Rejection of Worship of Minor gods: the Philosophical Explanation

The worship of minor gods in Sankaradeva's religious system is rejected as a work of māyā. Why? The philosophical explanation is as follows:

It was explained, on the basis of the Upanishads, that God was the only eternal, changeless spirit; the individual soul or ātman was part of it, but all the rest was matter and therefore subject to change and decay. People who worshipped matter, being oblivious of the Everlasting Spirit, were fools.

“God is supreme intelligence, vast, pervasive, without form, without attributes. He is the only reality, all else is untrue and illusory. All that is visible and seems real is only the manifestation of God Himself in diverse forms when He chooses to express Himself through the operation of māyā. To the bhakta, in moments of supreme trance, God reveals Himself in His form without upādhis or attributes. This is the real, the eternal and the true. He is the beginning, the middle and the end of the universe. As the earthen pot is nothing but the earth itself, and as it is reduced again to earth when it breaks, so the visible and invisible worlds originate in and end in, God Himself. He is without vikāra or modification; all else suffers modification. He is the controller of even purusa and prakriti. Apart from the Supreme Reality, all other gods and goddesses are nescient. They can promise neither knowledge nor salvation.”