4. Centers for the study and practice of love of Krishna should be opened throughout the world

There are six recognized stages for rapid advancement in God realization. These are: 1) faith—the determination to follow the principles of spiritual life in the first place; 2) association—the practice of congregating with people of like determination; 3) following the rules and regulations—specifically, to chant the Names of God (the Hare Krishna Mantra) and to avoid meat-eating, intoxication, gambling and unmarried or illicit sex; 4) doubts disappear—which is a result of following regulative precepts; 5) attachment to the Lord develops—from which point one is securely fixed in the Absolute Truth; and 6) love of Krishna—the final, sublime perfection—appears within the heart. Of these six, the second is mentioned here as a specific point toward the advancement of world civilization. The association with other devotees of God, and especially with saintly persons who can teach the message of love of Krishna, is extremely important for one who is serious about spiritual advancement. Without the sort of association that such centers of Krishna Consciousness will provide, it is very difficult to maintain the high standards required for spiritual perfection in a world given over largely to material sense gratification, garbed occasionally, it is true, in the hypocrite’s cloak of ritualistic or traditional religion.

The foregoing four points, if accepted by even a small percentage of the world’s population, will inevitably lead to a general detachment from the material concept of life. As a result of this detachment, our other points will develop rather naturally: