As long as we continue to work for ourselves, we are not working for God.
There are three main paths to the Divine Life — to Truth, Reality, and God. They are: sacrifice, group consciousness, and service. These are the Golden Keys by which the Door of Initiation is opened. Then we are awakened to our purpose for living on this planet, and we take our place as servers of the Divine Plan.
Sacrifice
Sacrifice is the giving up of all attachment to the world and seeking only for God.
What are we asked to scrifice?
• Our desires. As long as we seek for our own personal satisfaction, we are not seeking for God.
• Our thoughts. As long as we believe that Truth resides in our own minds, we will not realize the need for repentance and for turning to the Divine.
• Our actions. As long as we continue to work for ourselves, we are not working for God. God's Kingdom is not available as long as we act only upon the impulses that the personality selects. This keeps us trapped in this world of illusion, where justice is enforced by the law and the gun. But in God's Kingdom, justice is enforced by the Law of Love. But only those who have chosen to follow God, and thus live in Truth, will find that higher Law to become the controlling factor.
• Our egos. As long as we trust ourselves to direct our lives, God cannot direct our lives. As long as we try to solve our own problems, God will not solve our own problems. As long as we seek to run the world as we see fit, God will refrain from interfering in our personal lives to redirect it along divine lines. But if the ego is sacrificed, then God's Will can be done, and in that doing, transform our lives.
Group consciousness
When we seek to live in God and only for God, the personal life is subsumed within the group consciousness. When we sacrifice the personal, we find the impersonal group life arise within us. The lesser consciousness is dimmed in the greater group life.
What is a real group?
• A real group consciousness is produced as the effect of the manifestation of the powers of the divine Universe. It is more than a gathering of people for mutual work and service, but is the focal point for certain pre-existing spiritual energies, and acts as a gateway for their manifestation.
• A real group consciousness is formed by God's guidance. It is not formed because someone decided that a group should exist. It is not formed because someone led and others followed. A real group has no leaders — though all can lead. A real group has no teachers — though all teach. There is no one who holds the group together — though all act in harmony and coordinate because God's guidance leads them. There is no group organization - though all is well organized.
• We will find the group because God's Spirit in our heart leads us to the group. And in that group consciousenss, the light of God will shine more brightly within us. We will be lifted out of our personal problems and issues into the realm of divine Living.
Service
When we follow God's Will, we are asked to live not only for ourselves, but for others. We are asked to serve the Divine Plan. We are asked to work for the group, and not for our own personal purposes.
What is real service?
• Service is the manifesation of a loving heart — a heart that has found God within and acts in obedience to the divine Will. Thus service is not really possible until we have sacrificed our lives to God. If the sacrifice has not yet taken place, then we are still only acting out of ego, however "good" our actions may be. And acting out of ego is precisely the cause of the world's problems.
• Service is the result of seeking God's guidance and acting accordingly. If we serve as a result of deciding what we think should be done, we are only acting from the standpoint of our own minds and our own intellect. But God can and will guide us to action and serve in ways that we did not even suspect existed. God chooses what service we shall do.
• Service is performed by a group. Many people seek to serve as individuals, and again do what the world considers as "good." But true service is beyond the individual awareness and individual mind — it is group awareness and group mind that coordinates together to produce the divine effect.
• Service is not an effort to improve this world, but rather, to bring people into an awarenesws of God's Reality. The Kingdom if God is ever-present, and it is our duty to awaken others to the existence of that Kingdom and assist people in entering it through the transfiguration of their nature.
Sacrifice inevitably leads to group consciousness; the individual life is lost in the group awareness. Group consciousness, in its turn, inevitably leads to service, for the group is inevitably concerned with the benefit of the larger whole, humanity, and theplanet. Service, in its turn, transforms the human nature and consciousness so that it becomes more aware of God's inner voice and is more receptive to divine Inspiration. All three reinforce each other to lift us out of ourselves into the transcendent One.