Take note of this. The aspirant for grace must have before his mind the act and not its consequence, beneficial or otherwise. That is the reason why Gopala said that Jnana is superior to Abhyasa, Dhyana is superior to Jnana, and the giving up of attachment to the consequences of your acts is superior to Dhyana. Such non-attachment, Krishna said, will confer Santhi.

"Bhakthi and Dwesha are as fire and water; devotion and hate cannot dwell together. I love those who feel no difference between grief and joy, affection and dislike, good and bad. If hate, in whatever form, in howsoever slight a quantity, resides in the heart, that person cannot be a Bhaktha. The Bhaktha must be convinced that all this is Vasudeva, 'Vasudeva sarvam-idam'. That is to say, one's own Atma is everywhere in everything; this truth must be realised, acted upon and experienced. Hating another is hating oneself; scorning is but scorning oneself; finding fault with another is finding fault with oneself", Krishna continued.

Readers might be troubled by a doubt on this point. Can the mere absence of hatred or contempt of another endow one with the full consciousness of the truth of "Vasudevasarvamidam"? No; the mere absence of hate etc. cannot secure the "dweller within", and the Ananda of recognising Him. That will not win the grace of the Lord.

The task of the ryot who cultivates the crop is a good example of this; if you pay attention to this, the truth will be known and doubts will vanish. Before sowing the seed on a plot of land, the ryot removes all the wild growth, the bush, the scrub, the other small growths. But that is not enough for bringing the harvest home. The plot has to be ploughed and partitioned, watered and made ready for the sowing; and then the sprouts have to be fostered and guarded into maturity until the crop ripens and can be collected and garnered in the granary.

Similarly, the thorny bushes of affection, hate, envy, pride etc. have to be uprooted from the region of the heart, and the field has to be ploughed by means of "good deeds". Then the saplings of Ananda have to be planted therein; the growing crop has to be fostered attentively by discipline and Sraddha; at last, as a result of all this effort, the harvest of Ananda will fill one's granary.

The mere removal of hate from the heart will not ensure Ananda. Love too should be cultivated. That is to say, uproot hate and plant love. If the absence of hate ensures Bhakthi, hill and anthill, tree and twig, mud and mountain - what do these hate? They have no dislikes. But for that reason, do we ascribe Bhakti to them all? We do not, for that would be absurd. The Bhaktha must first be free from hate and full of love. Besides, his love must express itself as service of the distressed and the grieving, declared Gopala.