There is, especially in India, a concept called Ishta-Devata, a Sanskrit word which means the beloved chosen deity . The chosen deity is actually the wholeness of the religious ideal which one has placed before oneself as a totality beyond which the mind cannot reach. The God of religion is the totality transcendent to which the mind, at the present level of its evolution, cannot conceive anything. This final reach is the Ishta Devata. The diversity of gods that are generally spoken of in religious circles is due to the degrees of the ideal which different minds, at different stages of evolution, place before themselves.
Manifold worships are facets of the single crystal of the whole which is religion.
While the supreme ideal of religion cannot be more than one, yet, it can be approached through various levels of this wholeness. These different levels of wholeness are the Ishta-Devatas, the deities, which each one considers as one s sole object. It is the object which includes every other possible concept of objects. The Devata, or the deity one has as the ideal, is the total of the objective concept, and, very important to remember, again. It is so because of the fact that, here, the mind has reached the pinnacle of its possibility in the conception of Godhead, and once it has reached the apex of its possibility, it cannot go further beyond.