“The basic principle of Deity worship is that one must understand oneself to be an eternal servant of the Supreme Lord. One who is addicted to sexual gratification, foolishly identifying himself with the external material body, cannot change his conception of himself from that of an enjoyer to that of the enjoyed. Such a person interprets the word tan-mayam to mean that the worshiper is himself also the worshipable object. Sri Jiva Gosvami Prabhupada has written in his Durga-sangamani, his commentary on Sri Rupa Gosvami Prabhu’s Bhakti-rasamrta-sindhu, thatahangrahopasana, or the process of worshiping oneself as the Supreme, is a gross misidentification of one’s own self with the Supreme, who is actually one’s eternal shelter. The Six Gosvamis have repeatedly clarified this point. But unintelligent persons within the prakrta-sahajiya community become influenced by the bogus ideas of the Mayavadi philosophers and thus display the deluded misconception that the worshiper becomes the supreme shelter. Such a hallucination is an aparadha, an offense against the Lord. Therefore the word tan-maya in this verse should not be offensively understood to mean that the worshiper becomes equal to his eternal worshipable object.” (Srimad-Bhagavatam 11.3.54 purport)
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