"The purpose of life is the evolution, through self-effort, of man’s limited mortal consciousness into God Consciousness.

Human beings endowed with a questioning intelligence are sent to this partly understandable world to do their best to struggle and succeed according to the light of their intelligence; no clear outward revelation is vouchsafed them regarding the purpose of life or its source or final end. This fact is a clue to the entire mystery; it silently suggests that the search for truth must be not an outer but an inner one.

He who does not heed the liberating laws laid down by his Creator misses the sole point of earthly existence. He who identifies himself with his senses is rooted in the soil of materialism. As a person who mounts a Ferris wheel can climb high and see a beautiful panorama, or can climb down again, so a person who, instead of remaining stationary on the ground of materialism, climbs on the wheel of uplifting action can reach the high points in evolution; he is free to go to any world, whether the lower plane of earth or the rarefied regions of the devas.

The man who performs higher and higher duties rises steadily in the scale of evolution. The sense-identified person walks dully on the lowly levels of material consciousness. His sorrow-producing error lies in not acquiring a standard of comparison, which can only be found by mounting the rotating wheel of right actions. Such men never know the purpose of life: the search for the Holy Grail, the chalice of supreme bliss!

The purpose of life is to ascend the six spinal centers, reinforcing the human consciousness progressively with greater and greater lights, until it is able to unite with the all-pervading, thousand-rayed brilliance in the highest center in the brain. This ascent of the consciousness through the spine may be achieved slowly through right actions and right thoughts. The yogi, however, chooses the quicker and more scientific method of meditation.

The soul in man has descended from Cosmic Consciousness to the immanent Christ Consciousness and thence to the vibratory creation. It continued to descend until it became encased in a physical body, which is characteristically permeated with sense consciousness. When a man becomes a yogi, his soul consciousness begins to follow the path of ascension. It first leaves the soil of material attachments and concentrates
away not only from objects of bodily enjoyment but from the body itself.

The yogi detaches himself first from the possessive consciousness and then from all sense identifications. Thus he removes his mind from the three lower centers that connect man with all bodily sensations and attachments. The yogi then immerses his consciousness in the Divine Love radiating from the heart center. He ascends further to enjoy the Cosmic Calmness of the cervical center. Climbing on, the yogi rests in the Christ Consciousness in the medulla and the point between the eyebrows. Here he experiences the joy and wisdom of God inherent and omnipresent in all vibratory creation. He finally stabilizes himself in the cerebral center of Cosmic Consciousness, the “uncaused” Infinite Bliss beyond the cause-effect reciprocity of vibratory creation.

The yogi who has discovered the ever new joy in the soul by deep meditation is completely satisfied; he has found within a perfect happiness. He has achieved the purpose of life! fulfilled the duty for which he was born! In reuniting himself with God (higher fractal), he has automatically discharged all his obligations to creation.

All mortals who live and work solely for pleasure and gain, remaining ignorant of the divine purpose of life, are inexorably bound by their actions —elevated by performance of proper actions and degraded by evil actions. But the yogi who has by Self-realization attained the supreme goal of life is neither required to perform actions nor, if he does, is he bound by any karmic results of such actions. Having fulfilled all his desires by attaining the all-satisfying supreme bliss of Spirit, he possesses no motive for worldly gain through actions.

The advice in this stanza is especially fitting for people who are already married and entangled in the world, and who cannot seem to escape from their confinement of material harassments and thus find peace. Any human being, in whatever circumstance of life, is empowered to make this “sensory sacrifice” to the Lord. The grandest purpose of life (contrary to the implications of novelists) is not to know human love or to produce children or to win men’s fickle acclaim; man’s sole worthwhile aim is to find the everlasting bliss of God.42

The purpose of life is to ascend to God (merge with higher fractal), not to slide down the ladder of evolution to animality. The seeker for liberation should avoid excess in all modes of conduct, and should perform all worldly duties without attachment—maintaining himself and his family, and observing his divine duties for liberating himself and uplifting others.

"The man has, in his past, the animal; in his future, the angel. Both are visible even now in his face. So with all things, for all things change and grow." Patanjali