& renunciation not required

Out of sheer misunderstanding some transcendentalists think that knowledge and renunciation are some of the items necessary for rising to the standard of devotional service. This is not so. The cultivation of knowledge and the renunciation of fruitive activities may be necessary to understand one's spiritual existence in relation to the material conception of life, but they are not part and parcel of the devotional service. The results of knowledge and fruitive activities are liberation and material sense gratification, respectively. Therefore, they cannot be part and parcel of devotional service. Rather, they have no intrinsic value in the discharge of devotional service. When one is freed from the resultant action of knowledge and fruitive activities, then one can be situated in devotional service. A devotee of Lord Krishna is by nature nonviolent and self-controlled, both in the mind and the senses. Therefore, he does not have to try separately to acquire the qualifications which result from cultivating knowledge and from fruitive activities.    (More...)

The purport is that devotional service is by itself independent of any other process. The processes of cultivating knowledge and renunciation, or meditation, may be a little helpful in the beginning, but they cannot be considered paraphernalia for discharging devotional service. In other words, devotional service can be discharged independently of the cultivation of knowledge and renunciation. In this connection, there is a verse from Skanda Purana, in which Parbut Muni said to a hunter tribesman: "O hunter, the qualifications which you have now acquired, such as nonviolence and others, are not astonishing, because one who is engaged in devotional service to the Supreme Lord cannot be the source of any trouble for anyone under any circumstances."    (More...)