"Madhurya kadambini" means the "cloud of nectar". Human consciousness is meant to produce beautiful fruit of love, and if Lord Caitanya’s mercy showers upon our heart, it will return this quality to our heart. When we come in contact with devotional service, with the sweetness which permeates the devotional service, given by Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu, we feel a relief. The problem of lust can be solved only by experiencing this sweetness.

Krisna-prema is not a part of this world, it depends on the mercy of the Lord, it does not depend on our own endeavor, but nevertheless we are supposed to do sadhana. Every stage of the spiritual development is actually a different stage of manifestation of prema. For example sraddha is a tiny particle of prema. Sadhana is necessary because it prepares our heart to the experience of prema. Bhakti is an essence of consciousness of the Lord, when you have something very valuable, you will never give it to somebody who is not able to appreciate it properly. Therefore Krisna gives us the essence of His bhakti in small installments through a devotee, and at every stage of our development He sees whether we appreciate His gift or not.

All the stages from sraddha until nistha are the stages of planting the seed of bhakti, therefore this is a period of struggle because of strong material samskaras, which we have. Guru and Krisna give us sraddha with some ruci, which is nourishment.

Bhakti is a transcendental process, because the means and the goal are not different, bhakti comes only from bhakti. You can get bhakti from the heart of a devotee, and you can nourish it only by being in touch with the heart of a devotee. Bhakti has six characteristics: 1) it is all pervading; 2) it conquers over everyone, even the Lord; 3) it is all enlivening; 4) it is all attractive; 5) it does not depend on anything; 6) it is self-manifesting.

The special quality of sraddha - it has to be one-pointed, this is the first step of the staircase to the spiritual world. From the very beginning we should try to develop very pure attitude towards the practice of bhakti.

In the beginning we have a completely material identity, and the path of karma - whether pious or impious - reinforces it. On the path of jnana you are supposed to destroy this identity, no more “I” and “mine”. Path of bhakti is restoring our spiritual identity, “I” and “mine” become spiritual – I am the servant of the Lord, and the Lord is mine. The growth of the spiritual identity and destruction of the material identity are not parallel.

Questions.