< More of the Thoughts of an Adept (continued from page 11-131) >
will not even recognise its existence; they imagine that if they were to renounce sensuality they would be renouncing God, and would not be able to live; or that such a life would not be worth living.
There is a proverb current among the wise:—
“Who loves much, Wine, Woman and Song |
But the fool in his folly twists it the wrong
way and says:—
“Who loves not, Wine, Woman and Song |
And when the fool speaks of “love,” he means “animal lust,” for any fool can indulge, but the wise only abstain.
Let human beings live rightly. Let their children be rightly educated, and be early instructed in physiology; let them know the grave responsibilities of being the possessors of a human body, “the temple of the living God;’’ let them know they will be what they make themselves, and let them not dare to indulge in impurity.
By purity we are united with the absolute. The pure in heart only can know God. Flesh and blood cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. Chastity is the guide to the Deity.
Each individual exists in an almost infinite superabundance of vitality, which is mostly indiscriminately wasted.
Life and thought are convertible, or rather identical. The principle expresses itself in man, when man is rightly developed, as “thought,” but when man is undeveloped, it expresses itself as “animal energy.” The very same principle which, in its higher pure state, is “thought,” is, in its lowest state “lust.” “Demon est Deus inversus.” Where the divine aspirations are crushed, lust is the inevitable result, for when the divine nature finds it impossible to give her highest expression in one individual, she urges him on to reproduction that she may have another instrument in the offspring.
Every being, even in its greatest depravity, is a god in its own voluntary estimation, and considers the world to exist only for its own special enjoyment. Could a pig be asked, “For whom was the world created?’’ he would grunt as reply: “For peeeegs.” He has as much right to his opinion as a man has to his, but the pig must not attempt to induce men to welter in the sty in pig fashion. But should a pig missionary, or a pig-headed missionary, ever attempt to preach a porcine morality to human beings, and should he attempt to persuade men that there is no happiness but in swinish sensuality, and that all must alike welter in the mire even as he does, we must take the liberty (aided by some sticks) of driving him back to his sty, where he may grunt porcine ethics to the porcine, but not to human beings. For the sty of bestiality is fit for the pig, but to man pertains the Temple of Reason.
Having emerged from the slough of the senses, living rationally and upon right food, man should follow the straight path which leads him to the Deity, by fixing his thought, not on delusions or on transient things, but on the absolute alone, and he should not permit anything impure or vain to enter his mind; he should be unmoved by any combination of circumstances, but keep to his path, not heeding fallible likings and dislikings.
All passions originate in the depraved senses, and become expressed in impulsive liking and. disliking; the direction of this impulse is acquired by custom: it is therefore not the pure natural intuition, but merely an impulse in a certain direction which has been habitually acquired. This impulse must be strictly watched, and ruled by rational volition; where it is found to be wrong, because irrational, and not in accordance with the divine design, it must be strictly suppressed, and the false enjoyments must be denied.
Man being partly an animal, and born of depraved parents, seeks instinctively sensual, false, transient enjoyments; it is not to the lower instincts that man should trust, but he must most rigidly rule these by his rational and volitional capacity and power.
The imagination can only become purified of acquired depraved sensual impressions, when it is strictly ruled by reason, that it may not serve as a delusive excitement to the senses, veiling their depraved desires acquired by wrong custom.
A man aiming at perfection must only think that which is right and true, and whatever is wrong, although it appear in brilliant guise, its foul perversion must be rightly understood and beheld in its true light. Man should only act rationally, for then he will also act in accordance with the divine design.
To rule the imagination rightly (first negatively) is a chief part of ascetic practice. Does reason once rule, no passions can arise. Are the passions tamed, then the body (the senses) too submits to higher guidance, and when self-will no more rules, the divine will can make itself heard, and the soul obeys it. Then the soul is consciously led by divine guidance until the occult becomes manifest.