Polytheism condemned by Krishna

[Guest guest]

"Having material desires, men worship various demigods. They have no idea how to get out of matter; they want to utilize the material world to its best capacity. For instance, in Vedic literature there are so many recommendations: if one wants to cure his disease, he worships the sun, or if a girl wants a good husband, she worships Lord Çiva, or if one wants to become beautiful, he worships such and such god, or if one wants to become educated, he worships goddess Sarasvaté. In this way Westerners often think that the Hindus are polytheistic, but actually this worship is not to God, but to demigods. We should not think that the demigods are God. God is one, but there are demigods who are also living entities just like us. The difference is that they have a considerable amount of power. On this earth there may be a king or a president or a dictator—these are men like us, but they have some extraordinary power, and in order to get favors from them, to take advantage of their power, we worship them in one way or another. But Bhagavad-gétä condemns worship of the demigods. This verse clearly states that people worship the demigods due to käma, material lust."--Srila Prabhupada