Beautiful Gaura and Nitai with abundance of flowers from Their Garden out back
SB 3.9.11- O my Lord, Your devotees can see You through the ears by the process of bona fide hearing, and thus their hearts become cleansed, and You take Your seat there. You are so merciful to Your devotees that You manifest Yourself in the particular eternal form of transcendence in which they always think of You.
PURPORT-…The Lord sits on the lotus heart of the devotee in the eternal form the pure devotee desires, and thus the Lord does not part from the devotee, as confirmed in the previous verse. The Lord, however, does not disclose Himself to a casual or unauthentic worshiper to be exploited. This is confirmed in Bhagavad-gītā (7.25): nāhaṁ prakāśaḥ sarvasya yoga-māyā-samāvṛtaḥ. Rather, by yoga-māyā, the Lord remains concealed to the non devotees or casual devotees who are serving their sense gratification. The Lord is never visible to the pseudo devotees who worship the demigods in charge of universal affairs. The conclusion is that the Lord cannot become the order supplier of a pseudo devotee, but He is always prepared to respond to the desires of a pure, unconditional devotee, who is free from all tinges of material infection.
Madhya 19.152-- "When a person receives the seed of devotional service, he should take care of it by becoming a gardener and sowing the seed in his heart. If he waters the seed gradually by the process of śravaṇa and kīrtana [hearing and chanting], the seed will begin to sprout.
PURPORT
To live with devotees or to live in a temple means to associate with the śravaṇa-kīrtana process. Sometimes neophyte devotees think that they can continue the śravaṇa-kīrtana process without worshiping the Deity, but the execution of śravaṇa-kīrtana is meant for highly developed devotees like Haridāsa Ṭhākura, who engaged in the śravaṇa-kīrtana process without worshiping the Deity. However, one should not falsely imitate Haridāsa Ṭhākura and abandon Deity worship just to try to engage in śravaṇa-kīrtana. This is not possible for neophyte devotees.
...Bhakti-latā-bīja means "the seed of devotional service." Everything has an original cause, or seed. For any idea, program, plan or device, there is first of all the contemplation of the plan, and that is called bīja, or the seed. The methods, rules and regulations by which one is perfectly trained in devotional service constitute the bhakti-latā-bīja, or seed of devotional service. This bhakti-latā-bīja is received from the spiritual master by the grace of Kṛṣṇa. Other seeds are called anyābhilāṣa-bīja, karma-bīja and jñāna-bīja. If one is not fortunate enough to receive the bhakti-latā-bīja from the spiritual master, he instead cultivates the seeds of karma-bīja, jñāna-bīja, or political and social or philanthropic bīja. However, bhakti-latā-bīja is different from these other bījas. Bhakti-latā-bīja can be received only through the mercy of the spiritual master. Therefore one has to satisfy the spiritual master to get bhakti-latā-bīja (yasya prasādād bhagavat-prasādaḥ). Bhakti-latā-bīja is the origin of devotional service. Unless one satisfies the spiritual master, he gets the bīja, or root cause, of karma, jñāna and yoga without the benefit of devotional service. However, one who is faithful to his spiritual master gets the bhakti-latā-bīja.
Some Conclusions- We can understand from the above what needs to be done, if we want to become useful to our spiritual master and therefore eventually become confidential devotees of the Lord.
Without pleasing Srila Prabhupada, who has so kindly given us everything, beginning with the bhakti lata bija,then we will cultivate only karma bija, yoga bija, philathropic bija and other similarly useless activities. One can see over time which devotees are becomming successful in this great attempt. Who is addicted to hearing and chanting, who is addicted to performing daily deity worship, and who is impelled by the Internal Energy of the Lord to preach these things? If we do not take the entire formula for success given by the spiritual master, then the result we obtain will not be Krsna Prema, but something within the confines of the material energy. That result will never make us happy nor eternally satisfied but ironically, can cause our downfall, if we are not very careful. When we are dealing with the internal energies of Krsna thru devotional service, these are very confidential and powerful elements that serve the Lord and keep Him confidentially locked up and away from the "casual devotees" as Srila Prabhupada puts it, and from all others. To avoid these pitfalls, we must become serious and sincere.
Hare Krsna
Damaghosa das