life The human form has been especially created to serve this purpose as a vehicle for reuniting with the Lord; and it has no other function. It was earned by us after long lifespans in other forms. When a person suffers sickness or discomfort, those are reminders of our mortality. They are given only because we are not on the Way. To find God, first we must acquire knowledge of who and what we are as soul, and then we will be able to find something greater. We are not bodies, but souls, and soul is of the same essence as God, i.e., soul is God, but on a smaller scale. The soul is entombed in layers of coverings, the chief of which are the body, mind, and intellect. These coverings are not alive; the soul is alive and provides the motive energy which is used to drive the coverings. We are so identified with these coverings, that we no longer have any idea we are souls and instead identify completely with the body and mind. God has not provided anything useless, and human beings are functionally complete as regards their given purpose, they need nothing extra such as worldly education or money: The Master extends this even to food and drink, and tells stories sometimes of people who have subsisted on the inner food alone. He sometimes quotes Jesus who said, "Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word which comes forth from the mouth of God." According to the Master this reference has an esoteric meaning, and the Word which Jesus speaks of is the inner Sound Current. Karma and the revolving powers Regarding the other species of life, the Master follows the view expressed in Hinduism, namely that we are souls passing through a continuous process of phenomenological evolution, moving from one form to the next more complex form, gaining more and more complex consciousness and also more complex desires—until the soul is lucky enough to find itself incarnated as a human being. This state of consciousness such as experienced by a human being is the top most rung of a ladder which continues upwards; a qualitative change is required to go higher. However, the soul can also fall lower if the attention is directed to lower things, such as pets, carnal desires, or drug use. Generally it must suffer hells for missing this