master. The disciple will then adopt family life, and take a wife according to religious rites.
I do not need anything; but if My devotee, out of love, presents to Me an offering, however insignificant, it is with great pleasure that I accept it. In return, if an unbeliever presents Me with an offering, however valuable it is, it does not please Me to accept it, for in truth I only appreciate what is offered to Me with love and devotion. So may My pure devotees offer Me even the simplest things, a little flower, a little piece of a leaf, a little water, a little fruit, but imbue their offering with love and devotion, not only do I accept it with joy, but it is a great pleasure for Me to consume it.
After all, you should know that it was not My intention to leave you; our separation was ordered by providence, which has control over everything, and acts as it sees fit. This same providence causes the meeting of different people, to then disperse them at will. We sometimes observe that in the presence of clouds and a strong wind, fragments of cotton and tiny particles of dust mix together; but when the wind subsides, they separate again, scattered in all directions. Likewise, the Supreme Lord is the creator of all things, and the various objects that we know represent as many manifestations of his energy. It is by his supreme will that we find ourselves sometimes united, sometimes separated. We can therefore conclude that in the final analysis, we are absolutely dependent on his will.
By fortune, you have developed love and affection for Me, the only means by which one reaches the spiritual level where it is possible to live in My company. Any living being who acquires for My Person such a devotional affection, pure and total, returns, at the end of this existence, to his original abode, in the kingdom of God. In other words, the affection and pure devotional service offered to Me brings about supreme liberation.
No one can purify himself by a simple visit to the holy places of pilgrimage, by a bath in these places or by the only visit of the material representations of God in the temples. But whoever meets a great sage, a great soul, a perfect representative of God, immediately sees himself purified. The holy scriptures also recommend for this purpose to pay one's veneration to the fire, the sun, the moon, the earth, the water, the air, the ether and the mind, because in worshiping all these elements and the celestial beings who are its masters, one can free oneself from the influence of envy. But all the sins of an envious man can be nullified as soon as he serves a magnanimous soul. Learn from My lips that he who holds the material body, made up of three elements, mucus, air and bile, for his true self, and his family and loved ones as his own, who holds material objects worthy of adoration, or who visits the places of pilgrimage for the sole purpose of taking a bath, without ever seeking contact with high sages and great souls, this one, even if he has a human form, is nothing other than an animal, nothing better than a donkey.