The power of illusion often makes us mistake the means to be the ends and the ends to be the means.
Even among believers, many get misledby religious materialism. They mistake the things of this world to be the ends and devotion to Krishna to be the means for acquiring those ends. However, our connection with worldly things is temporary, whereas our connection with Krishnais eternal.That’s why the Bhagavad-gita (09.21) points out that those who worship Krishna indirectly for material purposes gain only temporary results at best. Making the eternal, Krishna,a means to the temporary, material gains, is a pathetic underutilization of the eternal.
When Krishna can offer us eternal life, why should we settle for anything less?
To regain the eternal life that is due to us as undying souls, we need to make the temporary the means to the eternal. That is, we need to use the things of this world as the means to render devotional service to Krishna and thus attain the ends of eternal love for him.
To protect ourselves from mixing up our means and our ends, we need to regularly connect ourselves with the scriptures, the devotees and the environments that focus on pure devotional service. By thus sharpening our focus on the eternal, we too will be able to practice devotional service purely. Thereby we will move steadily along the expressway to the supreme eternal destination: Krishna’s world of pure spiritual love.
Bhagavad Gita Chapter 09 Text 21
“When they have thus enjoyed vast heavenly sense pleasure and the results of their pious activities are exhausted, they return to this mortal planet again. Thus those who seek sense enjoyment by adhering to the principles of the three Vedas achieve only repeated birth and death.”
Source : http://www.gitadaily.com/2011/11/22/are-we-mixing-up-our-means-and-our-ends/
