Study a Verse

• Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura says that the mellow of neutrality increases to simple love of Godhead.
• In the mellow of servitorship, love of Godhead increases beyond that to affection, counterlove (anger based on love), love and attachment.
• The special feature of the mellow of friendship exhibited by personalities like Subala is that it increases from fraternal affection to counterlove, to spontaneous attachment, to subordinate attachment, and finally to the ecstasy where all the ecstatic symptoms continuously exist.

Śrīla Prabhupāda's own sentences, chosen from the purport as its central points. Read the full purport on Vedabase to see them in place.

Theological emotional crescendo. Bhāva, prema, the devotional rasas, and mahābhāva are systematically expounded.

The mood of Madhya 23 as a whole, an editorial reading, not the text itself. See the emotional atlas

Madhya 23: Life’s Ultimate Goal — Love of Godhead

From Śrīla Prabhupāda's chapter summary, the lines nearest this verse:

Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu then describes those candidates who are eligible to taste the mellows of devotional service. Their fundamental natures and their varieties are also described.