936
Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam
[Canto 4, Ch. 22]
see that materialistic persons come to us and offer their obeisances to take blessings, which means they want more and more material opulences. If such material opulences are checked, such persons are no longer interested in offering obeisances to the devotees. Such materialistic persons are always concerned about their economic development. They offer obeisances to saintly persons or the Supreme Lord and give something in charity for preaching work with a view that they will be rewarded with further economic development.
However, when one is sincere in his devotional service, the Lord obliges the devotee to give up his material development and completely surrender unto Him. Because the Lord does not give blessings of material opulence to His devotee, people are afraid of worshiping Lord Viṣṇu because they see that the Vaiṣṇavas, who are worshipers of Lord Viṣṇu, are poor in superficial material opulences. Such materialistic persons, however, get immense opportunity for economic development by worshiping Lord Śiva, for Lord Śiva is the husband of the goddess Durgā, and Durgā is the proprietor of this universe. By the grace of Lord Śiva, a devotee gets the opportunity to be blessed by the goddess Durgā. Rāvaṇa, for example, was a great worshiper and devotee of Lord Śiva, and in return he got all the blessings of goddess Durgā, so much so that his whole kingdom was constructed of golden buildings. In Brazil, in this present age, huge quantities of gold have been found, and from historical references in the  Purāṇas , we can guess safely that this was Rāvaṇa's kingdom. This kingdom was, however, destroyed by Lord Rāmacandra.
By studying such incidents, we can understand the full meaning of  iśa-vidhvaṁsitāśiṣām . The Lord does not bestow material blessings upon the devotees, for they may be entrapped again in this material world by continuous birth, death, old age, and disease. Due to materialistic opulences, persons like Rāvaṇa become puffed up for sense gratification. Rāvaṇa even dared kidnap Śītā, who was both the wife of Lord Rāmacandra and the goddess of fortune, thinking that he would be able to enjoy the pleasure potency of the Lord. But actually, by such action, Rāvaṇa became  vidhvaṁsita  or ruined. At the present moment human civilization is too much attached to economic development and sense gratification and is therefore nearing the path of ruination.
TEXT 37
तत्त्वं नरेन्द्र जगतामथ तस्थूषां च देहेन्द्रियासुधिषणात्मभिरावृतानाम् ।