When we start practicing bhakti-yoga, we get access to Krishna’s mercy. We gain intellectual understanding and devotional experience of his unflinching, unfailing love for us. In the Bhagavad-gita (09.30), he declares that those devoted to him even if they commit the most sinful activities should still be considered saintly because their determination is well-situated.

Such a heart-rending declaration of love coming from Krishna’s heart through his immortal words as manifest in scripture is meant to inspire to reciprocate and redirect our heart towards him. We all have some impurities in our heart that obstruct our love for him and misdirect it towards worldly things. These impurities even impel us towards sinful activities.

Just as a dirty place can be cleaned by the rushing flow of clean water, similarly our heart can be cleansed by the rushing flow of Krishna’s mercy. His mercy is always available to us in the form of the many opportunities that he provides for connecting with him and thereby purifying ourselves, for any contact with the all-pure is purifying. Unfortunately, our devilish mind impels us to use or more precisely abuse Krishna’s mercy to whitewash ourselves. That is, we may put on a façade of being pure or even claim to be saintly based on Krishna’s declaration of mercy. When we try to whitewash ourselves, we lose the opportunity to actually become purified, we deprive ourselves the chance to relish the everlasting and fulfilling sweetness of absorption in Krishna and we deny

Rather than missing out on such a precious privilege, we can when we don’t feel inspired to connect with him, meditate on his merciful declaration of unfailing love and thereby get the inspiration coming thereof open the vault of our heart and thus become purified.

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