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Chapter One: Rāgamayī Bhakti and Its Vaishnava Tradition

Sri Rupa Goswami defines uttamā-bhakti, or pure devotion—the root form of rāgānugā—in his Hari-bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu:

Anyābhilāṣitā-śūnyaṃ jñāna-karmādy-anāvṛtam /
ānukūlyena kṛṣṇānuśīlanaṃ bhaktir uttamā //

"The complete cultivation of activity directed toward Bhagavan, undertaken for Krishna's pleasure, free from every extraneous desire and wholly uncovered by knowledge, ritual action, or anything else, is uttamā-bhakti." [Hari-bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu, Eastern Division 1.11]

Sri Haridasa's remaining definitions of Puṣṭi Mārga continue:¹

8. Where devotion is autonomous because it does not depend upon any separate manifestation, and is itself the form of direct experience, that is called Puṣṭi Mārga.
9. Where an abundance of devotional feeling removes fear of worldly opinion and the Veda, and the capacity to embrace every feeling manifests, that is called Puṣṭi Mārga.
10. Where relationship is the means and relationship itself the fruit—and even that relationship arises by Krishna's will—that is called Puṣṭi Mārga.
11. Where one shares the Lord's disposition toward those related to him, opposes what is separate from him, and remains even-minded toward the indifferent, that is called Puṣṭi Mārga.
12. Where the existing body and possessions are not regarded as one's own, and even what is beyond sight is desired for his sake, that is called Puṣṭi Mārga.
13. Where service is never performed as though repaying the one served, but consists solely in nourishing devotional feeling, that is called Puṣṭi Mārga.
14. Where the Lord does not invalidate bhajana merely by granting its fruit, because that devotional feeling remains, that is called Puṣṭi Mārga.
15. Where, through experiencing every līlā, the bond of happiness in separation may be greater even than in union, that is called Puṣṭi Mārga.
16. Where the ordinary relation of fruit and means is reversed everywhere, and the means itself possesses the condition of the fruit, that is called Puṣṭi Mārga.
17. Where remorse remains always, even regarding acts connected with the Lord, continually awakening humility, that is called Puṣṭi Mārga.
18. Where humility is the means required for divine manifestation, while the humility born of separation is itself the fruit, that is called Puṣṭi Mārga.
19. Where one renounces the Lord as an object of personal enjoyment, remembering that oneself is the object, and does so with one's whole being, that is called Puṣṭi Mārga.
20. Keeping one's own teachers in the heart, Puṣṭi Mārga should always be understood through these distinctive forms and characteristics.