Are the nine items of devotional service progressive?

Thank you Hare Krishna Question Are the nine limbs of devotional service from Shravanam to Atmanivedanam progressive with each successive one being at a level higher than the previous one answer no there are nine distinct limbs of devotional service and all of them are extraordinarily potent and there are examples of devotees having attained perfection just by being one limb of devotional service so it is not that the later ones are higher than the previous ones because that way if you see that earlier we have Pada Sevanam which is being done by Lakshmi Devi and then which is exemplified by Lakshmi Devi and then we have Dasyam which comes later which is exemplified by Hanuman and Lakshmi Devi is non different from Sita Devi and Hanuman cannot be considered to be higher than Sita Sita is Sita is a consort of the Lord so that’s why we cannot consider these as progressive and further if we see when Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was asked by Sarvam Bhattacharya in chapter 6 of the Madhya Leela of Chaitanya Charita Amrit that among the various limbs of devotional service which is the most potent so he said it is Kirtan so Kirtan of course correlates with the Yugadharma of Kanyuga which is Harinams and Kirtan and of course from another perspective we can say that the essence of all rules is remembering Krishna so we could say Smaranam is the most important but the Smaranam here refers to a particular way of serving Krishna which is by internal meditation without as Prahlad Maharaj did not explicitly offer prayers or do worship of Krishna because he was in a hostile territory he did not have when he was in he was not having any explicit facilities for rendering devotional service so his primary form of devotional service was inner remembrance so that inner remembrance is meant to permeate all the forms of devotional service whether it is Shravanam or Kirtanam we hear, we speak we do deity worship, we offer prayers all of them are meant to be permeated with remembrance so from Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s verdict we understand that Kirtanam is the most important most potent form of devotional service and that comes second so it’s not that these are progressive they are all parallel we could say they are all parallel tracks it’s not a staircase that you go one above the other they are all parallel tracks and by following any of these tracks in a diligent wholehearted way we can attain life’s perfection, we can attain love for Krishna thank you are the other.