Some people feel that devotion is too other-worldly, for it seeks only to attain liberation to another world.

While spiritual liberation is the ultimate fruit of devotion, it also offers invaluable intermediate fruits, such as increasing our self-worth and social worth.

In today’s competitive world, we sometimes face self-esteem issues. We all have certain limitations that may cause our low self-esteem. But our self-regard plummets much more because of our impurities, which prevent us from doing well things we can do well. Feeling that we can’t do anything properly, we sink into depression.

In contrast, when we practice bhakti-yoga, we connect with all-pure Krishna. That connection purifies us of self-sabotaging forces, freeing us to do better justice to our God-given talents.

Moreover, our devotional connection helps us realize our spiritual identity as Krishna’s eternal parts. When we draw security from this inalienable identity, our inabilities don’t dishearten us; we learn to calmly look beyond them to discover our particular strengths. Thereafter, we focus on contributing according to our strengths without being held back by negative desires or negative self-conceptions.

The Bhagavad-gita (18.46) urges us to do our work in a mood of worship to the all-pervading Lord. Gita wisdom explains that he manifests within as our abilities (07.08), and without as the attractive objects that are often our goals (10.41). When we thus re-envision work as a Krishna-centered endeavor, we feel inspired to do our best to please him, without worrying about what we can’t do or what the world thinks about what we can’t do. Being freed from such needless fears, we maximize our contribution, thereby enhancing our social worth.

Thus, devotion elevates our self-worth and our social worth, while also helping us to fulfill our spiritual worth by elevating us to the spiritual world.

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