There are different modes of worship for different persons desiring success in particular subjects. The conditioned soul living within the purview of the material world cannot be an expert in every type of materially enjoyable asset, but one can have considerable influence over a particular matter by worshiping a particular demigod, as mentioned above. Ravana was made a very powerful man by worshiping Lord Siva, and he used to offer severed heads to please Lord Siva. He became so powerful by the grace of Lord Siva that all the demigods were afraid of him, until he at last challenged the Personality of Godhead Sri Ramacandra and thus ruined himself. In other words, all such persons who aspire after gaining some or all of the material objects of enjoyment, or the gross materialistic persons, are on the whole less intelligent, as confirmed in the Bhagavad-gita (7.20). It is said there that those who are bereft of all good sense, or those whose intelligence is withdrawn by the deluding energy of maya, aspire to achieve all sorts of material enjoyment in life by pleasing the various demigods, or by advancing in material civilization under the heading of scientific progress. The real problem of life in the material world is to solve the question of birth, death, old age and disease. No one wants to change his birthright, no one wants to meet death, no one wants to be old or invalid, and no one wants diseases. But these problems are solved neither by the grace of any demigod nor by the so-called advancement of material science. In the Bhagavad-gita, as well as in the Srimad-Bhagavatam, such less intelligent persons have been described as devoid of all good sense. Sukadeva Gosvami said that out of the 8,400,000 species of living entities, the human form of life is rare and valuable, and out of those rare human beings those who are conscious of the material problems are rarer still, and the still more rare persons are those who are conscious of the value of the Srimad-Bhagavatam, which contains the messages of the Lord and His pure devotees. Death is inevitable for everyone, intelligent or foolish. But Pariksit Maharaja has been addressed by the Gosvami as the manisi, or the man of highly developed mind, because at the time of death he left all material enjoyment and completely surrendered unto the lotus feet of the Lord by hearing His messages from the right person, Sukadeva Gosvami. But aspirations for material enjoyment by endeavoring persons are condemned. Such aspirations are something like the intoxication of the degraded human society. Intelligent persons should try to avoid these aspirations and seek instead the permanent life by returning home, back to Godhead.   (More...)

The path of religion entails making progress on the path of spiritual advancement, ultimately reviving the eternal relation with Lord Visnu in His impersonal effulgence, His localized Paramatma feature, and ultimately His personal feature by spiritual advancement in knowledge. And one who wants to establish a good dynasty and be happy in the progress of temporary bodily relations should take shelter of the Pitas and the demigods in other pious planets. Such different classes of worshipers of different demigods may ultimately reach the respective planets of those demigods within the universe, but he who reaches the spiritual planets in the brahmajyoti achieves the highest perfection.   (More...)

For a liberated person, all the enjoyments listed above are considered to be absolutely useless. Only those who are conditioned by the material modes of external energy are captivated by different types of material enjoyment. In other words, the transcendentalist has no material desires to be fulfilled, whereas the materialist has all types of desires to be fulfilled. The Lord has proclaimed that the materialists, who desire material enjoyment and thus seek the favor of different demigods, as above mentioned, are not in control of their senses and so give themselves to nonsense. One should therefore not desire any sort of material enjoyment, being sensible enough to worship the Supreme Personality of Godhead. The leaders of nonsensical persons are still more nonsensical because they preach openly and foolishly that one can worship any form of demigod and get the same result. This sort of preaching is not only against the teachings of the Bhagavad-gita, or those of the Srimad-Bhagavatam, but is also foolish, just as it is foolish to claim that with the purchase of any travel ticket one may reach the same destination. No one can reach Bombay from Delhi by purchasing a ticket for Baroda. It is clearly defined herein that persons impregnated with different desires have different modes of worship, but one who has no desire for material enjoyment should worship the Supreme Lord, Sri Krsna, the Personality of Godhead. And this worshiping process is called devotional service. Pure devotional service means service to the Lord without any tinge of material desires, including desire for fruitive activity and empiric speculation. For fulfillment of material desires one may worship the Supreme Lord, but the result of such worship is different, as will be explained in the next verse. Generally the Lord does not fulfill anyone's material desires for sense enjoyment, but He awards such benedictions to worshipers of the Lord, for they ultimately come to the point of not desiring material enjoyment. The conclusion is that one must minimize the desires for material enjoyment, and for this one should worship the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who is described here as param, or beyond anything material. Sripada Sankaracarya has also stated, narayanah paro 'vyaktat: the Supreme Lord is beyond the material encirclement.   (More...)