attributes of material nature and to transcend forever their contaminating influence. However, this is only possible when we dedicate ourselves entirely to the service of love and devotion offered to God. This is confirmed by Krishna, God, the Supreme Person:

“Whosoever is completely absorbed in the service of devotion, without ever failing, transcends the three attributes and modes of influence of material nature and thus reaches the spiritual level.”

Unless fully absorbed in the service of the Lord, one remains exposed to the defilement of the three attributes of material nature, so that one must undergo the sufferings related to unhappiness or a mixture of happiness and unhappiness.

A life of happiness, unhappiness or mixed feelings makes it possible to determine the proportion of virtuous and ungodly acts in past and future lives. It is not very difficult to know its past and its future, because time reflects the contamination of the three attributes of material nature.

Currently, most embodied spiritual entities identify with his present body, the fruit of his past virtuous or ungodly acts, and remain incapable of knowing his past or future lives. Man indulges in sin because he is unaware of the acts of his past life which have earned him his present condition, in a material body exposed to the three forms of suffering. He is seized with a desperate need for material pleasures, does not hesitate to sin and commits reprehensible acts for the sole purpose of satisfying his senses. All this is harmful, because because of his sins, he will have to receive another body in which he will suffer just as he now suffers from the consequences of his past faults.

It must be understood that a person deprived of spiritual knowledge acts constantly in ignorance of what he has done in the past or his previous life, what he is doing now and the way from which she will suffer in the future; she is plunged into darkness. This is why it is written: “Do not stay in darkness” “Strive to reach the light.” This light is the spiritual knowledge diffused by Krishna, God, which one can understand once one has reached the level of virtue, or when one transcends virtue by adopting the practice of service of devotion offered to the spiritual master and the Supreme Lord. The meaning and scope of spiritual knowledge is revealed in all its fullness, and suddenly, only to great souls endowed with faith without reservation in God.

According to its relation to the attributes of material nature (virtue, passion and ignorance), the embodied being obtains a particular type of body. Thus, a spiritual guide worthy of the name is the example of a person living in virtue. He knows the past, the present and the future because he consults the Vedic texts. He can