Devotion is essentially the disposition of our heart to love
and serve Krishna. And from that devotional desire, all auspiciousness emerges,
as the Bhagavad-gita indicates in its four nutshell verses (10.08-11).
The Gita conveys first the supreme position of the object of
devotion (10.08) and the absorption of the devoted (10.09). It then (10.10-11)
outlines how such devotional desire removes inauspiciousness. Krishna gives the
devoted the intelligence to come to him (10.10). That is, when we strive to
serve him lovingly, he helps us overcome the misconceptions that obscure our
awareness of the levels mentioned earlier: from understanding Krishna to be the
Absolute Truth (10.08) and from becoming absorbed in him (10.09).
The next verse (10.11) declares that Krishna from within the
heart destroys the darkness of ignorance with the torchlight of knowledge.
Intriguingly, this verse refers to knowledge and heart together. Knowledge is
usually thought of as a function of the head, while the heart is usually
thought of as the seat of emotion. By this paradoxical juxtaposition of
knowledge and the heart, the Gita points to the special nature of this
knowledge – it is the knowledge of the heart, knowledge about the most worthy
object of our love. When this special knowledge illumines our heart, we see
clearly that Krishna alone is the best object of our love – everything else is
meant to be not a competitor for that love, but a pointer to it. Being guided
by such knowledge, we increasingly concentrate our love on Krishna, thus
becoming purified. We break free from our attachments to impure things and
connect our devotionally dovetailable attachments with him.
Thus, devotion makes our head clear, freeing it from various
misconceptions, and our heart pure, freeing it from various misdirections,
thereby enabling us to march straight and swift towards Krishna.
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