When bhav bhakti (emotional devotion in its initial state of Divine love) is complete, then we get prem bhakti (devotion in the form of Divine love). That’s actually Krishna’s Divine love power. So that Divine love power is also known by the name bhakti (devotion).
So, one bhakti we receive upon complete heart purification, and the first bhakti we have to do, that’s sadhana bhakti (devotional practice). That’s devotion. And bhav bhakti is part of our path. It comes along the way as our heart starts to purify, we start to experience the signs of bhav bhakti, which go on increasing as our heart purifies until bhav bhakti becomes complete.
Then our Guru, if that Guru is a rasik (one who has attained Divine love and relishes its bliss) Saint, he can give us swaroop shakti (God’s personal Divine power). That comes into our heart, which has been cleaned by doing bhakti, and then it Divinizes our heart. So just being clean is not enough. It has to become Divine. So the Guru does that. Then, into our Divine heart, the Guru gives us prem bhakti, the ultimate prize, the ultimate goal, Divine love.
I also mentioned that in his Bhakti Rasamrita Sindhu (The Ocean of the Nectar of Devotion), Roop Goswami has described six features of bhakti, which are unique to bhakti:
क्लेश-घ्नी शुभदा मोक्ष-लघुता-कृत् सुदुर्लभा ।
सान्द्रानन्द-विशेषात्मा श्री-कृष्णाकर्षिणी च सा ॥१.१.१७॥Kleśh-aghnī, śhubhadā, mokṣha-laghutākṛit, sudurdurlabhā.
Sāndrānand-viśheṣhātmā, śrī-kṛiṣhṇākarṣhiṇī cha sā.- Bhakti Rasamrita Sindhu 1.1.17
These are the six qualities of bhakti. The first is klesh agni. Klesh means suffering. Klesh agni means that which removes suffering. So this is the first quality or feature of bhakti - it removes klesh. And what is klesh? Roop Goswami defined that as well:
क्लेशास् तु पापं तद्-बीजम् अविद्या चेति ते त्रिधा ॥१.१.१८॥
Kleśhās tu pāp-tad-bīja-avidyā cheti te tridhā.
- Bhakti Rasamrita Sindhu 1.1.18
He says, “There’s three kinds of klesh, and bhakti gets rid of all three of them.”
The first one is pāp (sin). Sins that we’ve done lead to our suffering. So there’s two kinds of pāp. There is that pāp which we did in our past life, which is now coming to us as destiny. So the fruit of our past life’s bad actions results in suffering in this life, in other words, klesh. And then there’s the sin that we do in this life. That’s another kind of pāp. So one is past-life sins, which we’re undergoing the consequences of now, and one is the present-life sins.
So does bhakti remove the suffering caused by past-life sins? Yes. Nothing else can do this - only bhakti can.
Krishna says in the Gita:
अनन्याश्चिन्तयन्तो मां ये जना: पर्युपासते ।
तेषां नित्याभियुक्तानां योगक्षेमं वहाम्यहम् ॥Ananyāśh chintayanto māṁ ye janāḥ paryupāsate.
Teṣhāṁ nityābhiyuktānāṁ yogakṣhemaṁ vahāmyaham.- Gita 9.22
In other words, as a soul becomes surrendered to Krishna, He starts taking care of that soul. He starts taking the responsibility of that soul, both spiritually and physically.
So bhakti actually has the power to reduce a person’s sufferings that were destined to happen to them. And, of course, if through bhakti you fully purify your heart and you burn all of your past life’s actions, all of that past karma (the reactions of past actions) can be burnt through bhakti, then all of your prarabdh (destined karmic results), all of your destiny, is also finished. So bhakti removes that type of pāp. Bhakti also removes the current life’s sins. It means whatever sins we’re doing in this life, by doing bhakti, depending on how much bhakti we’re doing, it is having some effect of redeeming those sins, not only of past lives but of the current life.
