Sankara describes Him as the son of Vasudeva and Devaki. Does he mean thereby that he is worshiping an ordinary, material man? He worships Krsna because he knows that Krsnas birth and activities are all supernatural. As stated in the Bhagavad-gita (4.9), Krsnas birth and activities are mysterious and transcendental, and therefore only the devotees of Krsna can know them perfectly. Sankara was not such a fool that he would accept Krsna as an ordinary man and at the same time offer Him all devotional obeisances, knowing Him as the son of Devaki and Vasudeva. According to the Bhagavad-gita, only by knowing the transcendental birth and activities of Krsna can one attain liberation by acquiring a spiritual form like Krsnas. There are five different kinds of liberation. One who merges into the spiritual auras of Krsna, known as the impersonal Brahman effulgence, does not fully develop his spiritual body. But one who fully develops his spiritual existence becomes an associate of Narayana or Krsna in different spiritual abodes. One who enters into the abode of Narayana develops a spiritual form exactly like Narayanas (four-handed), and one who enters into the highest spiritual abode of Krsna, known as Goloka Vrndavana, develops a spiritual form of two hands like Krsnas. Sankara, as an incarnation of Lord Siva, knows all these spiritual existences, but he did not disclose them to his then Buddhist followers because it was impossible for them to know about the spiritual world. Lord Buddha preached that void is the ultimate goal, so how could his followers understand spiritual variegatedness? Therefore Sankara said, brahma satyam jagan mithya, or, material variegatedness is false but spiritual variegatedness is fact. In the Padma Purana Lord Siva has admitted that he had to preach the philosophy of maya, or illusion, in the Kali-yuga as another edition of the void philosophy of Buddha. He had to do this by the order of the Lord for specific reasons. He disclosed his real mind, however, by recommending that people worship Krsna, for no one can be saved simply by mental speculations composed of word jugglery and grammatical maneuvers. Sankara further instructs: