"By absence of all self indulgence at this point, also, the seeds of
bondage of sorrow are destroyed, and pure spiritual being is attained."
Self-abnegation and self-sacrifice have ever been the way of spiritual
development; but we are prone to misunderstand and mistake the true
interpretation of this admonition; men shut themselves in monasteries and
women become nuns and recluses _as a penance_, in order to purchase, as it
were, absolution (at-one-ness with The Absolute, which knows not sin); this
is not the point intended here. Spiritual consciousness can not be bought;
the desires of the personal self may be _sublimated_ into divine force and
power, through recognizing the desires of the self as baubles which attract
and fill the eye, until we fail to see the glories of that which awaits us.
"Thereafter, the whole personal being bends toward illumination, full of
the spirit of Eternal Life."
Here again, we have assurance that the spiritually-conscious man, the
"luminous body" is not a being apart from the self that we know our inner
nature to be, but rather it _is_ the inner Self even as we in our ignorance
and our lack of initiation, know it, raised to a higher realm of
consciousness; our desires refined, spiritualized, made pure, and our
faculties strengthened and immortalized.
Pages:
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333