Swami, why is it said that cleanliness is next to Godliness although God is attained only through devotion?

Swāmi replied: Cleanliness means absence of dirty things. Cleanliness in devotion means absence of fascinations to worldly bonds, which are dirty in real sense. Any worldly bond loves you because you are giving enjoyment to that bond. Any bond doesn’t love you to give enjoyment to you. Wife loves husband because husband is giving enjoyment to her and she doesn’t love him for the sake of his enjoyment. Similar is case with husband also. Same is the case with any worldly bond. The love of any worldly bond is selfish only. This is told by sage Yājñyavalkya in the Veda (Ātmanaḥ kāmāya…). The only bond of God loves you not for the sake of God’s enjoyment but for the sake of your enjoyment only. The reason is that God doesn’t need anything or anybody from outside for the sake of His enjoyment. Hence, when your devotion is to God only lacking all the dirty worldly bonds, such devotion is clean and this is the cleanliness of devotion. Hence, cleanliness finds an important place in devotion also.

Complete cleanliness in devotion means existence of the only bond with God and disappearance of all worldly bonds (Eka bhaktiḥ viśiṣyate…- Gītā). Such state is called as madness, which can’t be obtained by any effort of the soul. When the soul is continuously putting efforts in this direction, after millions of births only such madness about God results (Bahūnāṃ janmanāmante…- Gītā). The disappearance of worldly bonds can never be achieved without such madness to God. Worldly bonds naturally drop away without any effort due to such mad devotion to God. You can count such climax devotees on your fingers, who are seen in this world so far from the beginning of the creation. In such mad state, there is no love to anything or anybody except God. Such madness is said to be the final stage of devotion (Unmādo maraṇaṃ tataḥ).