There are three roads to Godhead. The first consists of the performance of all actions in a spirit of dedication to God for His pleasure; the second, in the renunciation of the desire for the fruits of action, and the third, in the identification of oneself with God through the process of Dhyana. Dedication of all actions to God confers wisdom on the doer. Renunciation of the desire for the fruits of action bestows mental tranquillity. Dhyana too ensures inner peace. (SSB 1979, p. 90)

On one side was the fiery lava which shot forth from the volcanoes and crevices that scarred the earth. The flood of destruction spreading fear and death descended on all sides. It was as if the end of everything had come. On another side, the scarcely noticed molecules of living matter, the microscopic amoeba floated on the water or clung to crevices among rocks keeping the spark of life protected and safe. One was bright and boisterous, the other quiet and secluded....on which would you have built your trust? Would anyone have believed then that the future was with the amoeba and the animalcule? Who would have foreseen that these minute specks of life could hold out in this earth-shaking upheaval, the gigantic onslaught of molten lava? But....the speck of consciousness (chaitanya) won through! It was undaunted by fire and dust, by screaming gales and swallowing floods. Through the course of time the sheer force of the Life-principle embodied in the amoeba blossomed into goodness and the strength of character, into art and music, song and dance, scholarship and spiritual discipline and martyrdom, into sainthood and even to the Avatar of Godhead. (NGM, p. 11)