. This is the definition of Caitanya Mahāprabhu. If somebody pronounced Krishna once, he's who? Krishna. He's Vaishnava.
And it means that you have to respect him. And respect, you know, if he's not maybe first classwise, you have to take little distance from him.
Because as I said, if somebody is a beginner, he may have bad qualities and if I associate too intimately with him, we may accept or we may kind of uh be contaminated by his qualities.
Like if you too intimately associate with somebody who has bad qualities, you will ex- you will receive the same qualities in your heart. This is another very important point that the desires in the heart are contagious.
And you will experience it and you probably already know this. If you associate with somebody who has strong desire in the heart to have something material, then immediately you feel the same desire.
Like you know, if you associate with somebody who likes very nice fancy dress and you speak with the devotee, you know, and she's always always speaking, you know, this dress and this side and that side and this earring and
that earring and you literally feel like, I also need this, right? I also need this sari and that sari and this earring and that earring.
Even if you are a sannyāsī you will feel like putting some other dress. Because this is the way how it works.
If you if you intimately associate with somebody, this is the way through which this is the channel, through which the desires come to our heart. So we have to be careful about this.
And Rūpa Gosvāmī explains that one has to develop this discrimination. If somebody has bad qualities, you respect him. Mānasā Ādriyatā. Adriyata means respect.
And respect is an extremely essential quality because if you know how to show respect and if you know if if this ability to express respect is very firmly established in your heart then it means you are a religious person.
Actually this is the foundation of civilized society. In Western culture there is a culture of disrespect. You know if people go to school, then they learn how to disrespect anyone and everyone.
If you just read newspapers, this is a very good school how to disrespect everyone and anyone.
You know, and the newspapers you see this one is being criticized and this is bad and this is bad, and nobody has respect towards anyone. And ultimately, it deprives your heart from the possibility to believe in Krishna.
Because the ultimate respect is towards Krishna, and if we don't learn how to show respect towards others, we will never do this. This is very essential point.
And therefore, this education which you get here is so essential. It's the foundation of life. This is actually in Vedic civilization first thing which you have to learn is how to express respect.
The little children they have to go to their parents and they have to go down first thing in the morning. And we don't want this.
I live now because our temple is demolished so I temporarily live With a big house where some gṛhasthas live. And this grihasta family they have a little child and they teach this child. You go to Goswani Maharaj and you bow down to him every morning.
So he's the boy of five years old, and he's a very mischievous boy. And every morning he unwillingly comes to my room and he looks. And then he looks around.
You know, if he sees that there is no parents, then he just says, hurry bow and run away. If the parents are there, you fall down very quickly and then again. Because we don't want it.
Our heart, materially contaminated heart means we don't respect anyone. And this is the contamination. So in the beginning of life, from the very beginning of life, we should learn how to respect others.
And we should actually there should be some sacred things in our hearts and means that we have to respect whoever is senior to us basically because guru means somebody who is more senior to us our teacher is guru, our father is Guru, our mother is Guru, and this culture of respect
is extremely essential because ultimately we will learn how to respect Krishna, how to obey God and His laws. Without this, without this school, we will be totally atheistic people.
And our life will be very bad because of this, very degraded.
So the first thing which Rūpa Gosvāmī says, you have to learn, if he is a vaiṣṇava, you have to respect him, no matter who he is, no matter which qualities are there, but you can do it from a distance.
So this is the first lesson and Maharasht told me that the crux of this lesson or topic is that how to judge others but not to be judgmental.
How to see the qualities of people because this is intelligence and we have to know. We have to know this is good, this is bad.
Developing discrimination while avoiding judgment
Actually this is one of the main lessons of how to develop intelligence.
Intelligence in Sanskrit is called there is a certain shakti within our mind which is called viveka-śakti. And viveka-śakti basically means the ability to discriminate. Ability to say this is good, this is bad.
And the scriptures, shastras, they teach us this very point. This is good, this is bad, this you should do, this you should not do.
And uh you are as intelligent as you are capable of discriminating between good and bad, between good things and bad things. So this is definitely uh what we should learn but at the same time uh
uh this discrimination does not mean that we judge everyone and we say he's you know because everyone has weak points and whatever. So we have to at the same time we have to respect everyone.
We have to see realistically the quality but at the same time to respect. You can ask me how to do this. How to do this? And I don't know. But one thing I know we have to respect.
Whoever is most senior to us, we have to like in front of me there is a very good example, example of His Holiness Radhanath Maharaja.
And perhaps you know something about this ISKCON history and there was this disciple of Prabhupāda whose name was Kīrtānānanda Swami and who did many good things and he did some other bad things as well.
Whenever Radhanath Maharaja speaks about and usually we you know hears some some remarks about him which may not be very good in times.
They call him Kirtanananda. Whenever Radhanath Maharaja speaks about him, he calls him Kirtanananda Maharaja with great respect.
At the same time he knows he is the one who experienced in his life, you know, all these deviations which which were there which were very painful. But at the same time, this respect is there. So this is very essential.
This is the first lesson of civilized life. To learn how to be respectful to anyone who has some authority over us.
Because if anyone has some authority, we tend to, you know, we don't like him because you know he's a big guy and I'm a small guy.
And Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī as you all know probably. He says that we have to train our mind by beating him. Every morning we have to take the broomstick and beat the mind with the broomstick. Right? Do you do this?
Do you have enough broomsticks? So he says every morning you have to do this. But he explains what it means. Who knows what it means? So yes it's a holy name. But yeah.
We get it from Model ID, we go into the DDs and channel Yeah, but
he he is much more specific because he says that beating the mind with the broomstick in the morning means besides changing the holy name going for deity greeting and guru puja and everything is to tell the mind very strongly you rascal you should not see the faults in others this is the first thing which we have to say to the mind.
How many times? 108 times. At least. At least one round. We have to tell the mind, you rascal, because this is the nature of the mind. The mind will see little fault in somebody else.
And he will try to use this fault for what? To establish what? Superiority. That I'm superior.. You know You see little fault and this is very good excuse. You become very excited, right?
You know, you see little fault in somebody else and you become so enthusiastic and enlightened and almost ecstatic. Say, look, he has this. It means I'm higher than him. This is the problem which is there in the mind.
We have to know very clearly that this problem is working in our mind. And as soon as we notice that mind is doing this, you have to what? Take the broomstick and smack. You know, you have to really do this.
You should not see the faults in others.
And then you should not he says that beating the mind with the broomstick means you should not find the faults in others and you should not consider yourself great. This is two instructions which you have to very you know firmly follow.
Therefore, in the very beginning Rupa Goswami says you have to love all Vaishnavas.
And if Vaishnava is Kanistadikari, if he has materialistic tendencies, you have to respect him, but not to come too close to him. Not to let his qualities to contaminate your heart. This is important.
Honoring devotees engaged in devotional service
And then he said, Dikshati chet, pranati bhis, chabajantam isham If somebody is worshipping the Lord, bhajantam isham, with bhajan, if somebody is doing bhajan to the Lord, then you have to take Diksha from him.
Then you have to take you have to pay Dandavat, obeisances to him, and you have to take Diksha from him or in other words you have to take instructions from him because ultimately diksha means shiksha and uh if you see somebody who is engaged in devotional service with his heart
and then if you want to progress, and that's actually the point which Prabhupada makes very strongly in this point, that this particular verse describes the stages of Vaishnavas and how to progress.
If you want to progress, do you want to progress in devotional service? Yes. Some of you. But those who want, they have to know how to associate with different grades of devotees.
And if you see somebody who is really serving the Lord, then you have to pay obeisances to him. Because again, there is a very important teaching in the Vedic literature.
It is said that as soon as you speak bad about somebody's faults, like I spoke before that we have this tendency to find faults in others.
As soon as we speak about somebody's fault, you know what happened in your heart? The fault comes in your heart. Yeah, the fault comes in your heart. This very fault.
It is said, I don't know exactly where, but it is said when you speak bad about somebody, even if it's true, but if you speak bad about him, then immediately there is a bridge between you and him.
And through this bridge, this fault, what is doing? Walking, walking, walking, walking. Comes to your heart.
You know the same thing is said in the first canto of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam when Dharma the bull says you you should not point out the sin. As soon as you do this you are the sinner. The sin is yours.
If you see the sin in somebody and if you point out to feel good about it, because we usually feel good about it when we point out somebody's fault, then this sin is coming to you and you're guilty.
And vice versa, if you glorify somebody's good qualities, what happens? Good qualities come to you. Good qualities come to you. You try it. You will feel good about it. You do you get the same exact thing that you um Yeah.
Yeah that you criticize, yes. Yeah you reinforce because this tendency is already there in your heart.
But if you see it in somebody and if you point out and criticize and make it a point of your you know then you get this the very same thing, or you reinforce this tendency within your heart.
And vice versa, if you glorify somebody, you feel good about it and you feel that these good qualities are coming to you. Like Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī used to have this exercise, and you may try to do it too.
If some of his disciples had a severe fight with each other, conflict. And sometimes the conflicts are so bad, you know. They go on for years. And people hate each other.
So what he would do, he would call these two parties who have conflict.
He would put them in front of him and he would tell someone: You say something good about him, you try to find something good in him, and this man he just he doesn't want to see him, he just doesn't want to look in his direction.
He is there, you know. He says, no. The spiritual master, guru, says you have to say something good about him. He says, there is nothing good in him. There is nothing good. And then he says, no, you find something.
He says, yeah. He has good tilak on his forehead. Because there is something good in everyone. And you say this and you immediately feel something good is coming to your heart. And you like it actually.
And then you find something more and something more and something more. So the science of associating with vaiṣṇavas is to find good in them.
And especially in this particular case, if you see that somebody is really serving Krishna with his heart and soul, then you have to pay obeisances to him.
And by paying obeisances actually, again this is the way to get these qualities. It is said that when Krishna was speaking with Arjuna, right?
Krishna was sitting there, oh Krishna was standing there, Arjuna was sitting there and he He was listening to Bhagavad-gītā. Then Arjuna learned Bhagavad-gītā.
And Hanuman was there on the flag, but he didn't [hear?] Bhagavad-gītā. You know why? Because he was because he was up there because he was ...even though he was hearing Bhagavad-gītā he couldn't learn, so
uh the point here if we see somebody who is worthy of becoming our teacher who can teach us something, then our position should be we should pay obeisances to him.
And by paying obeisances to him, we learn from him. This is the way to learn something very important. Because ultimately, what we have to learn? What are we learning? Do we learn slokas? And become devoted Krishna?
Yeah, we have to learn how to become good people. We have to learn how to behave as human beings and how to behave as spirit, so ultimately. We have to learn how to become spiritual beings.
And if you see somebody who has this ability or who has this knowledge or who is on on this position, bhajana and vision, he he is serving the Lord. Then what you have to do?
Yeah, daṇḍavats. You have to pay obeisances to him.
Eagerness for association with non-envious devotees
And in this way, uh, you know, you get something immediately, but just by paying obeisances you already get something.
And then, and then he says, śuśrūṣayā bhajana-vījam ananyā-mānyatā-nindā-śūnyā hṛdam īpsita-saṅga-labhyam.
And if you see somebody who is totally free from this tendency to criticize others, anya-nindādi-śūnya-hṛdam whose heart is śūnya is totally free from this nindā, the desire to criticize others.
Then īpsita-saṅga-labhyam you have to really, you know, hanker for his association you have to get him grab him and take his association
and be with him and uh śuśrūṣayā, you have to serve him. So śuśrūṣayā means you have to be eager to serve. Bhajana-vījam, if he is expert in this, you know, highest science of devotional service.
And again, Rūpa Gosvāmī makes the same point. When your heart is totally clear, what is the sign of it? Nindādi-śūnya. All these faults, and the first fault is what? Nindā.
It's desire to blaspheme others, it's desire to criticize others, it's desire to somehow or other find faults in others. When you are on the highest level of devotional service, your heart is totally free from this.
And just imagine for one second. We will have a moment of silence with you. And for one second you imagine that your heart is totally free from desire to criticize others.
You have a very clear and transparent heart and in this heart there is no bad feelings towards anyone. How would you feel? You feel good. Because when you have this you feel relief. You know, you feel really good.
Because you know, you you don't have any bad feelings towards anyone. Everyone is a devotee of the Lord, everyone is serving in his capacity, everyone is good.
And this is this is how how you become ultimately pure devotee. When you learn and struggle to get rid of this desire to criticize others. And when ultimately you're successful, then your heart is free and then everyone will pay obeisances to you. Would you like this? Everyone will be eager to get your association.
Actually, this is the people if you see somebody who is a non-envious person, if somebody is really non-envious, doesn't have this envy in the heart, people, they just, you know, they're attracted to him. They want to be with him.
Actually, Rūpa Gosvāmī doesn't even have to say this. Because if somebody has this pure heart without this desire to criticize others just by being with him, what you feel? You feel good and you feel elevated.
Because he doesn't see bad in you.
Because he doesn't see bad in you, you know, you like it when somebody doesn't see bad in you, and it means that your good qualities are again reinforced, your good qualities are uh very strongly manifested in your heart.
Negative effects of fault-finding on spiritual intelligence
So this is basically the science of devotional service. And again there is also very important instruction in this regarding this point, that there is one other effect of fault finding or criticizing others.
Somehow or other people like it, I don't know why. But you know, newspapers is all about this criticizing others and everyone likes it. Especially behind the back, you know. Backbiting, you know. Somebody is there.
So Raghunātha dāsa Gosvāmī in his Manaḥ-śīkṣā says, if you do this, you know what happened? Yes, what happens? Besides you're getting the same qualities which you criticize, there is another very important thing happens.
You lose your spiritual intelligence. This is actually the way to completely lose ability to discriminate what is spirit, what is matter. You are being robbed of the spiritual intelligence.
Spiritual intelligence is Mahadhan. It's the greatest treasure.
Actually, this is the greatest treasure because if you have this intelligence, if you have this ability to see this is good, this is bad, this is spirit, this is matter, this is eternal, this is non-eternal, this is happiness and this is total misery. If you know this, you will be happy through your whole life.
Because you will know, you know how to discriminate. So if you criticize others, then the effect which is coming to your mind, you lose this ability to discriminate.
You're dragged down, you're dragging yourself down to this realm of material dualities. And you are you're lost. You're lost. So that's another effect of this fault-finding a uh criticizing tendency. That's how bad it is.
Therefore, actually it's interesting. Śrīla Prabhupāda says here, anyā-nindā-ādi-śūnya. Nindā-ādi anyā-nindā-ādi-śūnya. He says, ādi, there are some other faults in our heart.
And if you see somebody whose heart is totally free from other faults, it's okay. But then how to say the the main characteristic of the fault or contamination in the heart is what? Yeah, to see the faults in others.
To to desire to criticize others, to desire to blaspheme others, to desire to spread rumors about others to gossip. You know and uh do you like gossip? Of course you do. We all like. But we have to be really careful about it.
We have to be really, really careful about it. And if we follow these instructions, our life will be happy and the atmosphere will be nice.
And as soon as we break these instructions, violate these instructions, everything is spoiled, you know. I've been living in different environments, in different atmospheres. If in a temple people gossip with each other,
you feel like drowning yourself in Ganges or somewhere, because it's so bad. Everything just goes down. And vice versa, if you are in an atmosphere where everyone respects each other, where everyone
tries to find good qualities in others and associate nicely with others, you feel totally uplifted and you know totally uh enthusiastic in this atmosphere. So it all depends on you. How you behave.
Either you will be very happy or you will become miserable. If you let this tendency or propensity in your heart manifest, everything is spoiled. And if you curb it, if you check it, then you will be able
to be happy even now. So yeah, this is my little thoughts
Balancing proper association with non-judgmental attitude
on this piece. Thank you very much for that wonderful discourse. But in the beginning of your discussion, you said that we had to choose
our association and some people might have bad qualities and we should keep some distance from them. They're chanting Hare Krishna. And actually when you were going through the three levels, in the middle
you you said when you see somebody who's who's serving Krishna with bhajan, then you should offer obeisances to them. And so we see in ISKCON especially here, there are many,
many senior devotees here, two hundred Śrīla Prabhupāda disciples in this community. And um many of them have been, you know, very senior, very long-term practicing Krishna consciousness and stuff.
But still you can see or um that they're maybe they're not following some of the rules and regulations or maybe they're not doing X, Y, or Z something right, or what to speak of the other devotees besides those devotees that are way, you know, that are senior.
There are some that are not quite as senior or, maybe there's peers.
And so I it seems like you're what you're saying is, or what Rūpa Gosvāmī's is saying, is that on one hand we have to separate them, and on the other hand, we can't see the qualities that we separate them by.
So then how do you do that? As I said, because you don't have to associate intimately with everyone, right? Moreover, you cannot do this. You only have some certain capacity to associate closely with some people.
So as far as your close association is concerned, you have to be very choosy. As far as your general association is concerned, it has to be respectful. It has to be very, very respectful no matter what.
But you do not necessarily very closely associate with them or mingle with them or whatever because there is a chance of uh but at the same time you have to be respectful you you should not really try to find faults that's it and of course if you have the capacity or ability to change the person by your you know spiritual power then you can associate closely with them it's no problem but if you don't have this capacity then better.
There's one thing you said at the beginning that I really I was really attracted to hearing more about and then it it kind of got lost.
And that what you said that Rūpa Gosvāmī said that when you're dealing with people who are devotees, it becomes manifest as love, and when you're dealing with people who are not devotees, it becomes manifest as compassion.
Yes. And you didn't really develop that that idea I I'd like to hear more about that.
It's not Rūpa Gosvāmī, it's Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura. He says the very same feeling which is towards Krishna it's prema when it manifests towards the directed towards the world is Vaishnavas it's friendship and when it's uh directed towards uh fallen people or poor people it's compassion.
And basically yes, if we have love it means we have compassion. If we have love of God, it means we have we have compassion towards others.
And compassion means that if somebody is fallen, we don't take his association but we give him association.
And this is also explained by Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura how it what how it works. He says that the trick here is if you associate with somebody, associate with somebody, and you get attached to him, then through this attachment you get his bad qualities. And if you are associating with somebody who is fallen and or or you get dependent on him, you get bad qualities.
Let's say if I put myself in a position being dependent on somebody who is fallen, for sure I will get bad qualities.
But if I associate with the same person who has bad qualities but at the same time I'm not dependent on him, I'm not attached to him, but I'm you know I really want to help him then then then there is no harm in a sense.
So that's what it is, how to associate with people who may not have good qualities but at the same time not get attached to them in a s in a bad sense. Not not get dependent on them. Not get, you know, kind of yeah.
Yeah that's how it works. If you are dependent on somebody then you get all. Is there any other questions? Some other thoughts? Yes, I think.
Not being judgmental but being able to judge you know you don't know anything about it. Uh you don't want to say about it, I guess.
And I was just thinking how can we we as we really follow how can I be because we don't want to judge in a way that could be we're criticizing others because they could be whatever stage of devotional service they are, so how can we be able to see who's whom can we see in the three different categories of devotees and it's it's like this.
Of course one very essential point of this verse is that it's in fact you're right. You can only see the three different categories of devotees if you are.