For any mortal to become immortal he must be devoted to God, the one almighty God, with all his heart, mind and soul. He must serve God as he would serve himself, only in an unselfish way. God is love, and for the human to know God, he must learn to express love with all his being. In simple language, he must reach a level of purity of vibration that corresponds to the vibration of God in order to gain God consciousness.

It is not that easy, because we are bound in a situation of matter where the matter has tremendous glamour and we are almost totally attracted and attached to that glamour. In being attached, we are totally materialistic. And, in being totally materialistic, we keep our vibrations at that level that only serves to make us more and more greedy and selfish. However, it is the ongoing process of evolution that forces us to continue to grow and not remain stuck in a materialistic level.

The human, in looking around himself, cannot find anything in the universe that is not God, and when he finally looks within his own self, there he truly finds God. Devotion to God is simply the recognition that we are created by God and that we must grow in his image, and with that recognition we will serve God, and in so doing serve God-humanity and ourselves.

The human, through the ages, has grown to the point where he is now responsible for all that he says, thinks and does. Here on earth we live in a lesson world of opposites, tailored to our every need. We are endowed with resilient qualities in order to handle our free will. Therefore, we must live with and learn to deal with a myriad of situations before we are ready to leave this earth for a higher, glorious eternal life. Two things we must gain during our earth life are courage and strength of character. However, before we have forged these qualities, we must experience hardships and many disappointments. While learning the necessary lessons of life, we may feel that we have been cursed. However, we really have been blessed. In order to be of service to humanity we must live through lives of social inequality.

Hope and faith, two greatly needed human assets, are gained by living in an atmosphere of uncertainties and insecurities. Faith is always gained in situations of times of trouble where we know less than we are able to believe.

Being truthful is a great quality of human character development, much to be desired and very much admired by all. To gain this quality we must exist in an atmosphere of lies and constant error. Again, to learn to become loyal and devoted to our duty in life, we must experience a life where we are beset by betrayal and desertion and the constant and always present threat of failure to do our duty.

Also, to learn to become unselfish we must live a life where we constantly face a challenge of self-projection for honor and recognition. For us to gain the divine life we must forsake a life of self-service.

Life is such that if there were no evil for us to overcome, we would not know the good by contrast in order to exalt the good in life. For us to really know pleasure and the satisfaction of happiness, we must live in a world of pain and suffering where the likelihood of pain and suffering is always present and could overtake us at any time.

This lesson world provides us with an atmosphere where we become conditioned by knowledge and by experience in order for us to develop a desire and willingness to do God’s divine will.

Life on earth provides us with a perfect school. Because of the myriad levels of consciousness in evidence in humanity on this earth, at any given period, there is always a class for us to fit into when we make our appearance in this world and start another life’s journey. This is why there has never been a time on this earth when the high and the low did not manifest at the same time.

Sin is where, by our will, we consciously endorse and knowingly embrace a deliberate immoral judgment. Through knowledge and experience in life we come to know what is good and what is bad. Therefore, our excuse for embracing that which is bad becomes less and less valid.

Good is always that which produces an uplifting effect, or life supporting effect. Bad is that which tears down, or produces no good effect for the individual, or for anyone else.

All humans are a composite of good and evil. However, the thrust is to radically reduce the evil and dramatically increase the good. To become spiritual is the epitome of good. All who have become perfect beings, in moral nature and spiritual attainment, have done so through their earth existence. Celestial beings experience bliss and pleasure, but they know nothing of the sweetness of the pleasure of escape from the potential of pain. They are loyal, but they have never experienced the wholeheartedness and intelligent devotion to duty in the face of heavy temptation to default, or defect. It is true that they are unselfish, but they also have never had the earned satisfaction of conquering a belligerent selfish self-nature. Although they are godlike, they have never had the satisfaction of consciously becoming that way by evolving from an animal state to a God conscious state. As the scriptures state, it is the human, who is now lower than the angels, who will one day sit in judgment of angels. Also, the way is narrow and straight is the gate, and few there will be that find it. But, those who faithfully follow the way of devotion to God will be the ones who gain the goal here and now, and it also follows, that the sheep who have not found their way home and seem to be lost will, in time, come home wagging their tails behind them.

So, it is the destiny of humanity to go through hell in order to find heaven and consciously know that it is heaven earned, and that the way to God is to consciously know and experience God through unfaltering devotion.

As Guru Dev said, the human birth is the hardest of all births to obtain, for it starts in the jungle and proceeds on to the human and on to liberation where one stands forever in eternal bliss and as the eternal light. This is the goal of all of humanity.

Transcendental Meditation is the path to liberation; through daily practice we become spiritual and one with God.