life has no guarantee because no one can know for certain what will happen the very next moment. Everything is illusion, except God. This world and all its affairs are so unsubstantial that it is meaningless even to say that they have no substance.

"It is no joke to realize me. Those who develop inner sight and even those who are established saints fail to fathom me This is because Fana (total annihilation) stands between all illusion, from the lowest to the highest, and the One Reality. The practice of Shariat, that is, living in strict compliance with the laws and precepts of one's religion, may lead one to Tariqat, the path of Gnosis, which has six stages. But Tariqat has its end in Fana (self-annihilation). Imagine, for example, that your body is your self and that your body must be totally consumed by you in the course of the six stages of Gnosis. You will have to do this with your own mouth, piece by piece, at every stage. Ultimately, in the last stage, your own mouth must eat itself! This is what I mean by the final Fana, and this is why I tell you that it is impossible to realize me without my help.

"Although I appear to be quite different in every Avataric period, I always am and always remain the same from beginning to end. I live the worldly life that is lived by the people, in order to help them live the divine life that I live simultaneously. To be established in the hearts of the people, I need no religious organizations. On the contrary, religious organizations need me in order to be established after me. Those who do not love me fail to understand me; and those who do not realize my Divinity fail to understand it.

"I am often touched by the outpourings of love, faith, sacrifice and service on the part of the growing number of those who believe in me here and in the West, and I do not mind the attitudes of those who remain unconcerned about me and even of those who oppose me. But I am constantly eyeing your obedience to me, because is futile to have love from the whole world in the absence of the required degree of obedience from you.

"I do not mean that you intend to disobey me or that you disobey me deliberately, when I insist so often on your obedience. On the contrary, I do not forget your sense of duty.

"Recently, for example, P. & K., and their family circles also, have given ample proof of their sense of duty to me. P.'s son, a brilliant M.Sc., died in the prime of life after a short illness. In order to fulfill what he considered his duty to my cause, P. reached his dying son too late. In spite of this, P.'s