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Explanation of Devotional Service
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even desire the cessation of birth and death. The  yogīs  and empiric philosophers desire cessation of the process of birth and death, but a devotee is satisfied to remain even in this material world and execute devotional service.
It is clearly stated herein that a pure devotee does not desire  ekatva , oneness with the Supreme Lord, as desired by the impersonalists, the mental speculators and the meditators. To become one with the Supreme Lord is beyond the dream of a pure devotee. Sometimes he may accept promotion to the Vaikuṇṭha planets to serve the Lord there, but he never will accept merging into the Brahman effulgence, which he considers to be worse than hellish. Such  ekatva , or merging into the effulgence of the Supreme Lord, is called  kaivalya , but the happiness derived from  kaivalya  is considered by the pure devotee to be hellish. The devotee is so fond of rendering service to the Supreme Lord that the five kinds of liberation are not important to him. If one is engaged in pure transcendental loving service to the Lord, it is understood that he has already achieved the five kinds of liberation.
When a devotee is promoted to the spiritual world, Vaikuṇṭha, he receives four kinds of facilities. One of these is  sālokya , living on the same planet as the Supreme Personality. The Supreme Person, in His different plenary expansions, lives on innumerable Vaikuṇṭha planets, and the chief planet is Kṛṣṇaloka. Just as within the material universe the chief planet is the sun, similarly in the spiritual world the chief planet is Kṛṣṇaloka. From Kṛṣṇaloka, the bodily effulgence of Lord Kṛṣṇa is distributed not only to the spiritual world but to the material world as well; it is covered by matter, however, in the material world. In the spiritual world there are innumerable Vaikuṇṭha planets, and on each one the Lord is the predominating Deity. A devotee can be promoted to one such Vaikuṇṭha planet to live with the Supreme Personality of Godhead.
In  sārṣṭi  liberation the opulence of the devotee is equal to the opulence of the Supreme Lord.  Sāmīpya  means to be a personal associate of the Supreme Lord. In  sārūpya  liberation the bodily features of the devotee are exactly like those of the Supreme Person but for two or three symptoms which are found exclusively on the transcendental body of the Lord. Śrīvatsa, for example, the hair on the chest of the Lord, particularly distinguishes Him from His devotees.
A pure devotee does not accept these five kinds of spiritual existence, even if they are offered, and he certainly does not hanker after material benefits, which are all insignificant in comparison with spiritual benefits. When Prahlāda Mahārāja was offered some material benefit, he stated: