By Radhanath Swami
Essentially there are three planes of consciousness: enjoyment, renunciation, and devotion.
1. Enjoyment
In order to survive, the environment is geared towards exploitation. Why? Because of selfishness. We put ourselves in the center and this results in conflict as everyone has a different center.
2. Renunciation
It is taught that there can be no peace in this material existence because everything is temporary and there is so much conflict. To renounce everything and have a deep dreamless sleep – no more pain and suffering, everything is just peaceful! Yet death is not the end, so the problem is that you are going to be reborn according to your karma.
3. Devotion
This path recognizes that the highest of all solutions is to understand who we are, and who is our origin, and to live in harmony with that. We are meant to serve and to be selfless, to put God in the center and eternally be connected to Him. Harmony is there because we have a common interest.
The path of devotion transforms the material world to the spiritual world through consciousness. We need to find the spiritual world within ourselves – to find the love, peace, compassion within ourselves and to be instruments of that within the world.
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