"..the world itself is an illusion, a maya. Man is not an earthly being who may hope to win immortality in a different kind of existence after death, but a spiritual being who incarnates from time to time on earth, in exile from his natural heavenly abode. The eternal being of man is indestructible; it does not have to win immortality, for it is already immortal; it is the deeds of this being in earthly life which chain him to that life and make his reincarnation on earth necessay...If, then, the world itself is an illusion the task of the man who would become wise is to try to understand the nature of the illusion, and at the same time free himself from dependence upon it. Man has become dependent upon the earth for his sustenance by being born on earth for the first time. This has certain inevitable consequences. He begins to desire earthly things for their own sake, and while on earth he performs certain deeds which bind him to other people and to the whole destiny of the earth. Theses deeds can never be undone, and they constitute man's karma...[these deeds must] be compensated on earth, which is the only testing ground provided for man."

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