Logos 169

The Lord says: “My devotee truly reaches spiritual realization by my infinite and unjust cause, and thus once freed from all doubt, he walks firmly towards his own destination, which is directly under the protection of my spiritual energy, all of pure bliss. This is the ultimate perfection that the individual must attain. After leaving its material body, the pure soul therefore regains this absolute abode to never return to this world”.

True spiritual realization consists in becoming a pure devotee or devotee of the Lord, and the existence of the holy being embraces both the devotional function and the object of this devotion. In the final analysis, spiritual realization consists in knowing in truth the Supreme Person and the individual spiritual being; true spiritual fulfillment comes down to knowing the individual soul as well as the exchanges of love service that are established between it and the Supreme Lord. Devotional service is revealed to the pure being by the Lord's infinite and unjust cause of mercy.

Only those who practice devotional service with faith and love receive from the Sovereign Lord the intelligence necessary to gradually rise to the kingdom of God.

Logos 170

The soul embodied and conditioned by matter thinks “I am this body” but the liberated soul, it says “I am not this body, because I am a spiritual soul”. This “I am” represents the ego, or the identity of being.

The thought of “I am this body” or “everything that is related to the body is mine” comes from the false ego, from identification with one's body, but when we has realized his spiritual identity and that we say “I am an eternal servant of the Supreme Lord”, this identification of the self constitutes the true ego. The first conception is bathed in the darkness of the three gunas, modes of influence of material nature, virtue, passion and ignorance, while the other is at the level of pure virtue. When we say that we are giving up our ego, it means that we are giving up the false ego; the true ego is always there.

When the image of the being is reflected through the material defilement of the body and the mind under the influence of a mistaken identification of the soul, it is said to be conditioned; but when it appears in all its purity, it is said to be released. The identification of the being in the conditioned state, with its material possessions,