Gita 7.20

Sadhak: "Guruji, this verse sounds harsh. Are you saying people who worship Ganesha or Lakshmi are spiritually inferior?"

Guru: "Read carefully—Krishna doesn't criticize the deities or even the worshippers. He's describing what happens when desire becomes the driver of spiritual practice."

Sadhak: "But everyone has desires. Even I want peace, want liberation. Isn't that also desire?"

Guru: "Excellent question. There's a difference between desire that expands you and desire that contracts you. Wanting a bigger house keeps you focused on the house. Wanting to know your true nature dissolves the 'you' that wants."

Sadhak: "So the problem isn't desire itself, but desires that keep us small?"

Guru: "Precisely. 'Hṛta-jñānāḥ'—wisdom is stolen. When you desperately want something, can you think clearly about whether you should have it?"

Sadhak: "No... when I really want something, I rationalize everything to justify getting it."

Guru: "That's the mechanism Krishna describes. Desire hijacks discrimination. Then we seek whatever power seems most likely to fulfill that desire, following whatever rules that tradition prescribes."

Sadhak: "But my grandmother worshipped Lakshmi her whole life. Was she wrong?"

Guru: "Was she worshipping Lakshmi to get rich, or was Lakshmi her doorway to devotion? The same external practice can come from very different internal places."

Sadhak: "She wasn't thinking about money. She just loved doing puja."

Guru: "Then her wisdom wasn't stolen by desire. She found her path to the infinite through that form. This verse describes those whose worship is essentially a spiritual transaction—'I worship, you deliver.'"

Sadhak: "So it's the transactional attitude that's the problem, not the deity being worshipped?"

Guru: "Now you understand. Krishna is the source of all deities. Approaching any form with love reaches Him. Approaching even Krishna with bargaining remains limited."