KKS- AMSTERDAM 2008:
Austerity in the same way; there is no need to perform any separate austerity because austerity in itself is not a limb of bhakti. Bhakti has 64 limbs. That means that if there are 64 types of activities which give us bhakti and austerity is not amongst them. Austerity though, is glorified in the scripture: yajno danam tapas caiva pavanami manisinam, that by performing sacrifice, by giving in charity and by engaging in austerity, even saintly men are being purified. So in that sense, austerity is certainly held in high esteem in the scripture. It is also said, nayam deho deha-bhajam nrloke kastan kaman arhate vid-bhujam ye tapo divyam putraka yena sattvam suddhyed yasmad brahma-saukhyam tv anantam (5.5.1). This is from the 5th Canto, and Maharaja Rsabhadeva is speaking to his 100 sons and instructing them about spiritual life. And he says that this human form of life is not meant for sense gratification, which is available even to hogs and dogs that eat stool; this human form of life is meant for penances and austerities so that one may reach the state- the transcendental state- of happiness, which is beyond the three modes of material nature. So like that, austerity is glorified in the scripture. But austerity only creates the preliminarilies; it is the austerity that gives us the strength to practice bhakti. But in itself austerity is not spiritual. But a lack of austerity may make us weak and may hollow out our determination. So a certain amount of austerity is required as a preliminarily activity to get a certain amount of basic determination because, in the initial stages in devotional service we are acting in the mode of goodness. We are not yet transcendental; we are in a transcendental process but we ourselves are not transcendental. We are therefore trying to fix ourselves in the mode of goodness. This is the interim stage of devotional service. Then, as we get more and more advanced, eventually we’ll come to a transcendental stage.
