When we go to God we ask Him, "Kindly give me the bundle on my head. My family become . . . may happy. I may have a large amount of money to enjoy material things." We ask that. That is our foolishness. Caitanya Mahāprabhu teaches us, therefore, that actually, if you want something from God, that should be only begging for His service. This Hare Kṛṣṇa mahā-mantra means addressing God, "Kṛṣṇa," "Hare," and His energy Harā, Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī or Lakṣmījī, Hare: "O this internal potency of Kṛṣṇa . . ." Harā is Kṛṣṇa's internal potency. The external potency is Durgā, and the internal potency is Rādhārāṇī. Jaya Rādhe. So this is daivī-prakṛti. Mahātmānas tu māṁ pārtha daivīṁ prakṛtim āśritāḥ (BG 9.13). The devotees, they take shelter of the daivī-prakṛti, Rādhārāṇī, Lakṣmījī. They worship, therefore, Vaiṣṇava, Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa, Lakṣmī-Nārāyaṇa, Sītā-Rāma, the first of all the energy. The energy. So this Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra is first addressing the energy, the internal energy, potency, of Kṛṣṇa. Hare. From Harā to Hare. That is the sambodhana. So Hare Kṛṣṇa: "O Rādhārāṇī, or Lakṣmī, or Sītā, and Kṛṣṇa, or Rāma, or Nārāyaṇa"—the same thing. Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, addressing Them, "O my Lord, O my Lord's energy."
So when you address somebody, you want to ask something. So if they reply, "Yes, why you are calling?" then we're calling, "Please engage me in Your service." This is the prayer, not that, "Give me money" or "Give me beautiful wife" or "many followers." This is material hankering. Everyone wants some prestigious position, lābha, pūjā, pratiṣṭhā, some material profit, lābha, and prestigious position so that people will give him salaam, minister, president, and to become very famous, historically very famous. These are material hankerings. But Caitanya Mahāprabhu says: "No." Na dhanaṁ na janaṁ na sundarīṁ kavitāṁ vā jagadīśa kāmaye (CC Antya 20.29, Śikṣāṣṭaka 4). We don't want. This is animittā bhakti. Nimittā, for some certain reason, if you become a bhakta, then you are not a śuddha-bhakta. You are a viddha-bhakta, a polluted bhakta. Pure bhakti is anyābhilāṣitā-śūnyam (Brs. 1.1.11), zero. Material hankerings, anything material hankering, should be void.
The void philosophy, nirvāṇa, that indicates that you should completely finish these material desires. That is Lord Buddha's philosophy, nirvāṇa. Nirvāṇa means material desires, to make it void, no more. Lord Buddha said up to that. Because the people who were following him, they were not so expert, advanced; therefore he did not say what is after giving up every desires. Because desireless it cannot be. Desires . . . people say that, "You become desireless. Give up your all desires." That give up all desires means you give up your material desires. Because you cannot be desireless. Then you are dead body. But we are eternal living entity. Nityaḥ śāśvato 'yaṁ na hanyate hanyamāne śarīre (BG 2.20). We are getting different types of body on account of different desires. So I become desireless of this habit; then I desire another habit. So that is going on.
So desireless is not possible. Desirelessness means you have to purify your desire. Don't desire anything except the service of Kṛṣṇa. That is desirelessness, animittā. Animittā bhaktiḥ siddher garīyasī. If you come to that position . . . as Caitanya Mahāprabhu, teaching us, na dhanaṁ na janaṁ na sundarīṁ kavitāṁ vā jagadīśa kāmaye, mama janmani janmanīśvare . . . (CC Antya 20.29, Śikṣāṣṭaka 4). He says, janmani janmani, "birth after birth." That means He does not require even salvation, because salvation means apunar bhava-janma, no more janma, no more birth. No more birth—there are two kinds of no more birth. For the Māyāvādīs, or impersonalists, they want to stop birth, to merge into the existence of the Supreme, brahma-nirvāṇa. Brahma-nirvāṇa . . . the Buddha philosophy teaches nirvāṇa, devoid of all material desires, that much. He does not give any more. Śaṅkarācārya gives further, more, that brahma-nirvāṇa that, "You become desireless of this material world, but you enter, merge into Brahman." That is called brahma-nirvāṇa. And the Vaiṣṇava philosopher says that, "You make null and void all your material desires, enter into Brahman and be engaged in the service of the Lord." This is called bhakti. So brahma-nirvāṇa is also siddhi, but more than that siddhi is to be engaged in the service, Brahman service.
That service is not ordinary service. The service to the Lord is not to be calculated as equal to this material service. The Māyāvādī philosopher, they cannot understand it. But Kṛṣṇa says personally that this devotional service is in the transcendental platform, Brahman service. Therefore He says, māṁ ca 'vyabhicāreṇa bhakti-yogena yah sevate. This bhakti-yoga, one who is actually employed, engaged in pure devotional ser . . . animittā, without any motive, without any material purpose, that is real spiritual service.