Good qualities means we are part and parcel of God, so God is good, so we are also good. Otherwise how can I be part and parcel of God? If God is gold, then I am gold. So why I become iron? I am not iron, but I am covered with dirty things; I look like iron. This is the position. Actually I am not iron; I am gold, because I am part and parcel of God. If God is good, then I am good. So because I am covered by the material dirty things, I look like not gold. So this is the test. As soon as you become God conscious, your original all good qualities will manifest automatically.
- yasyāsti bhaktir bhagavaty akiñcanā
- sarvair guṇais tatra samāsate surāḥ
- harāv abhaktasya kuto mahad-guṇā
- mano-rathenāsati dhāvato bahiḥ
- (SB 5.18.12)
That "One who has got unflinching faith, devotion to the Lord," yasyāsti bhaktir bhagavaty akiñcanā, "without any motive, then the all the good qualities of God will manifest in him very soon."
- kṣipraṁ bhavati dharmātmā
- śaśvac-chāntiṁ nigacchati
- kaunteya pratijānīhi
- na me bhaktaḥ praṇaśyati
- (BG 9.31)
- api cet su-durācāro
- bhajate mām ananya-bhāk
- sādhur eva sa mantavyaḥ . . .
- (BG 9.30)
These things are there. The devotional service is so nice, if you simply take to devotional service, then all good qualities will come. You don't have to educate him, to send some reformatory school or this or that. That will be explained. The devotional service, Kṛṣṇa consciousness, is so nice. If you simply take to Kṛṣṇa consciousness, then all your . . . because originally you are good. You have become bad on account of the material association. Therefore devotion means to be purified. This is a purificatory process from material contamination. Sarvopādhi vinirmuktaṁ tat paratvena nirmalam (CC Madhya 19.170). If you think . . . vimarśanam. If we think little soberly, that "I am thinking 'I am American' or 'Indian.' Am I American or Indian? This is upādhi, designation. By accident or somehow or other, I have got this body in America. Therefore I am American. But next time I may not take the American body. I may take another, Chinese body or something else." So one has to understand that "I am neither American, neither Chinese, nor Indian, nor white, nor black." Ahaṁ brahmāsmi: "I am spirit soul, part and parcel of God." That is knowledge. We have to come to that. That is brahma-bhūtaḥ.