When we hear how pure devotees don’t ask Krishna for anything material, we may aspire for similar selfless love. While this aspiration is wonderful, we need to actualize it gradually.

Before we can have a selfless relationship with Krishna, we need to first have a relationship with him. And relationships develop substantially by sharing of the heart. Like it or not, presently, our heart is largely occupied by material things because, after all, we live in the material world, and have obligations and ambitions here. If in aspiring for pure devotion we decide to never take our material anxieties to Krishna, we may divorce a major part of our heart from him, thereby keeping our relationship with him superficial.

In the Bhagavad-gita (07.16), Krishna mentions that the distressed worship him to gain relief. And far from condemning such worshipers, he appreciates them as pious (07.16: sukrtinah) and large-hearted (07.17: udaarah). Significantly, distress can serve as an impetus for bhakti not just at the start of our spiritual life but thereafter too.

Of course, we shouldn’t let distress become the only reason for our practicing bhakti. Otherwise we may give up practicing it once the distress ends, thinking, “Why do I need to practice it?” or if the distress doesn’t end, thinking, “What is the use of practicing it?”

So if material distress afflicts us during our regular practice of bhakti, we can see the distress as an opportunity for intensifying our bhakti. We can pray to Krishna not just to remove the distress, but also to give us experience of his shelter through his remembrance – shelter that will enable us to tolerate and even transcend the distress. It is this realization of his ever-available shelter and the selfless love it represents that will inspire our devotion to rise towards pure devotion.

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