Guest: What is the highest devotion, the highest bhakti, please?
Prabhupada: To love Krishna. If you become expert how to love Krishna… The idea of loving is not unknown to you. You love somebody. You love your wife. You love your children. You love your country. You love your society. There are so many loving aspect. But when you love Krishna, then your life is perfect. That we have to…
sa vai puṁsāṁ paro dharmo
yato bhaktir adhokṣaje
ahaituky apratihatā
yenātmā samprasīdati
(SB 1.2.6)
That is the perfection of life, perfection of religious life, if one learns how to love Krishna, and without any motive, ahaituki. Just like here in this world there is no love because within this so-called love there is a motive. I love a beautiful girl because she is beautiful. A girl loves a man because he has got money. So this is the meaning of this material love. But that, not that kind of love. Here there is a motive. So ahaituki, without any motive; apratihatā, without being debtor, without any obstacle. Love of God cannot be checked by any material impediments. You cannot say that ‘I am very poor. Oh, how can I love God?’ You cannot say, ‘I am very rich,’ or ‘I am black,’ ‘I am white,’ ‘I am this,’ ‘I am that.’ No. These material impediments has nothing to do for loving God. In any condition you can love God. Ahaituky aprati…, yenātmā samprasīdati. And if you attain that stage, then you become completely happy. Svāmin kṛtārtho ‘smi varaṁ na yāce (CC Madhya 22.42): ‘I have no more want.’ That is perfection of life.”
(Srila Prabhupada Lecture, Melbourne, April 22, 1976)