If his earlier life has been self-centered, the attainment of this stage will provide him with the opportunity to escape from our miserable planet and to pass into a world of harmony, peace, and light, although this escape cannot in the nature of things mature until his physical body dies. But if his earlier life has been compassionate and altruistic in ideal--however unsuccessful in practice--the attainment will provide him with the power to implement this ideal, the strength to realize it in actuality. The thought will then present itself to him, "How best can I serve mankind?" This will lead him to seek for ways of helpfulness appropriate to his times, environment, and circumstances. Naturally the knowledge that helping others toward a similar enlightenment is the best service he can render them will predominate, but he will understand that their physical existence cannot be separated from their mental one and that it may sometimes be needful as a step toward that ultimate purpose to take up a duty which seems to belong solely to the external sphere of things.
-- Notebooks Category 20: What Is Philosophy? > Chapter 4 : Its Realization Beyond Ecstasy > # 236
