Those who really want to know God, to see Him face to face, to hear Him, and to have the great honour of entering His heavenly dwelling place, have only one thing to do: to love Him with all their heart and soul, to surrender themselves totally to Him, to take pleasure in doing His divine will and in pleasing Him, and to serve Him with love and devotion.
This is the major key, the perfection of existence.
Krishna, God, the Supreme Person, is the ultimate resting place of all that exists. Human life is meant to rekindle our eternal relationship with the Lord, and all religious injunctions serve to awaken this dormant nature of the living being. The sooner this awakening takes place, the sooner the mission of the human being is realised.
Love for God remains latent in every being, and the whole process of devotional service to the Lord is designed to awaken our eternal love for Him. This spiritual awakening, however, takes place in varying degrees. Those whose love for God develops to the highest level of perfection reach the Lord's own planet, Goloka Vrindavana in the spiritual world, while those who have rekindled this love only incidentally or through spiritual contact reach the spiritual planets, called Vaikunthas. Basically, there is no material difference between Goloka and Vaikuntha; but on the Vaikunthas planets, the Lord is served in infinite opulence, whereas in Goloka, the service offered to Him is in the form of natural affection. This love for God is rekindled by contact with pure devotees of the Lord. All the acts of a pure being are performed in the name of the Lord, for a pure devotee has no personal interest. All those who awaken to the love of God reach the planets of this spiritual world.
Blessed are those who adopt the path of austerity, for this is indeed the beauty and wealth of the devotees of God, and of the order of renunciation of this world of matter. Austerity is the one and only goal of existence for all human beings, because it is the only way to realise the true self. The goal of existence is precisely the realisation of the self, not the pursuit of sense pleasure. This path of austerity was established at the very beginning of creation, when God inspired Brahma, the first created being and supreme spiritual master of our galaxy, who adopted it first. Only the path of austerity allows for the full benefit of human life, unlike the animal lifestyle of a sophisticated civilisation. The animal knows nothing outside the pleasure of the senses, for its only concern is to eat, drink, sleep, mate, defend itself and foolishly enjoy life. The human being, on the other hand, is made to observe austerity and thus return to God, to his original abode in the kingdom of the Supreme Lord.
There are two kinds of austerities.
One is aimed at the pleasure of the senses, and the other at spiritual realisation.