Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati narrated a story about a man named Bhagavan, who became intimate with a king. Jealous royal guards told the king that this Bhagavan was dead. When they went out walking with the king they clustered close around him, so that however he tried, the man named Bhagavan couldn’t get the king to see him. He finally climbed a tree and caught the king’s attention. But the king’s guards convinced the king that Bhagavan was now a ghost. The metaphor, according to Srila Bhaktisiddhanta, is that most people, like the king’s ministers, can create such a wall of illusion, that reality is obscured. “The majority of the common public are strongly of the opinion that devotional practice is just like other material or academic practices. They advocate that there are as many ways of liberation as there are philosophies. They are unable to realize that devotional service is the ultimate philosophy of living.” (excerpt from Upakyane Upadesa, translation by Akhilatmananda Prabhu)