Logos 216

When we eat only vegetarian foods that we offer beforehand to God, these are then purified, because accepted by the Lord. We thus free ourselves from our karma and we become immune to any material contamination.

It is forbidden to eat meat, fish, or eggs. Eating meat is participating in the pointless massacre of other living things. It causes bad karma reactions in this life or the next life. The laws of karma explain that whoever kills an animal for food will himself become a victim during his next life and will in turn be devoured. There is also a certain karma to take the life of plants, but it is canceled by the process of offering food to God, because the Lord says that he accepts such vegetarian offerings. Exciting and toxic substances, including coffee, tea, alcohol and tobacco, must also be given up. To become intoxicated in this way is to be influenced by ignorance, and may lead to a lower birth in our next life.

Among the other techniques which make it possible to free oneself from the cycle of reincarnations, let us quote the fact of offering God the fruit of our work. All men have to work in order to support their bodies; but if one acts only for one's own satisfaction, then one must accept the consequences brought about by karma, whether good or bad, in future lives. We must act for the satisfaction of the Lord. This action takes the name of devotional service, and it is free from all karma. To act in the consciousness of God is to make sacrifices. Man must sacrifice his time and money for the satisfaction of the Supreme Being. It is appropriate to offer the action as a sacrifice to God, lest it chase its author in the material world. The action performed as a service of devotion does not only preserve the person concerned from the reactions of karma; she gradually elevates him to the service of spiritual love offered to the Lord, which is the key to gaining access to the kingdom of God.

Logos 217

It is written: “As long as the ethereal body, composed of the mind, the intelligence and the false ego, envelops the spiritual soul, it remains chained following its interested acts. Therefore, the spiritual soul is connected to the material energy and must thus undergo the sufferings and the setbacks inherent in the material condition, that, life after life”.

The spiritual entity, the spiritual soul is trapped in the ethereal body, composed of the mind, the intelligence and the false ego. This is why at the hour of death, the