of all. In this spirit, taking ourselves for the friends of humanity, we do philanthropic works. One can thus pretend to act for the greater good of the nation, and to be the best friend of the country and its population, but in reality, nobody can be the greatest friend of all beings, except God, their only friend. Rather, we need to seek to raise the level of consciousness of conditioned souls to make them understand that God is their true friend. Indeed, whoever befriends God will never be deceived, and he will always get all the help he needs.

Awakening the consciousness of sentient beings represents the greatest service that can be rendered to them.

Logos 176

The Lord says: “The embodied and conditioned soul in this world transmigrates through different species, sometimes superior, sometimes inferior, by the very fact of its contact with the attributes of material nature. Unless she is freed from her material occupations, she must accept this position because of her guilty acts”.

In this world, any good or bad action must be considered defiled or faulty, because of its link with matter. The conditioned being, deprived of reason, believes that he is carrying out a charitable action by opening for the material good of others hospitals or educational establishments providing material instruction, but he ignores that such enterprises are also faulty, because they will not allow him to escape the phenomenon of transmigration.

The alleged acts of virtue accomplished in the material universe can allow their author to be reborn in a noble family or on the higher planets, among the celestial beings, but such acts also prove to be faulty because they n do not result in release. Being born in a pleasant place or in a good family in no way implies that one will escape material hardship, at birth, illness, old age and death. The conditioned soul, subject to the grip of material nature, cannot understand that any action performed for the pleasure of the senses is impure, and that only the service of devotion offered to the Lord can free him from the consequences of such acts.

Thus, because it does not stop its illicit acts, it must pass from one body to another, within sometimes high species sometimes low. The material universe is a place from which one cannot escape. Those who desire liberation must direct their activities towards devotional service. No other alternative is available to him.