Some truths pierce the heart, yet they often remain obscured beneath layers of sentiment and misconception.
Again and again, I encounter the idea that the siddha-deha — the eternal, perfected spiritual body — already lies dormant within each jīva, waiting to awaken.
But this, I must say, is not the truth taught by my Gurudeva.
It is also not the truth lived by the Goswāmīs.
And it is not the truth that humbles the heart and opens it to mercy.

We are not born with bhakti. We are not carriers of divine rasa by nature.
We are taṭasthā-śakti — the marginal energy of the Lord.
And within this marginal energy, there is no room for the Lord’s inner potency (svarūpa-śakti), which alone can bestow bhakti and manifest the siddha-deha.

As Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu declared:

“kṛṣṇera ‘nitya-dāsa’, kṛṣṇera ‘taṭasthā-śakti'”
(CC Madhya 20.108)

We are eternally servants — that is our identity — but not inherently qualified with divine love or form.
The jīva’s essence is service. The specific identity — name, form, and mood of service — is not inherent, but a gift.

Śrī Jīva Goswāmī teaches in his Bhakti Sandarbha that the jīva (individual soul) does not inherently possess bhakti, though it has the capacity (sāmarthya) to receive it. Bhakti is not an intrinsic quality or function (svabhāva) of the soul but is a manifestation of Bhagavān’s svarūpa-śakti, particularly the hlādinī and saṁvit śaktis.
Bhakti is divine and transcendental, and it enters the jīva only by the mercy (kṛpā) of Bhagavān or His devotee, especially through the guru, who bestows the bhakti-latā-bīja—the seed of devotion:

“guru-kṛṣṇā-prasāde pāya bhakti-latā-bīja”
—“By the mercy of Guru and Kṛṣṇa, one receives the seed of the creeper of bhakti.”
(Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta, Madhya 19.151)

While the jīva is conscious and capable of spiritual relationship, the actual function and expression of devotion (bhakti) arises only after it is bestowed.
Bhakti is never the product of the soul’s own nature or effort, but a gift from the transcendental realm.

I highly recommend the following Anucchedas from the Bhakti Sandarbha with the commentaries of Srila Satyanarayana das Babaji.

Anuccheda 139 – Bhakti Is Self-Revealing (svayam-prakāśa)

Bhakti is not created by the jīva’s effort. It manifests spontaneously due to ist being Bhagavān’s internal potency (svarūpa-śakti). Even animals (e.g., Bharata as a deer, Gajendra) can experience it. Thus, bhakti is divine and independent—not a material product.

Anuccheda 140 – Bhakti Is Inherently Blissful

Bhakti brings profound joy even in ist early stages. Devotees derive satisfaction and delight simply from engaging in bhakti. This bliss arises not from sense pleasure but from the soul’s alignment with ist natural function of serving Bhagavān.

Anuccheda 141 – Bhakti Bestows Love (rati)

The natural fruit of bhakti is love (rati) for Bhagavān. This divine affection is not manufactured by the jīva, but given by bhakti itself. Bhakti purifies the heart and prepares it to receive prema as a divine gift.

Anuccheda 142 – Bhakti Bestows Bliss Even on Bhagavān

Bhakti not only blesses the devotee, it pleases Bhagavān Himself. Through bhakti, the Lord experiences loving exchanges with His devotees. Bhakti is the supreme form of the hlādinī-śakti, the bliss-bestowing potency.

Anuccheda 143 – Bhakti Enhances the Lord’s Bliss

Bhakti acts like a mirror, reflecting and magnifying the Lord’s own joy. The devotee’s loving mood enriches the divine līlā. In this way, bhakti is not only a gift from the Lord but also something that delights Him in return.

Anuccheda 144 – Bhagavān Is the Cause of Bhakti

Bhakti does not arise from the jīva independently. It is bestowed by Bhagavān, especially through His devotees. This definitively refutes the idea that bhakti is inherent in the soul. Śrī Jīva states: Bhagavān is the sole cause of ist manifestation.

Anuccheda 145 – Bhagavān Is Realized Only through Bhakti

True realization of Bhagavān is only possible through bhakti. Other paths like jñāna and yoga may give partial insight (e.g., Brahman or Paramātmā), but the personal form of the Lord (Bhagavān) is accessible only through devotion.

Anuccheda 146 – Bhagavān Is Attained through Bhakti Alone

Bhakti not only reveals Bhagavān but also grants direct access to Him. It alone leads the devotee into the divine presence, making it both the means and the goal of spiritual life.

Anuccheda 147 – Bhakti Subjugates Bhagavān

Even sādhana-bhakti, when performed with sincerity, has the power to captivate and subjugate the Supreme Lord. Kṛṣṇa becomes controlled by the love of His devotees—even those not yet perfect. This shows bhakti’s astonishing potency.

Srila Satyanarayana das Babaji writes:
“While describing the jīva as an integrated part of Bhagavān, Śrī Jīva Gosvāmī makes an important remark. He says that the jīva is a part only of that aspect of Bhagavān (i.e., Paramātmā) that is qualified by the taṭasthāśakti and not of Bhagavān in His absolute or radical essential being (kevalasvarūpa), as qualified by His svarūpa-śakti. The import of this statement is that the jīvas are integrated parts only of Bhagavān’s taṭasthā-śakti and not of His svarūpa-śakti. It is due to being so constituted that they can be overpowered by māyā. Māyā has no capability to influence the svarūpaśakti of Bhagavān. A further implication of this statement is that bhakti, being the condensed essence of the svarūpa-śakti, is not present in the jīva’s “intermediary existential make-up” (taṭastha-svarūpa). Bhakti is to be received from a devotee. If bhakti were priorly existent in the jīva’s constitution, there would be no need for sādhana.
It may be argued that bhakti is present in the jīva in a dormant state, and hence practice is required to awaken it. This argument, however, takes noaccount of what is actually meant by svarūpa-śakti and, hence, by bhakti.
Being existent (sat) and of the nature of consciousness (cit) and bliss (ānanda) in its essential constitution, there is no possibility for it to be dormant ever. Moreover, even if, for the sake of argument, bhakti somehow existed in a dormant state in the jīva, then because svarūpa-śakti in any state at all can never be covered by the external potency (bahiraṅga-śakti), the jīvas could never become conditioned by māyā. They would be perpetually established in sāmmukhya toward Bhagavān, because sāmmukhya is the foundational orientation of the svarūpa-śakti, whereas vaimukhya is the orientation of the external potency. Since the jīvas are indeed conditioned by māyā, it is self-evident that svarūpa-śakti is not present in their taṭastha-svarūpa.”

In the path of rāgānugā bhakti, especially in manjarī-bhāva, this truth is especially beautiful: the jīva’s eternal identity as a maidservant of Śrī Rādhā is not inherently active, but begins to unfold only after receiving that very bhakti from one who is immersed in that divine mood.

The seed of bhakti is planted — not discovered within.
And through sādhana, that seed grows.
The sādhaka practices, meditates, serves, and purifies his heart.
And in time, Kṛṣṇa — touched by that loving effort — reveals the siddha-deha that corresponds to the mood cultivated through the agency of Sri Guru.

Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura explains that the Lord, out of compassion, bestows the spiritual body upon the sādhaka — a body “made of” svarūpa-śakti, not from the jīva’s own constitution:

“Whatever form the devotee deeply meditates upon with intense longing, the Lord mercifully grants that very form.”
(Paraphrased from SB 3.9.11 and its commentaries)

Bhakti is not an awakening of something latent — it is a divine descent.
And bhāva, too, is not generated from inside, but made manifest in the purified heart:

“kṛti-sādhya bhavet sādhya-bhāvā sā sādhanābhidhā
nitya-siddhasya bhāvasya prākaṭyaṁ hṛdi sādhyatā”
(Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu 1.2.2)

Bhāva is eternally existing in the spiritual world, and sādhana simply qualifies the sādhaka to receive it.
Likewise, the siddha-deha is not hiding in the heart like some forgotten treasure. As one senior Vaiṣṇava wrote:

“The siddha deha is not within one’s heart or lying dormant inside of one waiting to rise or wake up.”

This is not a poetic denial — it is a precise articulation of truth.
To say that the jīva’s spiritual body is inherent is to conflate marginal and internal energy.
It confuses the function of the jīva with the gift of bhakti.

Let me speak personally now.

The more I understand this, the more I tremble before grace.
I do not have my svarūpa — I may be gifted one.
I do not own bhakti — I beg to receive it.
And the siddha-deha I long for — a form to serve Śrī Rādhikā under Her beloved maṅjarīs — is my heart’s cry. It is the dream She may one day fulfill.

I do not want to falsely claim what only mercy can give.
I want to be made worthy — not of knowing, but of receiving.
And until then, I serve, I pray, I follow, and I wait.

Radhe Radhe.