Many of us may say, “I heard that there are some sakām bhakts (devotees with material desires) also, so I am worshipping God for the fulfillment of some material desire. It means I am a sakām bhakt, at least I am a bhakt, sakām bhakt.”
No, no, no. It is not even sakām bhakti if you are desiring for any material thing, if you are going to Vaishno Devi, Balaji, this mandir (temple), that mandir. When I was studying in Banaras (Varanasi), at that time, during examination time, thousands of students were coming every Tuesday to the temple of Hanumanji (Lord Hanuman), just for success. Otherwise, nobody even knew that there was a temple in the university area, but on Tuesday, thousands of students were going to ask for something, for success in examinations.
So if you are going to all the devi-devatas (demigods and goddesses), if you are worshipping them for some desire, for the fulfillment of any desire, then you are not even a devotee. You are not a bhakt (devotee) at all. If you want to be called a bhakt, then you can say, “I am the bhakt of sansar (the material world). I am the bhakt of this material world.” But you are not a devotee of God if you are desiring anything.
So it was explained that we should not desire material things. That is the first thing. But from this planet to the planet of Brahma,
आब्रह्मभुवनाल्लोका: पुनरावर्तिनोऽर्जुन ।
Ābrahma-bhuvanāl lokāḥ punar āvartino ’rjun.- Gita 8.16
Krishna says in the Gita, “Up to the lok (abode) of Brahma, there is no happiness.”
There is a kingdom of maya (material illusion) everywhere. There are so many planets in between: Manushya Lok (human realm), Manushya Gandharv lok, Dev Gandharv lok, Pitri lok (ancestral realm), Ajanash Dev, Karmadev lok, Nitya Dev lok, Indra Dev lok, Prajapati lok, Brihaspati lok, and then Brahma lok. There are so many levels.
If we go up to the lok of Brahma, there is no happiness. We go there, enjoy some material gratification, and come back again into the same cycle of death and birth. So all these kinds of happiness which we find in all these planets are called bhukti (material enjoyment). In other words, material happiness.
We have to abandon material happiness for sure. We have to give up this idea of attaining material happiness, otherwise, we cannot even think of treading on the path of God-realization.
