Therefore it is said in Bhagavad-gita: vedais ca sarvair aham eva vedyah. One has to take to devotional service. Although the Vedas enjoin one to search out Krsna and take shelter at His lotus feet, other Vedic processes will not help. According to Bhagavad-gita, only the bhakti process is said to be definitive. Bhaktya mam abhijanati. This is the conclusive statement of the Vedas, and one has to accept this process if one is serious in searching for Krsna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead. In this connection, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura gives the following statement. The eastern side represents devotional service to Lord Krsna. The southern side represents the process of fruitive activity (karma-kanda), which ends in material gain. The western side represents jnana-kanda, the process of mental speculation, sometimes called siddhi-kanda. The northern side represents the speculative method sometimes known as the mystic yoga system. It is only the eastern side, devotional service, that enables one to attain life's real goal. On the southern side, there are fruitive activities by which one is subject to the punishment of Yamaraja. When one follows the system of fruitive activity, his material desires remain prominent. Consequently the results of this process are compared to wasps and drones. The living entity is bitten by the wasps and drones of fruitive activity and thus suffers in material existence birth after birth. One cannot be free from material desires by following this process. The propensity for material enjoyment never ends. Therefore the cycle of birth and death continues, and the spirit soul suffers perpetually.

The mystic yoga process is compared to a black snake that devours the living entity and injects him with poison. The ultimate goal of the yoga system is to become one with the Absolute. This means finishing one's personal existence. However, the spiritual part and parcel of the Supreme Personality of Godhead has an eternal individual existence. Bhagavad-gita confirms that the individual soul existed in the past, is existing in the present and will continue to exist as an individual in the future. Artificially trying to become one with the Absolute is suicidal. One cannot annihilate his natural condition.

A yaksa, a protector of riches, will not allow anyone to take away riches for enjoyment. Such a demon will simply create disturbances. In other words, a devotee will not depend on his material resources but on the mercy of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who can give real protection. This is called raksisyatiti visvasah or (in the Bengali poetry of Bhaktivinoda Thakura's Saranagati), 'avasya raksibe krsna'-visvasa palana. The surrendered soul must accept the fact that his real protector is Krsna, not his material acquisitions.

Considering all these points, devotional service to Krsna is the real treasure house for the living entity. When one comes to the platform of devotional service, he always remains opulent in the association of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. One who is bereft of devotional service is swallowed by the black snake of the yoga system and bitten by the wasps and drones of fruitive activity, and he suffers consequent material miseries. Sometimes the living entity is misled into trying to merge into spiritual existence, thinking himself as good as the Supreme Personality of Godhead. This means that when he comes to the spiritual platform, he will be disturbed and will again return to the material platform. According to Srimad-Bhagavatam (10.2.32):