People differ from animals in that in addition to desires for food, sex, shelter, and procreation, they also have so-called social desires for wealth, power, and knowledge, which can be satisfied at the expense of the surrounding society.

These additional social desires called the human desires of our world can be either directed toward subjugating society, suppressing it, being above it, or toward raising oneself, one’s development, in the likeness of nature, in adhesion with the environment, in connection with society for its benefit.

And here a paradox arises: when I act for the benefit of society, I begin to feel everything that is in it, inside me, and I enrich myself internally. And if I exploit people around me, then I do not rise above them, but on the contrary, being on my animal level, I suppress human qualities in them.

This is where the difference appears in what a man spends his additional desires on. He does it either to improve his corporeal life—create comfort for himself, supposedly take care of the environment, develop engineering, technology, and so on—or none of this simply matters to him.

For him, only internal development matters—how to realize himself. After all, how many years does he live on this earth? Anyway, his body will rot, his house will fall apart, etc. Why should he think about something that is transitory? He should think about the eternal! About what he can develop in himself and what he really can achieve the next stage, his eternal state, which is realized only in our world.

Precisely in contrast to his preferences: “What should I turn myself into: for the benefit of others or for their detriment? For the benefit of my animal or spiritual state? So that I reach the Creator and become similar to Him through love for my neighbor or so that I love myself and indulge myself in everything until the last moment of my life? This is the choice!

But the choice is precisely in relation to the desires that are beyond necessities. Nobody talks about how much I should eat or sleep. I should not live in a cave. I must have a family, normal food, and clothes. That is all. Nothing more is said about this. It is said: “Where are you heading other than this?”

Man’s freedom of will consists in preferring the choice of activities. This is what determines whether he is a spiritual or an earthly person.

People who strive for spirituality feel haunted by the question about the meaning of life. A person must answer it; otherwise, he feels no point in living. In other words, there is no point in using one’s qualities to become rich, powerful, or even smart. So what? I will die and that is it. Why waste my life on this?

And many do not want to. They either fall into depression, drugs, and even alcoholism, or they are still looking for a way out.

And here comes a kind of luck, a quality of fate that leads them to the method of revealing their correct realization.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Dead-end Path of Human Development” 1/24/12

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