Those who worship the celestial gods do so in ignorance. And in a verse in the ninth chapter, He says that,
ते तं भुक्त्वा स्वर्गलोकं विशालं क्षीणे पुण्ये मर्त्यलोकं विशन्ति । …
Te taṁ bhuktvā svarga-lokaṁ viśhālaṁ kṣhīṇe puṇye martya-lokaṁ viśhanti…
- Gita 9.21 (partial)
“Those who go over to swarg (heaven), they do enjoy extensive pleasures, but then they’re bound to be reborn in this world.”
So it means they don’t get ahead spiritually. You don’t gain anything spiritually by going to swarg. You’re right back where you started - right here. Our spiritual goal is to attain supreme God, and you don’t get closer to attaining God by going to swarg. In fact, you have to come back here, get born as a human, then you could attain God. You can’t attain God while you’re in swarg.
So the celestial gods are like Indra, the god of rain, Agni, the god of fire, Vayu, the god of wind, the nav grah devtas (the nine planetary deities in Vedic astrology) These are all different celestial gods. There are many, many of them. You can say that they’re employees of supreme God. They’re mayic powers, but they’re not Divine, and you can’t attain the Divine world by worshipping them.
Shree Krishna summarizes this whole philosophy when He says:
यान्ति देवव्रता देवान् पितॄन्यान्ति पितृव्रताः ।
भूतानि यान्ति भूतेज्या यान्ति मद्याजिनोऽपि माम् ॥Yānti deva-vratā devān pitṝin yānti pitṛi-vratāḥ.
Bhūtāni yānti bhūtejyā yānti mad-yājino ’pi mām.- Gita 9.25
He says, “Whatever you worship, that’s where you’ll go.”
If you worship celestial gods, you’ll go to swarg. If you worship supreme God…Krishna says,
“If you worship Him, you’ll go to His Divine abode. If you worship spirits, if you worship material beings of this physical world, then you’ll be reborn in this world, or you’ll go to the spirit world.”
But there’s only one way to go to the Divine world, and that’s by worshipping God directly, bypassing the worship of all other material beings or powers.
This is a very important philosophy of the ninth chapter.
