Text 34] The Glories of Devotional Service 1043
can imagine a personal form of the impersonal Absolute Truth for the
time being, but as soon as one becomes liberated the worship stops.
That is the theory put forward by the Mayavada philosophy. Actually the
impersonalists do not merge into the existence of the Supreme Person
but into His personal bodily luster, which is called brahmajyoti. Although
that brahmajyoti is not different from His personal body, that sort of
oneness or merging into the bodily luster of the Personality of Godhead
is not accepted by a pure devotee because the devotees engage in greater
pleasure than the so-called pleasure of merging into His existence. The
greatest pleasure is to serve the Lord. Devotees are always thinking about
how to serve Him; they are always designing ways and means to serve the
Supreme Lord, even in the midst of the greatest obstacles of material
existence.

The Mayavadis accept the description of the pastimes of the Lord as
stories, but actually they are not stories; they are historical facts. Pure
devotees accept the narrations of the pastimes of the Lord not as stories
but as Absolute Truth. The words mama paurusani are significant. Devotees
are very much attached to glorifying the activities of the Lord, whereas
the Mayavadis cannot even think of these activities. According to them
the Absolute Truth is impersonal. Without personal existence, how can
there be activity? The impersonalists take the activities mentioned in the
Srimad-Bhdgavatam, Bhagavad-gita, and other Vedic literatures as fictitious
stories, and therefore they interpret them most mischievously. They have
no idea of the Personality of Godhead. They unnecessarily poke their
noses into the scripture and interpret it in a deceptive way in order to
mislead the innocent public. The activities of Mayavada philosophy are very
dangerousto the public, and therefore Lord Caitanya warned never to hear
from any Mayavadi about any scripture. They will spoil the entire process,
and the person hearing them will never be able to come to the path of
devotional service to attain the highest perfection, or will be able to do so
only after a very long time.

It is clearly stated by Kapila Muni that bhakti activities or activities in
devotional service are transcendental to mukti. This is called pajicama-
purusartha. Generally, people engage in the activities of religion, economic
development and sense gratification, and ultimately they work with an
idea that they are going to become one with the Supreme Lord (mukti).
But bhakti is transcendental to all these activities. The Srimad-Bhdgavatam,
therefore, begins by stating that all kinds of pretentious religiosity is
completely eradicated from the Bhagavatam. Ritualistic activities for
economic development and sense gratification, and, after frustration in
