crucial chance. Nature of suffering Regarding suffering, the Master totally rejects the premise of life as requiring misery: Life in this world is suffering; however, suffering is totally foreign to our natures and life is something we were meant only to live and enjoy. That enjoyment is not here, however, but with God: Anyone who thinks this life can be made into something enjoyable is deluded. Mankind grasps at the momentary pleasures only because he knows of nothing better. He enjoys sexuality and then the result—a child and all the attendant problems and worries—arrives. All the enjoyments of this world are traps like this, which seem sweet on the outset but turn out to be tragic. Regarding renunciation, it is not possible as a practical matter to live without action or live without desire. However, action can be transcended by devoting oneself entirely to a being who has himself become One and living by his instructions. Through the love of God in the form of a person who has become One with Him, we too can be One with Him. This person is the Guru. The Guru is the way out of suffering; he is like a lifeline leading to safety. Functional role of the living master God is not a silent spectator, watching the world impassively; He is fully conscious of the tormented situation in which his souls (which are really his own self) are suffering. However, God does not directly intervene in the universe but makes use of agencies. If there is to be rain, it does not fall from a clear sky. First the clouds gather, then the rain comes out from them. If a child is to be born, the mother and father are provided. In the same way, everything in this world works through the function of some agency above and all the higher powers operate in this way, even God. God is One, but has deputed control over vast regions of the universe (both physical and spiritual) to agencies which handle the management. The situation is analogous to a King, who has both a prime minister and many generals managing various aspects of his kingdom. No one approaches the King directly, but all interact with him via his functionaries. In this way he continues to enjoy the total purity, bliss, and ecstasy which is his nature; while the world goes forward in myriad forms.