Table of Contents

LOVE AND SEXUALITY

Omraam Mikhaël Aïvanhov

Chapter One A question of attitude

Chapter Two True marriage

Chapter Three The sun is the source of love

Chapter Four The goal of love is light

Chapter Five The manifestations of the masculine and feminine principles

Chapter Six Master or mistress?

Chapter Seven Vestal virgins; the new Eve

Chapter Eight Materialism, idealism and sexuality ‘on earth as it is in heaven’

Chapter Nine Heart and mind; the Universal White Brotherhood

Chapter Ten Seek the soul and the spirit

Chapter Eleven Restoring love to its pristine purity

Chapter Twelve Love transforms matter

Chapter Thirteen Love and identification

Chapter Fourteen The task of a disciple

Chapter Fifteen Open yourself to others and they will love you

Chapter Sixteen Tantra yoga

Chapter Seventeen Emptiness and fullness: the holy grail

Chapter Eighteen Love is everywhere

Chapter Nineteen Look for love at its source

Chapter Twenty Know how to use your powers of love

Chapter Twenty-One A broader concept of marriage

Chapter Twenty-Two ‘It ascends from earth to heaven and descends again to earth’

Chapter Twenty-Three The secret of happiness is in an expanded consciousness

Chapter Twenty-Four ‘Whatever you bind on earth’

Chapter Twenty-Five Love God so as to love your neighbour better

Chapter Twenty-Six Live lovingly

Chapter Twenty-Seven Our only weapons: love and light

Chapter Twenty-Eight Never stop loving

Chapter Twenty-Nine Towards a broader concept of the family

Omraam Mikhaël Aïvanhov

LOVE
AND
SEXUALITY

Part 2

Complete Works – Volume 15

Translated from the French

Original title: « L’AMOUR ET LA SEXUALITÉ » - Part 2

ISBN e book: 978-2-8184-0213-9

Original edition:

© 1976, Éditions Prosveta S.A. (France)

© 1978, Éditions Prosveta S.A. (France), ISBN 2-85566-115-3

© 1988, Éditions Prosveta S.A. (France), ISBN 2-85566-440-3

© Copyright Prosveta S.A. 2008. All rights reserved for all countries. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, adapted, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, whether privately or otherwise, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, audio-visual or otherwise, without the prior permission of author and publishers (Law of March 1957 revised).

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Readers are informed that this eBook might contain special illustrations and fonts that may shift when greatly enlarged.

Readers are asked to note that Omraam Mikhaël Aïvanhov's teaching was exclusively oral. This volume includes passages from several different lectures all dealing with the same theme.

Readers will better understand certain aspects of the lectures published in the present volume if they bear in mind that Master Omraam Mikhaël Aïvanhov’s teaching was exclusively oral and that the editors have made every effort to respect the flavour and style of each lecture.

The Master’s teaching is more than a body of doctrines; it is an organic whole, and his way of presenting it was to approach it from countless different points of view. By treating certain aspects in many different contexts he constantly reveals a new dimension of the whole, and at the same time throws new light on the individual aspects and their vital links with each other.

Omraam Mikhaël Aïvanhov

Chapter One
A question of attitude

I

Among the thousands of things human beings have to learn about in life, one of the most important – and one which is almost totally neglected – is the question of attitude: the attitude men and women should have toward nature and other beings, toward God. This question is vital, for our attitude determines the whole course of our lives, both inwardly and outwardly. The attitude of most people is truly deplorable: instead of turning their faces to the Lord, as the needle of a compass turns towards the North Pole, they turn their back on him. This is why they encounter such difficulties and tribulations in life. No one has ever taught them to adopt the right attitude.

Years ago, in Bulgaria, when I was still very young, I did not have the money to buy myself a radio, so I built a crystal set. When I wanted to listen to a programme, I had to move a tiny needle across the surface of the crystal, until it was on exactly the right spot, and I could hear music or voices. If the needle was not on the right spot I could not hear anything at all. When I reflected on this phenomenon, I understood that if we are incapable of picking up the countless messages and currents that criss-cross the universe, it is because we have not yet tuned our crystal sets to the right wavelength. So, this is what we must try to do every day: tune in to the transmitter, that is to say, adopt the proper attitude, turn toward that pole-star we call God. Only if we do this will we obtain his blessings: light, love, joy and health.

As long as men and women persist in their usual crass, disrespectful attitude, they will never make any progress. Oh, of course, their work in intellectual, industrial and mechanical fields does result in progress, but every other area of their lives is empty, mediocre and aimless. This question of attitude is absolutely vital, and I am not referring only to our attitude toward the Lord, but our attitude toward all the creatures of the universe and toward nature itself.

Human beings never think of putting into practice in their spiritual life the laws that apply to the physical plane. Time and again, I have spoken to you about the law of resonance, for example. If you have two pianos perfectly attuned to each other in the same room, and you strike a note on one of them, the other will respond: the same note will vibrate without your having touched it. Our whole evolution depends on our correct understanding of this law. If I keep telling you that you must turn your face to the greatest, most beautiful, most powerful of all beings, it is because by doing so you will begin to vibrate in unison with him. And when you vibrate in unison with this supreme Being, with this Principle that contains all that is, you begin to receive his qualities and powers. As long as you do not make a deliberate, conscious effort to adopt this attitude, you will be constantly thrown around by the virulent currents you have, quite unconsciously, tuned into.

Your attitude should be one of respect, of awe, admiration and rapture in the face of this sublime Being, who rules and orders the universe. You will object that you have never seen him, and to that I reply, ‘Yes, you have! You have seen the beauty of nature; you have seen your fellow men and women; but you never think of the author of all these marvels. For you, he just doesn’t exist!’ Today there is nowhere where people value a sense of the sacred. On the contrary, they try to eradicate it as something useless; they defile and desecrate everything.

This won’t do, my dear brothers and sisters! You must adopt the right attitude toward the Lord and get into the habit of thinking of him with respect, awe and love. This is the only way to learn to vibrate in unison with him and with all the wealth that is his, the only way to become capable of receiving the flood of beauty, light and love that is waiting to flow into you, the only way to participate in his own joy, happiness and freedom.1 Those who love each other experience the same sensations because they vibrate on the same wavelength: this is a law of physics.

Just as you have feelings of wonder and delight at the sound of music or the song of birds, or at the sight of flowers or a beautiful woman, similarly you must cultivate a sense of sacredness in respect to this Being, who has created all that exists with such awe-inspiring intelligence. You are full of admiration for a pretty pebble, a butterfly... How can you possibly not be full of admiration for him who created them? He, and he alone, deserves your admiration, and yet you ignore him and banish him from your scheme of things. This is why you are always unhappy, weak and vulnerable. You will say, ‘I’ll read a lot of books; I’ll go and learn from so-and-so. I’ll be all right!’ Never! What you can get from books and human beings is nothing compared to what the quintessence of Cosmic Intelligence can give you.

Human beings try to show how capable and intelligent they are by displaying their diplomas, trophies and medals. But these things are no proof of intelligence: the criteria by which I judge whether someone is intelligent or not are very different. I have just received a letter from someone who has a university degree and is very well-read. Among other things, she says, ‘I often think of something you told us, years ago, after your trip to Turkey. You said you had been looking out of your bedroom window in the hotel, in Istanbul, when you saw a little old man, who looked like a beggar, go into a garden nearby. As you watched him, he unrolled the carpet he was carrying and knelt down and said his prayers. You said you were so struck by his attitude of respect and adoration that you hurried downstairs with the intention of giving him some money. But by the time you reached the garden, you were very disappointed to find that he had already gone.’ Isn’t it extraordinary how people remember little details? Then my correspondent goes on to say that she was writing this to me because she was incapable of praying, and that had made her think of the Turk who unrolled his carpet and prayed. But I shall tell her, ‘Don’t worry! You will begin to pray, one day. If you love that little old man who prayed, you will certainly learn to pray, too.’ Yes, even if you have the impression that you are not receiving anything, you must keep on praying, because prayer activates our spiritual centres; and when the chakras, the lotuses, are activated and begin to vibrate, they trigger extraordinary changes.

May those who accept what I am saying and start immediately to cultivate the right attitude be blessed. It is not easy: I know that. Sometimes you have to search for a long time – just as I used to keep twiddling the knobs of my crystal set – with no success, and then, all of a sudden, you hear something: you are on the right wavelength! You have to persevere; you have to insist; you have to threaten, even! Yes, threaten heaven with love, and one day you will find yourself on the right wavelength. Words cannot describe the sensations you will experience when this happens. And just as I watched that Turk praying on his prayer rug, when we pray there is always someone who is watching and ready to help us. You have no idea how many beings watch you and take pity on you when you pray! The Almighty is very busy and very far away! But hosts of other entities hurry to help you and bring you consolation, peace and happiness. I was not quick enough when I went down to give that beggar the money that would have helped him, but the entities of the invisible world are never too slow and never make a mistake! You receive their gifts instantly.

And do you know that there is a little creature in the Amazonian forests that lifts its front paws heavenwards and makes several little bows before going to sleep at night? Those who have filmed it say it looks just as if it were saying its prayers! It is a small, furry animal with a bushy tail ‒ a kind of ant-eater. Most of the time it is on all fours, but in the evening, before going to sleep, it stands up on its hind legs, lifts its front paws towards the sky and bows down to the ground several times with its eyes closed. When this little ceremony is over, it stretches out and, with an expression of innocent candour, rests its muzzle on its front paws and goes to sleep! Isn’t that extraordinary? There are so many things on this earth that we still don’t know about, but we are sure to discover them all in the long run!

So... there you have a few words about this question of the right attitude. I beg you: take them to heart and get into the habit of practising this attitude of respect for the sacred, if only for a few minutes every day, so as to restore your links with the Lord.

The Bonfin,2 4 August 1974

II

Yesterday, I talked to you about the necessity of having an attitude of sacred awe and respect toward the Lord and his creation and toward every living thing. But what I said yesterday was very general. I want to talk to you today about how that attitude applies in some particular cases in your daily lives, for all the truths that I reveal to you can be applied very concretely in life.

Yesterday, I explained why it was important to have this reverential attitude toward the supreme Being so as to vibrate in harmony with him and, in that way, be open to receiving him and all his gifts of radiance, light, joy, power and perfection within our own being. The question is: how, exactly, and in what areas of our lives can we manifest this attitude of reverence, love and admiration for his creations and the beauty that he has poured into the universe?

I am going to talk to you today about something which many consider highly indecent: the subject of sexuality. Nowadays, human sexuality is constantly under study from every possible point of view, and people claim that they must be free to practise it night and day. But, for my part, I believe that there are just as many disorders and deviations today as in the past, because this so-called freedom is instigated by people who know nothing of the structure of a human being and the correspondences that exist between humans and the universe at large; they are not guided by the light of Initiatic Science. The heart of the matter is hidden from them; they are groping in the dark. Perhaps they will find the truth one day, but when I look at the practices of today, I find that they are no better than those of the past. Yes, because until and unless people possess initiatic philosophy, their experiments will always turn out badly.

And now, I think it will help you to understand what I want to tell you today if I give you an example. In this way you will see how I look at the question. One day, years ago, a young girl came to see me at Izgrev; she was very pretty and attractive and, judging from her manners, very well brought up. She had been advised to come and see me, because no psychoanalyst had been able to cure her of an obsession with the male genitals: whatever she set her eyes on ‒ flowers, fruit, household objects, even the ceiling – the only thing she saw in her imagination was this! She had tried everything she could think of, but to no avail: the image continued to haunt her. She felt terribly guilty and sinful and thought she would certainly be damned. This was why somebody had suggested she should come and talk to me.

When she explained all this I began to laugh, and naturally she was very surprised and asked me what I was laughing about. So then I said, ‘Don’t be upset; that is all quite natural and normal; it is the kind of thing that happens to some extent to everybody. I shall show you how to clear up the whole business very quickly, but you must not go on wrestling with it like that. Nature is very powerful; for millions of years, it has organized things in such a way that men and women will be attracted to each other, and there is not the slightest hope of your changing all that at this stage! Everything that nature has done is well done, but men and women don’t understand. Images of this kind come into the mind of all human beings; the only difference is that some know how to react and others don’t. Now, this is what you should do: the next time this image comes into your mind, instead of getting all upset, look at it calmly but from a different point of view. Remember this organ is something beautiful, powerful and divine, for it is the organ that transmits life. Reflecting and meditating on this, you will be so moved to admiration at the intelligence and wisdom of the Creator, that you will forget all the rest. You will simply be using the images that come into your mind as a springboard to leap up to your Creator.’

It goes without saying that it is not possible to react like this unless your point of view is very different from that of all the religious, highly moral people for whom sex is something shameful, something that must never be mentioned in polite society! But these people should be more logical; they should ask themselves why sexuality is one of the major preoccupations of humanity? Surely it must be obvious to them that human beings are never going to get rid of their genital organs or of their need to use them, so why can’t they recognize this and change their attitude? They must understand that the human sexual organs are sacred; they must learn to treat them with respect and awe and, in doing so, foster their own link with their Creator. But how many men or women realize that their sexual organs are sacred and that they have no right to profane them, but only to use them for a divine purpose? And yet, that is the best, in fact the only, attitude to have towards them: an attitude of sacred respect, which will help you to advance and become a divinity.

As I have already said in another lecture, why are the brain, lungs, liver or stomach not capable of creating life? If the genitals are the only organs capable of transmitting life, it must mean they are sacred, divine! Why are they always held up to ridicule? What hypocrisy! People mention them only in dirty jokes; in public, they try to make out that they are not really interested in them, but what they do after that, in secret, is quite another matter! If you despise these organs you should have nothing to do with them, but since you are continually using them you should have a sacred respect for them. Some of you will protest, ‘But that’s all so remote; it’s beyond us!’ Yes, for animals it is remote, no doubt, but for human beings who want to evolve it is not so terribly remote. Those who are too weak or primitive would perhaps have done better not to come here at all, for when they realize to what extent they are the slaves of their lower appetites, that realization will be a continual source of suffering for them, and I have no desire to trouble anyone or make them unhappy. Whereas those who are more advanced are enchanted, because vast horizons are being opened before their eyes! It is for them that I have to speak; I have to explain to them that there are other possibilities and other methods and that, with patience and perseverance, they will eventually achieve their goal. As a matter of fact, many have told me, ‘Master, when you reveal something to us, I have the feeling I have always known it. I don’t know when or where I learned it before, but I can feel it’s the truth: while you are speaking, it’s as if I recognize what you are saying; it wakens an echo in me.’ Yes, but you cannot discover these great truths until you hear them spoken.

So, now, my dear brothers and sisters, get used to the idea that you must learn to look at things from a different point of view: from God’s point of view.3

Most of the religious, ascetics and hermits of the past have bequeathed us a truly disastrous philosophy: they fled from women and hid themselves away in forests or mountain retreats because, in their view, women were creations of the devil. But when the poor wretches ran away from women of flesh and blood, they were pursued and tormented by other women from the astral plane... and from them there was no escape! Yes, you have all heard of the temptations of St Anthony! They should not have run away from women. They should not have looked on her as an incarnation of the devil! Our philosophy, on the contrary, teaches us to look at women, and to look at them with wonder and admiration, to seek the countenance of the supreme Mother in them, to say, ‘O divine Mother, how is it possible to create women and girls who are so beautiful, so full of grace? Each one is different, and they are all so lovely! What a wealth of beauty!’... and you are led to marvel at that intelligence and splendour.

When man struggles against woman, he is depriving himself of all that is poetic and alive. He loses all his drive and inspiration; he becomes a eunuch, as good as dead! Believe me, I really pity those ascetics and hermits: their false philosophy upset their mental balance; it killed something in them. To be sure, those who were exceptionally strong in virtue and will-power survived without being unbalanced or falling ill, but it is certainly not a philosophy that should be propagated. People must learn to see things in their true light. If God created both men and women, it was not so that they should flee from each other. Those who did so were criticizing the Lord’s handiwork and setting themselves up as judges, as though they knew better than God what was good and what was bad! It was a secret form of pride. Yes, pride, ignorance and stupidity... and it led to unbalanced minds.

The new education of humankind must begin by teaching men and women to look at each other differently. Women must look on men as the manifestation of the heavenly Father; men should be a point of departure on their journey back to the Father who created them. They must reflect on his reasons for creating men as he did and try to see what he wants to give them through men. There is so much to be discovered! If women learn to renew their attitude toward men in this way, they will find themselves inspired and filled with something quite new. As for men, I have already told you that they must take women as a starting point, a springboard to reach the divine Mother. They must ask themselves, ‘Who is this divine Mother, who has created such adorable magicians, with such eyes, such entrancing smiles and sweet voices?’ This is the best method: if men don’t choose this way, there are only two other options open to them, and they are both deplorable: either to escape from women, or to pursue and devour them. The third attitude is that chosen by the great initiates, who know how to put everything to good use. Their reasoning is that everything God has created must be used both to help others and advance their own evolution. Those who are incapable of adopting this point of view and acting accordingly will sooner or later end in bitterness, sorrow and remorse. Of course, those who do not follow this Teaching and are ignorant of the truth do not suffer so much: they think that they have found the best way of life and are quite pleased with themselves. But the Teaching throws an entirely new light on all these things, and we see them differently. It is preferable to conform to these new norms, for they are better than the old ones.

You must see a man or a woman as a means of bringing you closer to the Godhead. And when you have succeeded in doing this, show how unselfish and impersonal you are, and pour all the joy, delight and happiness you have found onto the one who served as your point of departure: flood them with light. If you do this, you need never accuse yourself of using others simply to advance your own evolution. When you receive gifts from on high you must pour them out on the person who helped and inspired you to reach that level, then everything will be pure, wonderful and divine.

Initiatic Science contains treasures of untold value, but people are incapable of appreciating them. Love as they know it destroys them and brings them nothing but suffering, and then they tell you that God is love! Do you really think it is God who makes human beings suffer? No, human beings suffer because they still have not understood what love really is; they manufacture their own unhappiness. It is their kind of love that makes them unhappy.

The Bonfin, 5 August 1974

1 See Cosmic Moral Law, Complete Works, vol. 12, chap. 5: ‘The law of affinity: peace’ and chap. 6: ‘The law of affinity: the true religion’.

2 ‘The Bonfin’ is the name of a property near Fréjus on the French Riviera. The members of the Universal White Brotherhood gather here in their hundreds every summer to study the Teaching of the Universal White Brotherhood, dispensed in the daily lectures of the Master Omraam Mikhaël Aïvanhov, and to put it into practice in all their activities as they work, pray, sing and eat together.

3 See Love Greater Than Faith, Izvor Coll. n° 239, chap. 5: ‘Let it be done for you according to your appreciation.’

Chapter Two
True marriage

The Master reads the Meditation for the day:

‘When we talk of a “pure spirit” it is only a manner of speaking, for a pure spirit cannot exist in the domain of manifestation, of polarization: it melts back into the cosmic ocean. In order to manifest itself, a spirit needs a body, a vehicle or, if you prefer, a wife. Our physical body, therefore, is our wife, and it is through this intermediary that we – that is to say, our spirit – can relate to the outside world, can work, manifest and express itself in many different ways. The greater and more sublime the spirit that manifests itself, the subtler, more tenuous and more luminous will be its body or vehicle, the matter that clothes it. So much so, in fact, that spirit and body will almost be one. But spirit and matter are and always remain two opposite poles, otherwise no manifestation would be possible.’

Once again we have a page for meditation that will seem bizarre and incomprehensible to you. Try telling people that we are spirits and that our bodies are our wives! They would never accept such an idea. But let me ask you a question: Do you know why married couples have such difficulty getting along together? It is because all marriages are, in fact, adulterous! Human beings marry someone extraneous to themselves, someone who does not really match them, whereas true marriage, the only legitimate marriage, is the union of our spirit with our body.

Yes, true marriage is the marriage between spirit and matter. If it exists on the physical level, if human beings are urged by a sort of instinct to find and unite with another creature, it is because that union is an illustration, a reflection and symbol of another kind of marriage on a higher level, between spirit and matter. Spirit and matter appear to be completely different and distinct, but in fact they are one and the same reality. It is the phenomenon of polarization that makes them seem different and even opposed. This unique reality – call it God, if you like – is obliged to polarize itself in order to manifest: no manifestation is possible without polarization. On the other hand, all manifestation, whether positive or negative, emissive or receptive, spiritual or material, is always an expression of the Lord. Nothing exists that is extraneous to God; even matter is a part of God. This is the true philosophy; it is quite possible that it upsets all your pet ideas, but I am obliged to reveal it to you. Nothing exists that is not God: neither spirit nor matter. God, the all-free, all-powerful God, is the only reality, and the universe is his prodigious manifestation.

No one knows exactly what God is. He is the Absolute, the Unmanifest; he has no body and no perceptible appearance, but when he wanted to manifest himself, to express himself in the objective world, he polarized himself and, by means of this polarization, he created. Each pole acts upon the other, and the world, the entire universe, is born of this interaction. This is the Lord: the manifestation of these polar opposites, spirit and matter. And what are we? We are something that exists in God’s mind. The Lord thinks and creates, and we are as thoughts that exist in his mind. When you are capable of understanding this you will understand everything, for this idea is the key to everything.

This Absolute that is God is sometimes defined negatively as Non-existence, for he is beyond definition. Whatever you say about God, he is not that. You can discourse about him eloquently, magnificently; you can speak good or ill of him, but he is still not that: he is totally other. And if you ask an initiate, ‘Who is God?’ he will answer with silence, for only silence can express him.

In the Cabbalah, the Absolute is known as Ain Soph Aur, ‘limitless light’, ‘unseen light’. When the Absolute manifests itself it is always in the twofold polarity of the spirit (the bridegroom) and matter (the bride). Yes, God has a bride or spouse. Christians are alone in thinking that God is not married; they say that he has a Son, and yet they continue to maintain that he is a bachelor! But where did human beings first get this idea for the institution of marriage if it is not a reflection of what exists on high? ‘What is below is like what is above.’ Everything that is manifested here below is modelled on the realities of the divine world. The Cabbalah teaches that God has a Spouse, Shekinah, with whom he is eternally united in love, and that together they create worlds! This is why human beings, who are created in the image of God, always seek another with whom to unite.1

The spirit is a subtle, elusive principle that has neither form nor dimension. It can be compared to a perfume so volatile that, if it is not kept in a sealed bottle, it evaporates and disappears. The spirit is so subtle that it can only be tied down to any one place if it is enclosed in a receptacle, a vessel of some kind. This is the function of our physical bodies, for matter has the property of enveloping and confining the spirit. If this were not so, no manifestation could occur at all; the spirit would simply return to its source, and matter would be dust, inert and lifeless. When they unite, the spirit is obliged to accept certain limitations, but at least it animates matter and, thanks to the presence of the spirit, matter becomes more alive. But when they are separated again, at the moment of death, matter falls back into its native inertia and the spirit escapes. Of course, the marriage of spirit and matter implies sacrifice: the spirit agrees to limit itself in order to vivify matter, and matter agrees to be subject to the spirit in order to bring its children into the world. Everything that exists, the whole of creation, is their offspring.

The only true marriage, therefore, is the union of our spirit and our physical body, which is our wife; and the only real divorce occurs at the moment of death, when spirit and matter are separated. I would like to show you the tremendous breadth and the extraordinary subtlety of these questions, but I just wonder: will you be able to follow me? When the spirit contracts its first marriage with the physical body, this is already a severe limitation of its freedom of movement, and if in addition we decide to take an ‘external’ husband or wife, this second marriage means an even greater loss of liberty for the spirit. We have to try to please our human partners, we have to try to make them happy and do what they want, and this indulgence weakens our spirit. On top of all this, our first spouse (our physical body) protests and rebels and accuses us of infidelity and adultery! No one fully realizes the gravity of the resulting problems and anomalies.

Those who are fully aware of this problem prefer not to get married; they feel that they are already married. Their spirit is already sufficiently limited by their first wife, and they have no desire to impose a second burden on it. They realize that if they contracted a second marriage they would be obliged to be unfaithful and break a great many laws. In other words, they would have to devote their energies to their second wife, instead of keeping them for the one who has first claim on them, with the result that she would languish and waste away or even rebel and refuse to serve them. This is why all the greatest spirits who have wanted to accomplish a unique, immense task and be free to do good to thousands of human beings, rather than to just one (who will never be grateful for what you do anyway; however hard you try to keep someone happy and contented, they will always grumble and find something to criticize)... this, I say, is why the greatest spirits have always refused to give away their time or energies or qualities to another human being. They have always kept control of them and devoted them exclusively to their own first wife, who, as a result, is healthier, more beautiful, more active, more pliant, responsive and vital, more expressive and intelligent.

Now, all this is no reason for anyone to be unkind to his second wife. You have no right to beat her or drive her away, saying, ‘Aha, you heard what the Master said! Get away with you!’ No, if you are already married, if you have already said, ‘I will’, you have made a promise and you must keep it. You cannot just get rid of your wife – or husband – without a valid reason, otherwise you will simply have to work things out together in your next incarnation, and that will be even worse. You have to free yourself, to be sure, but you must do so intelligently.

The last sentence of the passage I read to you earlier is very rich in meaning: ‘But spirit and matter are and always remain two opposite poles, otherwise no manifestation would be possible.’ This is something which is generally not understood: that without the two poles there can be no manifestation. But, as I have often told you, I have been given a key which opens all the doors of the universe, and that key is the human being. The Greek initiates said, ‘Know yourself, and you will know the universe and all the gods.’ And many Egyptian frescos show people holding a symbolic object in the shape of a cross surmounted by a circle. This symbol, which has never been deciphered by scholars and Egyptologists, is the astrological sign for Venus, but it is also a symbolic representation of a human being with arms outstretched and feet together. And the people portrayed in these wall paintings were the initiates who possessed the key that opened all doors and gave them access to the mysteries.

This key also represents the two principles: the circle, which is sometimes replaced by a triangle, represents the divine world, the Absolute, the Spirit or, in the case of a triangle, the divine trinity, while the cross represents the four states of matter, the physical world. Yes, the key is the human being, for in the human being spirit and matter, the masculine and feminine principles, are united. And this is precisely the meaning of the key that Abraham gave to Melchizedek, the gift of the two principles in the form of bread and wine: the bread representing the masculine principle, and the wine the feminine.

These two symbols can be seen throughout the universe and even in our body, particularly in the mouth, in which the salivary glands are in the form of a tiny bunch of grapes and the taste buds resemble ears of wheat. In this connection you should reread the lecture ‘Love is hidden in the mouth.’2 When Jesus said, ‘Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood...’, he was alluding to these two principles which must be our food and drink: the bread and wine, the wheat and the grapes.

The mouth is an important key, for it also contains the two principles in the form of the tongue and the two lips: the masculine principle is always single, unique, whereas the feminine principle is always double. And the two combine to produce a child: the word, speech.3 In fact, I have gone even further in my research: looking at wheat and grapes, I find that a grain of wheat resembles the female genitals, whereas the grapes contain seeds which resemble the male genitals. Everybody has eaten wheat and grapes, but nobody ever notices these things or wonders why the two principles are represented in them. And when a man and woman unite to create a child, the man gives something white, the colour of bread and flour, whereas the woman gives something red, the colour of wine. Here, again, the two principles are needed in order to create a child.

You must try to understand just how the two opposite poles affect each other. Take the example of a magnet, the two ends of which are polarized. If you want to attract another magnet, you have to point the north pole of one towards the south pole of the other; the two similar poles repel each other. Human beings are also polarized: the head and the feet are opposite poles, and so are the left and right side, the back and the front of the body. To be back to back with someone is not the same as being face to face. If you know about these subtle differences, you can learn to use them in practical ways, to heal people, for instance. Depending on whether or not we know how to polarize ourselves with other human beings, with the earth, with the whole of nature, we trigger a reaction of attraction or repulsion, benefit or blight.

Lovers, for example, don’t know that when they adopt a particular position they are attracting the corresponding forces, beneficial or harmful as the case may be. And many amuse themselves by trying the most unlikely positions, without knowing that they are attracting or repelling certain forces. An initiate could tell you exactly which positions are beneficial and which are detrimental, but this is a delicate matter, and I do not wish to dwell on it any longer. I would simply like to warn men and women that, when they adopt these practices without first possessing true knowledge, they are bound to attract misfortune and illness. Never adopt a practice without knowing what the consequences will be. Initiates, who know a great deal about these things, prefer to abstain completely.

In fact, it would be better not to know anything about these things before you have really worked to become nobler and to purify and perfect yourself. A great many people are eager for this knowledge, the better to defile and debase themselves and break the laws, but this is how they get into debt and prepare a terrible karma for themselves. If you want knowledge of the great mysteries you must prepare yourself for it, so that, instead of using it for evil purposes and causing yourself and others great harm, you may use it only to do good.

Concerning the two principles, let me add that they are present in every aspect of the universe: in nature, in the mountains and the stars, in the physical body with its circulatory and respiratory systems, and even in art and technology. They are present, in fact, wherever one element penetrates and impregnates another. When you are capable of recognizing the two principles wherever they are to be found, you will possess true knowledge. ‘Know yourself, and you will know the universe and all the gods.’ Man and woman mirror the universe: everything that exists is reproduced in miniature in them. But the trouble is that they do not know themselves yet. Perhaps some of you will be tempted to reply, ‘Oh, but I do know myself. Only too well!’ ‘No, you only know your physical body, your lower self. Do you know your higher Self?’ ‘What’s that?’ you will ask; ‘What is my higher Self?’ ‘What a question! Your higher Self is your centre, your spirit, and the lower self is matter, the cross. And you, as you are at the moment, know only your belly, your sexual urges, your desires and needs, your worries and your failings. You don’t know your spirit, which is always at work, always creating: this is the Self you must get to know. At present you know nothing but matter.’ Science is only interested in delving deeper and deeper into matter. It does not realize that if matter contains such wealth it is because it has received this wealth from the spirit.4

Aha, this upsets all your ideas, doesn’t it? To learn that you are already married... even the bachelors and spinsters among you! We all have certain duties towards our wife, our physical body. We have to take care of it, nourish and educate it and see that it is always clean and healthy, for neglect entails all kinds of tiresome consequences. I am sure that all this is quite new to you, that you have never envisaged it this way before. Does someone who smokes ever think about the suffering they are inflicting on their wife? She is crying out to tell them how much they are hurting her, and they just go on tormenting her with their smoke! And when people get drunk, do they ever think that they are ill-treating their own wife?

Well, it seems to me that gradually, as you listen to what I am saying, you can feel a tiny light beginning to glow within and dissipate some of the fog and confusion. Perhaps it is still not completely clear to you intellectually; you don’t fully understand yet, but you can feel that something essential, something that does not lie, is beginning to take shape in your deepest consciousness. Your intellect may not be totally satisfied with what I say, but you are beginning to feel you are on the path to truth, and all you have to do is to keep walking and working. My function is not so much to fill your minds with information as to give you what you need in order to feel, to get the taste of, a few essential truths and to live them. For it is not your intelligence that interests me; it is your heart and soul and spirit. The day will come when you possess a reliable inner yardstick, an infallible guide, which will point the way and propel you in the right direction. When this day comes, no one will be able either to mislead you or to use you for their own evil purposes.

The Bonfin, 20 September 1974

BIBLICAL REFERENCES

Melchizedek brings the bread and wine to Abraham – Gen. 14:18-20

‘Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood’ – John 6:53

1 See Angels and other Mysteries of The Tree of Life, Izvor Coll. n° 236, chap. 10: ‘The cosmic family and the mystery of the trinity’.

2 See The Second Birth – Love, Wisdom, Truth, Complete Works, vol. 1, chap. 5: ‘Love is hidden in the mouth’.

3 See Langage symbolique, langage de la nature, Complete Works, vol. 8, chap. 10: ‘Comment les deux principes sont contenus dans la bouche’.

4 See The Philosopher’s Stone – in the Gospels and in Alchemy, Izvor Coll. n° 241, chap. 9: ‘The work of the alchemist: 3 over 4’.

Chapter Three
The sun is the source of love

The Master reads the Meditation for the day:

‘The source of universal love is the sun. The sun floods the whole of nature with its particles of light and love, and man and woman receive these particles through contact with the earth, with stones, plants, animals and with their fellow human beings, for men and women also possess particles from the sun, although very few. And it is because the few that they do possess are never sufficient that they have to look elsewhere: what they have is not complete, what they give and receive from each other leaves an unpleasant taste in the mouth; this is why there are so many separations, divorces and crimes.

‘True love can be found in abundance in the sun; that is where you must go and look for it. If you don’t drink from the fountainhead, you will have to make do with a few drops of dew that have condensed on a leaf here or a petal there... and that is never enough. Certainly, there are certain areas of the body in which a little love has been hidden, but if you are content with that and never look anywhere else, you will continually be hungry and thirsty. All lovers experience this: they have a constant sensation of inner hunger; they are never completely satisfied. The only answer is to go to the source and drink from that immense love which calms the pangs of hunger and thirst of all creation. Then, if you want to love a man or woman, do so; but if you want to be totally fulfilled, you must first go and look for love at its source.’

I am sure that, listening to this passage, you did not really understand much. Go and look for universal love in the sun? What an odd idea: who would want to do that? Whereas a man or a woman... Ah, that, at least, means something to you. But not the sun! And why, may I ask, is it so rare to find anyone, man or woman, who is truly happy? Oh, to be sure, people can be happy for a few days or weeks, but it never lasts. In fact, if they were completely sincere and honest, they would admit that they often have to pretend to be satisfied and fulfilled for their partner’s sake. They rub along, trying to make their few brief moments of pleasure last as long as possible, but, in time, the emptiness, the pit, grows to such proportions that they are forced to acknowledge that they have made a mistake, that they cannot go on any longer as they are, that they are going to have to separate. And everybody finds this quite normal: ‘What can you expect? It’s no good hoping that love will last for ever!’ And yet, in spite of their conviction that their love will not last, they still feel they have to swear that it will! In other words, you have to lie and the whole of life is simply a comedy – or perhaps I should say a tragedy, a tragi-comedy! And what amazes me most in all this is that people continue to nurse the unlikely but persistent hope that they will find true love, if not the first time then perhaps the second, and if not the second then the third. I find this hope truly astonishing!

What human beings mistakenly think of as love is often no more than a taste for sensations, powerful emotions, volcanic eruptions. No, all these things are physiological, anatomical, biological or phantasmagorical manifestations, but they are not love! You will ask, ‘But then, what is love?’ Ah, if I only knew, I would tell you, but I still don’t know! My whole life has been spent trying to find out what love is, and every day I say to myself, ‘Ah, at last I understand what love is.’ And then, the very next day, I understand a little more than the day before, and once again I think, ‘That’s it! This time I really have understood.’ The one thing I know for certain is that love is infinite and, therefore, that I can never claim to know it. The most I can say is that I am getting to know it; that’s all! Whereas you know what love is, don’t you? Well, I congratulate you! Be kind and tell me what it is, because I am still not sure. It is so immense, so rich and varied, so beautiful and powerful, that it is going to take me hundreds and hundreds more years to know it properly. But, there is just one question in my mind: why, if you know love, are you still unhappy, ill and in darkness? This shows that the love you know is not the real thing.

Love brings with it the gifts of eternal life, splendour and light; if you do not possess these things, it means that you know nothing about love. Love comes from very high up, for true love is God himself. This is what human beings don’t know: what they call love is simply some very limited, deformed, brutish manifestations of the energy of love in certain parts of their body: that is not really love. If you want to know love you have to go and find it at its source, and its source is God, and God’s representative in our universe is the sun. This is why we must go to the sun to find the love that is life, the love that nourishes the whole of creation.1

The lower kind of love only asks for pleasure, satisfaction, excitement and titillation. In fact it is not love at all; it is an appetite, a way of possessing others and, sometimes, a form of violence. And yet this is the so-called love that everyone clings to; so much so, in fact, that they recruit the assistance of medicines, pills, hormones, glandular extracts and so on, in order to prolong their sexual activity and enable them to go on behaving like animals until they are ninety-nine years old! Whereas, for my part, I want to lead you to regions in which you will really and truly know what love is. The source, the only fountainhead of love, is God himself. But the sun is also an immense, generous source, for it is the image of the divine Source. Look around you! See how the whole of creation benefits from the sun; it is the love pouring from the sun that instils life into the grasses, plants and trees that are continually exposed to its rays, and from which we, in turn, receive life. This is why a disciple who wants to know true life, true, divine love, turns to the source, the sun. By meditating on the sun, by looking at it and loving it, they receive it more and more deeply within themselves. Like a fruit exposed to the light of the sun, they soak up particles of the sun’s vitality so as to be able to distribute them to others in order to enliven and enlighten them. This is true love. True love is not when men and women embrace and sleep together. That is what everybody talks and writes about; that is the sexual, sensual love glorified and immortalized in song. But that kind of love crushes and annihilates, for it is an enormously powerful disintegrating force. Yes, you can see this in the fact that once you begin to burn with this fire, it melts certain materials, the most precious materials of all, those of the brain. You have certainly never thought about it in this way, but sexual love is a foundry. A purely sensual love is a disintegrating force that melts our quintessence; it is the fire of hell. Whereas the other kind of fire, the fire of the sun, will not destroy you; on the contrary, it will give you life and light.2

As a matter of fact, the rays flowing ceaselessly from the sun to fertilize the earth and all creatures in the solar system are of the same quintessence as the fluid with which a man fertilizes a woman, the difference being that the sun’s rays are etheric and luminous, whereas a man’s quintessence is condensed. But initiates, who have pierced the secret of sublimation and continually work to send their energies heavenwards, reach the point where they are able to project and radiate emanations as subtle as those of the sun. This is why it is so important to live a pure, luminous, virginal life. There is no danger that this will make the spring of love dry up. No, there is no cessation of life or activity. On the contrary, everything continues to function, but differently: one’s emanations become so subtle, so pure, that they can do good to all creatures. You still have no notion of the power of absolute purity, of how it changes the nature of these emanations and makes them subtler. This explains how they can be ceaselessly disseminated (just as the sun’s radiations never cease) but, of course, not on the physical level. What I am telling you here deserves your fullest attention and your most sincere respect.

Obviously, the sun doesn’t mean anything to you at the moment, but you will see for yourself: when you have shed too many tears and been burnt too often, you will turn to the sun for a love that never hurts or despoils you but, on the contrary, only gives. Why do people never turn to the sun? Because the sun never makes anyone suffer, and they need to suffer! And where do they find suffering? With men and women. Yes, you can be sure of meeting suffering and all kinds of other problems and misfortunes with other human beings, but not with the sun... unless, of course, you forget to wear a hat: then you will get sunstroke!

That reminds me of an incident that happened a long time ago, about thirty-five years ago, in fact. I used to be invited to gatherings of writers, astrologers, artists and so on, and of course I used to have very varied discussions with the other guests. One day a young girl came up to me and asked me something and we got into conversation. Well, one thing led to another until we got on to the subject of love. I don’t remember exactly what arguments I gave her, but I remember that she was very pleased with my explanations, although at the time I did not really understand why. Some time later, however, at another of these meetings, a writer came up and started to shout abuse at me, in front of everybody. I had no idea what made him do this until, at the end, he told me that, after the conversation we had had together, that young girl, with whom he had been practising sex magic, had walked out on him, because she had understood how dangerous it was. So then, for all to hear, I said to him, ‘Listen, Sir. I had no idea that that girl belonged to you or that you had so many rights over her. Can you convict me of a crime if, without knowing it, I saved her from your clutches? The sun has the right to shine, and anyone who is not wearing a hat will get sunstroke. You should have worn a hat!’ The man was flabbergasted by what I said, but everyone else had a good laugh.

So, there you have a few words about true love. As long as you have not established a bond with the source, the sun, your love will always be inferior, an animal love, but once you have this relationship with the sun it will begin to be more elevated and become more and more impersonal. (This use of the word ‘impersonal’ may be misunderstood if it is not placed in the context of Omraam Mikhaël Aïvanhov’s teaching concerning the two natures in man and woman: the human and divine, the lower self and the higher Self or, as he terms them, the personality and the individuality. For a fuller treatment of the subject, see The Key to the Problems of Existence, Complete Works, vol. 11, and Man’s Two Natures, Human and Divine, Izvor Collection, No. 213.) Besides, look at the last sentence of the meditation we read at the beginning of this lecture. It says, ‘Then, if you want to love a man or woman, do so; but if you want to be totally fulfilled, you must first go and look for love at its source.’ It is the cosmic, universal, impersonal love of the sun, therefore, which acts on and improves and ennobles the other kind of love. One day you will love your partner differently: you will think of them and love them in a way that does them good and gives them happiness, beauty, elevation and success, and not only in the hope of satisfying your own needs at their expense. Once you have found the source, you will never be able to love in the same way again; when you are with your husband or wife, blessings, currents and rays so beneficial and luminous will flow from you that you yourself will be astonished.

Never forget that true love is also light, eternal life and limitless power. Love, true love, is a power and, at the same time, a light. The simple fact that, if you detest someone, you only see what is bad in them, their faults and failings and vices, but that, if you love them, you see all that is marvellous and divine in them, shows that what I am saying is true. Yes, because love is clear-sighted; it sees only the best in people. When you stop loving, you are blinded and can no longer see someone’s good points. If I tell you that love enlightens you and makes you clear-sighted it is because that is the solemn truth! And if you love the whole world, if you love the whole of nature and the whole universe, you will begin to see and understand things that you have never understood before. Yes, love helps us to understand.

The Bonfin, 20 September 1975

1 See The Splendour of Tiphareth – The Yoga of the Sun, Complete Works, vol. 10, chap. 4: ‘The sun reflects the blessed trinity’ and chap. 15: ‘The sun is in the image and likeness of God’.

2 See above, chap. 21: ‘Three kinds of fire’.

Chapter Four
The goal of love is light

The subject of love is immense and extraordinarily rich. It can be looked at – indeed, it has already been looked at – from many different points of view: organic, physiological, psychological, social, moral and religious. But the one point of view that is still virtually unknown, because it has never really been revealed to men and women, is the initiatic point of view.

I have heard about the very daring experiments that some American doctors and researchers have been doing recently. In order to study the physiological phenomena that occur when humans make love, they wire up different parts of the bodies of two volunteers, a man and woman, to various recording machines, on which they record graphs and curves, which vary as these two people continue to make love... entangled in a mass of wires! It seems that there are plenty of ‘emancipated’ people in the United States who have liberated themselves from all the old moral taboos in this area, so that there is never any lack of volunteers: hundreds of people are ready to offer their services! As for the researchers, we would probably do better not to ask if their eyes remain glued to the signals on their screens! And, of course, nobody knows what goes on in them: all kinds of interesting reactions, no doubt. What a pity that they themselves are not wired up to the same kind of instruments! But, however much they find out, they will still be a long way from discovering all that Initiatic Science can teach us about love.

Even though scientists know all about the biological structure of men and women, they will never really know the whole truth unless and until they also study the question of radiations and emanations, of man and woman’s subtle, etheric, fluidic projections. And, so far, of course, they have no inkling that such things even exist. But it is precisely these dimensions of humans that are the most important, and that is why they interest me more than all the rest. What really matters is to know where all the energies released in the act of love go and what results they produce, what damage and destruction they wreak or what good, constructive effects they have. Who will get hold of all these energies? Will they be like volcanic eruptions raining ash and lava on people’s heads and burying whole cities alive (symbolically speaking!)? Ah, this is what men and women should know: if all they are interested in is pleasure, entities of a lower order, certain elementals, certain natural subterranean forces, will take the energies they project and feast on them, to their cost.

The initiates learned all this a very long time ago. You must know that when men and women are only interested in experiencing pleasure, when the goal of their love-making is a base one, they are inviting entities from lower worlds to enter them. And what havoc and devastation they can cause in a very short space of time! The energies of love are divine and they must return to the divine world. When lovers are conscious of this, then all kinds of forces in nature contribute to channelling their energies and using them for the good of humanity and of the whole cosmos, for they are extraordinarily vital, living forces! So what matters above all else is the goal, and if a man and woman are fully conscious of the exalted nature of their union, the energies they release can accomplish great things. Angels and higher entities benefit from them and are drawn to help the lovers to grow constantly in beauty and strength. A whole science exists in this connection and was known in ancient Egypt and India and, particularly, in Tibet. Those who put these exalted truths into practice were even able to prolong their own lives and obtain certain powers, for the power of love is the strongest power in the world. No other power can surpass or even equal it. Love is almighty.

When I glance through certain recently published books or articles on the subject of love, I often wonder why their authors never put their questions to initiates; they confine their surveys to the common herd, to those who make love like animals. The conclusions drawn from their inquiries are perfectly truthful, of course, since they are based on the experience of a great many people, but, at the same time, they are false because they do not include the experience of those who are the most highly evolved. They should be asked for their opinion too. I am sure that, if they gave it, it would be a revelation to many! In the meantime, doctors tell young people to make love, in the belief, apparently, that it will help them to overcome certain nervous disorders! I have often had occasion to talk to people who had been told this, and many of those who had followed the advice were in a worse state than before. Why do people give advice like that when they know so little about the structure of a human being? It may well be a solution for some, but not for everybody.

When God created man and woman, he equipped them with an extraordinary system of pipes and ducts and ramifications through which their sexual energy can find its way to the higher levels, if they know how to guide it. All this equipment is still there, every man and woman possesses it; the only trouble is that it is rusted or disconnected or blocked up. When God first created humans he provided them with a structure of such complexity and perfection that, when scientists finally begin to discover it, they will be thunderstruck. But, for the time being, since the channels I am talking about are of a fluidic nature and, consequently, even subtler and more fragile than those of the nervous system, clairvoyants are the only ones who can actually see them. They can see the path that these energies follow as they move up from the lowest level, taking nourishment all the way to the brain.1

If you do not succeed in sublimating these energies immediately, there is no reason to be discouraged. You must never give up on the pretext that it is difficult. You must keep trying and trying, tirelessly repeating your efforts, like a spider weaving its web: the wind keeps blowing it away, but the spider keeps on trying, and eventually the wind dies down, and it manages to create a perfect web. Whereas, if disciples fail in their first attempt, they immediately give up their ideal and fall back into a life of mediocrity... all because they have failed once! But a failure is of no consequence: you must get up and carry on!

Most human beings are content to satisfy their bodily appetites in their love-making. They don’t give a fig for their souls and spirits. They lavish all their care and attention on the body, admiring and caressing it, talking to it, embracing it... doing the most extravagant things with it, simply in order to experience the greatest possible amount of pleasure. It is all the same to them if, as a result, their soul and spirit suffer torment and darkness. I have never told you that you should not love each other a great deal. On the contrary, you must give your partner a great deal of loving, but on a higher level, not only on the physical level, not only by indulging in excitement and satisfaction and then sleeping it off! But nobody has any desire to rise to a higher level; instead of preparing themselves for the sexual act in the full awareness of its importance, they are always in a hurry, in a hurry to get sucked down into a swamp, and in too much of a hurry to stop and think. Look at the way most people ‘make love’: the hasty, feverish gestures, the eyes burning with lust. Men think only of satisfying their appetite, of tearing and devouring their prey... and women are stupid enough to be pleased when the look in a man’s eyes betrays his desire to devour them! If they were really evolved they would be horrified by the fate in store for them, because that look shows that he is prepared to plunder and lay waste to them. But no, that is what they want; they revel in it. In fact, most women are not too pleased if a man looks at them with respect and wonder, with light and purity in his gaze. They think, ‘Hmm, I can’t expect to get much out of him!’, and they leave him. A woman instinctively wants to feel like dough in the hands of a baker: she wants to be handled roughly, ill-treated and tormented. That is what she enjoys; to be looked at with respect and heavenly purity is not much to her liking. There are exceptions, of course, but generally speaking this is all too true!

If you determine to remain clear-headed and to use your love to accomplish a truly spiritual work, if you decide to drink from higher waters instead of from the stagnant, tadpole-infested pools below (symbolically speaking), when you look at each other after making love, your eyes will be so filled with light and splendour that, for days on end, you will be unable to forget it.

So, you must not make pleasure your goal. Of course, you are going to ask me what is left if you do not look for pleasure. The truth is that you will have pleasure. In fact, your pleasure will be ten times greater than any you would have otherwise, but it will be of a purer kind, and the all-important thing is that you will not have burned up all your energies. The result will be quite different. The result will be light, light and still more light! And heaven itself will rejoice at the beauty of your love.2

I can already hear some of you saying, ‘But, Master, it is utterly impossible to do what you are asking. Everybody knows that being clearheaded stifles pleasure, that the more the conscious mind is awake the less pleasure you get!’ No, the truth is that our mental powers have been given to us so that we can live true love more perfectly; without thought, the primitive, animal part of us would hold sway over our whole being. It is thought, the intelligence in us acting through our powers of thought, that should control, guide and sublimate our energies. Yes, I know: most human beings find their pleasure in the volcanic eruptions of love, and they don’t realize that these are its most costly and destructive manifestations, that, in giving free rein to them, they burn up all their most precious inner materials. All their ideas and plans for the future, all their poetic inspiration, is consumed in the flames, and it is only later that they realize that they have no more impetus or enthusiasm. Whereas if, on the contrary, your mental faculties remain awake and lucid in the midst of your loving, if your mind is alert and in control to guide the forces you have released, you will not, of course, know the coarse, crude, brutish pleasure experienced by the majority of human beings – a pleasure that is totally beyond their control, in any case, and devoid of all nobility or spirituality – but, thanks to the presence and control of thought, your love-making will become a spiritual work, and pleasure will be transformed into joy, wonder, rapture and ecstasy. Yes, all because there is light! It is such a pity that human beings are not willing to make the effort to reach the point where they would find out for themselves how they could transform their love. Even if their present manner of loving gives them consolation and relief and frees them from unbearable tensions, in a matter of months or of a few years they lose all their light and lustre and inspiration. Whereas those who make up their mind to use this extraordinarily powerful, primitive force that God has given them, for a momentous, heavenly purpose, experience other joys and pleasures. They gaze with awe and wonder on the discoveries unfolding ceaselessly before them.

My dear brothers and sisters, what I am saying is that you must not stop half-way. You must go beyond pleasure; you must not stagnate on too low a level; you must climb up through the clouds and contemplate the light of the sun. Whatever you do, in all your actions, never forget to act with a luminous goal in mind, for you must no longer be content to remain in the shadow of the clouds. Whatever you do, whether you are eating, walking or kissing someone, keep in mind your goal of light. Never do anything just for your own satisfaction. Humankind is rushing towards destruction, precisely because men and women seek only their own satisfaction. You will object, ‘But if we never get any pleasure or satisfaction out of what we do, it all becomes pointless!’ Ah, but that is where you are wrong! For everything is connected: when light and warmth, that is to say, intelligence and love, are present, pleasure and enjoyment necessarily follow. It is just that the quality of the pleasure, the nature and intensity of the pleasure, changes. So, meditate and reflect on all this, and never forget that you must work your way through to light. If your loving produces no light, it is a sign that it is not worth going on with it. You will say, ‘Well, it hasn’t worked the first ten times, but perhaps the eleventh time...’ No, you will only wear yourselves out and get nowhere!

If you listen to me and put what I say into practice, you will find that your whole life changes and becomes wonderful. In fact, I know that some already feel that; they have told me so. You would be amazed if you saw some of the letters I get! They are so profound and full of poetry, so full of intelligence and beauty, that I sometimes feel like reading them to you so that you can see for yourselves what goes on in the hearts and souls of our brothers and sisters. I am not going to do so for the moment, for you might think that I was doing so from personal vanity. But, one day, I shall read you all that, and you will see what gems they contain! Nobody could write such letters if the new life had not begun to thrust a tiny shoot out of the ground, like a snowdrop!

Look at a snowdrop: what strength of mind, what power it must have to be able to command the snow, and even the earth, to open up and let it out! And yet it is such a tiny, fragile plant, with petals so delicate that the slightest little thing bruises them. But the snow and soil obey it and let it out to grow and blossom. It is quite amazing! What is this power that obliges the earth to open, this extraordinary power hidden in that tiny, fragile plant that overcomes all obstacles? Yes, the power of love overcomes all obstacles. And what about you? Aren’t you far stronger and more powerful than a snowdrop? You are, indeed, but you don’t know how to use your power! You have to command the difficult circumstances, obstacles and barriers that threaten your progress, to open up and let you through: ‘Clear the way! Open up and let me out. I mean to rise, to climb upwards, to pray and sing songs of praise to my Creator!’ Be obstinate, insist, persevere, keep struggling like a snowdrop! In the long run you will emerge, you will float high above the earth, you will overcome all obstacles.

I know that the conditions you have to live in are difficult, but you must never forget that when the hardships of the world weigh you down and rob you of your magnetism and light until you feel as though you were being buried alive, you can come back here, to the Brotherhood, and renew and strengthen your contact with the divine life that we are all working for. Here, you can restore the vital link and replenish your supplies of vigour and endurance before going back into the world to face your difficulties. Only those whose consciousness is wakeful and who remain constantly in touch, constantly in communication with the exalted beings who have gone before us on the path of evolution, will continue to cling to the divine world and draw strength and the help they need from it. If you sever this bond, you may, for a time, feel free and liberated and, as you will still have a few crumbs of food left over, you will have something to nibble on. Yes, but once those few crumbs have gone there will be nothing to replace them, for they are fluidic particles received from a higher level of existence; when your supply is exhausted you will inevitably start to disintegrate. Don’t count too much on your own resources; they are not unlimited. Or rather, I should say: count on your own resources, but only to the extent to which you continue to draw sustenance from the one, inexhaustible Source.

When we are all here together, life becomes truly beautiful, because together we can achieve something fantastic. You know that engineers construct huge batteries and accumulators to store up electricity, which can then be used in many different ways. Well, we too, when we are all together, form a battery capable of producing enough power to provoke repercussions throughout the whole world. It is men and women’s ideas that are the real batteries, and we must connect them all together, plug them in to the mains and put them into service. But before we can do that we must be sure that our batteries are sturdy enough to take the extremely powerful currents that are waiting to pass through them. This is what I have in mind, and every now and then without your realizing it I make a trial run and connect up some cells to the mains on high. At the moment, you come here to pray and meditate and sing together, and you cannot see the results of your work. But look at all the changes taking place in the world: a new light is dawning, new ideas are beginning to spread, and nobody knows where they are coming from.

The Brotherhood is a unique power, and once you are conscious of the work you are doing you will see what it is accomplishing. This is the work you are being prepared for. Physicists build all sorts of batteries and accumulators, but they have not yet learned that the best of all batteries is the human brain and that, when it is connected to the mains and given the right orientation, it is capable of producing a prodigious amount of energy. You are destined to accomplish a work of stupendous proportions, my dear brothers and sisters, not just to come here to sing for a little while and then to yawn and go away again. We must build up a battery of exceptional, powerful brains. Stop wasting your energies, take care of them and use them only for this unique, gigantic task. An opportunity like this presents itself only very rarely in the course of history.

Sèvres, 13 April 1968

1 See Man’s Subtle Bodies and Centres – the Aura, the Solar Plexus, the Chakras…, Izvor Coll. n° 219, chap. 5: ‘Kundalini force’.

2 See The Seeds of Happiness, Izvor Coll. n° 231, chap. 2: ‘Happiness is not pleasure’ and chap. 3: ‘Happiness is found in work’.

Chapter Five
The manifestations of
the masculine and feminine principles

Women’s imagination is so highly developed that many have made themselves believe they were actually living in the reality of their secret dreams. It is well known that, even in highly respectable families, there have been extraordinary cases in which a young girl declared that she had been raped by her music teacher, for instance, or by the priest who heard her confession, and a terrible scandal ensued, until the poor child finally admitted that the whole thing had taken place only in her imagination! But there are a great many women who mistake their dreams for reality; it is always advisable to verify the truth of what they say. Women live as much in the fluidic dimension as in the physical dimension. Sometimes, in fact, the life they lead on the psychic plane is so vivid that, for them, it is more real than their physical life. They can have the sensation of being united with a man, with even greater intensity, sometimes, than if they had actually experienced that union on the physical plane. Of course, a man can also experience phenomena of this kind, but it occurs much less frequently than with women.

This is why I have always said that men must be extremely careful about their attitude towards very young girls, for it can produce certain effects in their imagination. The imagination of girls is more highly developed than that of boys, and a great many things go on in their minds, even before their sexuality is fully aroused, for they are also extremely curious about the whole subject. They want to know all about it and to experience it for themselves; in fact it is often because of their curiosity that they do something stupid. For boys, the motivation is different; it is not curiosity that urges them on, but the need to release a state of physical tension; but for girls it is curiosity.

This is why men who have anything to do with very young girls must be careful not to arouse their curiosity prematurely, otherwise they will end up with all kinds of complications on their hands! They must have great consideration for their young charges. Innocent, trusting, naive girls are still ignorant of these things, but they are growing up to be women and they are capable of being deeply troubled. Men must be skilful teachers and psychologists and know how to behave and how to avoid looking at a girl in a way that might trigger the premature arousal of the woman in her, for even very young girls always have a tendency to please a man and try to win his love. It is only natural; that is how they are built.

From the moment she is born, a woman is a woman; even baby girls try to attract attention. If they are constantly fidgeting and crying, it is because they want everybody to pay attention to them and love them. And when they succeed in attracting someone’s attention, they calm down and are quite happy. They say to themselves – unconsciously, of course – ‘There, that’s all right. It worked!’ Yes, and I have seen baby girls whose eyes and gestures revealed the women they would one day be! In fact, if we are to believe Sigmund Freud, sexuality can manifest itself even in very small children. Of course, when Freud first published his theories, they were greeted with hostility; people still thought that children were as pure and innocent as angels. But his arguments and examples showed that some awareness of their sexuality was already present even in small children.

If you really want to do good wherever you go, therefore, it is important to know human nature well. Often, those who are still young can awaken instincts in younger people, without realizing that it can lead to tragic results. Yes, tragic! To be sure, there are a great many details that would need further explanation, for this is a vast and very profound and subtle question. Even for a Master, this question can be a problem, for their inner beauty and luminosity is such that women often fall madly in love with them. Women are not particularly impressed by muscle and physical youth and strength. Men usually prefer very pretty girls: it does not matter if they are stupid, frivolous or even vicious, as long as they are pretty and fresh and young! In fact there really has to be the prospect of a substantial inheritance for a young man to ‘fall in love’ with an old woman! Men are materialists; they are not particularly interested in the soul or the spirit. Whereas women often prefer men who may be neither young nor handsome, who may even have a physical defect, but who are spiritually strong, powerful and intelligent, who are directors, leaders.

What a woman looks for, therefore, is something more spiritual than physical: strength, inner power, intelligence. She wants to have someone she can learn from, someone who will make her feel safe. A woman is far more sensitive to the fluidic dimension, to what a man emanates. As a matter of fact, it is often not the man himself who is important to her: it is the child she can have by him and who will inherit his gifts and qualities. This is why certain initiates, who had cultivated purity above all else, were perpetually tormented by women, because women were highly sensitive to the exceptional purity of their emanations. And since a woman’s whole being, every part of her body, the whole surface of her skin and so on, has the sensitivity of a sexual organ, the purity and light of an initiate arouses sexual sensations in her. Look at all the holy women who loved Jesus: the Lord alone knows what kind of love it was! They loved him with their whole soul, of course, but also with their whole body. Yes, for a woman, however spiritual and idealistic she may be, always loves with her whole body. She will never say so, she will never let it show, for she is ideally designed for hiding things, but it is true nevertheless.

Actually, is there anybody, whether man or woman, who has never done anything in their imagination? What is going on in the heads of all those people in the streets, trains and buses? And what they imagine actually happens. That is what Jesus was talking about when he said, ‘Everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart.’ This is why order must be restored, to begin with, on the inside. A great many people are outwardly blameless, no one has ever found them to be at fault, but inwardly they may have committed adultery with every woman in the world! Of course, I know that some will say, ‘Thank goodness we can still do that, at least. Life wouldn’t be worth living without it! We’re not allowed to do it outwardly, but why shouldn’t we do it mentally?’1

As a matter of fact, if a woman’s imagination is so much more highly developed than a man’s, it is because, for generations and generations, she has been deprived of certain liberties enjoyed by men. Whatever folly a man chose to commit was condoned by the family and society at large, whereas women were condemned and punished. Eventually, therefore, women cultivated their imaginations and, in this way, were able to enjoy their own secret consolations and compensations. Men, on the other hand, being allowed to satisfy all their desires openly, had no occasion to exercise their imagination. Nowadays, of course, the situation is no longer the same: women are as free as men. But in the past, because of the severe sexual restrictions imposed on them, women developed not only great powers of imagination but also powers of self-control and dissimulation. Even today, in fact, the weakest of women has more self-control in this area than the strongest man. She may decide not to exercise control, but it depends on her own decision: if she wants to, she can, whereas a man cannot; he is very weak in this respect. If he is aroused he is incapable of controlling himself. This is why society is habitually more indulgent towards men’s weaknesses, whereas women are readily blamed because they are capable of controlling themselves.

To tell the truth, a woman is no different from a man insofar as her needs are concerned; she is made of flesh and blood, too, and has just as great a need of affection and tenderness as a man ‒ greater in fact. Men have always had such a broad range of things on which to expend their energies that they were often rough and in a hurry when they were with their wives. Whereas their wives spent their days waiting; they had much more time to think and use their imagination; they had the same need for love as men, but taboos were so strong that they had to have recourse to their imagination in order to satisfy them. For women have an absolute need for love. This is why a woman will never forgive a man for refusing her. He may be a saint, a prophet, a god, but if he refuses her love, she will never forgive him! For a man it is quite different: for centuries, the rule has always been that the man had to take the initiative and a woman was supposed to start by refusing. Even if she consented inwardly, even if she was burning with desire to say yes to him, she still had to begin by saying no, for this was supposed to make her more desirable, a greater prize to be won! And the man accepted this as normal. He was prepared to wait and continue to insist patiently, until she finally gave in. But women have never had to accustom themselves to being refused; for them, it is normal to refuse a man’s love, but if a man refuses theirs, they will never forgive the offence.

The greatest insult you can do a woman is to find that she is not sufficiently attractive or seductive to induce you to accept the love she offers you. In fact, if you want to win a woman’s heart, you have to deceive her and tell her she is prettier and more ravishing than any other woman you know! If you do that she will fall into your arms! Men have found that this is a sure way to win a woman’s heart. No woman is capable of holding out against a man who really insists: sooner or later she will give in because she will be so proud of being wooed patiently and persistently for a long time. But if a man rejects a woman’s love, she will be mortally offended. She will have only one idea in mind: how to exact revenge. It makes no difference to her how noble, pure or elevated he may be, the only thing she is interested in is getting him to love her. And if a man loves her, he can be a complete scoundrel, a swindler, even a murderer, but she will stick up for him through thick and thin, for no other reason than that he loves her. But if a man refuses her love, he can be the Son of God himself, but she will be ready to murder him. Of course, I am speaking in general, but I have seen this.

But let’s get back to the question of imagination. Nature has endowed woman with great powers, and not only the power of her physical charm. Woman’s greatest power is in her imagination. As I have already said, a woman has exactly the same needs and desires as a man, but because, in the past especially, women have always been obliged to wait for the men to take the initiative, they had to invent all kinds of tricks to attract their attention and get them to declare their love. Although a woman made no overt gesture, said nothing and asked for nothing, yet it was she who, through her powers of thought and imagination, got the man to court her. Outwardly, women seemed perfectly innocent and irreproachable; it was the men who appeared to be the aggressors. The truth is that it was women who took the initiative and used their powers of imagination to incite men to act, and the men fell into their trap! Like magicians, women wielded powers of which men knew nothing.2

There is no difference between the nature of men and that of women. They share the same human nature: they both need love and tenderness, they both need a relationship of exchange, of giving and receiving, with another human being, but nature has given woman greater powers of imagination and even of love. Proof of this can be seen in the fact that a woman is capable of having sexual relations with several different men in succession without being exhausted, whereas, generally speaking, a man cannot. When it comes to the emotions and the capacity for pleasure, nature has given women greater powers than men. With men, everything is over and done with quickly, whereas, with women, things take more time but they are more intense and more powerful.

The Bonfin, 3 August 1975

BIBLICAL REFERENCES

‘Everyone who looks at a woman with lust…’ – Matt. 5:28

1 See La pédagogie initiatique, Complete Works, vol. 28, chap. 3: ‘L’imagination formatrice’.

2 See Cosmic Balance – The Secret of Polarity, Izvor Coll. n° 237, chap. 4: ‘Man and woman’.

Chapter Six
Master or mistress?

In the West, one very rarely meets someone who has a spiritual Master, whereas a great many have a mistress. Actually, a mistress is simply a Master in the guise of a woman: a Master of feminine gender. A man with a mistress will be pleased with himself, stimulated, full of beans; life, apparently, is much pleasanter! It all depends, of course: if he is not married, if he does not have a suspicious, shrewish wife to cross-examine him and pry into everything he does, he can be relaxed and carefree... no worries! But if he is married, he will be more anxious, more pensive, deeper even! And what does a man hope to learn with this Master whom he calls his mistress? If you were to tell him that he would do much better to have a Master, he would reply, ‘What is the use of a Master? At least a mistress can titillate me!’

What a subject to embark on: we have never talked about this before! You may think it is all a joke, but, actually, it may be funny but it is also a very interesting subject.

If a man would rather have a mistress than a Master, it is because he thinks he will be happier, he will get much more pleasure and enjoyment out of her. A Master, after all, is usually old and tough, whereas a mistress is much prettier and gentler and so much more appetizing! And then, above all, a Master shakes you up and forces you to learn, it is awful; whereas with a mistress you already know all you need to know! So, as you see, there are all kinds of good reasons for having a mistress rather than a Master!

Have you ever noticed that we speak of a man having a mistress, whereas we say that a woman has a lover? Isn’t that strange? It is because women, who are very intelligent, know very well that the man is not there to be her Master; he is there to love her, and it is she who is in control! These two words are very significant, therefore: they reveal how human beings, quite unconsciously, no doubt, envisage the relationship between men and women, and this is what interests me: to understand how these things are classified in people’s minds.

As long as a man prefers to have a mistress rather than a Master, it means that he gives priority to his instincts, sensations and desires. He still needs to ‘live’, as he would say, to amuse himself and revel in strong emotions. He firmly believes that that is how to get the most enjoyment and happiness out of life. The trouble is that he is misled by his ignorance of the true meaning of these notions: he does not understand what joy and happiness really are. Of course, when you have a Master, life is not always easy. There are things to be learned, sacrifices to be made, exercises to be done; you are expected to develop your will-power, make certain efforts and renounce some of the things you enjoy doing. And people are not ready to do this. They don’t want to make an effort; they still want to satisfy their hunger and their appetites. It is so much more agreeable to satisfy your appetite than to embark on a work of spiritual importance!

There are some who manage to have both, a Master who is a kind of ornament to their lives, thanks to whom they can pass themselves off as spiritual people, and a mistress to keep them amused and satisfy their appetite for pleasure. But if they had to choose, they would obviously choose their mistress and abandon their Master. Orientals, on the other hand, have so much respect and such a deep love for their Master, that even when they are unhappy or ill, even poor and dying, they are cheered and comforted simply by the thought that their Master exists; the mere thought of him gives them the strength to overcome every tribulation. They only have to remember that their Master exists and the thought causes them to evolve, to advance and learn and become stronger. Yes, happiness and success depend to a great extent on a person’s thoughts and outlook on life. But the thought that they have a Master will not make a Westerner any happier; they are not really interested in that, it is not what is most important. What difference can it make if they have a Master or not? How can the existence of a Master change their own existence, alter their destiny or add anything to their psychic life? The tradition of a Master has been lost in the West owing to the wrong kind of education. People in the West have no respect for anything or anyone, not even for the greatest geniuses, not even for the Lord himself. In the minds of our contemporaries it has become a virtue to be without respect for anything. In fact, the more polite and respectful you are, the more you will be laughed at.

When I see a man who has a mistress, I instantly know what category to put him into. How can he be so stupid? How can he choose someone who is no better, no wiser, no more honest than he is, to rule his life? If he were intelligent he would have chosen to have a Master instead! But let’s say that I accept that a man keeps a mistress (I am not so terribly narrow-minded or fanatical!). To begin with, he is completely happy; he feels as if his whole life is filled with her presence. And why should his soul not know the same joy when he meets a Master? Is it inconceivable that he should experience the same intense happiness simply because he has a Master? If he absolutely needs a mistress, then let him have one... just as long as, in his own mind, he gives his Master priority, that he recognizes that he is more precious than a mistress!

Of course, when I speak of a Master, I mean someone who is truly disinterested, someone who has no intention of exploiting you or leading you astray, of weakening or limiting you in any way, someone who is only interested in enlightening and liberating you, otherwise he would be no better than a mistress! In any case, an authentic Master is already so rich that he has no reason to exploit anyone.1 So, start by finding a genuine spiritual Master, and then, if for some reason you still have energies to spare and still need to give expression to certain kinds of inspiration, take a mistress as well. But, whatever you do, never attach more importance to her than to your Master. If you have the least grain of intelligence you will realize that she never thinks of anyone but herself, that she will always demand adulation and flattery and presents from you. She is the centre of her own universe and everything has to orbit around her; you will be her slave. Whereas, on the contrary, anyone with intelligence realizes that, with a Master, they will make progress and be freer and stronger, and that it is in their own interest to value him more highly than their mistress.

The problem is exactly the same for a woman who has a lover. If there is no room in her head or her soul for a protector, for someone who will create a bond between herself and heaven, between herself and the light, she is bound to suffer. If you want to stumble onto something magnificent it is no good hoping to do so in the dark; you need to be in the light. But how many people really seek the light? They are plunged in darkness, and in the dark it is as if they were presented with a sack full of all kinds of animals: snakes, doves, mice, scorpions, pigeons, and so on. They cannot see a thing, but they reach into the sack and leave the result to chance! Yes, well the response of chance may well be a sting from the tail of a scorpion! It is very difficult to enlighten people: everyone needs to experience things for themselves, to suffer and break their own bones before they can begin to understand; there is nothing one can do to stop them. Do you think I am exaggerating? Alas, no! In fact, I am understating it; I am very well aware of what goes on in the world. So many people come and see me and sob out their stories, telling me that they don’t know what to do or where to turn for help! Why did they have to be so stupid as to fail to look for or recognize the only being who could enlighten and guide them: a Master?

A few moments ago I mentioned that extraordinary sensation of happiness one experiences simply from thinking about one’s Master. The truth is that it is a question of tuning in on the psychic and mental plane. I remember, one day, I met a young man who was in a state of indescribable bliss: he was bubbling over with inspiration to create, to write, to paint... When I asked him what had put him in such a state, he replied, ‘I’m so happy because I have met the most wonderful girl... She lives a long way from here and we can’t even meet, but ever since I first saw her, she is here, in my soul, in my heart. I live in her presence; she is a constant link with the world of beauty and poetry!’ Inwardly, this young man had become a disciple; an idea, a mental image, a thought, was enough for him. He had no need to go and embrace that girl in order to be happy. Very often, in fact, the idea you have in your mind about something is more important than the thing itself. Your idea of someone is more efficacious and has a more powerful influence on your life than the person themselves. You may have difficulty in understanding this, but personally I know that it is so: our ideas and opinions about people and things are extremely powerful influences in our lives. We may not realize it, but that makes no difference; even if we are not aware of it, it is so.

If you absolutely must have a mistress or a lover, because you need their affection and tender embraces, very well! But you still need a Master to teach you how to have that mistress or lover without danger, without hurting yourself. At least a Master can teach you how to love, otherwise, not only will you be unhappy but you will fuel the fires of hell with your love. Yes, because if hell is so powerful it is because human beings who are ignorant of the truths of Initiatic Science spend their days and nights feeding and strengthening it with their sensual emanations. They have no idea how to channel and spiritualize these forces, nor in what direction to send them, with the result that hell is fuelled and fed by them and continues to reign over the earth and provoke every kind of disaster. Yes, the worst catastrophes are caused by love wrongly understood and wrongly practised.

It is lovers who feed the destructive entities that prey upon humanity, who nourish the ghosts and elementals that tear people apart and devour them. Spiritual love, on the contrary, not only drives out these evil entities, it also nourishes the angels and archangels who are there to save humanity. But in night clubs and brothels, wherever men and women debauch themselves, you cannot imagine how many different kinds of entities, not only elementals but also the souls of degenerate, obscene human beings, take part in all that goes on and feed on all those energies! Yes, human beings who were unable to appease their lust while they were on earth frequent these places and feed on the foul emanations of those who debauch themselves.

Unfortunately, it is often when people have lost everything, when they have failed in life, that they decide to devote themselves to the things of heaven. The problem is, though, that the divine world has no use for cripples and invalids; it needs people who are young and strong and capable. But when people are young they are more interested in following their natural appetites. They say, ‘I intend to make the most of my youth; I’m going to live my own life!’ There is no hope of recruiting them for a divine work when they have that attitude. But when they have spent and squandered all their substance, when they are already worm-eaten, riddled with rheumatism or paralysed, they will turn to the Lord and say, ‘Lord, do you need me? I am here to serve you!’ They have nothing left: their health and strength are spent, their hair and teeth have fallen out, and they say, ‘Lord, I am yours. Can you use me?’ But they are nothing but scarecrows! What use can the Lord have for a scarecrow?

My dear brothers and sisters, I tell you with the utmost sincerity: this is an extremely important question. Analyse yourselves and you will see that the majority of you want to live your own lives, first and foremost. You tell yourselves, ‘Later, if I have time, I’ll serve the Lord and do his work, but in the meantime I want to make the most of my life!’

If I described the extraordinary joy and happiness I experienced when I first met my own Master, you would not believe me. And that state has lasted until today. You will say, ‘But you don’t need a Master anymore; you are one yourself.’ Even if I am a Master, even if I became the greatest of all Masters, I would still have the same respect, the same admiration and love for all the other Masters. Yes, that is the truth of it! When I met my Master I had the impression that all the treasures of the universe had been poured into my heart and head.2 I felt rich, fabulously rich! I told myself, ‘With a Master like that I can possess the whole world!’ And this may still come about; I may well possess the whole world, one day. Not physically, of course, not materially; my pocket is not big enough to contain the earth. Besides, that is not what I am interested in; what I am interested in is the souls of those who people the earth.

Yes, that is my desire, that, one day, I may reach a mutual understanding with all men and women, so that I may give them wealth such as they have never dreamed of. This is my one desire. But to possess the earth, no; I have never wanted that. A great many people have wanted to conquer the earth; I don’t need to tell you their names ‒ you know them ‒ but they have never succeeded in their ambitions, because the earth belongs to God alone. That is why I have other ambitions, other desires. I have the desire to communicate with all my brothers and sisters throughout the entire world and to transmit to them the message that heaven has entrusted to me for them, to tell them about their future, about what lies in store for them, what they are predestined for. If human beings knew where their true interest lay they would behave very differently. They would give up many of their present preoccupations and activities that are not only useless but even harmful to them. The only thing I have to teach people is where their true interest is. I know only that, nothing else: where people’s best and truest interest lies. I am quite incapable of explaining anything in any other subject, but no one is better able to explain to people where their best interest lies.

Now, reflect on the significance of a Master for your inner life; not for your outer life, no, for your inner life. You have no idea how powerful a transformer a Master can be in the mind of a disciple who really believes in him, even if the Master in question is not particularly powerful himself. When I was in India I heard this tale about a Master and his disciple. It is, no doubt, a legend, but it is very significant all the same. There was once a Master who had many disciples, and one of them, in particular, was so devoted to him that he repeated his name ceaselessly, like a magic formula. His faith and love were such that, one day, he walked on water. The other disciples hurried to tell their Master about this prodigy, and he summoned the disciple to him and said, ‘I have heard some extraordinary things about you. It seems that you can walk on water; tell me how you do it.’ ‘O beloved Master,’ said the disciple, ‘I simply repeat your name very lovingly!’ ‘Hmm,’ thought the Master to himself; ‘If he can do that, why shouldn’t I?’ and hurrying to the edge of the river, he said his own name, stepped onto the water... and drowned! He did not have the love his disciple had. If he had had a Master more advanced than himself, and if he had had the same faith and devotion, the same affection and absolute trust in his Master, he too would have walked on water like his disciple!

Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, even if you become a professor, a cabinet minister, a king, high priest or Master, you must not rest on your laurels. You must always love and serve someone else, someone greater and more advanced than you, so that, thanks to that being, you may accomplish wonders and do great good. Otherwise you will drown, while your own disciples work miracles! The Master in that story did not know very much about the laws of the spiritual life. For my part, I continue to admire and love all the Masters of humanity with all my heart. Even if I became greater than any of them I would continue to do so, because I know that it is my admiration that gives me every gift, not the Masters themselves. They may not even know that I exist, they may not actually give me anything, but it is my love and respect for them that gives me what I need. Yes, and I shall walk on water thanks to that love and respect!

And now, perhaps to show you that I am fairer and more broad-minded than you thought, let me add this: it is conceivable that a man may have a mistress so spiritual and pure, so exceptionally intelligent, that she makes an artist, a writer, a hero of him. In this case, of course, there would be nothing wrong in having a mistress. But to go on for ever, repeating the same stupid mistakes and never learning from them... no! You can have a mistress on condition that she is disinterested and, instead of exhausting you and sucking you dry, she inspires you and turns you into the noblest and most intelligent of men. And a woman can have a lover on condition that he is better than she is, that he fashions and shapes her and leads her closer to God. Why not? Yes, have a lover or a mistress, but only if they bring you closer to God!

A Master will never try to hold you back, to keep you by his side; on the contrary, he will lead you closer to God. In fact, if you wanted to cling to him and depend on him for everything, he would tell you, ‘You must not rely on me so much. I cannot give you all you want and need. Only God can do that.’ Someone who is not a true Master might want to hold on to you, but a genuine Master will say, ‘I am nothing more than a telephone, and you can use me to get in touch with the Lord and all the heavenly hierarchies, or with other highly evolved beings on earth.’ This is the crux of the matter: the goal toward which your whole life is moving. It is up to you to know where the person to whom you give your heart is leading you. But human beings do not possess the proper standards by which to judge. They fall in love so easily and become so emotionally attached to someone that they are incapable of judging their true nature. They follow them blindly wherever they lead and are unable to foresee what they will be like after a few years spent in their company.

Now, this does not mean that you, the husbands among you, must leave your wives, or that you, wives, must leave your husbands, on the pretext that you should have only one Master and one love. No, that is not what I am saying. Have whatever you like in this world: husbands and wives, children, employees, factories, furniture and store-cupboards... But make sure that your Master is more important to you than all your affections or possessions!

The Bonfin, September 1963

1 See What is a Spiritual Master?, Izvor Coll. n° 207, chap. 1: ‘How to recognize a true spiritual Master’.

2 See Hommage au Maître Peter Deunov, Izvor Coll. n° 200.

Chapter Seven
Vestal virgins; the new Eve

I

If religious people, mystics and puritans think that they have to let their springs dry up and become eunuchs and infertile, barren wildernesses, that is their business, but true initiates have quite a different philosophy. What can you hope for from a eunuch, after all? Initiates, on the contrary, do everything they can to ensure that their spring never dries up. This is why they are always creative: their thoughts are constantly at work in the invisible world, sustaining and disseminating life and light.

Today I am ready to explain to you how to keep that vitality, how to preserve this divine, inner source that is their most precious possession, and which some misguided people have attempted to stifle, thinking that, in doing so, they would become saintly and pure. When I was very young, I thought so too, but as time goes on, I see the truth more clearly: it is precisely our sexual energy that can help us to attain saintliness. In the absence of life and love, in the absence of that constant flow of energy, there is no such thing as purity. Many men have deluded themselves into thinking that they were pure and chaste because they spurned women. The truth is that they had become like dried-up springs, and when a spring ceases to give fresh flowing water, rot and putrefaction set in. If you want to wash away your impurities, you need running water, not stagnant water. For my part, I believe that this water is capable of purifying, vivifying, inspiring and resuscitating human beings, but only if the flow is channelled and given direction by a high ideal; otherwise it will produce nothing but floods and disaster. Young people and adults alike need to be instructed in this new philosophy, a new philosophy that has always existed, to be sure, but only for those exceptional beings who understood the true nature of purity, love and saintliness. One day, the light will shine on the whole of humanity, and when that day comes men and women will love each other without negative effects of any kind; they will overflow with happiness and their lives will be full of music and poetry.

Now, I want to talk to you about the vestal virgins of the past. I have already told you that their task – or rather, what was believed to be their task – was pointless and illogical. Was it really necessary to have so many young maidens just to keep the flame burning day and night? The truth is that all that was symbolic. The fire that they had to protect and sustain was not a physical flame. It was something quite different: the sacred fire of the initiates. The vestal virgins were carefully selected and instructed in the rules of absolute purity, for there are certain subtle particles, a perfume, that emanates only from an absolutely pure, chaste woman, and it is these emanations that the initiates needed to breathe. The initiates needed these feminine emanations, just as we all need sound, colours and perfumes. They provide us with a stimulus. God created heaven and earth, and if he created the earth it is because it is necessary. Yes, the earth is necessary on condition that we take it in homoeopathic doses. All would-be spiritual people, idealists and mystics who have rejected absolutely everything that comes from the earth are in error. The earth is a living being that thinks and acts, a being with which we can communicate and which can heal us. The initiates, therefore, who knew that a woman could emanate these very precious particles, were able to use them for their work.

I can hear you exclaiming, ‘Do you mean to say that even saints, even initiates, are susceptible to women?’ Of course; why not? What do you know about initiates? People seem to have the ridiculous notion that they don’t have stomachs or sexual organs like other people, that they never eat or sleep! What nonsense! Initiates are just like everyone else, with the same stomachs, the same genitals and the same susceptibilities. Perhaps you will say, ‘I’m sure they would be furious to hear you talking about them like that!’ On the contrary, true initiates don’t put on an act; it is other people who invent ridiculous stories about them. Initiates are like everybody else; they too have to eat and drink, they too feel fatigue, and they too are aware of the charm of certain women. The difference lies in the fact that they do not succumb to those charms, for they are only interested in what is constructive, eternal and divine.

Initiates understand that a woman is a laboratory, a flower whose secret essences perfume the air, and that when certain women such as the vestals learn to emanate this pure perfume, they become conductors through which the divine Mother manifests herself. An initiate who breathes this fragrance, therefore, is exalted by it and becomes capable of releasing the powers slumbering within him and of using them to do good. Other men, of course, who know nothing of this science, are content to be aroused, but they do nothing good with it. No, initiates do not despise woman; on the contrary, they educate her to become a true instrument of inspiration.

There have been women in the past – their cases are a matter of historical record – who gave off the scent of flowers: violets, jasmine or roses, for instance. In fact, one day, years ago, I was on an excursion with some brothers and sisters in Lyons, and one of them was a very young girl who smelled of a flower whose name I have forgotten, but which grows high up in the mountains. It was the purest and most exquisite, most captivating scent imaginable. To begin with, I thought it must be an illusion; but no, the scent really came from that girl. I asked her if she used perfume and she assured me that she did not, and I know that she was incapable of lying to me! Her case was a real enigma: how could she give off a scent like that? To be sure, she was pure, she had never been touched by a man, but that was not enough to explain the scent. I have met lots of young girls who were just as fresh and innocent, but none of them emanated any perfume; this girl must really have had an exceptional structure. I said to myself, ‘Heavens, if only all girls could emanate such perfume, the whole world would be bowled over!’ If there is one girl in the world who is capable of distilling this scent, it means that others could do so as well. But, of course, this implies changing radically a whole way of life.

And while we are on the subject: why do you think that most women are so fond of wearing perfume? It is something that comes from a very long way back, from the time when God entrusted the care of the plants in the garden of Eden to Eve. Eve was the first botanist ‒ her task was to look after the trees and flowers ‒ and Adam was the first zoologist ‒ he looked after the animals. Eve took such good care of the flowers that she herself emanated the same scents; she became a flower. And then, after the fall, when Adam and Eve had been driven from paradise, Eve lost her capacity to produce scent and, as she missed it so much, she looked for it elsewhere and began to use the perfumes she could gather from flowers. Before the fall she emanated beautiful scents herself, because she possessed the qualities and virtues that manifest on the physical plane in the form of perfumes. On the higher plane, each perfume is a virtue; it becomes a perfume only when it manifests on the physical plane, just as a vice on the higher plane becomes a sickening stench on the physical plane.

When women wear perfume it is because they yearn to recapture the natural perfume they have lost. But this is not the best way to do so. I have no objection to their putting on perfume and make-up and spending time at the beautician’s, but if they could be taught to cultivate certain qualities and virtues, they would recapture their own perfume, their own original beauty. Don’t count on beauty salons, my dear sisters! There is another kind of beauty salon here, and nobody is going to ask you to spend a fortune on treatments that last only twenty-four hours and take all the bloom off your cheeks! Yes, this is the only authentic beauty salon – no need to look any further – just as long as you believe what I am telling you and cultivate these qualities and virtues and forces, and allow them to develop and flower within you.

Woman is a pure marvel; nothing in the world will persuade me to change my opinion about her. The day I lose my good opinion of woman, that will be the end of me! You will say, ‘But you would be purer, then!’ No, on the contrary: I would be dirtier. It is thanks to my present attitude that I can purify myself by remembering that women are daughters of God and that they have the possibility of being channels of heavenly inspiration. In this way I evolve and advance. As for the others, let them stay asleep if they want to! Spiritual people who spurn women do not have the matter they need to accomplish anything. It is woman who contributes matter, but we have to go and look for it on the highest levels where it is subtlest. Of course, I realize that the subtle dimension has no appeal for a lot of men. It is more pleasurable, apparently, to get one’s hands onto something solid! Well, I am not going to argue with them about that, but it would certainly be better if they did a little work on the subtler aspects as well.

It is women who are going to transform the whole world. If it has not already happened, it is because they are not yet aware of their mission: they spend their time and energies on clothes and jewellery and other trivia of the kind, instead of thinking about improving the whole of humankind. But the world needs women who make up their minds to use the power they have over men, not to seduce them but to make them nobler beings. For instance, why shouldn’t a girl refuse to be kissed by a young man until he gives up smoking, or until he cures himself of his rude ways and lack of respect. What wouldn’t he be ready to do, poor wretch, for just one kiss! But women are so ‘easy’ nowadays that they offer themselves, and men have no reason to change or improve. Women should join forces, like the women in Aristophane’s play, Lysistrata, who refused to let their husbands make love to them as long as they continued to make war. Lysistrata is a comedy, of course, but the idea behind it is very profound. Women have tremendous power over men, but they have never made up their minds to use it for good, because this would involve some little sacrifices. They are weak and give way to their lords and masters because they want them to be like that. In fact, because of this, I know that what I say is not likely to have much effect, but perhaps a few women will begin to think about it and to understand that they must get this high ideal firmly anchored in their heart and mind.

It is said that it was Eve’s fault that the human race was driven from paradise. A new Eve must come forward now, to repair the original fault and lead man back to paradise.1 This new Eve is the new type of woman that is being created in the Universal White Brotherhood. There is a cabaret in Paris, apparently, called ‘The New Eve’, but that is not the one I am talking about! No, I am talking about a new class of women, who will decide to dedicate themselves to contributing to a divine ideal.

Initiatic Science teaches that man is linked to the spirit, whereas woman is linked to matter. Obviously, this does not mean that man is wholly spirit and woman wholly matter: both are a combination of matter and spirit, but symbolically woman is more orientated to matter and man to the spirit. We see proof of this in the fact that, in order to create a child together, the man contributes the spirit, that is, life, the germ, whereas the woman contributes the matter. Woman does not create, she forms; man does not form, he creates. This is why I said that all those spiritual people who despised women and behaved as though there were only men in the world and everything should be done by men were in error.

I can hear some of you saying, ‘But women are such liars! And they’re so inquisitive, flighty, flirtatious and treacherous! You can’t trust them an inch!’ Well, let me ask you a question: ‘If women have so many faults, how is it that the divine Mother continues to give them the gifts of charm, beauty and seductiveness?’ Yes, think about that. If you ask the divine Mother, she will tell you that these feminine failings are only superficial and that they have been given to women to teach men a lesson but that, one day, women will change. When men change, women will change too. In the meantime, their faults help them to defend themselves; without them, they could not have survived. It is the divine Mother, therefore, who chose these means to prevent these sweet creatures from disappearing altogether. She told them, ‘Go on, tell a few lies, deceive people a little, be a bit flirtatious...’ and, thanks to these methods, women have managed to survive! In the eyes of the divine Mother, these faults are negligible compared to all the positive things that women do, compared to all their love and the sacrifices they make for their children, and she is willing to overlook them. Yes, this is the absolute truth: women’s failings are the only arms they have. If they had not had them they would have lost everything and been wiped out, because men took everything for themselves, even the right to speak! Men sat at table and women stood respectfully in the background, waiting on them. They were obliged constantly to devise ways to survive, not so much for themselves as for their children! Men were always out hunting or at war; they never looked after their children. If women had not done so, there would be no human race today! In comparison with all that, you see, their inquisitiveness, lies and flirtatiousness are really negligible!

But some people always think themselves wiser and more intelligent than God. They think that God made a great mistake when he created woman: they would have known better! The truth is that none of the thinkers and mystics who did away with woman and refused to include her in their philosophical scheme of things ever succeeded in giving physical form to their ideas. They themselves did not have the capacity to do so, and they would have nothing to do with those who had. It is woman who holds the keys to matter, not man, and this is why only women are capable of establishing the kingdom of God and his righteousness on earth. The idea, the spiritual seed, must come from a great initiate, and all the women of the world must envelop this seed, this child-to-be, in their subtle emanations and quintessence. At the moment, women are useless because, instead of uniting in order to accomplish this ideal, each one is busy seducing one individual for her own pleasure, for her own little domestic bliss; in fact they are at war with each other, rivalling with each other for the attentions of the man they want. As long as women are disunited and straying in all directions, as long as they are more interested in their own pleasure than in establishing the kingdom of God on earth, the task will never be done.2

Of course, they are not always to blame. The only prospect that has ever been offered to them is marriage and children, and they do their duty as best they can. But it is time, now, to move every woman in the world. And, I promise you, every one of them will be affected! They will be made to see what they are capable of achieving, and once they are conscious of their own powers, you will soon see the results! Men can have ideas, but if the women are not there to give them form, those ideas will achieve nothing. This is how it has always been throughout history: it was always women who achieved things. Men contributed the ideas, but without women to put them into effect, nothing could have been achieved. An idea can be truly wonderful, but it has to be materialized, otherwise it remains in its own sphere and never comes down to earth. Only women have the power to bring an idea down to earth and make it a visible, tangible reality.

As you very well know, even a woman who has never been to school – not even to kindergarten – is perfectly capable of producing a child with two eyes and ears, a nose, a mouth and so on, all perfectly formed and in working order. She may know nothing about chemistry, physics, politics or economics, and yet she can produce a child whose limbs and organs display a beautiful economical organization. Can you see all that and still tell me you understand what a woman is? Where does she keep the knowledge that enables her to combine all the chemical elements in such perfect proportions? She may be quite incapable of doing a mathematical operation, but she is capable of something that no mathematician could ever hope to achieve!

Sèvres, 1 January 1970

BIBLICAL REFERENCES

Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden – Gen. 2:25 and 3

II

I would like to add a few words to what I was saying this morning, for I know that you are thinking to yourselves, ‘How can you talk about vestal virgins in the 20th century? They don’t exist anymore!’ Ah, but they do; even now, in the 20th century, they still exist. Of course, there is no sacred flame to be tended any longer; they are not subject to the same rules as in the past, but in their minds they treasure the same ideal of emanating all that is most heavenly.

I leave all women free to do what they want, I never force or oblige anyone. I simply tell you what things were like in the past and what they could be like today, but I am perfectly aware that very few will be willing to dedicate themselves exclusively to light, purity and freedom. Even the sisters in the Brotherhood: if they want to live like everybody else, they are free to do so. Nobody is going to stop them, but they will suffer like everybody else; they will have the same worries and the same disappointments as everybody else!

It is true that, in the past, many girls, who chose not to marry because they wanted to lead chaste, virginal lives, became soured and embittered and spiteful. But that was because this question of chastity was not properly understood. If a woman lives in true chastity she does not have to be unhappy, she does not have to shrivel up and be completely unproductive. Even if she never marries or has physical relations with a man, she can still be extraordinarily beautiful, vital and expressive: it all depends on how she understands things. Naturally, if she destroys the living force of love within her, she will destroy herself. Those who reject this most divine treasure in order to become, as they think, pure and holy only succeed in starting up an inner process of dry rot. Just as a free-flowing spring washes away dirt, so love washes away all our impurities. But that is the whole problem: human beings do not know how to love, they try to stifle their love, with the result that they shrivel up, become inhibited and end up on the analyst’s couch!

Even in religious orders, this question has always been very badly explained: chastity and continence were held up as the ideal, and the poor, trusting women who blindly believed what they were told experienced hell on earth. Anyone who wants to advise others in the area of love must be a very skilful psychologist, for it is a tremendous responsibility. You will say, ‘Yes, but you are doing the very thing that you say is so dangerous, and you don’t really explain anything either!’ Ah, but I do: I have explained all that needs to be explained. It is up to you to find the rest for yourselves. If you are really sincere and honest with yourselves, if you are really seeking perfection, you will understand exactly how to love. If not, of course, you will always be unbalanced and... yes, I know, I shall be blamed for it! But I cannot give you detailed explanations of exactly what to do or how to do it. In fact, I would not do so even if I could. My role is to give you the essentials, to explain what is important. If you do not study what I tell you as you should, if you do not meditate on the advice I give you, you will never understand what I say; even if I explained it to you in detail you would not understand.

When I speak of vestals, therefore, I am not saying that women in the 20th century should be shut up in a temple to tend a sacred flame. I am saying that they must reflect and meditate every day and implore heaven to use them as vessels and conductors of divine beauty and purity, so that they become capable of helping humankind. And, as thoughts and hopes and the things we wish for cannot remain hidden, the light from the secret thoughts and feelings of such women will be visible in their eyes and gestures, and even in the glow of their skin. And when they see that people come to them for nourishment and inspiration, they will rejoice to know that, at last, true love is penetrating the hearts of all men and women.

Of course, there are many women who consider that it is a waste of time to think about inspiring the whole of humanity. In spite of the fact that it will inevitably mean the loss of their beauty and charm, they would much rather have one man to torment and batter them. But those who decide to devote time, year after year, to becoming divinities, will see the results of their work: something that inspires wonder in all who see it will be visible in their gaze and in their words and gestures. But, to achieve this, they must try, if only for a few minutes every single day, to attract and capture true beauty.3

Men are much less interested in acquiring charm or beauty; what they want is strength and power, whereas women desire beauty. In fact, they are sometimes reproached for wanting to be beautiful, but it is no crime: on the contrary! If women were not concerned with beauty, future generations would be revoltingly ugly. It is mothers who have the task of transmitting beauty to their children, for they form them; this is why it is perfectly right for them to desire beauty. The church has often condemned women’s natural desire to be beautiful. It has never understood that it is women’s task, the task of mothers, to cultivate the beauty of the human race. Men don’t think about beauty, so if women did not think about it we would be in a sorry state! There is no reason to criticize women for wanting to be beautiful, therefore. They only need to learn where to look for true beauty so that, if they marry and have children, their children will be truly divine.4

Sèvres, 1 January 1970

1 See ‘Et il me montra un fleuve d’eau de la vie’, Synopsis Coll., Part V, chap. 5: ‘Le mythe d’Adam et Ève: I – La rupture de l’équilibre cosmique, II – La nouvelle Ève. La femme couronnée d’étoiles’.

2 See Hope for the World: Spiritual Galvanoplasty, Izvor Coll. n° 214, chap. 13: ‘The cosmic child’.

3 See ‘Know Thyself’: Jnana Yoga, Complete Works, vol. 18, chap. 1: ‘Beauty’.

4 See Le vrai travail de la mère pendant la gestation, Brochure n° 318.

Chapter Eight
Materialism, idealism and sexuality
‘on earth as it is in heaven’

Looking back over the hundreds and thousands of years of human history, we see that a great many different religions, schools of thought and philosophical trends have come and gone, and that they can all be put into one of two categories: those that encourage people to escape from the world and those that, on the contrary, urge them to cling to it.

The philosophical system that teaches people to abandon the world, on the pretext that it is a vale of suffering and tears, is Buddhism, and Buddhism has influenced a great many other spiritual movements, including certain Gnostic sects such as the Cathars, for instance. As for the philosophy that encourages people to cling to the earth to such a point that they never want to leave it: that is materialism.

‘And what about Christianity?’ you will ask; ‘Where does that fit in?’ Ah, Christianity is something quite different again. In fact, Christianity itself does not know what category it should be in because it does not really know itself. Yes, because Christianity and the philosophy of Christ are two quite different things. If I had been content with what the church and theologians tell us about the Gospels, I would not have gone directly to Jesus to find out what he thought. I have already explained to you, in previous lectures, how I worked for years to enter into Jesus’ mind in order to understand what he really meant, and I have given you ample proof that I succeeded. Of course, I realize that my explanations do not constitute an irrefutable proof in your eyes, but if you reflect a little, if you observe life and compare things, you will be ready to accept what I say because it corresponds to reality; you will see that my explanations are more valid and more applicable than others.1

Now, to help you to understand more clearly what I just said about the two philosophical tendencies, let’s look at human beings. When a child is born, its only concern is to cling to earth, so much so, in fact, that it crawls on all fours, touches everything it can lay its little hands on and puts anything and everything into its mouth! Little by little the baby grows into a youth, his heart stirs into wakefulness and he begins to be interested in girls; he falls in love and becomes a family man! At this stage he is still firmly attached to the earth and contributes to its population and wealth through his children and his work. It is only at a much later stage, when the poor creature is no longer young, has exhausted his reserves and is beginning to see that he will never achieve all his ambitions, that he begins to change: the earth holds fewer attractions for him and he begins to distribute his belongings and think about the next world. The man who, just a little while before, was only interested in eating and drinking, creating children and accumulating wealth, as if he was destined to stay on this earth for ever, this same man now becomes so impersonal (See Footnote, chap. 3.) and disinterested, so cold and tired and disillusioned, that he gets ready to give up all his possessions and leave for the next world. What has happened to cause such a change? This transformation is simply the result of a weakening of the sexual instinct.

And now I am going to show you how a human being’s sexual energy determines their philosophy. As long as they possess this force, they are ready and willing to live on earth, but when it abandons them, they want to die. This is why certain initiates of the past, who knew all this, taught their disciples that if they aspired to leave the earth, with all its sufferings and limitations, and attain a world of beatitude and light, they would have to suppress all manifestations of sexual energy, avoid loving relationships with others, flee from desire and lust, avoid the sight of naked bodies and all commerce with the opposite sex, etc., otherwise they would immediately be caught up in the toils of the earth and never want to leave it.

There you have the origin of the various religious and philosophical tendencies we were talking about. At the root of it all is the sexual drive, the love between the sexes, and the attitude that human beings choose to adopt in respect to this force. This is what determines the two different schools of thought: one that allows this force to express itself, and the other that tries to stifle it. Of course, there are many other philosophies, but all of them can be fitted, more or less comfortably, into one of these two categories. If you do not want to stay in this world of suffering, if you want to attain eternity and immortality, you must forget about propagating the human race, because that only creates ties that bind you to the earth: you will be tied to the father (or mother) of your children, you will be tied physically to your children, flesh of your own flesh, and you will even be bound psychically to their character and their soul and spirit. This is why Buddhism teaches that when someone leaves this world for the next, although they may think they are free from all attachments, the ties that bound them to their children and all the other members of their family are still intact. They cannot leave the lower astral regions immediately; they are forced to remain close to human beings for a time, especially to their family, and to watch them, give them advice and take part in their lives and, even, to nourish themselves through them. According to this philosophy, if you want to be free, you must not marry or have children, because those who are willing to perpetuate their name by having a family and children are held captive by the name, and when their family thinks of them and calls them, they have to return to earth. These bonds that men and women create with the earth prevent them from staying in the heavenly regions.

The initiates, who knew these realities, taught a philosophy of asceticism, idealism and chastity, suitable for those who were seriously determined to have no roots in the world. The question is not whether this was a genuine philosophy (it was certainly genuine, for it was based on occult knowledge), but whether it could be useful today, whether it is adapted to our times, and it is more than likely that it is totally unsuited. This is one of the problems to which we must find an answer.

And now, let’s look at the philosophy of materialists and hedonists and all those who are only interested in this world and who think that the discoveries of modern science should be used to prolong their life on earth. Perhaps their philosophy is just as true as the other! So, let’s study and compare the two positions and then see if there is not a third way, better than either of them.

If someone only thinks of their earthly life, of eating and drinking and bringing children into the world, of acquiring wealth, opening branch offices and controlling the market throughout the world, are they not doing something good? Indeed they are. This person is like an earthworm. Earthworms are very useful creatures: they take in soil at one end and process it by passing it through their digestive tract and out the other end, making It more vital and much more beneficial for plant life. Yes, materialists are like worms: they spend their lives eating, that is, processing raw, inert matter, and in doing so they communicate something of their own vitality to it and prepare it for a higher work. You must not speak ill of materialists; they are very useful; they transform the earth as it goes through them. The Creator has prepared a wide range of jobs for human beings to do, and those who choose this one render service to the whole planet. Look at the earth: what a lot of matter there is to be transformed! And once it has been transformed, spiritual people can use it and work with it on a higher level. Yes, those with a spiritual philosophy work with matter, too, but with subtler forms of it, the matter of thoughts and feelings, and they in turn prepare this matter for a higher order of beings. There is an unbroken chain of beings, therefore, all working to transform matter: plants transform mineral matter, animals transform vegetable matter, human beings transform animal matter, and so on, all the way to God himself. I have already explained to you how God feeds on the fruits of the cherubim and seraphim. Of course, this is simply an image to help you to understand.

Now, what is that third solution, the true philosophy that I mentioned earlier? The answer might be Christianity. It might be, that is, if Christians could be brought to understand that they are right to be religious and spiritual, but that they must, at the same time, be concerned with the world, that they must use all their thoughts, feelings and actions to transform the world into a garden of delights where the Lord would be pleased to walk. Neither those who are only interested in fixing their abode on earth, nor those who are only interested in escaping from this earth, will ever achieve anything. The third solution, the true philosophy of Christ, which is our philosophy, tells us not to flee from or abandon the earth but to fill ourselves with all the wealth of heaven, and then to bring it all down to the physical level, so that the earth becomes a paradise, the kingdom of God.2 So, although we work with matter we are not materialists, but nor are we Buddhists or ascetics, because we do not want to abandon the earth. This is the philosophy that Jesus wanted to give to humanity.

There is a tradition that, when he was very young, Jesus went to India where he had many discussions with the brahmins. He is said to have told them, ‘Your philosophy is very fine, but why did you come into the world? Simply in order to leave it? No, you are here to work: heaven has sent you here as labourers. Once you have completed your task, of course, you can go back home to rest or renew your inspiration before coming back and continuing with your work in the world. But, first and foremost, you are here to work.’ And he reproached them, saying, ‘You are afraid; you are weaklings; your only thought is to run away. If you were meant to dwell in nirvana, why did you come to earth?’ Yes, Jesus had some fearful arguments with the brahmins; in fact, they even pursued him and wanted to kill him, but he left and joined a caravan that was leaving for Palestine. And there he began to argue, all over again, with the Doctors of Law of Israel and the Pharisees and Sadducees. And, this time, he did not try to escape when they wanted to kill him. Jesus was a great revolutionary, but Christians do not know the details of his life; they do not know that he went to India where he met and talked to the brahmins. Wherever he went he stirred up revolution. Of course, I cannot prove this to you; in fact it will probably always be a subject of controversy, but that does not matter. I tell you this, and whether you believe it or not is your business.

Actually, Jesus did not really criticize the Buddha’s philosophy: after all, Buddha was no child, and he taught an extraordinarily luminous philosophy, but it was a philosophy that was valid for his own era. Each Master that incarnates brings a new aspect of the one truth, and when Jesus came, instead of turning people’s attention to the causal world, which is so remote from their daily lives, he pointed to the work that is waiting to be done here on earth. This is why, as I have already said, Jesus’ whole philosophy is summed up in the prayer that we call ‘the Lord’s Prayer’. It contains a complete programme: ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven…’ The Buddhists have never declared that the earth should become like heaven. On the contrary, they have always been intent on abandoning the earth and going to heaven; it has never occurred to them that it was possible to transform the earth. But Jesus had faith in men and women’s capacity to unite and organize themselves in order to transform the earth and make of it a dwelling fit for the spirits of light. He believed in this and laid down the programme to be carried out.

But the earth will never become like heaven if all we do is pray and repeat, ‘Your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven!’ More is required of us than that. We have to do the work and carry out the programme that Jesus has laid down for us. It is no use thinking that if you stand by with arms folded, and meditate about leaving the earth, you will persuade the Lord to come and do all the work. Don’t you believe it! This prayer will only be answered by the work of each one of us. And as order, harmony, love and happiness reign in heaven, our work is to establish the same order, harmony, love and happiness on earth.

There may well be Christians who have been influenced by Buddhism and yearn to leave this earth; that is another matter. But you must understand that that is not the philosophy taught by Jesus: it is an idea that was introduced at a later date. A religion never keeps its initial purity; it is always subject to the influence of other philosophies and religions. The Jewish religion, for instance, was influenced by the neighbouring religions of the Assyrians and Babylonians. This was largely the fault of Solomon for, as you know, Solomon had many wives, most of whom came from other countries and other religions, and, as each of his wives was attached to her own gods, Solomon tried to please them by allowing his people to worship them all: Baal, Ashtoreth, Bel and others.

The religion of Jesus is the very highest form of spirituality orientated toward a task needing to be accomplished here on earth. And all those who have taken refuge in convents and monasteries and hermitages... Well, of course, that is all right, I am not blaming them, but they were only thinking of their own souls, and that is not love; that is not what Jesus taught. They were influenced by oriental religions, which have always been individualistic. Oriental people who are spiritualist are always individualists; even when they gather to eat or pray together, each one is intent on developing their own powers, their chakras, their own gifts of clairvoyance. Since the Eastern religions have been in contact with western countries, especially with England, they have begun to talk about the collectivity and brotherliness among all people, but they are still highly individualistic.

In any event, in the past, when no religion had this ideal of brotherhood, Jesus stood out as a complete exception. When he said, ‘Jerusalem, Jerusalem… How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings…’, it was already an intimation of a life of brotherhood and love among all people. And when he prayed that all things on earth should be as they are in heaven, it was because, in heaven, all creatures are as one: they all love and understand each other, whereas here on earth everything is dislocated and disunited, fragmented and hostile. The order that exists on high can never be established on earth as long as these conditions prevail.

Jesus brought a doctrine of love, while others brought doctrines of wisdom, knowledge, separatism or power. Of course, you will tell me that Buddha taught compassion. That is true, but none has ever taught it with the same clarity and breadth of vision as Jesus; in this respect Jesus is truly exceptional. In fact, this is why he was crucified: because he wanted to change the existing order of things, the status quo! He upset all the rules by frequenting simple, ordinary folk and even criminals and prostitutes. No one had ever seen anything like it: these were people who should have been publicly stoned, and what did he do? He ate with them and exchanged hospitality with them! This is why those whose task it was to see that the gulf between the different classes of society was preserved could not accept such behaviour. And when, in addition, they found that he was revealing the most sacred truths to the common people, they decided that he had to die. Jesus was crucified because his religion of love tore down the barriers that had existed for centuries. This is why he was a truly gigantic figure, a Prometheus: he brought the gift of fire to humankind, the fire of love, and inevitably he had to be crucified, for that is the fate of every Prometheus!3

I mentioned a few moments ago that sexual energy was what kept people attached to the earth. But sexual energy cannot enlighten them or provide a link with the sublime regions above, and for this reason it is not enough. On the other hand, while the light of wisdom possessed by some initiates does ensure this link with the sublime regions, it also robs them of any desire to continue their life on earth, so it is not to be recommended either. Inevitably, those who kill the sexual energy that God has given them end by longing for death and wanting to abandon everything, for that energy is the only thing that has the power to make them love life and hold on to it. If you allow this force to flow within you – without letting it burst its banks and devastate everything, of course – if you use it to water the divine flowers in your garden on high, life becomes so marvellous that you never want to let go of it. But if you cut yourself off from that force, life loses all meaning and your only desire is to die. Sexual energy and love are intimately linked to life. In order to enjoy the full beauty of life, therefore, your sexual energies must flow harmoniously. You must never destroy that force; the mystics and religious who reject it completely are making a very grave mistake. Of course, they must be excused on the grounds that they hope to reach nirvana, but their hope is so limp and weak, you cannot help but wonder how long it will take them to get there! After all, if you aspire to reach nirvana, love must have a word to say in the matter. This is why those who are truly enlightened create a link with heaven, with their Creator and, at the same time, treasure the energy of love and dedicate it to the kingdom of God. In this way they will have both: the more intense their life, the more united they will be with their Creator, with heaven; the more united they are with heaven, the more ardently they will work on earth. This, therefore, is the only perfect solution: to live for heaven while working for the world. There is no other way to make sense of life.

Unfortunately, human beings have never been able to understand this; they have always felt they had to choose one or the other. Either they are completely materialistic or completely... What word can I use? Not ‘spiritual’, because the desire for death has nothing to do with spirituality. I cannot find just the right word. No matter! The fact is that those who suppress their sexual energy in the hope that they will not have to reincarnate again will most certainly reincarnate over and over again! Yes, they will have to come back and learn not to waste that force. Heaven will rebuke them and send them back to earth to learn their lesson: ‘Ignorant creatures! Whoever taught you to destroy so thoughtlessly the force that God, in his great wisdom, created millions of years ago?’ ‘But we read a book which explained...’ No, you would do better to leave books alone! How much truth you will find in books, the Lord alone knows! You never verify what they say to see if it is true; you believe them blindly, and then the damage is done! And as, in the meantime, the authors of the books you read have left for the next world, you cannot go and reproach them for misleading you. They are probably in hell already, simmering in a cauldron for all their crimes against love! Yes, the scriptures say that the only sin that will not be forgiven is the sin against the Holy Spirit, and this is exactly what it is: the sin against the Holy Spirit, the sin against love. For the Holy Spirit is love, and the sin against love cannot be forgiven.4

You must understand that you must never, ever mutilate, destroy or eliminate this most potent, most divine force. You must channel it, use it and sanctify it, otherwise you will be incapable of life on earth; you will want to die. And, in this case, it is no good believing that you will be any happier in the next world, for if you have been so stupid here, you will continue to be stupid there! We don’t learn things on the other side; we only verify what we have learned here, and you may be sure that you will verify either the depths of your own stupidity or the heights of your own intelligence and artistic aspirations! Yes, it is here, on earth, that you must learn; if you have not begun to learn here, you will not be allowed to make up for it when you get to the other side. Up there, you will only be able to observe what you have done in this life; you will not be able to correct it. You will see, for instance, that you have been envious, proud, full of anger and fear, but you will not be able to change any of that. In order to change, you are going to have to come back again, take another body and try to make up for your past mistakes. This is just one more thing that you did not know. You thought that even the most foolish people would suddenly become monuments of wisdom once they left this earth! Not a bit of it! That is why, when a medium calls up some imbecile who has been dead for centuries, they still talk rubbish! How do you explain that they are no more intelligent now than they were hundreds of years ago, that they have not even learned to express themselves more clearly? But let’s leave all that... It would take too long to explain it all.

Why was a philosophy that taught men to sever their ties with women, refrain from bringing children into the world and live in a state of solitary chastity – to become hardened bachelors, in other words – why was such a philosophy so widely adopted? Because, in its day, it corresponded to the aspirations of so many to leave the world and live in the infinite beatitude of nirvana. And those who were not attracted to this idea continued to marry and have children and become entangled in matter. But neither tendency gives the whole picture, and for my own part I have no wish to follow either of them. One thing is absolutely clear, and that is that I have no desire to desert my brothers and sisters and flee to nirvana. No, because that is where I came from. I was tired of so much happiness up there, so when I saw how people on earth suffered and wept and mourned, I decided to come down again. But I cannot prove that to you, either... Besides, I don’t have to, so let’s drop the subject.

Now, try to adopt my philosophy. Stop reading so many books; stop listening to what others tell you, for you will never learn more than fifty percent of the truth from them. Anyone who has not acquired a clear, broad vision of reality will continue to use narrow conceptions incapable of expressing truth. The philosophy I bring you is the third solution, the solution that enables you to be permanently in touch with the Source, with your own soul and spirit and, at the same time, to keep your feet squarely on this earth and do the work that is waiting to be done here. Yes, this is the third solution I promised you, and one day you will recognize that it is the most perfect. Until now, those who aspired to the things of heaven forgot about the earth. But that is no solution. The solution is to have both, heaven and earth, that is, to have your feet on earth and your head in heaven, to be both realist and mystic. The trouble is that there are no examples of this; we only see one or the other. For instance, who has ever seen a mystic or a religious really enjoying their food and exclaiming, ‘Oh, but this is delicious... extraordinary!’? On the contrary, they eat as though they had to force themselves, as though their food were utterly tasteless. Apparently, it is not fitting for a mystic or a truly religious person to enjoy their food! Well, if some of those people saw me eating they would condemn me out of hand! I can just hear them saying, ‘He’s not spiritual! Look at him; he exclaims with delight at his food; it’s positively indecent! A spiritual person shouldn’t have such a healthy appetite!’ But I couldn’t care less for their opinion. For my part, I believe that you can unite heaven and earth... even by eating.

I do not know whether you are going to be convinced by my arguments or not, but before long you will be obliged to recognize the truth of them, for you will see that they solve a great many problems that nobody else has ever solved. And why has nobody else ever solved them? Because they have never dared to combine the two: either they allowed their sexual impulses to run wild and ended in debauchery, or they stifled their sexuality completely and became eunuchs. But anyone who kills this force kills themselves; they deprive themselves of their taste for life, lose all sense of what it means to be alive and become cruel, cold and embittered. What can you expect from eunuchs? Can they compose symphonies or write poetry? No, eunuchs lose their power to create: they are finished, dead.

Of course, I know that disciples are not going to find this third solution easy. For one thing, it is completely new, and it is never easy to do something new. Usually, when human beings find themselves unable to solve a problem, their reaction is to get rid of it. But to get rid of someone or something is never the answer. To wipe out a troublesome enemy is no solution; you must let them go on troubling you while you find ways of developing your own strength and power, until you are stronger than they are and can do what you like with them. But you must never assassinate them, because in doing so you will assassinate something in yourself at the same time. Human beings do not know these laws, and that is why they try to rid themselves of their troublesome sexuality by assassinating it. Yes, but look at the example of a river: there is always the danger that it might overflow its banks when it is in spate, but does that mean we should avoid all danger by getting rid of the river? I ask you: would that be an intelligent solution? No, instead of destroying it, why not make it work for you? Why not use it to water the fields and produce electricity? If you destroy it, you will suffer from drought and die of hunger. Similarly, if you destroy your sexual energy, you will be destroying many other things within you.

You will say, ‘But it is so difficult to work with this force!’ Yes, but it is precisely because it is difficult that it holds so much promise for the future and that you stand to gain so much by using it.

Heavens! How often I have told you all this! But nobody is ready to take the bull by the horns. Yes, sexual energy is the bull! Taurus, the bull, is the sign that corresponds to Venus, but sexual energy is also greatly influenced by the Moon, that is to say, by the imagination. In fact, there is a symbolic parallel between the horns of the bull and the horns of the crescent moon. To take the bull by the horns is to gain control of our imagination and our sexual energy,5 and if you fail to work at this you will continue to be trampled underfoot by the bull. It is not a question of killing the bull, but of controlling and taming it. I have never said that you had to kill the bull for, as I have just explained, if you destroy that life-giving force you will want nothing more than to die! In fact, when I see people who are so unhappy that they have no desire to live, I know that something has gone wrong in this area: it is not normal to be so unhappy that you want to die. Love cheers the heart and makes us enjoy life, so if someone has lost their joy in life, it means that the flow of water has been deflected and that someone else is watering their garden with it, or that there is some obstruction to the current. This is a very profound psychological question.

For centuries, religion has been leading human beings into error in respect to sexuality, with the result that today many people have such deep-seated complexes that they can never hope to be cured: whatever they do, they will continue to be tormented and devoured by remorse. And the education that is needed to save today’s youth from the same fate will certainly take years to achieve. Sexual energy must never be destroyed or suppressed, only channelled and directed to a higher goal and, for this, men and women need a great deal of knowledge and will-power and great strength of character. They also need to know many different methods. Nothing is more useful and beneficial, nothing more marvellous, than this divine force, which has been given to human beings to use, but whose source is on a much higher level, in God himself. Those in whom we see this energy at work are simply receptacles; they are not the source, and we confuse the two. Sexual energy is like the rain: we collect it in tubs and tanks, but its source is on a much higher level.

People are so alienated from the truth nowadays that when they meet a young man or girl who has a great deal of this energy, they reproach them for it. As though young people should be as wooden and unfeeling as corpses! That is how adults envisage things! But only the ignorant have that attitude, because they do not know that this energy is the only thing that can keep the garden watered and make the flowers bloom! What a sorry mentality! Everybody criticizes a young man who is richly endowed in this respect; they either blame him or pity him, whereas, if they only knew it, he is highly privileged to possess such a ‘coal mine’, such a rich ‘oil well’! Instead of helping him to learn how to manage it, they all jump on him, deform his mind and prevent him from developing. No one would ever think of congratulating him: ‘Good for you, young man! You’re very fortunate to have such wealth. Only you must realize that it will cause you a great deal of misery if you do not learn to use it intelligently.’ This is what others should say, but all they do is pity him. And when they see a young man who is cold and unfeeling they think he is to be admired. But what can he ever hope to accomplish with his coldness? Nothing at all! Oh yes, I was brought up with that mentality, too; in fact it was far worse in Bulgaria, sixty years ago, than anything you have ever known or imagined! As long as the well-spring is still flowing, you must take advantage of it and work with it; otherwise, when it runs dry, there will be nothing left for you but to pick up your bits and pieces and leave this world, for you will be a corpse, and nobody here needs a corpse. This is the only force that can purify and cleanse you; it is the only fountain that can quench your thirst.

You will say, ‘But I know some very old men who have no sexual energy left, and yet they are so kind and radiant and pure!’ That may well be true; they may have none of this force left, but they have lived so intelligently and reasonably that, even after their well-spring has run dry, they can still benefit from the work they did with it. They took care to fill all their tanks and reservoirs while the flow of water was abundant, and now, in their old age, they are as full of life as young men, because they have lived intelligently. Whereas, someone who has been stupid enough to squander their life in mindless sexual excesses is a sorry spectacle when they reach old age... if they ever get that far!

Everything is clearly laid out in the book of life; it is just that you cannot understand it. Everything I tell you comes from this great book of nature; none of it is my own invention. I hope that it is all quite clear to you, now; without going into detail or considering the few exceptions, we can say that there are two philosophies in the world: materialism and idealism (which includes Buddhism, Manichaeism, Catharism and certain trends in Christianity, for Christianity is still not properly understood). And these two philosophies correspond to the two currents of life: youth and old age, the young who are interested in life, in the world, in children, and the old who are already looking forward to departing for the next world. Here, too, of course, there are exceptions, but I am not interested in the exceptions: the important thing is to understand that there are these two trends, these two philosophies, but that the truth is to be found in the third solution which includes the best of each of the others. Do you want more explanations? Don’t worry, they will come.

For the time being, though, I know that however much I explain, you will not be able to remember more than a few elements, those that correspond to your own particular situation. You will leave all the others to one side. In a few days or weeks you will begin to understand other elements and, in this way, gradually gain a better grasp of these things. There is not one of you who is capable of assimilating all that I have said today; a few little bits here and there, yes, but you cannot swallow or digest or assimilate the rest. The brain is a special kind of stomach; it has an affinity for certain types of food which it can digest easily, and all others are discarded. Ask any woman, for instance, what she remembers most clearly in her life: it will certainly not be a problem in mathematics, physics or philosophy. But when it comes to her first date with her beloved, a birthday, or the kisses, promises and presents she has received, her memory is prodigious!

The Bonfin, 17 August 1966

BIBLICAL REFERENCES

‘Our Father in heaven,…’ – Matt. 6:10-13

‘Your kingdom come on earth…’ – Matt. 6:10

Solomon accepts divinities of other countries – I Kings 11:1-6

‘Jerusalem, Jerusalem…’ – Matt. 23:27

Jesus, his love and compassion – Matt. 12:9-14, 18:10-14 and 18:21-22 ; John 8:1-11

The sin against the Holy Spirit – Matt. 12:31

1 See The Philosopher’s Stone – in the Gospels and in Alchemy, Izvor Collection n° 241, chap. 1: ‘On the interpretation of the scriptures’.

2 See above, chap. 3: ‘You are the salt of the earth’.

3 See Sons and Daughters of God, Izvor Coll. n° 240, chap. 13: ‘Sons and daughters of God are brothers and sisters to all people’.

4 See ‘Au commencement était le Verbe’, Complete Works, vol. 9, chap. 10: ‘Le péché contre le Saint-Esprit est le péché contre l’amour’.

5 See Love and Sexuality, Complete Works, vol. 14, chap. 2: ‘Taking the bull by the horns’.

Chapter Nine
Heart and mind;
the Universal White Brotherhood

In the Middle Ages, human beings were governed by their hearts, their feelings. It was an age of mysticism and religious fervour, and the strong religious and emotional currents gave birth to tremendous artistic creations. But when people are ruled entirely by their heart, there is room for all kinds of anomalies: superstition, fanaticism and intolerance. For this reason, humankind felt the need to free itself from its enslavement to emotion and develop the powers of the intellect. So, in modern times, it is the turn of the intellect to reach a peak and leave its mark on the whole of life, and this is excellent, for the intellect, like the heart, is something marvellous. The problems and anomalies only arise when one of them tries to get along without the other. (See the supplementary note at the end of this chapter.) This is why our contemporary culture, in which the intellect has the predominant role, is marked by coldness and egotism. People are intelligent, but they are out to take advantage of others. The intellect gives us very bad advice: ‘Don’t be stupid’, it tells us. ‘Keep your time and energy and everything else for yourself. Don’t spend too much time with others; you’ll be better off by yourself!’ But, one fine day, someone who has never kept a corner of their heart or soul for a relationship of exchange with others will find themselves destitute.

Someone like this, who is used to following the advice of their intellect, will feel lost in the Brotherhood. They will be unable to see the point of it and will think that there is nothing to be gained by staying here. With a sigh of relief, they will retreat into their own den, thinking, ‘What on earth do all those people think they’re doing? There’s nothing very wonderful about them, and I certainly didn’t get anything out of it!’ Yes, there you are: ‘I didn’t get anything out of it’. That is all these great minds are interested in! And if that is their attitude, how are they ever going to cultivate patience, generosity, kindness and gentleness? You cannot cultivate these qualities by staying at home alone.

You must understand the advantages of living in a collectivity, a brotherhood: the conditions you will find in a brotherhood are not the normal conditions of life in the world. In the first place, you come across people who are at very different stages of evolution, and you have to begin by trying to understand them. This means you must learn to recognize their true nature and the forces and entities to which they are linked. Secondly, even if you find them very disagreeable and unattractive, you must develop your own strength of character and learn to put up with them, love them and do what you can to help them. In the Brotherhood, therefore, disciples have the opportunity to evolve by learning not to be guided exclusively by the pleasure principle, by their likes and dislikes. These days, people tend to choose only what they find useful and agreeable, and this is a great mistake: you should look, instead, for whatever can contribute to your spiritual development. In any case, those who are not seriously interested in their spiritual progress end by leaving the Brotherhood. Yes, material conditions here are not always very comfortable, of course, and also it is rare, very rare indeed, to find anything particularly agreeable in a collectivity or to see faces that evoke happy memories from the past or inspire feelings of enthusiasm or love. So those who are only interested in what is agreeable will not have much hope of finding it here. But if, on the other hand, you are looking for methods and conditions favourable to your spiritual growth and development, then I don’t think you could do better; the advantages you have here cannot be found anywhere else!

When you begin to share my point of view about things you will learn to be grateful for all the difficulties you experience. Only those who are spineless and lazy want life to be calm and effortless. Human beings cannot grow and fortify themselves in such conditions: before they are even attacked, at the first sign of conflict or hostility, they will crumble. One little puff and they will fall down like a house of cards! Human beings are becoming weaker and weaker; they are bowled over by the slightest little thing, because they have not been brought up in the true philosophy. And if and when someone explains this philosophy to them, they bleat, ‘Oh, no. Not for me. It’s much too difficult!’ But, heavens above, how will men and women ever be enlightened? The Universal White Brotherhood possesses the most marvellous philosophy, a philosophy capable of making heroes and geniuses of you all, and all I hear is, ‘No, no, it’s too demanding. It’s not for me!’ What kind of people are they who say this?

Disciples of the Brotherhood endeavour to understand each being, all their needs and weaknesses and difficulties, and when they see people suffering and unhappy, when they see people trying so hard and failing to pick themselves up, their heart overflows with love and compassion, and they ask themselves how they can be useful to their unhappy, suffering brothers and sisters. At that moment, all the treasures they have been storing up for thousands of years, which are in danger of growing mouldy from disuse, rise to the surface to be distributed to those who need them.

Now, I am not saying you must always be with others and never have any time or space for yourself. No, that would be exaggerated. We all need to be alone sometimes, in order to replenish our energies, to relax and pray and meditate. But once you feel restored, once you feel rich and strong again, thanks to all that you have received in your solitude and silence, you will want to associate with others, to talk to them and give them something. In this way you can have a well-balanced life and satisfy the part of your nature which needs solitude as well as the part which needs to exchange with other human beings.

If you look at those who have chosen to live in solitude, you will see something rather frightening in their eyes, an aura of gloom and sadness that surrounds them. Those who live perpetually in a crowd, on the other hand, are no better off.

When a woman is not feeling well, or if she has nothing pretty to wear, she will not want to go out and meet people. The need to shut yourself away in solitude is a sign that something is lacking: you do not feel ‘presentable’, so you prefer to stay at home. But picture a woman who has received gifts of fine clothes and jewellery: her first reaction will be to go out and show herself off. And the same rule applies on the different levels of existence. Someone who feels inwardly rich and beautiful will want to go out to meet others and show off their qualities and riches, but someone who feels poor and ugly will try to hide from others.

How often I have observed this phenomenon! For example, a young man and girl meet here in the Brotherhood. Before knowing each other they both came here regularly, but as soon as they meet and are attracted to each other, they feel the need to go off together. Any excuse is good enough: they come and tell me that they feel they have a vocation to go and teach in Africa, or to go and spread the Teaching somewhere else! Naturally, I don’t doubt what they tell me – I always want to believe what people tell me – but when I analyse the situation, I discover something quite different: I find that they are beginning to feel uncomfortable in the Brotherhood, because they sense that this strong attraction they have for each other is not really very spiritual. They no longer have the desire to learn and work at their spiritual life in order to reach a higher level, so they feel compelled to get away and go somewhere where nobody knows them. Of course, they would never admit that this was why they wanted to go away. And yet, if it were not for that reason, if their love were highly spiritual and poetic, they would want everybody they knew to see them and to exclaim in wonder, ‘How radiant they are, the dear creatures! Isn’t it marvellous to see two people who love each other like that!’ No, they sense that what they are doing is not so marvellous, and their one idea is to get away. And they give the most extraordinary reasons to explain their decision. Of course, I leave them entirely free; I certainly do not try to stop them from leaving. But I know what will happen: they will plunge headlong into pleasure and, having no one to enlighten or guide them, they will drift further and further away and sink deeper and deeper into the mire. I know too, that if I see them again after a little while, they will be tattered and torn, simply because they have eaten and drunk and mindlessly spoiled everything they had.

This just shows you how useful it is to be in the Universal White Brotherhood, because all the brothers and sisters are working together to advance their evolution, and in this way they create an atmosphere that helps others not to abandon themselves to their own worst tendencies. You should come here, therefore, thinking, ‘I have these vile weaknesses which I am incapable of overcoming by myself, so I’ll go to the Brotherhood, because I know that the brothers and sisters are doing some really spiritual work. Thanks to them I shan’t need to go and drink the brackish waters of hell so often!’ But no, it is precisely when someone is in the grip of their passions and beginning to slide into a life of disorder that they refuse to come here: they wants to be free to sink into the mire all the more easily!

I have absolutely nothing against love, not even physical love. I am only against anything that is done without intelligence or beauty. Of course men and women must love each other; of course they must bring children into the world, but it would be so much better if their way of doing so were more beautiful, more luminous and more divine!

Those of you who have still not understood the extraordinary usefulness of the Great Universal White Brotherhood must start to make the effort to understand, for this is where their whole future lies: in the splendour of the collectivity. More and more, a sense, an awareness of the collectivity, of the Universal White Brotherhood, will grow in the hearts and spirits of men and women. Events will unfold in such a way that a collective, communal way of life will spread throughout the planet. Science will always be there to provide us with more and more sophisticated means of transport that can take us to visit our brothers and sisters in distant countries to rejoice in all that variety and beauty and wealth. The only thing is that, if you want to receive great happiness, you must not arrive empty-handed; you must not go to visit your brothers and sisters if you have nothing good to give them. This is why you have to begin by acquiring treasures here in the Brotherhood: if you do that, then you will be in a position to show them the way, to tell them how to live and how to love. Believe me, those who are not capable of giving others happiness, in one way or another, will always lack something in themselves.

Let me tell you what the highest degree on the scale of joy is... Yes, because there is a scale by which joy, like a great many other things, can be measured. Food can provide a certain level of joy, the air we breathe another; when you go for a walk, when you are in bed, when you sing and when you make love to your beloved... all these different activities provide a different kind of joy. On this scale, therefore, the highest degree of joy, the keenest sense of joy and fulfilment is that experienced through union with God. God has endowed his creatures with infinite possibilities for experiencing joy, but he has reserved the most intense and exquisite form of joy for those who achieve union with him and who, having tasted that beatitude, begin to radiate the Deity and consciously diffuse the divine life all about them. Yes, the highest degree on the scale of joy is reserved for those who use their union with their Creator for the benefit of all the creatures of the universe, particularly human beings, for those who help and guide and save their fellow human beings by communicating the divine life to them.1

To be sure, there are thousands and millions of other joys, but I repeat, the greatest of all joys is to serve the Godhead, to be united with the Lord and all his servants, angels and archangels, and to do so without abandoning humanity. There have been so many who, after tasting the joys of nirvana, were unwilling to come back to earth to help their fellow men and women. Now, of course, each one of you is free to choose the degree of joy you want. Whether you look for it in bars or night-clubs, whether you look for it in precious stones or in the game of football... That is up to you!

The Universal White Brotherhood is a unique focal point, a school in which you are taught the divine, essential truths without which life has no meaning. What a tragic waste it would be if you did not appreciate it!

Many people are tempted to commit suicide because they cannot bear their solitude. Even though they may be surrounded by lots of other people, they feel isolated and lonely because they are selfish and shut up in themselves. But there is no reason to feel lonely when love and light exist! If they are lonely it is because they have gone out into the cold and shut the door on love and light. You will say, ‘No, no. It was because of this or that event in their lives.’ But I ask you, ‘What do you really know about it?’ I know what your analysis of the situation tells you, but come and talk to me about it: I will give you my own analysis, and it will show you exactly what they did to get themselves into such a fix. You will see: an inextricable tangle of thoughts, feelings and actions has gradually been leading them in that direction for a very long time. It is very dangerous not to know how to reason correctly.

All the treasures of the universe are here at your disposal; what more can you ask for? It is up to you now to set to work. Yes, roll up your sleeves, and work day and night with all the means that God has given you, work with great light, work with a high and noble intent, and may the rivers flow, the springs gush forth, the sun shine and the whole of space sing the glory of God!

Sèvres, 17 April 1965

Supplementary note

The human intellect has failed in its mission; this is something that no one ever thinks about. Everybody values the human intellect very highly and sings its praises, but the truth is that it has failed in its mission to exalt the human heart: to show human beings the true role and the true importance of the heart. The intellect has made humans cunning, selfish and treacherous, whereas its true mission was to demonstrate, scientifically and philosophically, the greatness and the tremendous possibilities of the human heart, to show that by means of love and kindness the kingdom of God and his righteousness could be established on earth. So far, the intellect has developed independently of the heart, and this can only lead to the destruction of the planet, for it produces nothing but discord and duplicity. Ah, yes! The intellect, the intellect... It is the intellect that is leading the world to destruction, because it is not guided by the moral qualities of the heart; it has committed the fundamental error of cutting itself off from the heart. This is why it is fated to founder, and human beings are going to be taught a truly terrible lesson. Here, in the Universal White Brotherhood, a disciple is taught how the intellect should exalt the powers of the heart and how, thanks to that collaboration of heart and mind, he or she can become a whole being.

Sèvres, 11 January 1976

1 See The Seeds of Happiness, Izvor Coll. n° 231, chap. 20: ‘Fusion on the higher planes’.

Chapter Ten
Seek the soul and the spirit

I

There is no need for me to tell you what males and females are; you will find them even among the most cultured and highly educated people! They are human beings who are still primitive deep down, who still give priority to their instincts and their sensuality. Their desires and appetites are so demanding that they are incapable of denying them anything; male and female alike have only one desire: a certain type of relationship with a person of the opposite sex.

One degree above males and females comes the category of men and women. They are still nothing very remarkable, for although their preoccupations are slightly superior to those of males and females, they are still principally physical. Higher still on the scale, we have the category of brothers and sisters. These are human beings who represent a higher level of consciousness, the level on which they no longer see themselves as separate and isolated from others. Someone who loves like a man considers himself different from others of his kind; he needs a wife who is a distinct object, apart from himself, and his behaviour towards her is not that of a brother towards his sister. A brother has reached a higher, broader consciousness, which embraces all human beings as members of the same family. Between a brother and sister there is no longer this sense of separate existence that makes it possible for a man to abuse and violate his wife. On the contrary, his wife becomes his sister, a member of his own family, and this necessarily entails a different attitude towards her. To become a brother or sister, therefore, represents a step forward in one’s evolution, an expanded consciousness and, consequently, a higher type of behaviour. Basically, though, the change is in their attitude toward each other. Although they are not brother and sister from the same physical family, once they are conscious of belonging to the same spiritual family, to the family of humankind, their desires become purer and more disinterested; instead of devouring each other, they try to help each other.

But a disciple who, to begin with, was a man or woman, and who has learned to manifest his or her love as a brother or sister, must now go a step further. If he remains a brother he will not be able to solve all his problems; there are still too many shadowy, troublesome elements within him, and similarly a sister is still subject to certain temptations. This is why a brother must become a spirit, and a sister must become a soul. When they achieve this, the scope of their love expands to such a degree that it embraces the whole of humanity and all living creatures, and they feel themselves to be so vast, so exalted and noble that nothing evil can ever touch them again, for the soul and spirit are above all contingencies. And, finally, when their ideal reaches out to embrace the whole universe, this soul and spirit will know no bounds and become all-powerful and omniscient: they will be divinities.

The simple fact that the brothers and sisters of the Brotherhood adopt a nobler, more divine attitude toward each other is already a gigantic step forward. Yes, instead of looking on each other simply as men and women, with all the obscene, nauseating consequences that this often entails, the disciples look on each other as brothers and sisters of the same family. In this way, their sexual energy, instead of being a torment to them by feeding their lower appetites and lusts, is transformed into a spiritual impetus to give of themselves and to help, console and enlighten others. In this way the brothers and sisters become true servants and handmaidens of heaven, and the transformations that take place in their psychic dimension are reflected in their physical bodies, leading to tremendous changes that science has never yet had the opportunity to study.

Initiates of every age have always worked with the energies of love. To begin with, they abstained from all physical relations with their partner until they had learned to adopt the right attitude toward her and had succeeded in looking on her as a divinity. Both the initiate and his partner worked for years to raise themselves and each other to the level of a divinity, and once they had attained full mastery of their sexual force and reached the point of looking on each other as a particle of the Godhead – she as a particle of the divine Mother and he of the heavenly Father – only then did they express their love in their physical union and experience transports of heavenly bliss. They would spend whole days in that love without fatigue and, especially, without the slightest misunderstanding between them, without a shadow of jealousy or disappointment. The joy they experienced was indescribable; through their communion with the beloved being in their embrace, they were in a sublime, unending communion with God: she with the heavenly Father and he with the divine Mother. And, in these conditions, all the physiological processes became so completely divine that light radiated from them in a sublime emanation.1

The initiates understood that when they experienced love on such a subtle level, the joy and happiness they drew from it was changeless. Initiates did not renounce love, but nor were they content with the purely physiological aspects of love, with that animal instinct which is so quickly aroused and as quickly satisfied, and which leads to so many anomalies and disorders, so much hatred. As long as human beings remain on the level of their instincts, they will never know lasting love, they will never attain knowledge or liberty, they will never live in beatitude and immortality.

For the moment, love between men and women resembles butchery: they throw themselves on each other like brutes, with no preparation; there is nothing aesthetic or poetic about it. They are hungry, so they eat and gorge themselves until they are bloated and satiated; then, when their appetite revives, they eat again! A great many people, even those who belong to the so-called ‘educated classes’, make love like savages. There is no beauty, poetry or harmony to their actions; they are only interested in gorging themselves. To be sure, most human beings do make an effort to surround their love-making with colour and music and a certain beauty, at least outwardly. They try to show their partner a little consideration and not behave like savages; but this is still not love, it is just external trimmings.

Philosophy is divided into three main branches: ethics, logic and aesthetics. Ethics includes everything that concerns religion and morals, everything that touches on the feelings and the heart. Logic is the study of all that comes under the heading of science, intelligence and reason. And you will perhaps be surprised to learn that aesthetics concerns the domain of the will. Yes, for humanity’s creations in the fields of sculpture, painting, architecture and poetry all come under the heading of art, and art is simply a materialization, a manifestation on the external, physical plane, of our thoughts and feelings. Art, therefore, is a function of the will.

And now, let’s look at how these three domains manifest in life. Suppose you have decided to build a house. The first thing to do is to collect the materials you need: concrete, iron, stones and bricks, planks, etc., in other words, the rough, heavy elements which have no claim to beauty. The second phase consists of laying the foundations, raising the walls, putting on the roof and fitting the doors and windows, and so on. Only when this is done can you think about the aesthetic dimension and start painting, laying carpets and hanging curtains in the windows and pictures on the walls. This is the final phase, the phase of beauty.

Suppose you are about to prepare a meal: you have the different ingredients you need, but they still have to be washed and organized, and your kitchen is still in disorder; later, when you take the dishes out of the oven, not only do they smell appetizing, but before putting them in front of your guests you add a little garnish here and there to make them agreeable to the eye as well.

Look, too, at how nature goes about its work. First of all it was concerned to create, and it created in profusion, without any great concern for beauty. Neither the first animals nor the first humans were beautiful: they were crude and huge and often terrifying to look at... and now look at them! What a difference, what an evolution! And the same pattern can be seen in the creation of a baby: when it is born it is a lovely little thing, perfectly formed and beautifully proportioned, but it began life as nothing more than a little blob of gelatine! Nature does not begin its creations with a concern for the aesthetic dimension; it ends with it. It begins with logic: it organizes, draws up plans, designs geometrical structures and makes projections and calculations. After this comes the phase of ethics, when nature infuses love and goodness into everything it creates. And finally, after everything else, it puts the final touches to its creation, which then becomes a gem, a thing of wonder.

And now it is time for the aesthetic dimension to manifest itself in human love, for it is still in the primitive, animal phase. Of course, some people will continue to think that their way of loving is impeccable and never want to change it; they will continue to get a great deal of pleasure from it. Yes, you can get a lot of pleasure from eating and drinking and generally amusing yourself, there is no denying it. But the other aspects, the divine aspects, are simply not there. If people were truly capable of loving, of loving divinely, they would gain far greater happiness from it. And this is what disciples are working towards; this is the direction in which they are evolving, by continually asking themselves, ‘What is the true nature of my love? Am I expressing it as I should? What is it I really want? What am I looking for?’ They must remind themselves that if they hope, one day, to attain eternal life, they must raise their love to its subtlest and most luminous expressions and manifestations; that if they content themselves with a purely instinctive love, they will never be at peace, they will be continually tossed to and fro between joy and sorrow, and that they must, therefore, continually cultivate and refine and ennoble their love so that it may evolve to a higher level.2

You must change your way of looking at human beings and learn to look at them from a much higher standpoint. When you, the brothers, are in the company of a woman, instead of seeing yourself as a male in front of a female – an attitude which automatically arouses certain desires which can very quickly get out of control – you must look on her as a manifestation of the divine Mother. If you do that you will see her in quite a different light and discover some of the wondrous beauties of womankind. When a painter, a poet or a sculptor contemplates a woman, they have difficulty in tearing their eyes away, for they see a beauty in her that others never see. And if you follow my advice, this is what will happen to you, too; the more you evolve, the more you will see in women ravishing expressions of beauty that were invisible to you when you looked on them simply as females. When you look on a woman as a manifestation of the divine Mother, you have no alternative but to rejoice in her beauty, to be in a state of delight and inspiration... and this will save you from doing anything stupid! This is why everything is permissible for an initiate; a beautiful painting of a naked man or woman, for instance, will catapult an initiate heavenwards, whereas it will simply arouse the appetites of a male or a female. It is important, therefore, to cultivate a sense of beauty, for thanks to that sense, we gain a much broader, richer and more profound vision of reality. Without a sense of beauty we see virtually nothing; nature remains a closed book to us.

Take the case of a man who is suffering from a severe attack of what I might call ‘maleness’! He goes out to hunt for a female and never realizes that his attitude renders him incapable of recognizing the charm and splendour of all the women he sees. They will provoke neither admiration nor inspiration in him, no impulse to create beauty, no desire to become a poet or a musician. On the contrary, he will go home depressed and in a rage of disappointment, because he has not found the female he was looking for... Not to mention the state he would be in if he did find her, which might well be far worse! Nine tenths of humanity is like that, always hunting, always sighing and suffering, always with this sensation of emptiness and, in the meantime, seeing nothing of all the beauty and splendour that surrounds them. They are miserable to the point of suicide, full of hatred for everybody, simply because they lack a sense of true beauty. Whereas, a disciple or initiate who goes for a walk in the street or in a park may suffer too, but for the opposite reason: they see so much beauty all around them, so many divinities coming and going, and they cannot stop and contemplate them all! They want to admire each one, but it is not possible. All that beauty before their eyes dazzles them and fills their heart with wonder and joy, and they go home in raptures! How can you explain this reaction? It is simply that someone like that lives in another world; they have other methods and other ways of looking at their fellow human beings; they belong to the category we mentioned earlier: the category of souls and spirits. But I realize, of course, that this is too far-fetched and unrealistic for those who still live as males and females, for they judge everything according to their own point of view.

Yes, my dear brothers and sisters, it is when you begin to grow and to live on a higher level that you begin to recognize the splendours of life and all the treasures that have been prepared for the children of God. Those who are unwilling to rise to a higher level and look at things from a different point of view will have to go on suffering eternally. Do they consider that life is a jungle? If so they will continue to attack and be attacked, to devour and be devoured, like animals in the jungle, whereas here, in the new philosophy that I am offering you, there is no jungle. Nobody attacks or devours anyone else; on the contrary, each one admires and marvels at others. If you can understand what I am saying, you will learn to manifest yourselves, here, as creatures of such splendour that a brother would never think of taking advantage of a divine glance from a sister, nor would a sister ever take advantage of the spark that a brother might kindle in her heart. Then, you will all walk in the light and be happy; no one will harm anyone else. It is a school, here ‒ a temple. It is here that you can learn to transcend yourselves and become creatures of extraordinary beauty.

Take the case of a young man and girl who meet and fall in love: their love is marvellously pure and idealistic. They write to each other, meet and talk to each other, and the little gifts and souvenirs they exchange, a lock of hair, the least little flower or rose petal, are treasured talismans filled with an ocean of fragrance. They are continually happy, stimulated and inspired! He is a valiant knight and she is the ‘sleeping beauty’; their lives are steeped in poetry, and they only have to walk together and look into each other’s eyes, to see that the whole world is beautiful. But as soon as they start to go a bit further, the aesthetic dimension disappears and the prosaic, biological, instinctive dimension takes over. Everybody knows this, to be sure, and you will say, ‘Yes, but what are you saying? You can’t expect them to be content with the aesthetic aspect; you can’t expect them to restrict themselves to exchanges on the subtle levels for long.’ That is what you think: for my part, I think that those who prefer to remain on the aesthetic, poetic level are preparing themselves to be artists, geniuses, poets or musicians. If you really want to descend to a lower level, do so! But in doing so you will be leaving the domain of true beauty and even your joy will be diminished. You cannot imagine how true this is!

You have all been through this experience, haven’t you? Well, why don’t you study it and analyse what happened to you? To begin with, it was enough for you to catch a glimpse of the face you loved, and it was as though a whole new world and a host of hopes and plans for the future opened up before you. But as soon as you left the domain of beauty, everything began to lose its sheen, to be less beautiful, less pure. This is why I say, ‘Keep a little distance between you when you love, because it is that distance that will inspire and fulfil you. Because of it, your love will last for ever, without pause and without damage of any kind. As soon as you eliminate that distance, you can start getting your handkerchiefs out!’

Nature never ceases to instruct us. Cosmic Intelligence has always been there to teach us the lessons of our own experience, but we fail to understand. People excuse themselves, saying, ‘What can you expect? I’m built like that!’ Yes, but that is a purely biological argument: we are all built ‘like that’. What have you done with your intelligence, the only means you have of improving and changing the biological order of things? It is thanks to their intelligence that human beings have made so many discoveries which have contributed to making their lot more comfortable. If you remove that intelligence, humankind will simply fall back into bestiality. Intelligence is the spiritual principle which cultivates, improves and perfects all things. If you abandon intelligence and say, ‘That’s my nature; I’m built like that’, you will never make any progress. You must change that kind of reasoning: is the fact that you are built like this or that any reason to give in, to surrender? No! You must seek out the divine factor, the spirit, the divine principle, which we all possess and which is capable of transforming and improving everything, and having found it you must follow its guidance, rely on it, work in collaboration with it. You must never again say, ‘I can’t do anything about it; it’s just my instinct!’ I am not saying you must repress your instincts, not at all, but you must educate and refine them.

The Bonfin, 17 August 1970

II

Certain puritans and ascetics in the past used to counsel men to flee from women, on the pretext that they were an incarnation of evil, daughters of the devil. How can you expect divine love to stir in the heart of a man who holds such ideas about women? He will be permanently discouraged, demoralized and disgusted with life! Isn’t it much better to think that, hidden behind the physical appearance of the individual woman, is the Deity, who has taken this form, that a woman is a princess in disguise! Human beings do not know how to live in a climate of beauty. But that is what our Teaching can offer you: a way of life that, if you adopt it, will ensure that beauty is always with you. Men and women are always so deeply mired in ugliness, how can they possibly be happy? They look on each other as a collection of organs, guts, flesh and bones, nothing more: they are blind to the hidden splendour! And that attitude leads to some disastrous consequences. Let us see where true beauty lies, for only beauty can save us and give us happiness. We have an absolute need for beauty.

If you begin to look on men and women as souls and spirits, you will see for yourselves the transformations this change of attitude will produce in you, for you will necessarily have to behave differently toward them. Behind their clothes and behind the physical form of their bodies and faces, you will discover their spirits and souls, the hidden sons and daughters of God. If you learn how to see people as souls and spirits, you will find that all those whom you once despised, neglected, abandoned and misunderstood will suddenly seem very precious to you. Heaven, who disguised them and put them in your path, sees them as exceptional beings, for in them dwells the Deity.

As far as I am concerned, for instance, it makes very little difference whether you are well educated, good looking and rich, or poor, ignorant and unprepossessing; the only thing that matters, in my eyes, is your soul. Why don’t I seek the company of all the richest, most learned and most beautiful people? Because it is their souls that interest me. In fact, I have often been criticized for it. My critics say, ‘Why on earth does he surround himself with people who cannot do anything for him, who have no money, no learning and no influence on society? What can he see in such people?’ And what about Jesus: what did he do? He looked for the souls and spirits of men and women.3 When your appreciation of people is based entirely on their wealth, their position in society, their book-learning or their physical beauty, it means that you have missed the essential core of the matter. For me, only the souls and spirits of men are important, for I know that, on the other side, these souls and spirits are princes and princesses.

Once you begin to appreciate people for their souls and spirits, it is a sign that you have really begun to evolve, for you will have understood the only thing that really matters. And heavenly entities, seeing this, will decide to come to your assistance, for they will know that you are worth helping. Whereas, if you cling to your worldly way of judging things, they will leave you to get along by yourself, saying, ‘Make do as best you can with those people; you’ll soon see that they can’t do you any good!’ To consider others as souls and spirits is already a link with the spiritual world, and the spiritual world will not leave you without the help you need.

To change the way you look at things is to change your destiny. For my part, I have decided to look on women as souls or, even better, as divinities. And I am the first to benefit from that attitude, for I am constantly in a state of inspiration, delight and enthusiasm. Even the most unsightly or most vulgar woman is, in my view, a soul and a daughter of God, and I can work with that. By doing something for her soul, I reach God himself, and God will never abandon me.

You must continually cultivate and increase your appreciation and love of this Science and have an attitude of sacred reverence for the truths revealed to you. People are losing their sense of the sacred more and more these days; they are always talking about demystifying everything. There are too many myths, apparently, so they lay waste to everything, without in the least realizing what they are losing. Yes, because, when they have that attitude, nature closes its doors and makes no revelations to them. Nature only reveals itself to those who have a sense of the sacred. This is why I can guarantee that, if you cultivate this attitude of sacred respect, you will have extraordinary revelations, not only the revelations that I make, for what I reveal to you is not really significant if it does not also come from within yourselves. Yes, if you adopt the right attitude, the revelations will also come from you, and you will understand truths that you had never understood before.

Sèvres, 29 December 1970

BIBLICAL REFERENCES

Jesus, the people around him – Matt. 9:9-13; Mark 1:16-20; John 8:1-11

1 See Creation: Artistic and Spiritual, Izvor Coll. n° 223, chap. 10: ‘Idealization as a means of creation’.

2 See The Philosopher’s Stone – in the Gospels and in Alchemy, Izvor Coll. n° 241, chap. 10: ‘The philosopher’s stone, fruit of a mystic union’.

3 See ‘Et il me montra un fleuve d’eau de la vie’, Synopsis Coll., Part IX, chap. 2: ‘La parabole de l’ivraie et du froment’.

Chapter Eleven
Restoring love to its pristine purity

I

When a man loves a woman he never asks himself how he loves her. He simply repeats, ‘I love her, I love her!’ Well, all right, you love her. Nobody doubts that, but nobody questions the nature of that love either, for every form of lust, desire, need or appetite goes by the name of ‘love’. When you love something or someone, that is the end of it, you are no longer a free agent; love excuses everything, it forces you to your knees and deprives you of your powers of reasoning. When love holds sway, the intellect is silenced; when the heart loves, the mind has no more say in the matter. The heart says, ‘Hold your tongue! I am talking; this is the voice of love; I’m not interested in what you might have to say!’ The truth is that if the heart and mind worked in collaboration instead of being rivals, love would be expressed in better forms and colours!

The lower the rung a person is on on the ladder of evolution, the more likely they will be to give way before the insistence of love, without analysing it to determine whether it is disinterested, pure and useful or not. As long as they love, they do not feel the need to reflect. This is why there are always so many novels, plays and films about the adventures of people in love. In fact, what would novelists, poets and dramatists have to write about if they did not have such a thrilling topic? The subject is always rich, interesting and entertaining; it provides abundant raw material and endless opportunities to explore the drama of human despair, revenge and murder! It even provides a plentiful supply of jobs, including jobs for firemen and coffin makers. Yes, because a man who has been disappointed in love sometimes takes revenge by setting fire to a building. The fire brigade comes rushing to the scene, bells clanging and sirens wailing, while onlookers stand back and watch them putting out the blaze started by a lovesick oaf!

You must never let your heart be in exclusive control; you must always summon some of your other inner faculties to scrutinize, counterbalance and correct what your heart tells you. Love is a magnificent stimulus, but it is always tainted by impure elements rooted in the passions, and it must be purged of these before its essential nature can come to full flower. Every love contains something divine, but it needs to be cleansed and purified, because at birth it is wrapped in unclean elements like a new-born calf or kid. When these little animals are born, they are not especially clean and their mothers have to wash them: a human baby, too, for that matter. And it is the same thing with love: love is a child that contains everything that is most divine, for God is hidden in every form of love, but the child has to be washed and purified, educated, strengthened and liberated, before the Deity in it can come to light. Even the basest, most selfish, most sensual love contains a divine quintessence. God is always there, but he is obscured by too many other elements. Before it reaches a human heart, love has to travel through many different regions, not all of them very clean; it has known many sooty chimneys, many muddy footpaths, and today it is caked in elements that have stuck to it over the centuries. Even the best and purest things that come from heaven have to pass through layers of impurity and untruth, through the base thoughts and desires that cling to us. This is why, by the time these gems reach us, they are covered with dirt, and it is up to us to wash off that dirt and uncover their full beauty.

As long as men and women fail to purify themselves, however pure the heavenly impulses, currents or forces are that enter them from above, they have to travel through the impure regions of their being and, in doing so, are deformed and distorted. You have all seen how a ray of sunlight striking the surface of a pool of water is deflected: the water constitutes an obstacle in the path of the ray of light, and the deeper the water the greater the angle of distortion. Or take the example of the old-fashioned oil lamp: if the glass chimney is coated in soot, the light from the flame will be weaker, less bright and beautiful; the glass needs to be cleaned. We are a bit like that oil lamp: the light within us, the light that is love and wisdom, is striving to shine from us, but the layers of soot we have accumulated are in the way, and the thicker, the blacker and the more impure these layers, the more difficult it is for the light to pierce them and become visible.

This is all so simple, so clear; even a child can see it: we have to work to cleanse and purify ourselves until all our different layers, the layers constituted by our physical, etheric, astral and mental bodies, become so transparent and pure that the divine spark, the divine light, hidden deep inside us, may finally succeed in its struggle to work through the layers of darkness and break out and shine for all to see.1 If this does not happen very often, it is because of our ingrained habit of accumulating so much dense, opaque matter: jealousy, hatred, spite, revenge, crude sensuality and a greedy acquisitiveness, which makes us ready to ride roughshod over everyone else. All these impurities build up into a thick shell and enclose us in such dense, coarse vehicles that only a rare glimmer, an occasional spark or fragile ray of light can get through. But initiates who understand this, who have worked to purify themselves in previous incarnations and continue to walk the same path of perfection, manage to make the matter of their bodies so pure and subtle that God, who dwells in them, is able to manifest himself more and more perfectly through them.

I beg you: work at becoming pure; desire purity with all your heart, meditate frequently on purity, for only purity will enable you to advance to great heights without danger to yourselves. Seek purity in all its forms, for where there is purity, all the mysteries can be revealed. The mysteries that human beings have always yearned to discover, the mysteries that are sealed with seven seals, will one day be revealed, but only to the pure.

And never tell your heart to stop loving. You must love continually, without ceasing; love all creatures, love the whole of creation and, above all, love the Creator. Be careful to see that the form of your love and the direction it takes are what they should be. Love is the only thing that has the power to inspire and vivify you, the only thing! Love is the great benefactor; love is God himself. Now, of course, it is always possible that others may try to take advantage of your love, but this is where wisdom comes in. When you find yourself confronted with people who are liable to take advantage of your love and abuse it, you should conceal it. Don’t kill it, just keep it hidden inside you and let it do its work unseen. Never kill your love: if you do, it is you who will die!

Everybody in the world needs only two things: to love and be loved, to give and to receive love. This is why it is imperative that you discard all those traditions that prevent the soul from blossoming. You will say, ‘So this means that you approve of young people breaking all the moral laws and codes of behaviour in order to express themselves and practise free love?’ No, that is not what I am saying; when they do that they are not guided by science, wisdom or initiatic rules. The original impulse is admirable, their tremendous desire to love and be loved is magnificent; it is life itself, but only if it is accompanied by light and if they behave according to the understanding of the initiates.2

The Bonfin, 10 August 1963

II

Most human beings consider that there is nothing impure in kissing and petting, and even in ‘going all the way’. To be sure, it can be perfectly pure: it all depends on what people have in mind. If they are only interested in their own pleasure and enjoyment, in taking advantage of what is available, they are nourishing selfish desires which create impurities on the astral level, and they dirty themselves and their partner. But if their desire is to help, heal, sanctify and save their beloved, it will purify both of them.

It is not our actions and gestures that make us pure or impure but our intention, the idea we have in mind, the feeling or desire behind our actions. Even the greatest initiates had mothers and fathers who had to perform the acts required for a child to be born. If they managed to produce a divine child, a saviour of humanity, it is because they had the desire to do so. When people let themselves descend into the lower regions of the astral world, they can no longer be pure; if they were clairvoyant they would see that they were feeding on offal! If you want to be pure, you must rise to a higher level so as to capture the subtlest, most luminous elements.3 Without this high ideal, even if you limit yourself to a little petting and kissing, on the grounds that you want to stay pure, you will still be impure: the effects will be the same as if you had slept with someone. Yes, because you are simply satisfying a need, and every contact, every form of exchange that is not inspired by a spiritual, divine purpose, produces the same effect.

It is well known that, in some cases, a sorcerer has only to touch a woman’s hand, and the touch is enough to throw her shrieking and writhing onto the ground, as all hell breaks loose in her. In fact, in some cases, the sorcerer need not even touch his victim; he only has to breathe on her for demons to take possession of her. So, the physical gesture is not what is important or, at least, is not all-important; what is important is what a human being harbours inside. A Master will not kiss you; he will not even touch you, but his mere presence will be sufficient to fill you with heavenly love and light.4

Purity acts as a magnet to divinities and angels. But nobody knows what purity is; they eat and drink without discrimination, they entertain any and every thought or feeling, and then they talk of purity! No, you can only speak of purity and sanctity if you eat pure, healthy food, entertain disinterested feelings and luminous ideas, and dedicate your soul and spirit to a divine idea, not otherwise. Someone who is ignorant can never be really pure. You will say, ‘What do you mean? Aren’t young girls pure precisely because they are ignorant?’ Well, they may seem to be pure for a time, but you had better not look too closely at what goes on in their heads! And even if their purity is genuine, it will not last long if they are ignorant: they will soon be gobbled up by a swine! True purity is something very strong, and to acquire it you must be both wise and intelligent.

Sèvres, 3 January 1976

1 See The Mysteries of Yesod – Foundations of the Spiritual Life, Complete Works, vol. 7, Part II, chap. 4: ‘Purity in the Three Worlds’.

2 See Youth: Creators of the Future, Izvor Coll. n° 233, chap. 18: ‘Sexual Freedom’.

3 See The Mysteries of Yesod – Foundations of the Spiritual Life, Complete Works, vol. 7, Part II, chap. 9: ‘To find purity’, and The Splendour of Tiphareth – The Yoga of the Sun, Complete Works, vol. 10, chap. 10: ‘Rise above the clouds – the sephirah Tiphareth’.

4 See What is a Spiritual Master?, Izvor Coll. n° 207, chap. 10: ‘The magical presence of a Master’.

Chapter Twelve
Love transforms matter

When you want to mould and shape matter, you have to add something to it to soften it and make it malleable. If you add water to dry clay, it becomes moist and soft. Similarly, if you cover sugar or salt with water they will melt. And in some cases, heat can be the softening agent instead of water. On the spiritual level, the water or heat that makes matter soft and malleable is love. Love, like water and heat, penetrates the particles of matter and melts and transforms them.

When you want to grasp and possess something, you draw it towards you, take control of it and fashion it for your own purpose. And this is what love does: love, the warmth of love, penetrates the particles of matter; it is as though it threw out a line and then reeled in its catch. Love seizes hold of something in order to take possession of it, in order, in other words, to dominate it.

Remember what I told you in the past when I analysed the difference between the attitude of a man and that of a woman in affairs of the heart. The woman waits passively, she takes no active initiative towards the man, but, by means of a smile or a glance, she throws out her line, and the man is caught: all she has to do is reel him in! Man, on the other hand, is like a mountaineer: he throws up a grappling-iron and starts climbing. But in either case their aim is the same: to seize their prey. A woman draws a man to herself without moving; a man moves towards a woman.

When you fill a person or object with heat, with the warmth of love, it is as though you were throwing out a line with a hook on it; and the hook catches and sinks into that person or object and binds it to your will: you have it under your control. Similarly, if you want to dominate and control matter, the matter of your own body, you have to draw it towards you by means of a very strong line, the line of a tremendous love, and your love seizes hold of its particles and electrons, so that you can make them serve you and do whatever you want with them. As long as you have no hold on a person or an animal, they can escape from you and you cannot control them. To control or dominate something or someone means to dictate your own laws, and even on the spiritual level you can do this, you can command your cells and they will obey you, if you have hooked them, captured them by means of your warmth, your love and your thought.

It is a question, then, of getting a grip on your rebellious material particles, of sinking your hook into them. If people could only see what goes on inside them, in their stomach, lungs and genitals, they would see a seething mass of microscopic animals, all doing exactly as they please. And the result is that, although they are supposed to be king of their own little kingdom, they are, in reality, ruled by their subjects, by all those anarchists, thieves and malefactors inside them. No wonder they are always suffering and unbalanced, always unhappy: the conflicts and contradictions of their inhabitants are reflected in their own condition. If they want to restore inner peace, harmony and happiness, they must get their cells to collaborate with each other and pull in the same direction; they must tame them, just as lions, elephants, tigers and bears are tamed for the circus. Why shouldn’t people do as much with their own unruly cells? If animals, even savage ones, can be tamed and taught to do tricks, surely you can train your own wild animals, your own cells,1 and set them to work in the right direction? To do this successfully, of course, requires a lot of hard work and will-power and, above all, a lot of love. If you are very strong and determined and have great love, you will succeed in capturing and training your cells to be your servants. I speak of this as working on matter, but the matter you are working on is inhabited. This is why it takes a great deal of knowledge to dominate matter: it is inhabited by living creatures; everything is alive. If you want the living creatures of matter to obey you, you have to catch them and infuse them with your own energies, your own fluids, so that they all work in the same direction. Yes, even the cells of your feet must walk in the spiritual direction you have chosen. And when you achieve this you can feel everything change and harmony reign within you. This, my dear brothers and sisters, is the first step in dominating matter.

The solution to all humanity’s problems has been there, before their eyes, for thousands of years, but they have never seen it. All the elements are there, written on the visible, physical realities that surround us; we have to learn to see and understand them, to see that they are the reflection of spiritual, celestial, divine realities and to understand and never doubt that every slightest manifestation of life contains the solution to even the greatest problems.

Love is the first degree of power: try it and you will see. If you are with someone who is deeply troubled, angry or emotionally disturbed, touch their hand or their shoulder very lightly, without a word, and concentrate mentally on giving them a lot of love. Human beings very rarely work with that kind of love; they only know the other kind of love which is also extremely powerful, but which does not have the same beneficial effects. You must learn to use the power of disinterested love, a love devoid of all sensuality and passion, but which is capable of working miracles. If you work with this love, you will be in a position to benefit the entire world. Everybody thinks it is impossible to do anything to help and improve humanity as a whole. They say, ‘It’s an impossible task; there are just too many of them!’ Yes, of course it is a gigantic, impossible task, but if you only knew how to set about it, it would become possible. Try to imagine, for instance, that the whole of humanity is condensed into a single being and that this being is there beside you, and you hold their hand and give them a tremendous amount of love. When you do this, minute particles of your soul take flight and scatter in all directions, and the love you gave this one being is reflected in every single being on earth, so that new thoughts and new desires stir within them. If hundreds and thousands of men and women did this exercise, you would see a breath of new, divine life moving in humanity, and one day, without realizing how or why, they would wake up to find themselves completely transformed.

Actually, the secrets taught in the initiatic schools of the past can be summed up in this one thing: how to rule matter with the spirit. Yes, it is always the same thing, but the explanations, illustrations and aspects of it are infinitely varied. One thing only is necessary: union, fusion, perfection.2 But what a lot has to be learned and understood in order to achieve this one thing! Every form and aspect of science exists for the service of this one goal: union with the Deity, fusion with the Prime Cause.

You are still looking for all kinds of things... But you must stop looking; there is nothing to look for. There is nothing greater than this, to be one with God, to vibrate in harmony with God. Every discovery in every branch of science must be made to contribute to this one purpose, for no knowledge or science can ever give you a greater good. On the contrary, every single scientific discovery must be harnessed and used for this sole purpose: for achieving union with God.

The Bonfin, 26 July 1967

1 See Cosmic Moral Law, Complete Works, vol. 12, chap. 19: ‘Example: the best method of pedagogy’.

2 See The Philosopher’s Stone – in the Gospels and in Alchemy, Izvor Coll. n° 241, chap. 9: ‘The work of the alchemist: 3 over 4’ and chap. 10: ‘The philosopher’s stone, fruit of a mystic union’.

Chapter Thirteen
Love and identification

When two human beings love and establish a relationship of exchange with each other, their auras even out. This is why, when you frequent a great Master, when you love him and there is communion between you, there is a form of exchange, and your aura is purified, strengthened and amplified. This is why it is an advantage to love beings who are very exalted, very highly evolved. Someone once defined love as the rubbing together of two epidermises. Heavens, what a beggarly, narrow definition! The truth is that love is simply a levelling of potentialities, a process of osmosis. (See the supplementary note at the end of this chapter.) If you mingle hot and cold water, the heat of the one communicates itself to the other, and vice versa, and the result is warm water. This law, which is applicable for all solids, liquids and gasses, is also valid on the level of etheric relationships. To love, therefore, is to bring your aura onto a level with the aura of the person you love. Even if you love a great master who is no longer living ‒ Jesus, Buddha, Krishna or Zoroaster, for instance ‒ there will still be an exchange, an osmosis between you, from which you will benefit. And if you have the good fortune to approach a living Master, to come so close to him that you are steeped in his aura, it is even better. The only trouble is that there is a certain danger in this for the Master, for when people sense that his aura is very luminous and strong, they want to be constantly with him and rob him of all he has, for human beings never know where to draw the line.

When disciples focus on their Master, they receive his emanations of purity and light but, believe me, this is not a very happy situation for a Master, for what does he get in exchange? Amongst his disciples there are often some women who have never learned to control their feelings and who besiege him with the foulest, most abominable thoughts and desires. But as a Master has accepted in advance all the sacrifices that will be asked of him, and as he has learned to transform and sublimate everything, he accepts the situation without complaint and, in this way, manages to help his disciples.

You are still incapable of measuring the immensity of the sacrifice a Master makes in agreeing to spend time with human beings. No sacrifice is asked of the human beings; on the contrary, they stand to gain in every way by having a Master because, in this way, they can get rid of their impurities and imperfections and receive pure water and light from the hands of their Master. But it is a tremendous sacrifice for a Master, a saint, an initiate, to live among ordinary men and women, for it means that he is constantly losing something. Or let’s say, rather, that he is constantly giving, distributing something. Fortunately, as he is permanently in contact with heaven, he also constantly receives life from above: if the only life he received were from below, he would very quickly revert to being like everybody else. An initiate gives on a lower level and receives from above,1 and his disciples gain constantly: they advance and become continually purer, more intelligent and more aware. And all these qualities come from their Master.

This should make the whole question of love much clearer to you and show you why love is necessary. To love a weak or vicious being, however, you must be very highly evolved, otherwise you will not know how to give them your magnificent gifts without receiving any of their impurities in return; this is very difficult to do. There is nothing to prevent you from loving someone who is on a lower rung of the ladder of evolution, but it is preferable to focus your love on those who are more advanced. When you are very rich and very strong and enlightened, you will be in a position to give your wealth to those below you: you will have so much that it will simply overflow from you. But it is not advisable to love those who are lower than you until you are extremely well off, because you risk receiving a great many impurities and harmful elements in the transaction.

The angels and archangels, the divinities and God himself love us and yet they are infinitely above us! St John says, ‘God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world.’ This proves that God loves us. And if God and the archangels love us, why should we not love those who are on a lower rung of the ladder of evolution than we are, or even a horse, a dog or a cat? (As a matter of fact, many people prefer animals to human beings!) Often enough, it is difficult to love people who are far superior to us; we feel respect, esteem and admiration for them, but not love. We find it easier to love someone who is not much better than we are.

But there are different aspects to the question which you may not have noticed. Take, first of all, the case where your love is focused on those who are less advanced than yourself: you will want to protect and nurture and care for them, but will you want to become like them and lose what you have already acquired? No, you can love them without wanting to identify with them. Suppose, for instance, that your pet dog is very ill: you will be anxious to do all you can for it; you will even nurse it day and night to save its life. This is love, certainly, but it does not mean that you want to become like your dog and live as it lives. In fact, you consider it dirty; you don’t want it at the table with you or in your bed! You will feed it and pet it and then send it to sleep in its own basket. It is obvious that you have no intention of identifying with it.

But what is love? We have said that love is a fusion, an identification with the one we love. To love is simply to strive to become one with the object of our love, and naturally we have no desire to be like a creature who is of a lower order, still less to blend with them, to become one with them. But the situation is quite different if the object of our love is of a higher order. In that case we ask nothing better than to resemble them, to become as beautiful, as intelligent and as powerful as they are. And this really is love. Even if it manifests itself as esteem, respect or admiration, the fact that we want to be like them means that it is truly love. When love is genuine it is always accompanied by the desire to be united to the one we love. This means, therefore, that we can only truly love those who are more advanced and nobler than ourselves: you will always want to become one with an angel, a sage, an initiate or a divinity, but, however much affection you feel for a grub or an insect, you will never want to become one with it.

The people of East and West are very different in many ways, and we are so used to one of these differences that we pay hardly any attention to it any longer: this is the attitude of orientals towards a Master. A Master is so important for orientals that the mere fact of his existence is sufficient to transform their lives. Often, their Master will barely have spoken or paid any attention to them, but they know that he exists, and they make great progress simply because they love him and believe in him and are linked to him. They know that when a disciple loves their Master, they receive something of his qualities, virtues and spiritual energies so that, little by little, they come to resemble him.

It is extremely rare to find such a mentality in the West. When Westerners have a Master, they don’t really trust him; they spend their time criticizing and quarrelling with him. Oh, not outwardly, of course, but inwardly, in their heads! They need a target, and their target is their Master. They are delighted to quarrel with him. Yes, but this is a very dangerous attitude, for it means not only that the disciple deprives themselves of the peace, knowledge and joy of their Master, thereby hindering their own advancement on the path of evolution, but that heaven will punish them for failing to take advantage of the good conditions they have been offered for their evolution. If this is your attitude, you would be far better off without a Master. If you choose to have a Master, you must, at the very least, behave correctly towards him. Personally, I would rather you left me and followed another Master but that you changed your attitude. It is not so much a question of having a different Master as of having a different attitude. And it is not for the sake of your Master that your attitude must change, but for your own sake. Whether you respect him or not, whether you love him or not, it will make no difference to your Master, because he is perfectly capable of working with either attitude. Naturally, he will be a little sad and disappointed if he sees that you fail to appreciate him and to use all the treasures he has amassed over the centuries for your own evolution, but he will transform his disappointment, and it is you who will be the loser.

If someone is constantly at loggerheads with their Master, it would be better for them not to be his disciple any more, for the situation can do no one any good, neither the disciple nor the Master, who is looking for beings willing to be instructed, workers willing to be hired for God’s work. So, as you can see, my dear brothers and sisters, an expansion of consciousness is still needed. This question is still far from clear for many; they do not know what a Master is.

In a family, everything gravitates round the father, the head of the family. If the other members of the family are not united with the father, it leads to endless discussions and disorder, and the family falls apart. The same is true of a country: if the head disappears, chaos ensues. Even gangsters, even animals, know this, and always pick out one of their number to be their leader. This being so, how is it that intelligent people have still not understood that in the spiritual life, too, a leader is necessary, indispensable in fact? Without a head, a leader, chaos reigns, and yet everybody spends their time trying to assassinate the head.

A Master, that is to say, a head – but a true head, one who is keenly aware of the value of divine work – is always in contact with heaven. In fact, even if his work means he has to be away from the collectivity every now and then, he continues to remain in touch with heaven as well as with his brothers and sisters.2 In his absence, there are always other entities from the invisible world who come and manifest through him in order to represent him and sustain the collectivity. A head, that is to say, a Master, is never really absent, for he is always replaced by others from above. Disciples never have anything to lose, therefore, by loving and trusting their Master absolutely: they will always be supported, helped, enlightened and vivified, if not by their Master himself, then by those with whom their Master is constantly linked and who are always to hand. A great many disciples have experienced this for themselves: sometimes, when I have been busy elsewhere, and not even aware of their problems, they have received help which, they thought, came from me. But it wasn’t me who helped them; it was those friends from the invisible world manifesting through me. These entities have no vanity or pride that would make them averse to taking on my appearance in order to help a brother or sister in need. And I am always the last to be informed of it!

But you must realize that, in order to receive the help of your Master, you must love and trust him; otherwise, even if I wanted to, the entities from above would forbid me to help you. They say, ‘No, they don’t deserve to be helped; they don’t know how to think correctly; they don’t know how to love: they’ll get no help!’ Yes, heaven has no use for an attitude in which love and trust are absent. Personally, I am very soft-hearted; I tell myself, ‘It doesn’t matter; they’re still young; they’ll learn’, and I continue to receive brothers and sisters and help them. But the heavenly entities are not so tolerant. They tell me, ‘No, no. They must learn to respect the universal order, the head.’ So, as I am the representative of something or someone, even if you cannot give your love and respect to me, give them at least to the One I represent, and you will see that he knows how to reward you.

The Bonfin, 14 July 1973

Supplementary note

Those who love each other are said to become one, one flesh. Yes, but this is only true if the vibrations of their inner, psychic, emotional life are in harmony, and then it is true even if they do not unite physically. And this kind of fusion is possible not only with one man or woman but with all those men and women in the world whose energy is resonating on the same frequency at the same moment; they form a collective unity of quite extraordinary power.

This is true of a vicious criminal who comes together with a woman who resembles him. Their vibrations are steeped in the same criminality, the same treachery, the same sensuality, and so they are also one with all those who share the same vices. A whole community of evil beings, including hell itself as often as not, is in communion through the two of them. But the opposite is also true; this is why disciples must give a lot of thought to the matter before joining together with another in love and marriage. It is not enough to feel drawn to someone, it is important to know what kind of person they are before binding yourself to them, for your union with them will put you in communion either with heaven or with hell.

Sèvres, 3 January 1967

BIBLICAL REFERENCES

‘God’s love was revealed among us…’ – John 3:16

1 See ‘Cherchez le Royaume de Dieu et sa Justice’, Synopsis Coll., Part II, chap. 2-1: ‘Aleph’.

2 See The Splendour of Tiphareth – The Yoga of the Sun, Complete Works, vol. 10, chap. 5: ‘The seven beads of the rosary’ and chap. 6: ‘The Master and the seven-bead rosary’.

Chapter Fourteen
The task of a disciple

I want to tell you, today, what the inhabitants of Agartha are taught about love.1 As I have already explained, the people of Agartha are strangers to illness and live to a great age because they understand the depth and meaning of love: they are nourished by love, they heal with love, they understand everything, thanks to love. But if this is so, it is because their conception of love is completely different to yours. Their initiates teach them, first and foremost, to love the Lord, because, when they do this, he becomes a kind of inner transformer, a power that harmonizes and integrates everything. But, as God is always an abstraction for human beings, their instructors explain to them that the sun is the visible representative of the Lord and teach them how to establish rapport with the sun, how to love and become like the sun. In this way, the task of establishing a link with the Lord becomes much less arduous, for the sun is so much more accessible; it can be seen and felt physically, thanks to its rays and the light and heat that flow from it.2

The next stage is to understand that, on the human level, it is their Master who represents both the sun and God, and to learn to love him and look on him, too, as a transformer, capable of transforming all their thoughts, feelings and desires. In this way, thanks to their disinterested love for their Master and the fact that they look on him as an ideal and an example, they make rapid progress toward perfection for, not only does their Master give them nothing impure, he cleanses them from their impurities. And when the time comes for them to take a partner, their choice is an enlightened one, thanks to these three transformers: the Lord, the sun and their Master. This is how things are in Agartha. When disciples of Agartha give all their love to the Lord, the sun and their Master, they acquire a great inner stability, capable of guiding and enlightening them. But here, on earth, even though the great Master, the sun and the Lord are all there, human beings continue to be mired in suffering and sorrow, because they refuse to accept the means to happiness that are available to them. They are bent on finding some little whipper-snapper or a good looking wench to love; that is the only thing that interests them. And this is why they never succeed in transforming their instincts and passions; they have cut themselves off from the three powers which, alone, are capable of helping them: God, the sun and their Master.

They are all engrossed in the love that ravages and destroys, and they have no one to advise and instruct them. People say, ‘You’ve got to look out for yourself. Just follow your nature!’ Yes, but there are so many different degrees of nature. I have already spoken to you at length about the two natures in human beings.3 Actually, they have more than two different natures, but to simplify things we can say they have two: their lower nature, which is constantly dragging them down to the level of the animals, and their celestial, divine nature, which pulls in the opposite direction. In their higher dimension, therefore, nature can prevent the lower aspects of humans from manifesting their destructiveness. And this is why it is so important to cultivate one’s higher dimension. You have to reason with yourselves: remember that, although it is Cosmic Intelligence that has given you your lower nature, and that it is only normal if that nature urges you to satisfy its appetites by doing this or that, your other, higher nature was also given to you by Cosmic Intelligence, and one day it is this that must rule and impose its will on your lower nature.

For most people, the mere fact that an impulse is natural makes them feel fully justified in giving it free rein. They say, ‘What’s wrong in that? It’s only natural; I’m only obeying my nature!’ Yes, of course, they are obeying their nature, but their lower nature. When a tiger springs on its prey and devours it, it has no guilt feelings because it is governed by the lower order of nature. And you can say the same of many human beings: they commit murder or rape without any feeling of guilt, because they are still governed by their lower nature. Only when their higher nature stirs to wakefulness will they be capable of feeling guilt for deeds inspired by their lower nature, not before. Cosmic Intelligence has given humans these two natures, therefore, so that the higher nature may eventually take control and bring all things to perfection, to the splendour and triumph of the Deity. Of course, everyone is free to adhere to their lower nature, to let it have its way with them, on the pretext that it is ‘natural’, but, in that case, they will never be any better than animals.

The task of a disciple consists in giving priority to their higher nature. In this way, little by little, they will become a Master, for a Master is a human being who has achieved total mastery over their lower nature and harnessed it for the service of their higher nature. They have not stifled or destroyed it; they have simply put it to work for them.

The Bonfin, 1 August 1975

1 See A New Dawn – Society and Politics in the Light of Initiatic Science, Complete Works, vol. 25, chap. 8: ‘Politics in the light of Initiatic Science’, part I.

2 See The Splendour of Tiphareth – The Yoga of the Sun, Complete Works, vol. 10, chap. 4: ‘The sun reflects the blessed trinity’ and chap. 15: ‘The sun is in the image and likeness of God’.

3 See Man’s Two Natures, Human and Divine, Izvor Coll. n° 213.

Chapter Fifteen
Open yourself to others
and they will love you

I have known a great many people who were always complaining about one thing or another, and I have always found that the reason for their unhappiness was their own attitude. They were incapable of opening themselves, of loving others or of giving an occasional word of encouragement or consolation. They did not know how to give, in other words; they were always waiting for a gesture from others. And when other people had their own problems and were too busy or worried to think about them or to go and see them, they complained bitterly: ‘Nobody ever comes to see me; nobody loves me; nobody is the least bit interested in me!’ But why should it always be up to others to love them or be concerned about them? People like this will always be unhappy until they realize that there is no law that says they must always be spoiled and made much of by others. Take the example of what happens with children: when they are little, their parents do everything for them, they wash and feed them, clothe them and carry them in their arms. But later, when children are older, they have to walk on their own two feet and feed and dress themselves. Symbolically speaking, disciples start by being in the position of children: their Master cares for them, carries them in his arms and puts food into their mouth. But a Master cannot carry his disciples in his arms – or on his back – for ever! Disciples must follow their Master and, if they do not want to do so, they have no cause to complain that their Master does not go and look for them.

I don’t know how often I have told you this, but I am going to insist again: you must free yourselves from your personality; stop being so egocentric and learn to do something for others. Of course, I realize that it is often the way you have been brought up that is to blame. Parents tell their children, ‘Don’t be naive; it is not up to you to take the first step; let others take the trouble to come and fetch you!’ Well, others may come and fetch you, but only if you are useful to them. If you are a baker, for instance, they will come and fetch you because they want your bread. Yes, if you want people to come and seek you out, you are going to have to give. If you are incapable of giving, if you are cold and uncommunicative, how can you expect anyone to seek you out? Human beings only love what is warm and alive and radiant. If there is no light or life in you they will avoid you.

Only love can make you happy. If you neither give nor receive any love you cannot expect to be happy. Even if you are very rich and influential, if you love no one and no one loves you, it is no good expecting anything but desolation and death. All this is so elementary, in fact, that I should not even have to talk about it; human beings should know all this before they are out of their cradles! But they don’t: that is what is so sad.

If you do not want to fade away and die, begin to love! Choose whatever you like, a cat or a canary, and take it home and love it; it just might trigger a universal love in you! It does not matter what you decide to love, a cat or a tortoise or any other pet, just as long as you start to love! People don’t love others, they love only themselves, and the circle of self is so cramped that there is no room in it for anyone else. It is vital that you forget yourself a little and begin to love flowers, mountains, the stars... anything. When you manage to do this, the circle of self will expand and you will find yourself richer, more expressive and more profound. What does a young man in love tell his sweetheart? He looks at her and exclaims, ‘When I look at you I can feel my soul expanding; my heart feels as if it contains the whole universe; my whole being sings!’ Perhaps you will say he is exaggerating? Yes and no. But you can take a lesson from lovers, and you will see that they will teach you how to be happy.

To be sure, there are a great many reasons why people are reserved, fearful and distant with others. For some, it is a flaw in their own structure, for others it is a question of upbringing; some suffer from a psychological problem or need to overcome excessive shyness. But the most common reason is their self-centredness, and this, in turn, is the result of ignorance: they simply do not know that this attitude is contrary to their own interests. Of course, if they were perfectly happy in this, that would be different. It is not advisable to isolate oneself from others; in fact it is a bad sign to want to do so, but there are people who are happy to live in isolation, and I am not talking about them for the moment. I am talking about those who are unhappy in this situation. Since they are unhappy they need to change.

If you are unhappy, it means you have broken certain laws, that you are butting your head against certain forces and entities, and it is a sign that you must do something to change the situation. Begin by spending time with other human beings. It is up to you to take the first step. Don’t wait for the mountain to come to you; get up and go to it! Each attempt you make to overcome your own weaknesses in this respect will make you stronger and help to develop your humility. But if you do nothing to change, you will end by being completely annihilated and buried under a mass of rubble, because the nervous system cannot survive under such a burden for very long. If you want to change, therefore, the first thing to do is to take one tiny step, make one small gesture towards someone. As a matter of fact, people often do this instinctively. If a man is upset because he has had an argument with his wife, he will go out for a breath of air and a change of scene. After a few minutes, his inner turmoil changes and he goes back home, kisses his wife and forgets all about their differences. Yes, simply because he went out. If people do the right thing instinctively, surely they should be able to understand that there are other circumstances in which they can apply the same methods consciously, and instead of eating their heart out and waiting for someone to come to their rescue they can take the first step towards others.1

Even in the Brotherhood, when I see some brothers and sisters who are too wrapped up in themselves, I tell them, ‘For heaven’s sake, be a little more outgoing! You are too fenced in. Nobody is attracted by someone who is so gloomy and disagreeable. Stop blaming others for not coming to you. Make yourself agreeable and you will see that they will come flocking! Take an example from the rose: when it opens its petals, the air is filled with its fragrance and everyone delights in it, even the bees and butterflies; yes, simply because it opened its petals. Why not open your petals and let your fragrance perfume the atmosphere?’

Of course, I know that some of you will say, ‘You just don’t realize the danger of behaving like that. There are always so many people ready to take advantage...’ Well, if you are such great philosophers, do as you please; I’m not going to force you to do anything. But at least, try to understand what I am really saying instead of always being so ready to object, ‘Yes, but this... Yes, but that...’ If you really want to, you will always find something to criticize, even in what I have been saying. But the fact is that what I have just explained to you is in perfect harmony with the philosophy handed down to me and with our goal of teaching people how to develop and fulfil themselves and live the new life. Obviously, if your goal and your conceptions of life are quite different, you can replace the ideas I explain to you with ideas that are diametrically opposed. But those of us who aspire to universal Brotherhood, who long for the kingdom of God, must make everything converge towards this one goal of light, splendour, fulfilment, beauty, joy and love. Believe me, if I had a different goal I would change my philosophy.

Our ends and the means we use to achieve them must not contradict or conflict with each other. All the means and methods I explain to you correspond perfectly with the goals we are pursuing, and it is my joy to lead human beings along this path. This does not mean that there are not other paths: there are, hundreds of them, but they lead elsewhere and give different results. Each person has to make choices in life. If you do not want to choose what I have chosen, choose something else, but you will see the results for yourself. When you are ill and abandoned by everyone, perhaps you will begin to understand how mistaken you were to shut others out of your life. In every country in the world, parents warn their sons and daughters not to trust others for fear of what might happen to them. Perhaps this is good advice in the world, where there are so many thieves and liars, rogues and swindlers. But I don’t believe that, if you decide to be more open, to talk to other brothers and sister or to smile a little, you are in any danger of being deceived or robbed here. If there were the least sign of anything like that, I would know about it and put a stop to it at once. So, you see, you are not in any great danger!

You must spend time with other human beings and live with them without sharing their failings and their darkness. You must be capable of being with them and helping them without losing your own qualities and virtues. On the contrary, you must be capable of giving them some tiny particles of yourself, some rays of warmth from your heart and soul, and when you do this you will feel happier and strengthened, because you will have made some small contribution to the betterment of humankind. If the disciples worked according to these rules of Initiatic Science, they would be able to help their family and friends and human society at large without weakening or depriving themselves. But you need Initiatic Science; if you tell me that, without it, you are capable of frequenting the world without being contaminated or injuring yourself in any way, I shall have to contradict you. Anyone who believes this is not a good psychologist; they do not know what they will lose. It is sheer folly to say, ‘I am strong and powerful; I can resist temptation; I’m in no danger of becoming dirty!’ No one in the whole of history has ever succeeded unless they have already acquired great knowledge and worked to develop tremendous will-power. If you are presumptuous about your strength, you will succumb like everyone else, because the world is so rich and seductive that, after a while, you inevitably fall under its spell. And, as soon as you open the door just a tiny chink, every kind of filth comes rushing in and there is no way of getting rid of it; once it gets a foot in the door, it does its work and that is the end of you! As I say, therefore, you need Initiatic Science in order to live among human beings.

The Bonfin, 1 September 1967

1 See The Seeds of Happiness, Izvor Coll. n° 231, chap. 11: ‘The land of Canaan’.

Chapter Sixteen
Tantra yoga

I

I have the impression that the more one talks to human beings about love, the less they understand it or have a clear notion of what it really is. This is because they are accustomed to living on the level of the subconscious, and the only kind of love expressed on that level is the ordinary love that everybody understands and practises. In reality, though, love has its source in the regions of the superconsciousness, and if human beings only begin to be aware of it when it is expressed on a much lower level, in the form of heat and motion, it is because they have not yet developed the internal instruments which would enable them to detect it on a higher level, at its source. Human beings experience love on the level of the subconscious and, to a slight extent, on the level of consciousness and self-consciousness, but this is not really love.

Take the example of electricity. Electricity is an energy that manifests as heat in a radiator, as light in a lamp, as movement in a fan, etc. And it is the same thing with love: there is only one energy, the cosmic energy of life that flows from God, but it takes different forms according to the different kinds of equipment, the different organs, through which it manifests.1 Initiates understand this and endeavour to tune in to and fill their hearts and souls with the purest form of love, as it exists on the highest levels. They leave its lower manifestations alone. They say, ‘It is perfectly normal and natural. You cannot expect anything else’, but, for their part, they have already tasted it and grasped it before it reaches the lower levels.

Love is an energy which is diffused like dew throughout the whole of nature. It comes from the sun; it is the sun that distributes it to the air, to trees, to mountains and oceans, to the fruits of the earth, to every creature. And men and women have also received a few tiny drops of this dew in certain parts of their bodies, and unfortunately that is the only place they look for it. All life’s complications come from the extreme poverty of this restricted view of love. Human beings spend their lives suffering and weeping and tearing their hair; they commit countless blunders and crimes in the pursuit of a tender passion, a love that can only rend their hearts and make them miserable and ready to commit any crime. For, when they find it, they inevitably find tragedy too. There is no need to give you examples from history. The love that human beings look for is a fire that consumes them and leaves only ashes; they don’t know that there is another kind of fire, one that not only would not destroy them but is capable of resuscitating them. When the Creator built us in his workshops, he gave us the organs and instruments we need to find and live that love, but we have to go and look for it on a higher level, in the sun, from where it flows out to the rest of creation.

Of course, the sun is not actually the source of love, it is only a station in which it pauses for a moment on its way to the world of humans. Love comes from a region far above the sun, but it stops in the sun and puts on certain forms, certain garments, before resuming its journey to earth. Love is the ‘strength of all strengths’ of which Hermes Trismegistus speaks. Yes, the strength of all strengths is divine love, divine life, divine light. It makes no difference what we call it, it is always the same force, the same strength, manifesting in the form of heat, light or movement, and we should think about it constantly and drink great draughts of it every morning at sunrise. But, instead of drawing on this strength of all strengths diffused throughout nature by the sun, human beings give all their attention to a man or woman; they never even notice the sun. Why? Because they still need to suffer, to have all kinds of complications in their lives, to tear their hair out. Instead of filling themselves with the wealth contained in the sun and then distributing some of it to others, they plunder their fellow men and women and rob them of the few crumbs they possess, and this is a great pity, for their victims are left with nothing. True, it is love of a kind, an animal love, and human beings are only interested in that kind of love; they enjoy the lusty sensations it gives them, but the price they have to pay is high.

You have to be very highly evolved to be capable of launching into physical love without danger to yourself or another. There are Tibetan yogis who have reached such a degree of mastery through long practice with the techniques known in India as tantra yoga, which enable them to sublimate their sexual energy, that they dare to delve into their own subconscious and explore the domain of instinct, passion, sensuality and the deep waters of pleasure. Yes, they are so strong and pure that they can dive into the deepest recesses of their nature and, thanks to their fearlessness, bring back pearls of great price. They are like pearl fishers who dive into the ocean for pearl oysters and surface again, without getting tangled in seaweed or eaten by sharks. But experiments of this nature are not for everyone. You have to have complete mastery of that formidable force before going to meet it face to face, and I do not advise you to try it. I am simply explaining it to you.

It is only if you have already reached the heights of superconsciousness and tasted the love diffused throughout the universe, the love which is the very quintessence of God, that you are free to do whatever you like, for then nothing can harm or soil you; you can no longer sin. But if you have not reached this level, don’t try to do any deep-sea diving! There are very, very few human beings on earth who are capable of diving into the depths of their own nature in order to transform and sublimate, illuminate and embellish what they find there. This is what we call ‘making both ends meet’, the higher and the lower ends.2 But if you have not already attained the higher world before trying to go underground, the lower world will wipe you out, because you will have no weapons, no armour and no tools with which to transform the matter of hell into pearls, gold or gems.

This is the mystery of evil and of hell. It is only when we reaches the highest peak that we become capable of understanding the meaning of evil. Until such time, the problem of evil remains inexplicable, incomprehensible, insoluble. The problem of evil cannot be solved by reasoning, studying or reading; it is far beyond human comprehension. In actual fact, evil does not exist. Evil is evil only for the weak. For those who are not prepared and do not know how to use it, evil exists; in fact it is a very powerful reality. But for sons and daughters of God, for great Masters, evil – about which religion has said so much without understanding it – is a rich, precious matter to be exploited and used for their work.

When I was in India I learned of the existence of a class of yogis called siddhas. For them, nothing is impure: they eat whatever comes to hand ‒ offal, animal viscera, excrement, absolutely anything ‒ because they have the will to transform everything in order to obtain extraordinary powers of magic. And they do obtain these powers; I have seen them for myself. But it is not really necessary to go to such lengths!

The things I have revealed to you today are very profound and very sacred; I don’t know how well you will understand me. Blessed are those who want to study the true love that is to be found on high, at its source. This love is diffused throughout the whole universe, but we have to awaken the instruments, the centres, that God has placed in us, so that we may capture it and be nourished by it.

The Bonfin, 8 August 1970

Supplementary note

Purity cannot be found at the bottom; at the bottom you will find only the dregs. It is quite another matter that there are beings who have reached such heights in their spiritual life that they are able to transform and sanctify everything to the degree that, for them, nothing is impure. For those who have begun to see things as the universal Spirit sees them, impurity, ugliness and evil no longer exist; the cosmic Spirit sees the universe as a great harmonious whole in which there is no room for dissonance or disharmony. When you look at the world from a lower level, of course, all is not perfectly good and beautiful, but when you look at it from a great height and see the immensity of it, everything looks different: you even see disasters and wars differently.

When you prepare a meal, you cut up and grind the different ingredients, and if these ingredients were conscious they would say you were being mercilessly cruel and unjust to treat them so badly. But you don’t feel guilty about what you are doing, because you see things from a different point of view. You will simply say, ‘I’m making some bread which everyone is going to enjoy.’ If you asked a grape whether it liked being crushed in the winepress, what do you think it would say? But it has to be done if you want to make wine!

The universe is governed by an Intelligence that is completely beyond our grasp, and we should not criticize it. You will object, ‘But this means you think all crimes and wars are justified!’ No, I am not trying to justify them; I believe that they shouldn’t exist and I am working to do away with them. But I am simply telling you about the point of view of Cosmic Intelligence. For it, everything looks different, everything is lustrous and intelligent, everything sings, everything is in harmony.

Sèvres, 15 January 1967

II

This morning I talked to you about the science of sublimation of sexual energy which, in India and Tibet, is known as tantra yoga. Tantra yoga includes various methods, and I want to tell you about one of them, so that you will have a better understanding of this science. For years on end the young yogi studies the nature of love: he meditates and fasts and spends a lot of time practising breathing exercises. When he is well prepared, a young girl is chosen from among those who have also been studying these methods, and they live together in the same room for four months. The young yogi puts himself entirely at her service, looking on her as a divinity, a manifestation of the supreme Mother, and never so much as touches her. At the end of the four months, they begin to sleep in the same bed, but still without touching each other, taking it in turns to lie for four months on the right side, and four months on the left. Finally, when they have acquired total mastery of themselves, they begin to kiss and even to unite physically, but with such purity that their union can last for hours without a trace of seminal emission.

Obviously, there are very few human beings capable of understanding what this represents for, generally speaking, as soon as this force starts to make itself felt they hurry to give it free expression. But, according to tantric science, to squander this quintessence is death, whereas to sublimate it is eternal life. This is how certain initiates obtained the gift of immortality; yes, this is not just a manner of speaking: they really and truly became immortal.

But I want to repeat that I am not in favour of these techniques, especially for westerners. There are yogis who have felt themselves entitled to go to great lengths in order to transform their sexual energy, but, in my opinion, it is unnecessary to use such extreme practices. There are other methods, and this is what I shall explain to you. As you will see, our Teaching goes a great deal further than the old traditions of so-called purity and chastity which tried to turn men into eunuchs, and at the same time it goes further than all those doctrines which claim to be tantric and which lead to the grossest sexual excesses. In the last century, in England, there was an occultist called Aleister Crowley who, through his experiments with the methods used by Tibetan tantrists, became a black magician and ended by driving several of his partners out of their mind. He had powers, to be sure, but what depths he sank to!

I strongly advise you, therefore, not to risk engaging in experiments of this kind, for you will most certainly get burnt. You have to be extremely well prepared, very practised and wholly in control of yourself, and even then it is a dangerous undertaking. The best solution, and one that will preserve you from every danger, is distance: to keep a slight distance and to take only homoeopathic doses; in other words, to be content with a glance, a smile, a few words or a handshake. As soon as you reduce the distance, as soon as you touch each other and unite, the dangers begin. In the first place, once you have jumped into the fire, you will be incapable of controlling yourself, you will no longer master your own energies, and, in the second place, the poetic character of your love begins to fade and ugliness rears its head. It is far better to keep your distance and live in the illusion that women are all that is most beautiful and that men are pure and valiant knights, for as soon as you begin to know them more intimately, you fall back into the disappointing prose of everyday life. Get a little farther away from each other! When you see each other from a slight distance you will always be full of wonder, and it is this that is important: to have that sense of wonder. Why not treasure it and preserve it all your life long?3

I know that you will object to this, saying, ‘Yes, but we would be living in an illusion!’ Well, it is far better to live in an illusion that allows you to be constantly full of wonder, strength and power, and never to stop working, than to live in reality and be crushed by its ugliness. For my part, I intend to continue to live with my illusions. I do it deliberately; I don’t want to know the ugliness of certain realities. What I need is poetry, for the only thing that helps me to live and work is beauty, splendour. You will say, ‘Yes, but if you touched and tasted that beauty, you would see what it really is!’ Exactly, but I don’t want to know it from close up, for I can guess what I would find: I would lose my sense of wonder immediately.

Look at the majority of human beings: they have explored the realities of love and now they are blind to all beauty. They are constantly in the company of ravishingly beautiful women and, instead of being lost in admiration and drinking in all that beauty with their eyes, instead of experiencing ecstasies, they don’t even look at them! Whereas when I travel, I am constantly in heaven, simply because of all the lovely women I see. A few years ago, I would sometimes go for a walk with friends, along the beaches of France, Italy, Spain or Greece, and among all the hundreds of women and girls we saw, I would try to pick out one, just one, that emanated something luminous and poetic. And when I found her, I would point her out to my friends, and for the rest of the day I would be in a state of enchantment and inspiration! And my friends would just stare at me; they did not understand why I was in that state. Every now and then, the girl I had pointed out would come up and speak to me, but I never made the slightest attempt to see or talk to her again, because I did not want to destroy that first enchantment. Yes, quite often, we are less inspired by a closer view than by a more distant one.

Is there any reason why one should not be enraptured by the beauty of all these women and girls? After all, they are creatures of God and portraits of the divine Mother. It is an insult to her if you don’t admire them! She has worked so long to make them beautiful, just for your joy and inspiration, and then you are indifferent to them! She will be outraged! She will punish you, saying, ‘Ah, that is how you appreciate my works of art, is it? Very well!’ and she will deprive you of certain joys. But to me she has given the most extraordinary joys, for she has already seen, a long time ago, that I was lost in rapture at the sight of her works of art.

Why have religion and morality taught men that it was not ‘proper’ to look at women? I remember that, one day, I was walking with a man and his wife, on a path overlooking a beach here on the Riviera and, while I was gazing with delight at all that beauty, he, poor fellow, did not dare to raise his eyes. I told him, ‘Look! Look at the most beautiful pictures in the world!’ But he – perhaps because his wife was there – kept his eyes obstinately averted. Yes, a lot of people are like that: decent, prudish and ‘religious’. In front of others, they don’t want to show that they are interested... still less that they are appreciative. But it would be better not to enquire too closely about what they do when they are alone! Whereas I am just the opposite: in public I go into ecstasies, but in private I do nothing at all. I know, this attitude flies in the face of all the old traditions: keep your eyes to the ground and you will be considered a saint. Yes, but once you are alone how do you behave? There are some infallible signs that tell me all I need to know about that...

I don’t like conventions; in fact I break them all. I work according to the morality of the future, and that future is fast approaching. The time is nearly on us when, instead of having to choose between the two extremes of puritanism or licentiousness, men and women will show their appreciation and admiration for the works of the supreme Mother and the heavenly Father. Without feeling the need to touch or soil their works of art, they will contemplate them and rejoice in them, and in doing so they will find happiness.

The Bonfin, 8 August 1970

1 See ‘Et il me montra un fleuve d’eau de la vie’, Synopsis Coll., Part IX, chap. 1-I: ‘Le fleuve de la vie divine’.

2 See You Are Gods, Synopsis Coll., Part VIII: ‘Living in Eternal Life’.

3 See Youth: Creators of the Future, Izvor Coll. n° 233, chap. 19: ‘Preserve the poetry of your love’.

Chapter Seventeen
Emptiness and fullness:
the holy grail

Certain spiritual teachings advise their adepts to learn to arrest all thought processes and become empty. In theory, this is good: to empty oneself and become purely passive and receptive in order to attract and absorb heavenly elements. But there is a danger here, for if you are not properly prepared inwardly, if you have not purified yourself before making yourself empty and passive, you will necessarily attract elements that correspond to your impure inner state: illnesses, elementals and entities from the lower regions.

Yes, you must empty yourselves and put yourselves into a state of receptivity, you must become vessels into which heaven can pour its splendours. But, before you can do this, you must prepare the ground. If you abandon yourselves to whatever currents come and go, without previous preparation, you will be defenceless. Remember the lectures I gave you about the two principles, the masculine and feminine, active and passive, in which I explained how you had to learn to work with both of them if you wanted to advance your spiritual evolution. If you want to be a medium or a clairvoyant, you must practise being passive and receptive.1 That is true, but if you have not previously developed your will-power and your ability to defend yourself and fight off the enemy, when, as often happens, harmful, dark entities do try to enter you, you will not be able to keep them out.

There are monstrous creatures abroad in the world, entities created by the thoughts and feelings of criminals and black magicians, and they try to get in wherever they find a door open, that is to say, whenever they find people who are weak and incapable of defending themselves. There are a great many people in the psychiatric wards of hospitals, and they are there because, in trying to make contact with the invisible world by the practice of clairvoyance or mediumship, they were invaded by evil entities. I have known many such cases, and this is why I would never advise anyone to venture into this area without first having studied and practised a great deal, in order to develop the masculine principle and acquire the weapons needed to protect themselves. Most people have no idea how dangerous it is to venture into these regions of the invisible world. They don’t realize that they are inhabited by creatures that are often extremely hostile to human beings and ask nothing better than to prey on them. Some people, who have read a few books or frequented occultists, try to cultivate a gift of prophecy with the intention of using it to get rich, but they end up falling ill or even going mad. The occult sciences make many promises: if you use such and such a perfume, talisman or magic stone, you can obtain whatever you want… and when people allow themselves to be tempted and deceived, there is nothing you can do to help them.

In the Universal White Brotherhood we do not teach the occult sciences, but Initiatic Science, Spiritual Science. The occult sciences are a mixture of good and evil; in fact, this is why I don’t even like to use the word ‘occult.’ I know a great many occultists who have dabbled in these murky regions in search of the knowledge that would give them money or women or magic powers. But that is already a form of black magic. This science should never be used for the satisfaction of one’s lower appetites; it must only be used with the purpose of growing in perfection and helping humankind. There are numerous books about occultism available today, and a lot of people are tempted to experiment with it, in the hope of finding quick and easy ways to indulge their cravings. No wonder black magic is so prevalent in the world, whereas those who are willing to practise white magic, theurgy, are few and far between. Yes, because there are very few human beings who have freed themselves from their lower appetites and really desire to be in communion with the divine world.2

So, it is only if you are already very strong and pure and capable of defending yourself against invasion by dark entities that it is safe for you to adopt an attitude of total emptiness. Actually, there are certain Christian symbols, such as the holy grail, which show that the practice of emptying oneself is not the exclusive property of oriental traditions such as Zen Buddhism. The holy grail is rich in symbolism: a cup is a feminine symbol; it means that a disciple has to adopt an attitude of receptivity in order to be filled with the cosmic quintessence which is the blood, the Spirit of Christ. When a disciple is filled with the Spirit of Christ, they become the holy grail: their whole being is a cup, a sacred chalice in which the Christ dwells.

Tradition tells us that the holy grail was carved from a single emerald, and as you know, an emerald is a very valuable gem whose colour, green, is the colour of Venus, the colour of the feminine element. This means that the Spirit of Christ will never accept to dwell in a cup that is dirty or fashioned from coarse, vulgar materials; it will dwell only in a celestial woman (symbolically speaking), that is to say, in a body that has been purified of all uncleanness. The blood of Christ that fills the cup is the symbol of the masculine principle, for red is the colour of Mars. As you can see, the science of symbols enables us to make some very interesting discoveries about our inner life. Red and green are complementary colours. If you close your eyes after staring at something green for a long time, you will see red: the two colours attract each other. A dirty green will attract a dirty red. And a dirty cup, that is to say, an impure human being, will attract diabolical entities.

Why are evil spirits driven out by incense? Because the scent of incense is pure. If you give off a foul odour, on the other hand, evil spirits will immediately be attracted to you, just as vermin are attracted when you leave refuse lying about. Those that are attracted by dirt will be driven away by purity, and vice versa. This is why the masculine principle must always prepare the ground in advance, so that the feminine principle may be in a state of absolute purity and evil entities will be powerless to force their way in. First and foremost, therefore, you must exercise the masculine principle, that is to say, you must study and learn and build up your strength, and only when you have achieved a certain degree of self-dominance will it be safe for you to switch your polarity and abandon yourself to the action of the Holy Spirit. You must be aware of the importance of this work with the two principles and learn when to be receptive and when to be emissive, when to project currents and when to attract them. If human beings live in such disorder, if they are so often unbalanced, tense and on edge, it is because they have never understood how to work with the two principles. They have not learned when and how to give, when and how much to receive.

This notion of working alternately with the masculine and feminine principles can also be seen in the Cabbalah, in the symbolism of the four letters of the name of God: yod, he, vau, he, . The first letter, yod, , (Hebrew is read from right to left.) represents the masculine principle; the second letter, he, , is in the form of an inverted cup (I shall explain the reason for this inversion another time); the third letter, vau, , is a repetition of the masculine principle, and the second he, , is a repetition of the feminine principle. Everything begins with the masculine principle. This is why God created Adam first and then Eve: because it is the masculine principle, the spirit, which comes first. Matter comes after the spirit; matter is a formation, a condensation or crystallization of the spirit.3

As you see, these few words about the holy grail are sufficient to show us that it is a symbol from which we can learn a great deal. It teaches us that, before beginning any kind of work, we must prepare the necessary conditions. You don’t pour clean water into a dirty receptacle; if your receptacle is dirty you start by washing it. Nor do you start pouring the water until you have a receptacle to pour it into, otherwise it will all be spilled on the ground. All these different aspects hang together.

Human beings have to find suitable methods in order to develop and grow. But many of them are not interested in learning; they have no desire to have a Master: they want to be free! And I often say to them, ‘Since you are so anxious to be free, why do you accept the tyranny of your belly or your sexual urges? When you are hungry, why are you in such a hurry to obey the dictates of your stomach? You say that you refuse all authority, but you are not being logical!’ They refuse any advice or rule that comes from outside but they are ready to obey whatever impulse comes from within. But is that any better?

The Bonfin, 12 August 1970

BIBLICAL REFERENCES

God creates man and woman – Gen. 2:7 and 2:21-23

1 See Looking into the Invisible – Intuition, Clairvoyance, Dreams, Izvor Coll. n° 228, chap. 4: ‘Clairvoyance: activity and receptivity’.

2 See The Book of Divine Magic, Izvor Coll. n° 226, chap. 1: ‘The danger of the current revival of magic’.

3 See Cosmic Balance – The Secret of Polarity, Izvor Coll. n° 237, chap. 4-I: ‘Adam and Eve: spirit and matter’, chap. 4-II: ‘Adam and Eve: wisdom and love’.

Chapter Eighteen
Love is everywhere

II
(Part I of this lecture was published in Love and Sexuality,
Part I, Complete Works, vol. 14.)

I know that most of the explanations I give you in my lectures will be of no use to you, at least not in this incarnation: perhaps in the next. Yes, because it all depends on your degree of evolution. If you already have the necessary preparation to allow you to put these truths into practice, well and good, but otherwise I know that what I explain will benefit only very few of you. ‘If that is the case’, you may say, ‘why do you go on telling us these things?’ Because I want to explain certain notions and give certain rules to those who will come here in the future and who will be ready to live a divine love. But most of these lectures are not for everybody. In fact, some of you will have great difficulty even in understanding what I am saying, not to mention applying it in your lives! But even if this is impossible for most of you at the moment, I can still talk for future generations, for the exceptional spirits who will be reincarnated one day.

You all know that men and women are attracted to each other, but do you know why? If you ask a man what he finds so attractive in a particular woman, he will probably say that it is her breasts or her legs or, perhaps, her mouth or nose. But nature uses these attractive, appetizing forms for a very specific reason: as it does not want to let the human race disappear, it has organized these parts of the human anatomy in such a way as to draw men and women together and to populate the earth. But the forms are no more than an outward appearance; the reality that attracts men and women to each other exists behind and beyond the forms; it is an emanation, a fluid. When this emanation, this fluid, is absent, there is no mutual attraction. Why do you suppose that men often remain unattracted by a very pretty woman, in spite of her perfect figure? They may admire her, but they are not drawn to her, they do not fall in love with her, whereas others, who may not be especially pretty, can have a devastating effect. This proves that attraction is not triggered simply by physical beauty or a good figure. It is a reaction to something more spiritual, something magic. This is why people say it cannot be explained. But they are mistaken: it can be explained, but only by those who know. This vibration, this fluid, that makes you feel so happy and fulfilled, must be sought in its place of origin, for it comes from above; it is not created by human beings. Like intelligence, it comes from another region, another source, and human beings receive it from its Creator. If it were humans who created intelligence, why are they still so unintelligent? Why could they not give themselves a little more of it? No, we are not wholly responsible for our intelligence; we receive it from another source. Similarly, this fluid, this thing called love, also exists in great abundance in other regions, but human beings forget to go and look for it at its source. They continue to look for it in other men and women, and they cannot find it there or, at least, only in very limited amounts. Of course, it can happen that you find someone so pure and luminous that to be in touch with them is to be in touch with the higher world, but that is extremely rare! So, try to understand what I am saying, and one day, if you are sick of being so restricted, go and look for love at its true source, and then you will feel nourished and completely satisfied.

I know that these words will have no effect on some, because they are too far from understanding the truth of them. If you try to explain to a cat that it must stop eating mice, it will listen to you and answer, ‘Meow!’, which means, ‘All right, I understand. I promise not to eat any more mice.’ But, the very next minute, it will walk out on you, because it has heard a mouse scurrying by. And yet it had listened attentively and even promised not to do it again! And when it comes back, licking its chops, it again says ‘Meow!’, but this time it means, ‘I can’t help it; it’s my nature. You can’t expect me to change overnight!’ In other words, as long as someone is still a cat, they will go on eating mice. But if those who have a high ideal make an effort to change, they will receive the help they need and feel much better, if for no other reason than that it will give them a certain sense of pride to feel that they are no longer breaking the laws, that they are free and unshackled. Yes, this sense of pride is an indescribable release from the discomfort of a guilty conscience, of the nagging feeling of being at fault, of having made oneself dirty.

Only primitives are proud of their sexual exploits. In fact, all their pride is centred in their virility, with the result that, when it fails them, they go completely to pieces. As long as they are sexually potent they have something to boast about! And that reminds me of the story of the king who was so full-blooded that several women shared his bed every night, and he was never tired. And then, one day, he heard of a man in his kingdom who could do even better! ‘Oho’, said the king. ‘Bring him to me. I have to see if this is true.’ So the man was brought to the royal palace, and the king, who was a very generous man, gave him a very good supper and offered him fourteen lovely young girls, one after the other. After the fourteenth, the man was in a great hurry to leave, and the king asked him, ‘Where are you going? What’s the hurry?’ ‘I’m going home. I must go and carry out my marital duties!’ he replied. The king was staggered: after fourteen girls, he still had the strength to think of his wife! Well, that is how the story goes, anyway. But, of course, it is just a fairy-tale, and everything is possible in a fairy-tale! But one thing is quite true, and that is that very primitive people have no remorse about sleeping with, or even raping, as many women as possible. But those who are slightly more advanced – and, after all, that is most people nowadays – will always feel some guilt: they sense that they have been weak, that they have failed to control themselves. Or, perhaps, they will have the feeling that they should compensate the woman in some way, because they have been unjust and cruel and violent. And this is why I say that beings such as this must understand that if they would only draw their nourishment from that inexhaustible source on high, they would never have anything to reproach themselves for again. In fact they would find extraordinary joy in their sense of purity and the higher form of love they draw on night and day!

I don’t want to destroy or lessen the happiness of all the men and women who find their enjoyment and fulfilment in each other’s arms, but I must tell you, frankly, that nothing is ever completely pure in this business, because each person impregnates and influences every cell of their genital organs and even the contents of those cells according to their character and tendencies, their morality and their virtues and vices. Of course, human beings never think about that before embarking on sexual relations. It is enough for a woman to have found a man; she has no idea what that man will give her or whether he will contaminate her or not; as long as he is capable of certain acts, she is quite happy. And men, poor wretches, are so ignorant that, as long as they have a woman to answer their need, they ask for nothing more. They never pause to ask themselves whether they are getting into an inextricable mess, or what illnesses they are liable to catch. Well, that is the way of the world: everyone lives and acts in ignorance and blindness.1

Purity is one of the rarest things in the world. If the love human beings spent on each other were pure, the effects would be divine. But we don’t see those divine effects, so we have to conclude that their love is not very pure. Do you really think that purity is an ideal for most men and women? Not at all; their ideal is to have pleasure; they don’t care two hoots about whether it is pure or impure. But it is my duty to shed some light on this point that is so widely neglected, so that a disciple will know better than to do something foolish with the first person that takes their fancy. A disciple, be it a man or a woman, uses reason; they are prudent and thoughtful, and they are in no hurry to plunge into risky experiences.

Blessed are those who have understood and who achieve this kind of love, for they will be greatly rewarded. The advantages are too great to enumerate, but they will experience an improvement in every area of life, even in their physical health. It is love that gives us everything, since it gives life itself. The first thing we need is life; everything else follows on from there. The living proof of this is a child. To begin with, that is all it has: life, not intelligence, or power or virtue; it is alive, and that is all! Yes, but everything else is contained within that life and, little by little, the other qualities begin to show themselves. But take away the life, and nothing is left. Take the example of someone who has lost a lot of blood: they just lie there, inanimate and incapable of moving, speaking or even looking at you. But put some life back into them with a blood transfusion, and all their faculties will be restored, for it is life that brings these faculties with it. This is why we must always cherish, protect and purify life; otherwise everything else crumbles away also.2

I have never said that married people should cease their relations. When I speak of chastity and continence, I am speaking, primarily, for those who are not married and who are, therefore, free to choose. Those who are married have a duty towards each other. And if one of them suddenly takes a decision that causes unhappiness to the other, they are setting the stage for tragedy... and I get the blame for breaking up the family!

Each person takes only a part of what I say, according to what suits them or takes their fancy for the moment, without a thought for their partner who may be weaker, or whose needs may be greater. I have always insisted that husbands and wives should make their decisions about their sexual relations together, not separately: together! It is to be hoped that, even when they are married, men and women will spiritualize and sublimate their love, but they must do so with each other’s consent. Unfortunately, this is not often the case. Either it is the wife who is unhappy because, in her view, her husband has taken leave of his senses, or it is the husband who suffers because his wife has become a pious prude. And then, of course, the brickbats are aimed at me! I assure you, the brothers and sisters never seem to think of me; I’m sick and tired of being used by them to suit their own ends. I want you to understand, once and for all, that if I talk of sexual sublimation, it is because I am an instructor, a spiritual guide, and that I have to explain the question for those who are capable of taking this further step in their understanding of love. As for the others, they must simply do whatever they can!

When I meet someone who is built like a colossus, I don’t tell him that he must live like an ascetic. I am not such a fanatic; I am well aware that the question must be resolved differently for each person. I have to help those who have the potential to perfect themselves, therefore, and give them the methods they need; otherwise they will lose their way and that would be a great pity. I have seen so many who were looking for something without knowing what it was and, as they had no one to enlighten them, ended up taking the wrong path. A great many young people have taken to drugs, for instance, because they longed to escape from the reality that surrounded them and find a world of beauty and poetry, and they had no one to guide them. We need a drug, yes, but a different kind of drug. We need the drug that we find in the sunrise, in our meditations and breathing exercises. Those are the only drugs that are not harmful.

Well, there you are, my dear brothers and sisters. You are free to remember whatever you like of what I tell you, but I am obliged to reveal certain truths that are indispensable for those who are already prepared for them.

Videlinata (Switzerland), 17 February 1975

1 See Love and Sexuality, Complete Works, vol. 14, chap. 8: ‘The twelve doors of man and woman’.

2 See La science de la vie, Brochure n° 315.

Chapter Nineteen
Look for love at its source

I

In spite of the fact that most marriages turn out badly, men and women instinctively and subconsciously continue to hope that their own marriage will be a marvellous, divine exception, that they will find their soul-mate and be fulfilled. Where does this hope come from? From a memory of the far-distant past, from a very deep-seated inner knowledge, from the fact that, on high, in the divine world, the union of the masculine and feminine principles is accomplished in absolute splendour and purity. It is because men and women unite on too low a level that they fail to find fulfilment. Sometimes, for a fleeting instant, they enjoy a sensation of ecstatic union, but unfortunately it happens very rarely, and they always end by realizing that they are two separate and distinct beings, that their hope was an illusion.1 And yet, the truth is that their belief and their hopes were not false. If they are disappointed, it is because they have not understood what true marriage is. True marriage exists only when a man and woman are united in soul and spirit. When they unite on the higher level, happiness becomes a possibility and all their hopes can be fulfilled.

These truths are buried deep down inside every human being; it is not in their hopes and aspirations that they are mistaken, but in the way in which they seek to fulfil them. Their error lies in thinking that happiness is to be found on too low a level. But on the lower levels they only find what is coarse and impure; happiness is not there; happiness is on high, in the realm of purity and light.

All initiations have only one purpose: to teach adepts how to marry. At the moment, marriage consists in hiring a comrade or playmate with whom to experiment while waiting to be ready, one day, for true marriage. Your present wife is certainly not your true wife; she has another husband somewhere, and if ever they meet, you will be powerless to prevent her from abandoning you. And the same is true for you: you marry one woman and then, after a while, you meet another and think that, at last, you have found your true mate. But no, it is not her, either! Human beings have to suffer, they need this succession of illusions in order to learn, in order to suffer and understand, at last, what true marriage is.

Marriage is not a human invention; it existed throughout nature long before humans came on the scene: it is a cosmic reality. Even religious and spiritual people have not grasped the profound meaning of marriage (of true marriage,2 that is). So don’t think, just because you are married, that you know what it is. Married people will be the last to understand true marriage! The marriages we see around us are a pretence, crude, clumsy imitations of true marriage, for nobody knows what true marriage consists of. People ‘make love’, but they never find true love because, to do so, it is necessary to possess the absolute expression of all knowledge, perfect purity and complete power of the will.

It makes one wonder what can have happened to humans to bring them to such a degree of blindness. There exists a sublime Intelligence, a reality which is so vast, so rich, beautiful and luminous, which transcends every other reality in the universe, which is unequalled in kindness, generosity and love. This reality has given us all we have: life, our bodies, health, food, water, air, sunshine, flowers, fruit and untold wealth. But people forget the very existence of this First Cause, this divine Being who sustains them and is ready to give them eternal life, knowledge, power and ultimate victory. They forget all about It and imagine they will find happiness, strength, health and total fulfilment in a limited, ignorant, weak and sickly human being of flesh and blood! What happens in people’s heads to make them go and love a feeble human being with all their might, all their heart and all their minds, when this person can only burden them with suffering and regrets? How is it possible to lose sight of the essential so completely?

Oh, I know, of course, that you will have all kinds of objections. You will say, ‘That Being you are always talking about is so far away! He might as well not exist; I can’t see or hear or touch him. Whereas I can see and touch and caress this human being who is so prettily dressed, so well made up and perfumed, who is so real!’ Yes, you don’t need to say it; I already know how you would explain why you prefer your life to be filled by such a poor, limited, ignorant human being rather than by the Creator of worlds. But even your soul and spirit will be contaminated by this being to whom you have given first place in your heart.

I know you are not going to accept what I say, that you will maintain I am wrong. But don’t misunderstand me: I am not telling you not to love a man or a woman; all I am saying is that you must not give them priority. Once you have enthroned the Lord in your heart, if there is still an empty space on the physical plane, if there is still room in your bed, you can find another creature to relieve your solitude. But the first and most important thing is to recognize, love and appreciate the Being of all Beings, the Great Provider. Give the first place in your soul to the Splendour of all Splendours, the Light of Lights, and then, if you wish, you can still love another being, you can still marry. But never give first place to your husband or wife, or you will see what that will lead to: everything will be turned upside down; your head will be in the dust and your legs waving in the air!

True disciples give first place in their heart and soul, intelligence and spirit, to the Lord and, having done this, will try to find the human creature who is most likely to help them to keep their Creator in mind. They will take this person to their side as their collaborator on the physical level because there is something in him or her that links them to the Source, that speaks to them as a messenger of the divine world. In these conditions, everything is transformed. But to go and fall head over heels in love with someone who is incapable of putting you in mind of the Lord, of giving you light or purity, of helping you to become nobler, someone who may even bring disorder into your life and infect you with jealousy, cruelty and destruction... this is sheer madness! I have seen a great many people whose marriage partner came between them and heaven, and prevented them from maintaining any sort of contact with the sublime world, who prevented them from praying, meditating or studying and even from showing kindness to others. They had been stupid enough to let themselves be entirely absorbed by their partner, without seeing the pit yawning at their feet. They had no discernment, no criteria to judge by! I am not opposed to marriage, friendship, exchanges, but before you tie yourself down in this way, you must have a certain amount of knowledge. What madness to forget that inexhaustible Source of love in which you could slake your thirst and find fulfilment night and day. What madness to make not the slightest gesture in order to remain in contact with this infinite Ocean, and to be content to look for satisfaction and delight in a puddle of stagnant water!

When you have already studied under the guidance of an initiate, when you have already accomplished something and understood the essentials, when you have learned to quench your own thirst at the one inexhaustible Source of light, love, kindness and generosity, then, and only then, can you turn to others to help them and give them light and life. But to know nothing of that sublime reality, to choose to cut yourself off from it and wallow in muddy waters full of tadpoles and every kind of filth is incomprehensible. And yet, this is what most human beings do: their one idea is to plunge headlong into the quagmire, and before long they begin moaning and tearing their hair out trying to find a way out, and they end up fighting and killing each other.

Human beings should begin by learning from those who know, after which they can decide to build their own life. But they don’t bother to learn: in their ignorance and unawareness, they rush at life like animals, throwing themselves into senseless, passionate involvements simply because that is what everybody else does. Why do you have to imitate the rest of the world? If you behave like everybody else, you will be unhappy like everybody else, you will have the same problems as everybody else, and you will be wretched and ill like everybody else. Is that the magnificent life you wanted? No, don’t imitate everybody else; follow the example of the minority, imitate the handful of initiates who have found the meaning of life, light, truth, liberty and peace. They can help you, because they know the methods and have the means.

Well, you may feel that what I say is too improbable, that it is monstrous even, but I have said it and it is too late to go back on it now. Of course, I could erase the recording on tape, but I cannot erase the recording in your brains; it is too late for that. So, remember: as long as you fail to look for love in the right place, at its Source, as long as you are content to chance on a few drops that have condensed here and there (and which will not be very pure or transparent), you will always be unhappy; you will never find love. But if you look for it where it is, in the divine world, in God himself, it will accompany you wherever you go; you will never be thirsty again. You will feel its constant presence; you will eat and drink it and be constantly fulfilled. In fact, you will be astonished to see the state you are in. You will say, ‘How can this be? I have no wife or children and yet I’m overflowing with love!’

Yes, look for love, first and foremost, at its Source, and only then, if you wish, can you look for it wherever a few drops have condensed. But those few drops will seem so meagre, so inadequate, compared to the abundance at the Source. What can you do with a few dewdrops? You will say, ‘I can drink them and enjoy them!’ Yes, you can do that once, and the next day there will be nothing left. You think you have found true love because a girl has smiled at you and kissed you and sworn eternal love, but the very next day she will send you packing because she will have found someone else! Human love is so unstable! Initiates are not content with a few little drops of dew; they go directly to the inexhaustible Fountainhead. Initiates quench their thirst at the Fountainhead of love every day, so much so, in fact, that they can also quench the thirst of others. Why neglect that reservoir of love? Why ignore all that wealth, and think that your whole being will be satisfied with a few crumbs of love gleaned here and there, a few kind words, a few smiles and kisses? Yes, you may eat your fill today, but tomorrow you will be hungry all over again!

And don’t tell me, ‘I need love!’ Do you think you are the only one? Do you think I don’t need love, too? In fact, my need may be even greater than yours. The only thing is that there is a slight difference between us, and that is that I have learned where to look for it, so I find it, whereas you look elsewhere. It is a tiny, insignificant difference... but it makes all the difference! You want to convince me that you have a burning desire, an absolute need for love? Well, I have had that need for thousands of years, it is nothing new, but I have learned to look for it where it is, where it flows in unending immensity and splendour. Why should I abandon this philosophy? Several times in my life women have sworn that they would make me happy. It is always the same old story: someone who is unhappy promises to make another happy! A man says to his sweetheart, ‘I swear I’ll make you happy, darling!’, but he himself does not know happiness; how can he make anyone else happy? How can he give something that he does not have? There may be no other being on earth whose need for love is greater than mine, but when I realized that no human being was capable of giving me what I wanted, I began to look elsewhere. Can’t you do the same?

Everybody is in a hurry to tie themselves to a being who has no knowledge of God, no faith or hope or love of God. It is amazing! They are eager to marry people who have nothing, people who are like stones! And the result is that they, too, become stones. And what can two stones do together? Not build a house, anyway. The best they can do is to produce a few sparks when the wind and rain tumble them against each other. Before marrying someone you must find out what is in their head and in their soul. And if there is not much there, don’t get married unless you yourself are enormously rich in faith, hope, love, warmth, kindness, patience and good will. If this is the case, then you may marry, not because you can expect to gain anything from such a lifeless, lack-lustre being, but in order to restore them to life, to help and enlighten them. Such a gesture would be divine. But, as a rule, people don’t marry for this reason. Even if the other person is inwardly beggared, they still try to get something from them, some slight reassurance and protection, and the result is that they both end up doubly impoverished. But if you have a sincere desire to make the sacrifice, and if you are sufficiently well-armed to go through with such a marriage, your sacrifice will be taken into consideration and written in the book of life. The invisible world will be in admiration of your desire to give without expecting anything in return, and it will be a blessing for your partner, because you will be able to give them new life, to enlighten and purify them and help them to live better. That is worthwhile; that is something great and noble.

Such cases of generosity and sacrifice do occur, especially among women. Unfortunately, however, the desire to save someone is not enough; their knowledge is often insufficient and they do not possess the methods or the necessary physical stamina. If you want to save a drunkard or a ne’er-do-well from himself, you need knowledge and adequate means and methods, otherwise, not only will he not be changed, but he will destroy you. How often this has happened: many a well-intentioned woman, who has tried to save her husband from drink, has finished up dying of a broken heart! The husband would spend all night in a bar and, coming home in the early hours of the morning, would beat her savagely. It is not so easy to save someone; you have to be very, very strong to take the strain for a long time and win through to victory. You must be sure not to over-estimate your capacities; weigh up your possibilities and tell yourself, ‘I want to save that being, but I haven’t got the strength to do so.’ Then you can turn to more powerful beings, call on an angel or an initiate, call on heaven to help the weak being whom you love. You must be very strong before you can envisage taking on the task yourself; when you do not have the necessary strength, you must find it elsewhere.

There, my dear brothers and sisters, I have told you these things about love and marriage, because it is essential that your ideas on such an important question should be as clear as possible. This is often the area where people stumble and fall and lose their heavenly heritage. It is important, therefore, to have the right ideas. First and foremost you must seek the love that is God himself, and if, with this love firmly anchored within you, you feel capable of helping another human being, then you can seek love on the physical level, but you must never depend on that love.

If you have a true notion of love, you will be in a position to work and collaborate with the powers of light. A proper understanding of love is absolutely indispensable for your future. You may not see any relation between the two, but I see it very clearly: your future depends on your concept of love.

Some time ago, a brother and sister came to see me and we had a long conversation about their situation. I said to the brother, ‘You love this sister and want to marry her. Is that it?’ ‘I can’t live without her’, he replied. ‘But aren’t you already married? Haven’t you already got children?’ I asked. ‘Yes.’ So then I explained, ‘The choice you are faced with is very clear; there are two paths open to you: the first is the path of pleasure and personal satisfaction that excludes any consideration for others. If you take this path, thinking that you will find happiness in it, you will have to break a certain number of laws. You will be taking the path most commonly followed by those who are weak, egotistical and sensual. You will be running deeply into debt, and sooner or later you will be devoured by remorse for attempting to build your future on the pain of others. In the final analysis you will fail to find happiness and fulfilment. Once you have got what you were lusting after, it will not be long before you feel satiated and start regretting what you have done. So I don’t advise you to take that path. True, it will give you a certain satisfaction for a while, but that won’t last: it will be followed by misunderstandings and recriminations and you will have to start paying your debts. But there is another path, the path of greatness of soul, the path of sacrifice and renunciation, the divine path that many have followed and, thanks to which, they have become exceptional beings. On this path you will have to study, reflect and struggle, and understand that you must overcome all these desires, all these seething passions and conflicts; in this way you will gain control of the situation. On this luminous path of duty and the fulfilment of the will of God, you will never know regret, only peace and final victory.’

And to the sister that the brother wanted to marry, I said, ‘With two billion men in the world to choose from, couldn’t you have picked one who wasn’t already married? Why are you determined to break up and destroy a whole family just because you want someone who is not free? Do you think you are going to be proud of what you have done, later on?’ ‘But we love each other!’ she replied. ‘Yes, I know that kind of love; you must do away with that kind of love!’

And, to the married brother, I explained further, ‘If you obey this urge, you will have to come back in another incarnation and pay what you owe your wife. Suppose that you make your wife suffer undeservedly, do you think that destiny will let you go unpunished? No, you will be made to pay your debts; it is simply not worth laying such a burden on yourself. Here, you have received a Teaching and all the knowledge and light you need to remedy your situation, and yet you are ready to jettison all that. If you had never come to this School, I would understand it if you committed the same follies as everyone else; it would be excusable. But it is not excusable, because you have received the exceptional privilege of knowing how you should behave.’

Finally, I spoke to both of them together: ‘Now, it is up to you to choose. If you follow the path that tempts you, I can tell you in detail exactly what is in store for you!’ When they left me they had decided to follow my advice. It was magnificent, because I must admit I had not expected it. I told the brother to bring his wife to see me, for I have methods for arranging such situations, but, in order to reveal to him how it could all be put right, the presence of his wife was necessary.

The whole world is embroiled in conflicts of this kind. The world is full of adulterers and victims of adultery, and it never occurs to anyone that when they inflict suffering on someone else they are incurring a heavy karmic debt and that, one day, they will have to come back and pay it.

Yes, indeed, my dear brothers and sisters; what I said to that brother and sister applies to you too. You just don’t realize how privileged you are to have this Teaching. If you did not have this good fortune, heaven knows what a state you would be in, the inner deprivation, limitations and unhappiness you would have to put up with! But, thanks to this Teaching, you are in a position constantly to nourish and strengthen your better qualities until, one day, you fulfil your whole potential. Always reflect and study the situation, therefore, before giving in to the solicitations of your lower nature.

I invite you all to reflect on this. The question of love is of supreme importance, for everything else depends on it: everything is determined by how you envisage and manifest love. Nobody has given this question much thought so far, but love is at the root of everything. Although it does not originate in the organs through which it manifests, although it comes from a far higher plane, yet even on the purely anatomical or physiological level this is still true. If you study the genital organs from this point of view, you will see that if they are in any way defective, their owner will be handicapped and unable to function adequately in any domain. Everything depends on them; our whole life depends on the cells of these organs. Their structure and the state of their health is reflected in every other area of our life. These cells that we call the organs of love determine whether the person will be a capable human being or an idiot.

The Bonfin, 23 September 1967

II

Even if one has an immense love for all men and women and a burning desire to be useful to them, one is forced to recognize that they are not yet ready to accept and understand all the truths that could save them. This is why there are certain questions – in particular the question of love – which I am obliged to leave in partial obscurity until such time as they are capable of understanding them.

It is extremely difficult to explain truths which belong to an entirely new order. If it is a question of the ordinary kind of love which is known and recognized and accepted by all, even idiots, half-wits and invalids can understand. They may do it very badly, they may do it like animals, but they do it. Men and women are born knowing how to do it. Even the very young know what position to adopt, what to do and how to do it. It is the same when you give a child a sweet: it immediately puts it in its mouth. How does it know that that is what it is for? But it takes years to know and understand the love that initiates speak of. In fact the question is so new, so unheard-of that it may seem even more obscure as the years go by.

One day, I told you that every function of a human being reflects a cosmic function: I explained what the light of the sun represented, its nature and role, how it fertilized the earth and how the masculine and feminine principles worked together to produce life. But when I explained the function in humans that corresponds to the light of the sun, some of you were very shocked. That showed me that you were not all ready to hear the great initiatic truths. I am forced to reveal things to you in small doses, because there is always a possibility that I shall find myself talking to people without knowing how they will understand what I say, or what harm they can do to me later if they misunderstand me. So don’t blame me for not revealing everything to you. I give you all you need to stimulate you to think and reflect, and to feel, understand and grasp a certain number of true and very profound elements. In this way, as you become inwardly freer, you will gradually feel encouraged to delve deeper. Without explaining absolutely everything, therefore, I reveal enough of the truth to you to enable you to begin working.

Obviously, as far as love is concerned, you can find a great many details explained in medical texts and books about sexual hygiene and education. I know that there is a substantial body of literature in this field, but I have never read it because, in the first place, I don’t have the time, but chiefly because I am not interested in hearing about love from the purely anatomical, physiological or, if you prefer, ‘technical’ point of view. You will find everything in those books except what I give you, that is to say, the divine aspect of love. For love is not a pastime, but a splendid, tremendously serious work of reconstruction, re-edification, resurrection and divinization.

More and more, nowadays, love is considered simply as a pleasurable pastime, a relaxation, and it is the dark shadow of this conception of love that is ravaging and destroying both men and women. For the sake of a few moments of joy and pleasure, of effervescence of the senses, they are forced to pay very dearly, too dearly. But they do not realize this; they think they can enjoy these pleasures indefinitely without ever having to pay or surrender anything in exchange. And, while they find themselves satisfied and contented in one aspect of their lives, they are faced with a terrible sense of emptiness in another. Yes, because they have thrown into the furnace all the quintessences they most need for life and health. When you enjoy certain sensations and indulge in certain pleasures, it means you are burning certain materials; in other words you are paying the price. If lovers calculated these things, they would see that what they have squandered so light-heartedly is far more precious than what they have gained, that they have spent almost all their substance and obtained almost nothing in return.

Young girls, in particular, do not know the value of the freshness, the radiance and the purity that emanates from them. They are ready to surrender it to the first comer in exchange for an invitation to a party, a walk-on part in a film or a photo in a magazine. They do not realize that, in exchange for something completely worthless, they are bartering their most precious possession, thanks to which they could obtain the whole world. When you see them again, some years later, they have lost all their charm: they are flabby, crumpled and sombre, and they attempt to hide their lack of beauty under layers of make-up.3 They spend hours in beauty salons whereas, before, they had no need of artificial beauty, for a marvellous quintessence emanated from them quite naturally.

Girls like that, who are ready to go to any lengths to be appreciated by idiots, by swine, have never been taught to prefer the esteem of initiates and sages or of the luminous spirits on high who sent them here, to earth, to accomplish a specific mission. They do not know the value of what they possess and are in a hurry to get rid of it. Or, as sometimes happens, if a girl does want to keep it intact, everybody criticizes and laughs at her: ‘How on earth can you still cling to those old taboos?’ And the poor girl, not knowing what she will be losing, ends up doing what everybody else does. When a girl is pretty and radiant, she is like a queen, she can obtain anything, but once she has lost her radiance, she gets pushed to one side. This happens all the time with singers and actresses; their popularity never lasts very long because others, who are younger and fresher, steal the limelight and the applause of the public. Beauty has not been given to women in order to satisfy men’s sensual appetites, but in order to inspire and uplift them. Beauty, like all the other qualities human beings have been given, was created to serve God’s design. This is why disciples are expected to have a high ideal and, if they are beautiful, to consecrate that beauty and, if they are intelligent or rich, to consecrate that intelligence or that wealth to the service of the Lord, instead of always trying to use it for personal advantage.

Those who come here may not agree with our philosophy, but whether they agree or not, they are obliged to recognize that it is unlike all the other philosophies abroad in the world today. If only the whole of humankind could embrace or, at least, try to embrace it! It cannot be done all at once, of course, but it is already a glorious thing merely to make the effort to arrive at a correct notion of love.

What do lovers look for in the man or woman they love? Is it their face, their breasts or legs, their arms or eyes, that they love? No, for all those things are simply means by which love can be expressed; what they look for in their beloved is love itself. In fact, it often happens that a man ceases to love a girl in spite of the fact that her arms and legs and breasts are as perfect as they ever were! Yes, but it is love he is looking for and, if she cannot give it to him, he will try to find it in someone else. This shows that it is not the physical body itself that people want; through the medium of the physical body they are looking for love, that is to say, the fulfilment, happiness, joy, delight and heightened awareness that love brings in its train. But suppose that you find love without being in love with anyone in particular; you sense it as a presence all around you, a presence diffused throughout the universe, that you can drink and breathe in until it fills you to overflowing. Once you have found love you no longer need a lover’s arms or legs or breasts. You experience it as a quintessence, a life that fills all things; it is always with you; you never tire of it. Yes, this is the level of understanding you must aim for. You don’t believe me, I know. You say, ‘That’s impossible; quite impossible!’ No, it is not impossible; it is a question of degree: you have to keep climbing up, step by step, until you are convinced that the only true love is the universal love which exists in profusion throughout the universe and which you can drink in without ceasing, for this extremely subtle quintessence is none other than God himself. Yes, God himself!

What we really love in someone is this quintessence, this emanation, this subtle form of life, and it can be found in far greater abundance in the sun, for instance, or in the oceans and forests of the world and in the air we breathe. All the initiates who have worked and experimented have discovered the true love they needed. For everyone needs it; there is not a single creature in the whole world who can live without love. If anyone were to tell me they had solved the problem, that they no longer needed love, I would not believe them. There is not one single being that does not need love. For love is life. Without it we are dead, spiritually dead and barren.

When I was in Greece I went to visit the monasteries of Mount Athos and talked to the monks, and although I greatly admired all their works of art I brought away with me a strong impression of tedium and sadness. Yes, because they live according to completely false conceptions, chief amongst them being the notion that they have to banish the feminine principle from their lives, for everything feminine is considered to be evil and diabolical. They go to such lengths in their rejection of the feminine principle that not only is no woman ever allowed to set foot in their monasteries, but they are not even allowed to keep a nanny-goat! Tell me, is it possible that such a philosophy was invented by the Lord? And if so, why did he create women? Really! Christianity is going to have to correct some of its conceptions one day, for a great many people suffer from them. Christians either suffer from inhibitions and need the help of psychoanalysts, or they exaggerate in the opposite direction and live lives of debauchery; obviously, neither is the right answer.

I counsel neither of these extremes: I do not approve of ascetics who utterly condemn love, but nor do I approve of profligates who think of nothing but wallowing in pleasure. I have other solutions, the best and most balanced, and I intend to explain them to you.

Try, now, to see love as a divine energy, an energy which is poured out on us from above and which, as it works its way down, triggers different effects according to the different conductors through which it manifests itself. Love is like water flowing from the mountain heights: at the highest levels it is transparent and crystal-clear, but as it passes through different types of soil, it gradually becomes tainted with the yellows and reds of the earth. Love, too, is a pure, crystalline force which manifests itself divinely. But if you let it descend to too low a level, it will take on other properties and be expressed differently. As a matter of fact, if you knew how to observe yourselves, you would see this phenomenon in yourselves, in your own feelings and manifestations. What is this force that teaches you how to look at someone you love with great tenderness, caress and be kind to them and know what gifts to give them? And when you are angry, what force is it that teaches you to scratch and bite and hit out? Isn’t it strange that no one ever teaches a boy how to kiss a girl, and yet he knows how to do it? Everybody does it and everybody knows it; it is nothing new; but what conclusion do people draw from this knowledge? None!

As a matter of fact, whether it shows itself as love or anger, it is the same force (the colour that corresponds to both love and anger is red), manifesting itself either in its Venusian form, with delicacy, poetry and gentleness, or in its terrifying Martian form. This is evident when love is expressed at too low a level, in someone who imposes themselves with harshness and cruelty, and turns into violence. A lover who shows no consideration for their partner, whose only idea is to satisfy their own appetites and desires, displays a love that is neither aesthetic nor salutary, generous nor divine. But if they express a love of a higher kind, they will necessarily behave with greater gentleness, delicacy and consideration and be much more concerned about the happiness and future of their beloved. This is what distinguishes the two. Anyone whose love is of the lowest kind is not thinking about their partner. They tear them to pieces, devour them, regale themselves and then discard them. This is the love of a wild beast, whereas, on the highest level, love inspires a person to do great deeds and achieve marvels for their beloved. So, why not try to develop and express this higher degree of love.

Anyone who has studied the different expressions of love has observed that sensual love, which is simply the egotistical satisfaction of a physical appetite, brings with it no illumination. A more spiritual love, on the other hand, awakens knowledge that is slumbering in the subconscious: you begin to discover certain truths and to feel the stirring of certain memories, as they rise to the surface of your consciousness. It is important to recognize the effects of these two kinds of love. A primitive, animal love deforms, defiles and erodes something in humans, whereas the love that is manifested by initiates restores, enhances, heals and purifies and, at the same time, opens their eyes to fantastic discoveries. These are subtle, but very real, irrefutable facts. Everything depends on your conception of love.

I don’t believe that any of those who have studied the question of love have ever looked at it from this point of view. They seem to be mainly interested in deviations and anomalies. But my task is to tell the truths that are indispensable for your evolution and which no one else ever talks about: how to love in such a way that it helps you to make spiritual progress and improve yourselves. I am not interested in all the rest, all the filth and gangrene which others seem to dwell on with such relish.

The criterion that most people judge by is a crude, violent sensation; anything that does not give them such a sensation is worthless. They do not know that, on the contrary, it is through a subtle, refined love that a human being grows and discovers hidden truths and becomes luminous, intelligent and strong.

You all know that primitive peoples produced fire by rubbing two pieces of wood together; the friction produced heat and then light. And now, let me show you what you can learn from this phenomenon. Two pieces of wood are rubbed together: this friction is a movement, the movement produces heat and the heat is transformed into light. As far as love is concerned, symbolically, human beings go no further than the stage of movement. To be sure, movement produces heat, but they should go beyond this stage, beyond the stage of sensation, and begin to understand, to penetrate, the mysteries of the universe and increase their inner light. Love can lead to light, but only if they stop thinking of it as nothing more than a pleasurable effervescence. If you want to be truly rich, turn to the love that is present throughout the universe, to the love that is God himself, the only kind of love capable of filling your whole being to overflowing. The other kind of love can never satisfy you completely; it can only satisfy a few of your cells and appease some small hungers, but your being as a whole will continue to be hungry and thirsty, and you will continue to suffer from the same void; even lovers will tell you this. Those who wish to quench the thirst of their whole being must drink the waters of divine love, of the love that is immensity, infinity. A human being will never be wholly satisfied by a few little pleasures.

Don’t think that what I am saying is purely theoretical; it is all too easy to preach one thing and practise another. For my part, the love I am talking about is the love in which I live. Day and night I am immersed in this infinite love which keeps me in a constant state of lucidity and awareness. It is a state which is impossible to describe... The only thing I can say is: try, at least, to desire it for yourselves. Once you have tasted love in all its purity, you will no longer need physical love. The sensation of drinking from the source of life itself will be so strong that, in contrast, a physical body will seem no more attractive than a corpse. Everybody tries to solve their problems according to the ancient conceptions: they change partners, experiment with different positions, conditions or methods, but, as they say in France, ‘The more things change, the more they stay the same!’ Variety is necessary, I agree, but not in respect to quantity. It is not a question of multiplying the number of experiments or of partners, but of introducing variety by improving the quality of your love, by broadening your conceptions, by rising to the highest planes of love. Why not ask those who are always experimenting with new methods if they have found fulfilment? They will tell you that it is a continual disappointment. With each new attempt, their hopes run high and they get a few crumbs of joy, so they go on hoping. Of course, you can always make their happiness last a little longer by giving them some hope, but since what is waiting for them in the long run is despair, that solves nothing.

Let me show you yet another advantage of my conception of love. When you look only for sexual, primitive, instinctive love, you are dependent on the person who gives it to you. You are not free. And this often leads to conflict, anger and grief, for, as you are not the only one concerned, you have to make certain concessions and sacrifices to your partner which are often better not made. The essential advantage of living in true love and drinking it in night and day is that you love everybody and, at the same time, are dependent on nobody: you remain completely free. This is a fantastic advantage. Initiates, who refuse to be at anyone’s mercy, have discovered this form of love and, thanks to it, are totally free and totally fulfilled; they lack nothing.

You see, here again, it is love that reveals these things to me, not books. I don’t have time to read books. This is so true: love can teach you so much! And so, for that matter, can hatred! Try to have a little more faith in what I tell you, and you will see that your lives will change completely. Try to immerse yourself in this love instead of being eternally miserable.

Look at the way a woman behaves when her husband leaves her: instead of seeing the advantages of her situation and singing, ‘Free at last!’ she weeps and moans and lights a candle to the Blessed Virgin – if she believes in her – and begs her to bring her husband back. Why can’t she be happy and think of all the things she can do now that her husband is no longer there to prevent her? Instead of making the most of it, she makes herself ill and ends up in hospital, all because she needs love. But what kind of love could her wretched husband give her anyway? Isn’t it obvious from the fact that he has gone off to look for it from someone else that he had no love to give? You have to use your reason. How can someone who is poor make you rich? ‘Darling, I swear I’ll make you happy!’ But anyone who says this is unhappy; they do not even know what happiness is! How can they think they are going to make the other person happy! As though it were as easy as all that! No doubt they think they can give happiness simply by sharing a bed. No, they are more likely to give their diseases, vices and bad habits... but happiness? The idea is laughable!

Don’t hold it against me if I talk to you like this. I assure you: my only desire is to make your lives happier, not, of course, like the whippersnapper promising his sweetheart happiness, but with a stable, durable, eternal happiness. For I know how many difficulties, sorrows and disappointments you all have; life is difficult, I know, I can see it in your faces. I can see that many of you have to live in conditions which are far from conducive to your evolution. How can I help you? I cannot give you millions. I cannot give you a sweetheart. But I can give you a truth which is worth far more: I can tell you how to be permanently linked to the source, how to drink of that love that exists throughout the universe, that love in which we are immersed. But you are like someone up to their neck in water shouting, ‘Water, water! Give me water!’ They only need to open their mouth and drink, but they keep it closed and die of thirst! This love surrounds and envelops us, and yet, there you all are, weeping and moaning, still looking for it. In the words of St Paul, ‘In him we live and move and have our being.’ You are immersed in love, just as fish are immersed in the ocean; you do not know it, but it is the environment in which you already live. If you could only open a window, just a crack, you would be flooded, submerged in that tremendous torrent of love. Unfortunately, you are enclosed in such a thick shell, the shell of stupid opinions accepted at face value from the ignorant masses, that nothing can get through to you. You are so isolated, cut off and shut in on yourselves that nothing luminous or divine can enter you. And this is precisely where I can help: by opening a tiny breach through which love can enter. It’s simple! It’s easy!

It takes thousands of years to obtain wisdom; it takes thousands more years to obtain power, but it takes no time at all to obtain love. Love is there for the asking, instantly. All you have to do is decide that you really want it. To accept or refuse it, to open or close yourself to it, to love or not to love, it all depends on you, and you can do it at once. Personally, this is how I proceed: at this very instant I agree to love. For the rest, for wisdom and power, I know I am going to have to wait a long time, but I don’t have to wait for love. I can love today, now, at this very instant, so I throw myself into it, and there it is! And you can do the same: don’t wait, throw yourself into this ocean of love, and you will feel all your grief and distress, all your difficulties, fading and disappearing. ‘And what about the dreadful conditions in which we have to live?’ you will ask. They will change, you will not be given the same conditions for ever, everything varies, everything changes. Cling to hope and you will find that everything improves: you will have the prettiest wife in the world, the most perfect children, palaces and millions! Obviously, this is symbolic, and people are not particularly fond of symbols; they prefer something solid to hold on to and fondle. Yes, and that is unfortunate, because it is when you remain on the level of symbols that everything is magnificent.

My dear brothers and sisters, this is a school, a school in which you are learning sublime truths, and you do not have the right to judge what you hear until you have verified it for yourselves. But everybody judges on the basis of their old conceptions, on the basis of the ancient traditions handed on by families and society and which conceal the real truth from them. It is no wonder that, in these conditions, initiatic truths seem too far-fetched and unrealistic, too utopian, even stupid. But those who are wise and intelligent never make a judgment about something they have not studied and examined in detail or experimented with for themselves. They say, ‘What you say may be true, but as I am not in a position to pass judgment on it at the moment, I’ll study the question and try it out, and I’ll give you my opinion later.’ Whereas an idiot will tell you, without hesitation, ‘In my opinion that’s impossible; in my opinion that’s grotesque; in my opinion...’ If you study history, you will see that a great many scientists scoffed at certain discoveries made by others but that, not very long afterwards, they were forced to eat their words and admit that it was the others who had been right. In fact, this kind of thing has happened so often that scientists are now much wiser and more circumspect; they refuse to compromise themselves by pronouncing judgment too hastily. So why don’t you take a leaf out of their book and wait before forming an opinion on this subject and all the unknown aspects which I reveal to you. There are hundreds upon thousands of steps on the stairway of perfection, but human beings are forever marking time on the lowest steps, and, what is more, they are convinced that things are meant to remain as they are for eternity. No, humankind has not finished advancing; it must continue to climb to higher levels; there are still great changes to come.

Of course, I am not talking about the ‘sexual revolution’ that is going on today among young people, particularly in the United States and Scandinavia. I am not saying it is perfect or that they have found the right solutions: promiscuity, exchanging partners, the pill, abortion and so on. No, but these are experiments, trial runs, which are going to continue for a number of years. Young people have the will to change things, to find other ways of doing things, but this does not mean that they have found the solution yet.

I know Initiatic Science, in which are contained all the changes that Cosmic Intelligence has had in mind for humanity for millions of years. When the right conditions are there and it becomes possible for these changes to take place, the splendour and bliss that will be enjoyed by humankind is beyond anything you can imagine: it will be the new Golden Age! Personally, I believe that the Golden Age will come, but it will not be brought by cranks, oddballs or madmen, no! It will come thanks to those who have developed the qualities of true knowledge, disinterested love and self-dominance. Beings who have these three qualities will come. There are already some exceptional beings in the world who are perpetually neglected, ridiculed or thrown into prison, but when the time is right they will make themselves known, and the face of the earth will be transformed. As for those who spend their time pursuing their own personal ambitions, who think of nothing but their own success, fame or money, they will disappear... all of them without exception!

Even if you have not understood very much of what I have said today, when you listen to this lecture again for the second time you will understand more, and the third and fourth times, more still. I know very well that you are not capable of understanding truths such as these in the space of one hour. You listen and take notes, but what do you really understand or digest? Very little. You have to read my lectures or listen to them again. In fact, many of you know this and have said so to me. It is no use believing or hoping that such tremendous, unheard-of truths can be instantly understood and put into effect. Well, in any case, I don’t believe that it is possible, for I know the reality, I know human beings and human nature, I know how slow they are and how deeply embedded they are in their material preoccupations and commitments. Even when they understand that something I tell them is sublime, divine, they say, ‘It’s impossible, Master, I can’t do it. I’m already committed...’ What reason do I have to believe that one of my talks has the power to turn a life upside down?

Oh, to be sure, it can happen; there are exceptions. But they are rare: someone hears a lecture and that’s it; their whole life is transformed. Yes, but that is because they have greatly evolved in previous incarnations, and they only need to hear one truth for everything to fall into place. But for most people, clubs and hammers are needed to pound and beat and hammer at them until, twenty or thirty or forty years later, they say, ‘Ah, yes. I’m beginning to understand that there are laws that must be respected’! But why wait years? Believe me, there is not very much time left. Hurry up! There are great upheavals on the way. How will you endure the strain and the privations? Your nervous system is already so fragile.

As you see, my dear brothers and sisters, I speak about a different subject every day, but always with the same purpose, the same orientation. My lectures are like a river: the water is never the same, it is constantly changing, but it is the same river, flowing always in the same direction ‒ to the sea.

Sèvres, 1 February 1975

BIBLICAL REFERENCES

‘In him we live and move…’ – Acts 17:28

1 See Cosmic Balance – The Secret of Polarity, Izvor Coll. n° 237, chap. 17: ‘The androgynes of myth’.

2 See Langage symbolique, langage de la nature, Œuvres Complètes, vol. 8, chap. 8: ‘Le vrai mariage’.

3 See The Philosopher’s Stone – in the Gospels and in Alchemy, Izvor Coll. n° 241, chap. 5: ‘Tasting the flavour of the salt: divine love’.

Chapter Twenty
Know how to use your powers of love

I

People have always told so many stories about initiates, but the fact is that they know nothing about them! Time and time again I have told you that initiates are no different from other people insofar as their sexuality is concerned. In fact, very often, this aspect is even more potent and more alive than in other people. But the real difference between initiates and others is that they know how and to what end to use their energies. For them, everything is useful, everything has meaning. Initiates would never mutilate themselves or become eunuchs, as so many religious did when they fled from women and ended up completely hardened and totally insensitive to beauty and poetry! This is not the way of an initiate! You must never mutilate, reject or cut anything off; you must simply acquire the knowledge needed in order to channel and use your sexual energy.

If you put a dam across a river, the water can overflow and destroy everything in its path. Your dam will not prevent the water from flowing. And the same is true of the forces in human beings: if they dam up the energies that are trying to rise, the tension will build up in their subconscious, and one fine day everything will be swept away by the flood. If you do not know human nature you will never succeed. Never try to dam up your energies, therefore; give them a channel through which they can flow to irrigate your land, just as the ancient Egyptians dug ditches so that the waters of the Nile could fertilize their land. Actually, nature has already installed the necessary channels and ducts through which our sexual energies can flow upwards towards the brain. But, for the moment, human beings are so unaccustomed to working in this direction, that these channels are blocked up and all their energies take the downward path and are wasted.1

Even initiates can be troubled when they feel certain desires, but the difference between ordinary people and initiates is that initiates are attentive to what is going on in them. They keep an eye on everything and know how to remedy the situation, whereas other people let everything just take its course, and then, obviously, they can only take stock of the damage that has been done! But people have not remained inactive in the face of the natural forces of water, air and fire. For thousands of years they have tried to find ways of protecting themselves from their ravages and even of making use of them. The sad thing is that the spiritual life has not benefited from all the discoveries humans have made; on the contrary, they have been used for egotistical, personal goals: to get rich, to have power over others, sometimes even to exterminate them.

The one essential problem is how to love, and it is precisely this that no one knows. People are taught that love is an instinct and that they must let it have its way. Ah, no! Nobody knows what love is; nobody knows that God has put everything into love. We must love, there is no doubt about that, but we must learn how to use love. When two beings fall in love, why do they have to be in such a hurry to spoil everything? Why can’t they understand that what they are experiencing is a promise of the greatest happiness, the most perfect fulfilment, so long as they learn to use their glances, their words, the fragrance of their love, in order to understand, ennoble and purify themselves? Immediately, when a man and a woman discover their love, they rush headlong over the edge of the precipice, and then, in no time at all, they cannot bear the sight of each other anymore. Yes, because they were in too much of a hurry. Why not keep a little distance and use all that fragrance to rise higher and higher, to be inspired and dazzle the whole world? At the sight of them, people should be moved to exclaim, ‘Who are those two? There is such light, something so divine emanating from them...’ This is the goal of love, but in order to reach it you have to know all the different aspects of this formidable force.

Don’t let yourselves be influenced by novels and films, for they will only encourage you to do something silly. You must seek initiatic knowledge instead and learn how to use the force of love to obtain light, not to defile it by sleeping together at once, as is the custom today. Once you have had a dozen or more lovers or mistresses, what can you hope to do that will still be beautiful and clean? Nothing; you are shop-soiled and unusable! You must love, yes; but you must learn how to love so that your soul and spirit, your whole being, benefits from your love. ‘Yes, but I feel driven. It burns!’ So much the better! Haven’t I already told you that the greater the pressure, the higher the water can go in the skyscraper of each person. Without that pressure, the inhabitants on the top floor, in the brain, would be permanently without water. But people are so ignorant that, for the sake of tranquillity, they are ready to do away with the pressure, with the result that they do away with everything: the inhabitants of the brain have no water to drink because there is not enough pressure. There is nothing more beautiful, more powerful or more divine than love, but human beings are doing their best to ruin this most precious of all the gifts the Creator has given them.

Only true initiates have had the full revelation of love, and thanks to this they are able to heal and prophesy and work miracles. For my part, this is the only thing I believe in: the power of love, for I have received astounding revelations about it. I know that love is the only thing that has the power to give men and women everything they need and could ever ask for, for it is the source of all forces. Yes, all the forces known to and used by the physical sciences are simply the various transformations of heat, that is to say, of love. At the origin of all things is fire: fire, heat, love. If you know how to work with that force you can obtain whatever you wish. Unfortunately, instead of working with it, human beings are constantly trying to get rid of it. You must not do that; you must not waste it. Believe me, this force is brain power; if you waste it you are wasting your grey matter, throwing away your brain.

I think it is now quite clear to you that you must love, but you must direct your energies towards the branches of life instead of letting them all sink down to the roots. Send the energy boiling up inside you to the brain (that is what I mean by the branches); let it water and nourish the brain and produce flowers and fruit. In order to do this you must be permanently linked to the inexhaustible Fountainhead and not be content to drink only from a little bottle (that is to say, your husband or wife) that you will be obliged to throw away once it is empty! Slake your thirst at the living waters of the eternal Source.

While you are here, take advantage of the good conditions you find here, and try to steer this energy of love into other channels. Let it mount until it awakens your spiritual centres on high, instead of always letting it follow the same old downward path that it has followed from prehistoric times. To be sure, you will not succeed the very first time you try. The first days, the first years, will be difficult, but if you keep trying, the invisible world will give you more and more help, and one day you will succeed!

The Bonfin, 20 July 1967

II

I invite you to take a look at the way a lover usually behaves in order to win a partner. They coax and cajole them, pay them a thousand compliments and flatter their vanity. In other words, they play on their personality, for they know that if they don’t they can expect nothing from them. And whether the partner in question is a man or a woman, the technique is basically the same. Both men and women, therefore, know what has to be done: by their words, gestures and gifts, they always speak to the personality. They do not even know that the being they are addressing has a higher nature, the individuality, which needs to be aroused, nourished and strengthened, so they do all they can to satisfy the person’s instinctive nature. When it comes to awakening the sublime, ideal, luminous, perfect faculties dormant in their beloved, and nourishing them, if only with a word, a glance, a smile, they have no idea how to go about it. But when it comes to awakening and exciting the aspects of the personality that will enable them to satisfy their own lower instincts, they know exactly what to do! This is why human love still expresses itself instinctively and with passion, in the manner of animals. It is very rare to find any poetic, wondrous, divine element in it.

Initiatic Science is needed if human beings are to learn how to nourish the higher nature of those they love. Picture two beings who love each other and are deeply committed to this Teaching, who are steeped, night and day, in the light of the Teaching: they are living their love on the higher level. Each of them thinks of the good of the other and tries to find ways to encourage, enlighten and strengthen the other and prepare the other’s future. This is a picture of a higher degree of love, whereas in general, people think only of themselves, of how they can satisfy their own needs; they are completely indifferent to what might become of their partner. They are ready to tear them to pieces, turn their lives upside down, destroy their future and their beauty, their reputation and their position in society, for no other reason than to satisfy their own lust. What a world!

Have human beings ever studied any of this? Have they ever been instructed in Initiatic Science and learned to analyse the true nature of the urges and impulses that move them by reading their rate of vibrations and seeing what category they belong to: whether they are divine, human or diabolical, egotistical or disinterested, beautiful or ugly? No, they have a need, and the only thing that interests them is to satisfy that need. Whether their need comes from heaven or hell, they don’t know, and they don’t want to know. In other words, they are animals. They are worse than animals, in fact, because animals follow their natural instinct only at certain periods of the year, whereas human beings are obsessed by their sensuality day and night, to such a point that they indulge in vicious, perverted forms that nature herself never planned.

What attitude should disciples adopt in this respect? If they want to do the right thing they are going to have to reflect, to ask themselves some questions, to analyse the situation. A young man will say, ‘I love her, that I know. But what will my love do for her? Will my love help her to advance and become freer, or will it simply complicate her existence?’ But a young man doesn’t think about these things, and when a baby comes on the scene, he leaves her to get along as best she can and bring it up by herself. This is what happens when a man asks himself no questions; he says, ‘I’m hungry’, and that’s that. And does a girl often think about a young man’s future? No, she leads him on and incites him to give free rein to his lowest instincts – for women have a magical power capable of arousing even the coldest of men – so that the poor wretch will never again know a moment’s peace. But that is all the same to her: she is proud of her conquest; it proves the power of her charms!

Women often take pleasure in testing their power over men, and as they are stronger in this respect than men, they have an easy victory. When they see that men find their charms irresistible, instead of using the power this gives them to inspire them, keep them on the right path and encourage them to be nobler and more honest, they use it to lead them astray! Not from any evil intention, no, but because they need to feel the full extent of their power. When they are in the street or at the theatre, they are proud to feel that all eyes are on them. But they do all this with such an air of innocence and candour; they are past masters at keeping up appearances! To tell the truth, they have exactly the same need of pleasure and sensual satisfaction as men, but they don’t show it. Men are more naive: they can hardly feel the slightest arousal without letting everyone see it!

So, disciples must learn to think of their partners. In any case, as they are taught about the laws of karma and reincarnation, they know that if they behave badly in this life, they will have to come back to earth to make reparation for their faults and sometimes suffer terribly. If only to avoid even greater misfortune, therefore, they try to love their husband or wife in a nobler and more unselfish way. But, of course, both partners must be enlightened and know the laws, otherwise my advice cannot really be put into practice.

Let me give you an example: I have already told you that, when a man holds the woman he loves in his arms and looks at her and talks to her, instead of using the name of his beloved, he can speak through her to the divine Mother. In this way, he creates a bond between himself and the divine Mother and sublimates his love. And, above all, his wife must not take offence, as sometimes happens. You know how it is: they are in bed, and the husband is already half asleep when he murmurs the name of another woman. Well, naturally, she is furious; she guesses that he has fallen in love with another pretty face, and makes a great scene about it! At least this won’t happen to a disciple. If you murmur, ‘Oh, divine Mother!’ in your sleep, your wife will think, ‘Oh, if it’s the divine Mother he’s in love with, that’s all right!’ And she will be all the more understanding knowing that the divine Mother is a long way away! As for wives, instead of murmuring the name of their husband, why shouldn’t they call on the heavenly Father. In this way, instead of limiting themselves to the lower aspects of their exchange – you never know what staleness and rottenness you can absorb on that level – a couple can be ‘plugged in’ to the central powerhouse that is God. In this way they will be lamps, continually alight and shining.2 You must link yourself to that eternal Source of all perfection, not to the poor simpleton who says, ‘Darling, I swear I can make you happy!’ You only have to look at them to see that they are spineless, ignorant and miserable: how can they hope to make anyone happy?

Instead of simply enjoying and drawing sustenance for themselves from all those riches that God has given them ‒ all that life and warmth, their mutual, loving presence, all those fragrant emanations ‒ men and women can use them to advance and reach greater heights. When they link each other with the heavenly Father and the divine Mother, they draw strength and happiness from that inexhaustible reservoir of pure, incorruptible love and feel themselves enlightened, strengthened, rejuvenated and fulfilled.

You find all this rather bizarre, don’t you? Well, think what you like... But I am speaking for the few, for those who are ready to understand these ideas and put them into practice. The others can go on doing what they have always done, and they will see for themselves if their love lasts a long time! Things are not always what they seem, even with couples that have never been separated for thirty or forty years. If they revealed their secret thoughts, you would find that they had both dreamed of changing from time to time, but instead of separating they had both secretly enthroned someone else in their hearts: he, a Hollywood star and she, a crooner!

It is a mistake to think that human love can last for ever. It is made of matter that can crumble away from rust and decay. Never trust someone who says, ‘I’ll love you eternally’; a month later they will have found someone else! As a matter of fact, you should never rely on promises: when a human being has had a few drinks they are ready to promise whatever you want, but in the cold light of day, they will say, ‘Whatever got into me to make me promise such a thing?’ Yes, people say the wildest things when they are in the grip of emotion. When they are in bed together, lovers make all kinds of extravagant declarations and promises, and the next minute they are at each other’s throats. How can you believe in the eternity of human love? Only divine love is eternal. Draw on divine love and you will see that your love will go on and on, for millions and billions of years, and you will never tire of it or be bored or get sick of it, because it is the only kind of love that is always new, appetizing and delicious. It is beyond the power of words to express!

It is really worthwhile taking the trouble to prepare yourselves to become conductors of divine energies, so that heaven can pour out its treasures through men and women. Great Masters are simply conductors who manifest not themselves but the heavenly entities who pass through them. This is why human beings never tire of following them, contemplating them, loving and believing in them. If it were they themselves who spoke to you and taught you, you would soon have enough of them and would leave them, because what is human will always be human. As St Paul says, ‘What is sown in corruption bears fruits of corruption; what is sown in incorruption bears fruits of incorruption.’ Incorruption is what is eternal, our divine nature. And yet, people forget about it; they never have recourse to it or seek to be in touch with it. They don’t know how to find it, so they cling instead to the perishable, fleeting, destructible things of life. They do not have a high ideal; they prefer something solid and tangible; they need something that they can touch and caress and embrace.

I fully understand that the tangible, material side of reality is important and necessary and that without it, in fact, it would be difficult to find the spiritual side, but it must be seen as a means and a starting point, not as an end in itself. If, for instance, you feel a strong physical attraction for a man or woman, instead of diving in and drowning yourself in it, why not use it as a golden opportunity, an occasion to make great strides forward and to reach greater spiritual heights? Similarly, if you read something or see a show or leaf through a magazine that triggers a physical reaction in you, instead of letting yourself be swept away and drowned in it, use it as a springboard and let it catapult you to such heights of divine contemplation that, when you come down again, you will be astonished to see what riches you have just amassed, and how something that started by troubling you could become a stimulus, a help and encouragement to advance spiritually.

You can see how necessary this philosophy is. Why be so blind as to obey the suggestion of every sensation that troubles you, without knowing what it will lead to? Remember that Initiatic Science teaches you to use everything, so be glad and thank heaven for these opportunities: ‘Ah, what a blessing! Here’s a situation that makes everybody tear their hair out, and I’m privileged to know how to come out on top! Thank you, Lord. I understand what I have to do, so let’s get on with it!’ And you roll up your sleeves and apply the methods that I have given you. In this way you will learn to triumph over every difficulty; nothing can disturb or vanquish you; you become strong and powerful ‒ a divinity!

I have explained these things to you time and time again, and yet I have the feeling that you have still not understood and that, instead of using this energy to work at your own evolution, you abandon yourselves to it blindly, simply because it is pushing you. Yes, but everybody gets pushed, and some see to it that they are pushed in a different direction; they use this force to reach great heights, to climb towards heaven and become very rich. Why be content with slavery, weakness and dependency and say, ‘It’s stronger than I am’? It is time you started to move in a different direction. Of course, when you are used to letting yourself go without a second thought, to giving priority to your feelings and desires and your thirst for pleasure, it is difficult to become master of oneself from one day to the next. But when you are a pupil in the divine school of this Teaching, you begin to reflect and understand, and gradually you will begin to acquire more control, achieve self-dominance and re-orientate yourself. And in the end you will win. You will not be deprived of love; on the contrary, you will love, but without having to find a partner with whom to wallow in the mire!

But, nowadays, people have only one idea, and that is to tear down all the moral barriers that initiates of the past set up to prevent human beings from living in slavery to passion and disorder. They were well aware of how many brilliant civilizations had disappeared, destroyed from within by the moral and physical degradation caused by debauchery and orgiastic cults. It is the turn, now, of the present generation to want to free itself from all taboos and rules; the impetus has reached such proportions, in fact, that nothing can now stop it. Only the light of Initiatic Teaching can hold human beings back from the cliff’s edge. The light of this Teaching shows them that all their divine energies are being swallowed up and absorbed by their depraved passions and pleasures; that they are obliged to surrender all their resources, all their materials, all the furniture they possess, even the tables and chairs, in order to fuel the fire that possesses them. For this fire consumes the very substance of a person’s being. You can never persuade it to burn your neighbour’s house or the trees in the forest: it can only feed on your own reserves, your own fuel. In order to go on indulging in the ferment and violent volcanic eruptions they enjoy so much, human beings are obliged to burn up all their most precious energies and quintessences. Each time, without their realizing it, they lose something of their purity and intelligence, something of their beauty and power, and in the end, when they have spent all they had, they find themselves weak and ill, with all their beauty and intelligence tarnished and destroyed.

I wonder, of course, how many are willing to believe and understand these truths. Nobody respects moral prescriptions anymore, because they do not realize they are founded on a prodigious Initiatic Science.3 Blindly, mindlessly, people hurry to give in to all their whims and fancies without knowing that this is leading to the destruction of humankind. For, once you destroy the dams and dykes, the flood waters sweep all before them, devastating and destroying the whole land; it is inevitable!

My dear brothers and sisters, you must understand this once and for all: you must know exactly what each of your desires will lead to. If you feel impoverished, weak and unhappy, it is because you are on the wrong road. All you have to do is choose a different one! But no, you don’t do that. You embark on something without reflection, simply because it tastes sweet and you enjoy it: this is the absolute criterion by which you judge everything. But here, the only criterion is work: to work, build and create. Yes, and in this work, without having to look for it, we find an immense, indescribable pleasure! We are constantly happy and brimming over with wonder and delight. Isn’t it at least worth trying?

Videlinata (Switzerland), 21 March 1975

BIBLICAL REFERENCES

‘What is sown in corruption…’ – I Cor. 15:42

1 See True Alchemy or the Quest for Perfection, Izvor Coll. n° 221, chap. 12: ‘The sublimation of sexual energy’.

2 See ‘You Are Gods’, Synopsis Coll., Part III, chap. 5: ‘You shall love the Lord your God’.

3 See Cosmic Moral Law, Complete Works, vol. 12.

Chapter Twenty-One
A broader concept of marriage

IV
(The first three parts of this lecture were published in Love and Sexuality, Part I, Complete Works, vol. 14.)

When you form a bond with a particular man or woman, you experience certain joys, to be sure, but you also experience certain tribulations and sorrows. If human beings were sufficiently highly evolved, they would love all men and women without attaching themselves to any one in particular. And the reason is not, as you might think, in order to amuse themselves with more than one person, but in order to do more and better work for the whole world. When a man marries, his wife is so demanding that she absorbs all his attention; she is too jealous even to allow him to love the Lord; she wants him all for herself. And that is the end of his freedom! And men have exactly the same attitude with their wives: they claim every scrap of their love and attention for themselves.

Oh, don’t talk to me about husbands and wives! They all have the same failing: they all want to possess their partners, to keep them for themselves, to make them their servants. This is why, in certain cases, it is better not to marry and, instead of trying to make one woman happy (which, in any case, is an impossible task!), to work for the happiness of the whole world. You will say, ‘What do you mean? Can’t I make one woman happy?’ No. You can make thousands of women happy, but never just one. Why? Because, however much a man does for his wife, she is never satisfied. Once he is dead, perhaps... but as long as the poor man is still alive, he is an imbecile and an incompetent. The man next door is always a better husband; he buys his wife everything she wants: a refrigerator, a washing machine, furs! You can do everything in your power, but you will never succeed in satisfying one woman, but you can satisfy thousands of women.

Now, don’t get the idea that I am telling you to leave your husband or wife. ‘Well, after all the things you have been saying, that is what it looks like!’ No, not at all. It is a good thing to marry and have children; the only thing is that you should change your point of view and say, ‘My husband is an aspect of the heavenly Father; what a blessing!’ You have all seen cartoons where you see a big, fat woman with a rolling pin in her hand, hiding behind the door, waiting for her husband to come home. And when the poor wretch opens the door: whack! A blow on the head knocks him out. Never mind, she is there to revive him. Yes, well, that makes you laugh; but don’t laugh at the idea that you must change your point of view. That is something you must take very seriously. If you do this, everything will be different. The wife will be patient with her husband’s imperfections, because she will say to herself, ‘Just wait; you’ll see what he’ll be like before long...’ and she will live in the hope of seeing him become a divinity. In the meantime, of course, she is going to have to put up with a few little inconveniences, but she must tell herself, ‘That husband of mine! If I married him it must be because I did something to earn it in another incarnation, for there is justice in everything! So, I’m just going to accept him this time and learn and try to do better.’ In this way, instead of running up more debts by trying to free herself, she will wipe out all her old debts. Whereas, if she behaves badly and leaves her husband, her debts mount up and she will be forced to pay them in one way or another, when she finds herself with him again, in another incarnation.

So, it is worth your while to accept this philosophy, if only to free yourselves from debt. Because the husband, too, can ask himself, ‘Out of two billion women in the world, why on earth did I have to stumble on this one?’ If he thinks about it, though, he will realize that it is not a question of chance. There were so many to choose from! But he had to choose this one, because it is thanks to her that he will work at his own perfection and develop certain qualities and virtues. You see, people don’t reason things out like this because they have never learned about reincarnation and the laws of karma and of cause and effect.

I should also add that, when a woman looks on her husband as a manifestation of the heavenly Father, she is linking him magically to the Lord. And if you imagine that this has no effect you are mistaken; when she does this the qualities of the eternal Father begin to seep down into her husband and, lo and behold, the good man begins to change, without even knowing why! Because his wife loves him and tells him, ‘How handsome and intelligent and wise you are!’ and, in this way, links him to his heavenly Father. He may not have any of the virtues she sees in him, but her words do their work in his mind, and he makes an effort to live up to them and not to disappoint her. When a woman is enlightened enough to do this, she herself makes progress thanks to her own efforts, and at the same time she transforms her husband.

In the past, people divorced much less readily; nowadays they can hardly bear to stay together for a month, especially in the United States. They are too personal, too selfish; everyone wants the whole pie for themselves! If things go on like this there will soon be no stability for families. Psychologists and philosophers will be obliged to find solutions to this problem and they will eventually find the answers that we revealed a long time ago; there is no other answer. Married people, therefore, must not separate without first examining the whole question very carefully, for there are other solutions. The Lord has given men solutions to every possible situation, but they have to find them. As for those of you who are not already married, you must not be in too much of a hurry. Study the question very carefully beforehand, because, once you are married, it is better not to get divorced. You must learn how to live a model family life in harmony and love.

Human beings can be happy in marriage; it is possible, but only if they know what attitude to have towards each other and how to look at each other’s divine aspect, not only at what they can see on the outside. If you do not look for the divine aspect of your partner, that aspect for which you should be ready to make every sacrifice, you will certainly never be content with the outer aspect. Look what happens when a man’s soul leaves him, when there is no more life in him; he is nothing more than a corpse, and his wife says, ‘Take it away. Bury it.’ And yet she loved him! Yes, but she loved a living being, she loved the life that was in him, not his body. And the life that is in a human being is just that ‒ the divine, spiritual dimension. This is what people always forget. And this is why you must not marry for the sake of the physical body, but for an exchange on the level of ideas and feelings. The physical body is always the same, and after a time one tires of it. Whereas the inner life of a person is always new and different; it is like a stream of running water. If the physical body did not contain the soul, with all its good feelings and intentions and all its kind thoughts, what would it be worth? How long can anyone live with even the most beautiful woman if she is stupid and vicious?

Those who are married must fulfil their duty and do whatever work has to be done to improve their situation, and if one day they want to free themselves they may do so, but only on condition that they have no more debts to pay. There are a great many men and women who do not know the laws of karma and who say, ‘I’m never going to get married.’ And then, not so long after, someone is put in their path and they succumb, they get married! So, it is not always easy. Do you think that all those who would prefer to remain single manage to do so? No. Their destiny has other things in store for them: very few manage to stay free. There are also people for whom it is a punishment to remain single; celibacy is a burden, not a liberation. Whereas, for others, it is a blessing. It all depends...

You do not yet realize what marriage is. Marriage is a great mystery. Long before marriage was instituted among human beings, it already existed in nature, in the cosmos. True marriage is the marriage of spirit and matter; it is from this marriage that the whole of creation is born. It exists, therefore, in every atom, and when the husband is separated from his wife (in nuclear fission), the separation causes everything to disintegrate. The husband, in a fury, destroys his wife. When they were married, they lived and created together in peace; when they are forced apart, they produce explosions and disaster.

Marriage is a cosmic phenomenon. First and foremost it is celebrated on high, between the heavenly Father and his spouse, Mother Nature. Human beings, who have been created in the image of God, unconsciously reproduce what happens on high. Christians are very far from understanding this; for them, the heavenly Father is a bachelor! But if this is so, why do human beings marry? If we do something that the heavenly Father never does, it means that we are not created in his image. Christians refuse to accept the existence of the supreme Mother; in fact Christianity is alone in refusing to accept this truth: all other religions accept it. But then Christianity is not the authentic doctrine taught by Christ. According to the Cabbalah God has a spouse, Shekinah, and Shekinah is the quintessence that emanates from him and with which he creates the worlds. Christians seem to think that it diminishes the Lord in some way to say that he too is married. But then why does he allow human beings to marry? Where did they get the idea of marriage?

The truth is that everything that happens here, below, is a reflection of what happens above. ‘What is below is like what is above’, said Hermes Trismegistus; in other words, what exists below among human beings is like what exists on high in heaven among the archangels. For archangels marry also, but their weddings are not exactly like ours, with champagne and wedding cake! The sun, too, is married; it is married to the earth, and it is thanks to this marriage that children are born: the trees, fruit and flowers of the earth... all creatures.

If force, the force of the spirit, were not united to matter, matter would disappear or remain formless. It is force, the spirit, that fashions matter and gives it form. And, as all that is above has its exact reflection below, the same phenomenon can be seen between man and woman: man fashions woman. And, from the structure of an atom to the work of a baker kneading the dough, this same process can be seen throughout creation: disguised in millions of different forms, it is always the marriage of spirit and matter.

Instead of marrying a woman, whom they would try in vain to satisfy, and who would deprive them of their freedom and prevent them from dedicating themselves to helping the whole of humanity, initiates seek the solution to the problem of love by deciphering the great Book of Nature in which God has revealed it. They take the lesson offered by bees and butterflies, for instance: the majority of human beings understand marriage as though they were caterpillars, which kill bushes and trees by devouring their leaves. A butterfly, on the other hand, is an initiate: it does not devour the leaves of a tree but visits its flowers and, without harming them in any way, feeds on their nectar.1 A bee also visits flowers and takes from them their pollen and nectar with which it produces honey, the best of all foods. Bees, therefore, are initiates of a very high order who loves all flowers, that is to say, all women, but without robbing or spoiling them in any way; they take nothing but a tiny atom from them, and with this they manufacture the honey that they use for the benefit of all humankind. As you can see, the solutions to all problems are there, in nature; that is where you must go and look for them.

Marriage, this institution that men and women have always practised blindly and unconsciously, is a reflection of the greatest of all mysteries celebrated on high between God and his spouse, nature, Isis. And now, human beings must learn to practise it with a full understanding of its profound meaning. Husbands must learn how to communicate to their wives the qualities of the heavenly Father; wives must be deeply aware that they must bring to their husbands the qualities of the divine Mother. This is the only thing that matters. In this way, when both consciously desire to give of themselves, to give to the other all that they lack, they will love each other for ever. In fact, when they are very, very old they will love each other even more than on their wedding day. For it is not the flesh they love but the soul and the spirit. What does it matter if the body is old and wrinkled? Behind those wrinkles shines a glorious soul, and a soul is something priceless!

It is a most glorious thing to be married, but, if you want to avoid a great deal of pain, there is still one thing you must know: never consider that your husband or wife belongs to you. If you do that you will be storing up terrible conflict for yourself, for the day will inevitably come when you will find that he or she does not belong to you, and when this happens, you will suffer or you will make your partner suffer. You must never believe that your wife belongs to you; she existed before she knew you, and she will continue to exist afterwards. It was not you who created her, but someone else. For the time being, she is simply your associate. Get rid of all those ancient ideas that are at the root of so many tragedies.2 Understand that your wife is your associate for this lifetime and that she is free; if she wants to do something for you, so much the better, be glad of it, but there is no law that obliges her to do so. She is bound to you only by her own free consent. She has had other husbands before you came along; you are not her husband for eternity.

If a man and woman had always been together, from all eternity, they would live in perfect harmony but, as we see, they are always in conflict, which means that they do not know each other. Perhaps they are meeting for the first time. The woman has already had so many husbands; if the poor thing had to account for every one, she would never be able to sort them all out! And he too: how many wives has he already had? And there is no guarantee that you will have the same wife in your next incarnation either, so it is not worth tormenting yourself and clinging to an illusion. Men and women should say, ‘In this life we are associates; we are going to work as well as we can and be as honest as possible with each other. We can’t do more than that!’ And if they manage to form a very good relationship, they will be together again in the future. You can see how clear it all is.

Try to understand that nobody belongs to you: neither husband nor wife nor children. You are simply the guardians of your children, nothing more. You have been given the responsibility of bringing them up, and you must do so properly, otherwise you will be punished. It is not enough to bring children into the world and then neglect them. You make them when you want some pleasure, and then you expect other people to look after them! No, this is how you contract a karmic debt towards your children.

As you see, my dear brothers and sisters, this Science is as vast as life itself. I have the feeling that I have still not said enough about this subject or, for that matter, about any subject. But I hope that with the grace of God and all the good will that you bring to it, we shall gradually elucidate these problems, so that you may become sons and daughters of God and be free and happy. Yes, free, happy and in peace, even with your wives and husbands and children!

Sèvres, 1 November 1965

1 See La pédagogie initiatique, Complete Works, vol. 28, chap. 7: ‘La chenille et le papillon’.

2 See Love and Sexuality, Complete Works, vol. 14, chap. 7: ‘Jealousy’.

Chapter Twenty-Two
‘It ascends from earth to heaven
and descends again to earth’

The alchemists searched for the philosopher’s stone in order to transmute metals into gold, but this was only the outward aspect of the question.1 In point of fact, it was not so much gold they were looking for; they used the complicated processes involved in the transformation of metals to conceal the phenomena of the inner life and its psychic and spiritual processes. The true philosopher’s stone is love, divine love, and when humans find that love and manifest it correctly, they are capable of transforming all the impure, raw materials within them into a noble, luminous matter.

So it is not a question of doing away with love or repressing or inhibiting it but of finding the means and methods by which to manifest it properly. Love is an energy that comes from a very high level; it is of the same essence as the sun, and our task is to receive that energy and allow it to circulate within us before sending it back to heaven from which it came. We read in the Emerald Tablet, ‘It ascends from earth to heaven and descends again to earth, uniting in itself the force of above and below… This is the strength of all strengths.’ So this is the normal route followed by this force: from heaven to earth and from earth to heaven. But as, in most human beings, the route is closed, blocked up by impurities, this force is turned aside and goes underground where it nourishes demons.

Try to understand this: initiates make no effort to prevent that energy from pouring into them; they are not so stupid as to try to oppose God himself. It is only a few foolish puritans who struggle in this way, and they are perpetually defeated and ground to dust, because they are struggling against the divine principle, the solar force, the torrent flowing from on high. This torrent is Christ himself, who said, ‘I am the way, the truth and the life.’2 When layers and layers of impurities have accumulated in humans because of their passions and excesses, this energy cannot return to its source, so it soaks down into the earth and is lost. But if a person is pure and totally in control of themselves, if they are firmly anchored in God, the force that flows into them ceaselessly from above is not lost; it is free to complete the circuit and follow the path that takes it back to the heights from which it came.

When people finally understand the works of God and see how the world was built, when they see that heaven is both the starting point and the terminus, the point of arrival, the earth will no longer be an obstacle for them. Love comes from heaven and is destined to return to heaven. There are not two, three or four different loves; it is always one and the same love, but seen or experienced on different levels. It is said that God is love; no one has ever said that the devil is love, too. Love comes from God, and if it meets with no resistance, it flows smoothly and provokes no fires or fevers. When love burns it is because there are obstacles in its path. Look... when you are in bed with a raging temperature, it is because physical impurities are obstructing the circulation and free flow of energy. The fever is caused by the struggle that your organism puts up in its effort to eliminate those obstacles.

You must realize that you cannot change the order of things created by God himself for a specific purpose, a purpose so glorious that it is far beyond anything you can conceive of. When the day comes for you to understand it, you will be lost in awe and wonder at God’s plans. I had nothing to do with it; I am only here to explain things to you, and if you don’t like what I tell you, you can always go and complain to God. Tell him that you are scandalized by the way he designed the human sexual organs, that you think the whole thing is ugly and stupid, and that you have all kinds of ideas for the creation of a better kind of world. Go on, pick a fight with him about it, and you will see the answer he gives you!

Since things are as they are and you can do nothing to change them, don’t waste your life arguing and struggling against them. Accept this design, this construction, this divine wisdom. Accept it, bow to it and stop criticizing it. Try to learn how to behave so that you can be conductors of that extraordinary force which is destined to transform the world, to transmute lead and ashes into gold and precious stones, into diamonds. It is the force of love that will work this transformation; nothing else. So, go to it; find the right attitude and the thoughts, feelings and concrete plans that you must have in order to guide and control this energy properly. There is no other solution. If you try to stifle it, not only will it explode and destroy everything, but you yourself will be dead: spiritually dead, sterile and mummified.

This energy comes from on high, and the only question is to ensure that it returns to its source. This becomes possible when, instead of using it only for your pleasure, you decide to work with it. The misfortune of human beings is that they have never understood that the energy of love was not made simply to give them pleasure, but that it can be used to awaken certain dormant faculties within them, which were designed for a psychic and spiritual work of supreme importance. And this work consists, precisely, in turning these energies back to heaven. In doing this you will be applying the precept of Hermes Trismegistus: ‘You will separate the fine from the coarse, gently and with great skill.’ When you eat, you do not swallow everything wholesale; you leave the bones, stones, peel or other inedible parts on the side of your plate. We cannot eat without having to sort and sift things, and yet men have never understood that, when it comes to ‘eating’ thoughts, feelings and sensations, they must also separate the pure from the impure, in other words, sort out what is purely for pleasure and keep only the spiritual, luminous, divine work.

The secret of self-dominance, of sublimation, is to seek not pleasure but work. You will say, ‘Yes, but how boring to embrace your beloved and not look for pleasure!’ Not at all; you just don’t understand! Pleasure is not the only thing that counts: there is also joy, delight, inspiration, enchantment, ecstasy... Aren’t these more worthwhile than pleasure? When a man and woman come together to communicate a divine feeling to each other without letting themselves be swept away, without sinking into the subterranean depths, the communion and tenderness between them becomes extraordinarily expressive and beautiful! It is pleasure, to be sure, but pleasure of a higher, divine nature, a pleasure which gives them immortality. Poets speak of being ‘a prisoner of love’. Yes, well, those who look only for pleasure become prisoners of their passions; passion seizes them and never lets go; they become its slaves. Unfortunately, this is how people understand love, the love that rends them, that burns and consumes them and leaves them spent and empty. They exult, ‘At last I’ve found the love I was longing for!’ They would be nearer the truth if they said, ‘Alas! I’ve found a great misfortune!’

The time has come, my dear brothers and sisters, to prepare yourselves to understand the mysteries of love as God created it, in light, peace, harmony, joy and wonder, and not in volcanic eruptions. Prepare yourselves for this divine work for the benefit of the whole world. This is what heaven is asking of you: to do this work. You don’t use your love for anything worthwhile; you keep it all for yourselves, for your own pleasure, and the result is that these energies turn to poison. From now on, you must turn it back to its source and consecrate it to the Lord, saying ‘Lord God, I consecrate these energies to you for your glory and the establishment of your kingdom on earth.’ But lovers never think of consecrating their love to heaven; they think that their exchanges concern only themselves. When they eat, it is for themselves: it has nothing to do with heaven. Yes, but if that is their attitude, it will have something to do with hell for, where love is concerned, when they say ‘me’, it is already a part of hell. People exclude heaven from their loving on the grounds that it is something shameful (you wonder what on earth they do!) and heaven must not see it. But they don’t think it necessary to hide from hell; they are not ashamed to let the devil see what they do, and this is why hell comes and eats it all up. That is human beings for you: everything for hell and nothing for heaven! Even the church has never explained anything in this respect. It has been content to say, ‘Be fruitful and multiply’,3 and its children mate in the dark, to the great delight of hell. Christians talk about the sacrament of marriage, but the truth is that, even when they marry according to all the rules, all hell is with them when they indulge in their legalized debauchery. There they are, in bed together, experimenting with different positions in the hope of getting bigger and better thrills, wallowing in their pleasure like animals, and that is what they call the sanctity of marriage! Poor humanity!

Where did human love come from if not from God? We say that God is love, but nobody knows what love is, and they separate physical, sensual love from divine love. But there is no separation, there are simply different degrees: love is always one and the same force, the same energy which comes to us from above. You still need a great deal more light on the subject of the number one, the indivisible, the indissoluble. And this is what love is: the number one, and it is the number one that produces all the other numbers. Two, three and four are simply manifestations, different degrees, of one. God is one, love is one and God is love. Whatever is not one is nothing but a variation, an aspect of one; this is why we have to turn back to unity.4 We live in multiplicity, on the fringes of reality. When I say that we must turn back to unity, I mean that we must return to God, to the love that is one; and when I say that we must turn our love back to heaven, it is because love must complete the circuit and return to its source. No one understands what it means to say that God is love, just as no one understands what the word ‘unity’ means or what it means when we say we must return to unity. But for me it is so clear! Unity is God, God is love and we must return to that love.

The Bonfin, 9 August 1962

BIBLICAL REFERENCES

‘I am the way, the truth and the life’ – John 14:6

‘Be fruitful and multiply’ – Gen. 1:28

1 See The Philosopher’s Stone – in the Gospels and in Alchemy, Izvor Coll. n° 241, chap. 10: ‘The philosopher’s stone, fruit of a mystic union’.

2 See ‘Et il me montra un fleuve d’eau de la vie’, Synopsis Coll., Part VII, chap. 5: ‘Je suis le chemin, la vérité et la vie’.

3 See Le grain de sénevé, Complete Works, vol. 4, chap. 12: ‘Croissez et multipliez’.

4 See ‘In Spirit and in Truth’, Izvor Coll. n° 235, chap. 5: ‘From multiplicity to unity’.

Chapter Twenty-Three
The secret of happiness
is in an expanded consciousness

Have you ever observed children at their games? Why do they like playing with dolls? Because they need some form of presence. For children, a toy is something living which helps and encourages them; they fall asleep more easily if they have their toy rabbit or teddy-bear with them. And adults are not really so different! Some of them cannot go to sleep without a ‘doll’, a girl, beside them to reassure them. Human beings are still like children, they are not adult yet: they need a constant presence, and it need not even be another human being; it can be a canary or a cat. They are no longer afraid of their solitude if a cat is purring beside them! This is particularly true of women; the need for companionship is much stronger in women than in men. Solitude is much harder to bear for a woman than for a man. That is why even a love-bird, yes, a little budgerigar, is enough to keep them company!

Human beings are unhappy when they are alone. One of the few things they all agree on is that solitude is the hardest thing to bear. And this is why they always try to find someone to live with, thinking that they will be happier. But it often works just the other way, and they find that they would have done better to stick to their solitude. This need to find comfort in the presence of another human being was given to humans in order to oblige them to take an interest in something other than themselves. Look at how Cosmic Intelligence forces humans to work and exert themselves by giving them stomachs, for instance. If men and women did not have stomachs they would never do a hand’s turn, but they are ready to do anything to satisfy the hunger and thirst of their stomachs! They spend their days running in all directions; they go without sleep; they make war; they are ready to turn the whole world and the stars themselves upside down... and all because they need to eat!

Yes, Cosmic Intelligence foresaw that if it did not find some way of making humans work they would come to a bad end, because they would do nothing, so it gave them stomachs! But that was not enough; Cosmic Intelligence also wanted to be sure that the race would perpetuate itself, so it gave men and women the need to love, the need to escape from their solitude. At the same time, this need to go and look for someone else to share their lives makes them broaden the scope of their concerns. When someone wants to find a companion with whom to start a family, they have to make an effort to think of others and be more generous and more indulgent and sympathetic. The only trouble is that human beings have not yet realized that they must go beyond the family circle also, that their love must reach out to all creatures, to the infinite universe. No, they have never gone any further than the family, and this is why, in spite of their wife and children, in spite of their love of country, they are still unhappy. Because they have never managed to extend their circle infinitely.

In order to find happiness, human beings need to exchange with each other, but the happiness they are looking for still eludes them because the scope of their embrace is still too narrow. I know very well that the human race has been accustomed for hundreds and thousands of years to look at things from such a narrow point of view, that you will be astonished by what I am saying. I can hear you exclaiming, ‘What on earth is he talking about? Where is he trying to push us?’ I am trying to push you towards happiness, and happiness consists in loving infinitely, in not being content to love just one or two human beings... or even twenty or a hundred, for that matter. You can go on loving all those you already love, but you must also love the angels and archangels, the heavenly hierarchies and the Lord himself. When you do this, your family and friends will be strengthened and enriched, embellished and purified by the sublime impetus of your soul. Enlarge the scope of your love and establish an exchange with creatures of a higher order, and then you will receive the inspiration, support and protection they offer.

Yes, my dear brothers and sisters, you will find happiness when you expand the scope of your consciousness, when you enlarge, sublimate and divinize your love.1 As I have already told you, wisdom cannot give you happiness. You will never be happy if all you have is wisdom; in fact wisdom can make you dismal and despondent, because it never fails to point out the faults and crimes of others. It is not in the nature of wisdom to make anyone happy. To be sure, the thought that you are wise may give you a sense of pride and some crumbs of consolation, but that is not true happiness. It is love that brings happiness; it does not matter how poor, weak and ignorant you are, or that you don’t understand how or why, but if you love you will know happiness. In order to be truly happy, therefore, you must learn to love, and if you want your happiness to be vast and complete, your love must also be immense, all-embracing, infinite. Little by little, as your love grows and improves, your happiness will also grow and improve. Happiness is not to be found in riches or in knowledge, powers or fame. People are mistaken to think that if they possessed such and such a thing they would be happy. As I have already said, possessions can give you a few little scraps, a few crumbs of happiness, nothing more.

As long as human beings are not enlightened by Initiatic Science, they will continue to put their faith in lies: they will continue to be unhappy and disillusioned, always asking themselves, ‘What’s the matter with me? What more do I need to fill the void?’ And they will continue to change their wives or their mistresses, their houses, their jobs or their cars; they will continue to travel and see new countries, but they will always be faced with this emptiness.

As soon as you are convinced of the real worth of these great truths and see that nothing is more important, from that very moment you will be saved. When I was young I may have had no intelligence, no wisdom, no talents, but I had one very rare quality: the great initiatic truths had more value in my eyes than anything else. For me, everything was worthless compared to these truths. And now I can see the fruits of that attitude, and I see that I was not mistaken. Whereas those for whom almost anything is more precious than these great truths will always be poor, weak and unhappy. So I advise you to begin to have a deeper appreciation of the truths I reveal to you, for it is they that are capable of transforming you and giving you true happiness.

Videlinata (Switzerland), 29 February 1976

1 See The Key to the Problems of Existence, Complete Works, vol 11, chap. 5: ‘Eternal happiness’.

Chapter Twenty-Four
‘Whatever you bind on earth’

We read in the Bible: ‘Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.’ These words are extraordinarily significant: they remind us that, whether we are aware of it or not, whatever we do on the physical plane is reflected on every plane of existence. When you bind someone on the physical plane you bind them, at the same time, on the astral and mental planes; when you release them on the physical plane, you release them also on the astral and mental planes.

Let me give you some very simple examples. When a mother has to leave her baby alone in its cot, she straps it in so that it cannot fall out. The baby is bound on the physical plane, and its screams and tears tell us that it is not happy about it: it can feel that it is not free, it is also bound on the astral plane. Then, when its mother comes back and frees it on the physical plane, it is all smiles again, because it is also freed on the astral plane. If you shut someone up in a dungeon and deprive them of food, they will experience their lack of freedom on the astral and mental planes also: they will suffer and be unhappy at feeling so restricted. But there are all kinds of other ways of binding people: words, gestures and formulas can be used to forge very strong bonds. This is what Jesus meant when he told his disciples that whatever they bound on earth would also be bound in heaven. He was saying, ‘Now that you know the power of words, you can bind people on the physical plane in order to bind them on the spiritual plane, and you can release them on the physical plane in order to release them on the spiritual plane. This means that you have the power to disarm criminals, the wicked and all those who try to prevent the kingdom of God from being established on the earth, by tying their hands and rendering them harmless. And when you see a son or daughter of God bound and tormented by the wicked, you must free him or her to do good.’

Whatever formulas, words or gestures you perform on the physical plane are reflected and produce effects on every plane, all the way to heaven. This is why it is so important to recite formulas. As you watch the sun rising, for instance, repeat the words, ‘As the sun rises over the world, so may the spiritual sun of love, wisdom and truth rise in my heart, soul and spirit!’ The words you pronounce create conditions conducive to realization and, just as the visible sun rises on the physical plane, another, invisible sun will rise on the spiritual plane. Or you can use a formula for your evening prayer during the period when the moon is waxing, for instance: ‘As the moon is becoming full in the heavens, so may my heart be filled with love, my intellect be filled with light, my will be filled with strength and my physical body be filled with health and vigour!’ You only have to say these words and the whole of nature will be there to help you. Or again, in the spring, you may look at the first leaves and flowers and say, ‘Just as nature is breaking into blossom, so may my whole being blossom and flower; may all humanity live in everlasting spring!’ In this way you can become a white magician, a son or daughter of God, and, wherever you go, by using the creative word, the word that created the world, you can create a new world, your own world.

When will people learn to use what is written in Scripture? It is written; it is dead, and no one uses it. But the time has come, at last, to wake up and collaborate with the forces of good and take part in the creation of a new heaven and a new earth.1

If you always feel dissatisfied, unhappy and tormented, you can be sure that it is because you are bound by many bonds, both visible and invisible. You must constantly re-examine this question and become aware of the bonds with which you have bound yourself either in this life or in a past life. Every aspect of your present situation can be explained by these bonds. When you want to heat an electric kettle or an iron or turn on a ventilator, you have to plug it in and switch on the current; in other words you create a bond, a link, and your iron or your fan works. And then, if you switch off the current again it stops working. Everyone does this; everyone sees it happening, but how many know how to interpret what it means in their lives? Knowingly or unknowingly, day after day without ceasing, we establish bonds, relationships with the earth, with animals, rivers, mountains and stars, with creatures visible and invisible, with the whole universe, and these relationships are vitally important. This is why I invite every one of you now to review the bonds that you have already contracted, to determine which ones are good and should be maintained and which are negative and should be dissolved, and to see what new bonds you should create with other creatures.

If a bottle is not connected to an inexhaustible reservoir, one day it will be empty and you will either have to refill it or throw it away and buy a full one. What is the solution to this problem? Take the case of a man who loves a woman: each of them is like a bottle, and if they are not connected to the source, the day will inevitably come for them to separate, for they will have drained each other dry. Once there is nothing left in a bottle what can one do but throw it away? (See the supplementary note at the end of this chapter.) This is where the magical science of bonds comes in. You must remember that your beloved is a unique being, and that it is up to you to be his or her link with the divine Source, with the heavenly Father and with the angels and archangels and all the Masters of humankind. Love gives you all powers and possibilities, but as you are not enlightened, instead of being the bond between those you love and heaven, you cling to them as though they belonged to you, without realizing that in doing so you are keeping them tied to hell, that you are putting them in the power of the forces of destruction. As time goes on, you will start to worry about your beloved, because you will see that they have deteriorated and lost all their inner light, but whose fault is that? Why did you not bind them to heaven? You will wonder what went wrong, but the answer is very simple: instead of being their link with celestial regions, you became a link that bound them to the infernal regions below. You should have been their link with heaven; you should have led them to the highest regions where they would have been able to slake their thirst and breathe freely. And they should do the same for you, so that you would no longer simply be a pair of bottles, but free-flowing springs of water.

My dear brothers and sisters, I know that you are faced with great problems. There is no greater problem than that of friendship, love, affection. It is in this area that more light is needed. When you love someone you must not think too much about yourself for, when you do that, you forget about the divine, sacred dimension and drag the person you love down onto the level of your own desires and appetites. Love consists in making a sacrifice, in transcending yourself, in doing something noble for the one you love, and you can do nothing more wonderful than to link him or her to the Source.

Draw close to the one you love, look into their eyes, take them in your arms and propel them heavenwards; link them to the divine Mother, or to Christ, the heavenly Father or the Holy Spirit. If you do this you will never need to reproach yourself for anything; you will feel as though lamps were being lit within you; you will be filled with joy and the most extraordinary sense of happiness. And even when you find yourself with someone you don’t know, without saying a word, you can try to link them to the Source of all light, and pray that they may come to understand the new life, pray that they may know peace such as they have never known before. They may not be able to understand, but that does not matter: your thoughts will come back to you, for if those to whom you send thoughts of love and light are incapable of receiving them, they come back to you. In this way you can be usefully, meaningfully occupied all day long, and, as each day goes by, your life will be filled with greater and greater beauty. Otherwise life, all the splendour of life itself, is wasted and frittered uselessly away. For disciples, there is always work to be done; they can always be busy with activities that give an indescribable meaning to life.

If a man and woman are not linked to the Source, their love is not divine and it will not endure. Everybody talks about love; everybody claims to know what it is, and then, one fine day, they wake up to the fact that they have never been visited by true love. True love is something that endures; it is beyond death. This is the great secret, the greatest of all secrets: how to love your dear one in such a way as to drink directly from the Source through her or him.2 When you do this you can be sure that your love will endure because you are drawing life directly from the Source. Even when you are both old, you will feel such fresh, pure energies, such light flowing through you, that you will be ceaselessly full of wonder and admiration for each other. You will not even see the wrinkles or the white hairs, only the radiant youth and beauty of each other’s soul and spirit. Whereas others, who do not draw sustenance from the Source, feel old and disillusioned by the time they are eighteen, and they separate from their partners because there is not a drop left in the bottle. In fact, the bottles are sometimes broken and shattered!

My dear brothers and sisters, it is essential that you understand the importance of bonds, the importance of binding and loosing. Love is what creates bonds; wisdom is what looses them. With your love you can bind creatures and with your wisdom you can release them.

The Bonfin, 28 August 1960

Supplementary note:

Take an apple, peel it, cut it up in pieces and eat it: you will have a certain sensation. If you bite into a whole apple, the sensation will be different. But if you go and find an apple tree, pull a branch down to you and bite into an apple without plucking it from the tree, the sensation you experience will be different again. You can feel that the apple is alive and that it offers you its exquisite flavour and an extraordinary sense of well-being, a sense of joy that is communicated by the tree, because it is rooted in the earth from which it draws its energies. By eating the fruit of that tree, you are in touch with the earth and able to absorb its energies. The tree puts you in contact with the earth through its fruit.

And what difference does it make whether you taste a man or a woman who is still on the tree or one who is separated from the tree? If they have broken the bonds that linked them to heaven, they are like apples separated from their tree. They have already lost some of their energy, some of their magnetism; so what will you actually be eating? Oh yes, of course, you will find a few crumbs to nibble at, you will enjoy certain sensations, but you will not have the sensation of being directly linked to the immense Source of divine love. Whereas if you love someone who is linked to the Tree of Life, you will receive energies of another kind; you will enjoy the sensation of being in communion with the heart of the universe, with the cosmic ocean. People never think about this. What difference does it make if the ‘fruit’ you eat is cut off from the tree, if it has already been uprooted? What does it matter if it is already wrinkled and dried up? Let me tell you that it matters a great deal. And I am not talking about the material dimension but about the spiritual dimension, for it is the spiritual dimension that matters.

The fruit and vegetables you eat have usually been dead for a long time and, although you may think you have had a very good meal because your stomach is full, that is not enough. Your stomach is full, yes, but it is full of the dead bodies of fruits and vegetables! Of course, I know that it is not possible to do anything else. It is the same problem with the water we drink: it is not easy to go and drink directly from a spring; the water we drink is always either polluted or disinfected to a certain extent. Who is in a position to climb a mountain every day in order to drink pure water? No, but I am talking about the spiritual dimension: it is much easier to find a spiritual spring and to climb up and drink from that every day.

Sèvres, 31 December 1963

BIBLICAL REFERENCES

‘Whatever you bind on earth…’ – Matt. 18:18

1 See The Book of Revelations: A Commentary, Izvor Coll. n° 230, chap. 16: ‘The new heaven and the new earth’.

2 See Cosmic Moral Law, Complete Works, vol. 12, chap. 15: ‘We must not sever the link between the world below and the world above’.

Chapter Twenty-Five
Love God
so as to love your neighbour better

If we tried to think of others instead of always thinking only of ourselves, what revelations we would be given about all the problems of life! There are so many things that human beings cannot understand, simply because they refuse to change their point of view. They judge and evaluate everything from their own point of view, according to their own tastes and tendencies and their own preconceptions, and never take other people into account.

And this is true even in families: husbands and wives are continually trying to destroy each other; it is always a question of which one can get the most out of the other, which one will dominate the other. Neither one tries to understand the other; neither is ready to make concessions; they are both incredibly selfish! The wife refuses to understand or put herself in the place of her husband: she is always nagging and criticizing, always belligerent and unfaithful. And the husband is only interested in getting what he wants from her, in plundering her, destroying her beauty and ill-treating her. There is no need for me to give you examples, you all know what goes on. So our work must begin with families; we must teach men and women to understand, appreciate, value and love each other so that they can accomplish a task together. Husbands should say to themselves, ‘I must see if my wife is happy, if she has all she needs; have I made any promises that I haven’t kept?’ And wives must ask themselves the same questions. The greatest difficulties and disasters, the greatest misfortunes come from the fact that human beings are unwilling to expand their field of consciousness and learn how others think and feel. Once they begin to venture beyond their own point of view and forget their built-in prejudices, they will make all kinds of discoveries as their horizons expand and an extraordinarily vast field of activity opens up before them.

And now, let me give you a method. If you want to reach beyond the boundaries of your own consciousness, you must start by projecting your imagination upwards, to the Being who encompasses all being, who contains and nourishes all creatures within himself.1 Ask yourself how he envisages the future of humankind, what his plans are for our future, how he wishes us to evolve. When you make an effort to draw closer to that immense and luminous Being, something begins to work within your subconscious, your consciousness and your superconsciousness, and the sensations you experience are beyond the power of words to describe. You should practise this exercise until you have the sensation that you have disappeared, that you no longer exist as a separate personality, as a little mote of dust in space, that you have melted and become one with the ocean of light that is God. Once this exercise has become a habit and you are capable of experiencing moments of delight in communion with the most exalted beings, then you can begin to descend, once again, into the minds of others and experience their suffering and anguish for yourself and get to know their needs, their strengths and weaknesses and their illnesses. You can even descend into the consciousness of animals!

If you make this practice the basis of your existence, if you have sufficient patience and love continually to expand your consciousness, if, three, four, ten, a hundred times a day, you make an effort to transcend the limits of your own being and melt into the immensity, all things will be yours; it is only a question of time. Otherwise it is as though you had broken contact with the central power supply: there will be no more light to guide you and you will collide with the objects and people around you, fall and hurt, even kill, yourself. You will object, ‘But look at so-and-so; she doesn’t love God or even believe in him, and yet she’s perfectly healthy, happy and successful.’ Yes, to all appearances that is true, but you have to be able to see beyond appearances. When the beams of your house begin to be attacked by woodworm, they do not crumble away at once, but one day when they have been eaten away from the inside, the whole house collapses.

Those who don’t love God may be successful for a time, because they are intelligent, strong-minded and energetic; they know how to look after themselves and get what they want. Those who sever their ties to God do not lose all their qualities and capacities at once. Their reserves diminish gradually and, after a time, something inside them begins to rot, undesirable entities infiltrate and, like woodworm, begin their work of destruction within. They may be sufficiently aggressive and calculating to succeed, but their success will not last long, for there is no light in them, and they are no longer nourished by currents of new energies. Rot, germs and maggots enter the hearts and minds of such people and end up destroying them completely. Ignorant people see a temporary success and draw their false conclusions: ‘Look at so-and-so; you don’t have to believe in God to succeed in life...’ Yes, but you must look beyond appearances and know how the laws operate: it is more than likely that, only a few years from now, your friend so-and-so will be bankrupt.

You must not let yourselves be deceived by appearances. If you lived long enough you would see for yourself how the wealthiest families degenerate and disintegrate; you cannot base your conclusions on a single human life. It is only to be expected that a strong-minded, talented man or woman should be successful, but if they were also linked to the divine world, if they nourished their soul and heart and mind on the pure waters flowing from the Source of life, they would help their family and descendants and be a unique example in the history of humanity. The new generation of men and women must be capable of succeeding without cutting themselves off from heaven. They must do their work in the world, but they must do it with the purpose of leaving an imprint of the divine, a trace of the new life, in everything they do.

‘Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect’, said Jesus.2 Nowadays, people think it is grotesque to think you can model yourself on God; he is too immense, too far above us! They prefer to imitate people who are mad; that, at least, is easy! It only takes a few weeks to be as mad as they are... or more so!

If you love God you will obtain everything you want because you will become like him. Yes, such is the power of love. I am looking forward to the day when science at last begins to study the manifestations of love and see how it affects our health, blood or brain and even things that are external to us: trees, plants, crystals, stars, the angels and even God himself. Nothing is more worthy of study. If the question of love is neglected, ultimate disaster is the inevitable result. To be sure, misfortunes will not begin to rain down on you immediately, but if you deviate, if only by one millionth of a degree, from certain truths and principles, years hence you will find yourself billions of miles off course.

Love is nothing more than an osmosis between those who love each other. If you love God, your love works to put you on a level with him; a relationship of exchange exists between you and God. Suppose, on the other hand, that you love someone who is weak, sickly and rather stupid, whereas you are in excellent health, very pure and highly evolved, very luminous and intelligent. You have a relationship of exchange with them and, one fine day, they will have become stronger and more luminous, will have benefited from your love and become richer and nobler, whereas you will have lost something in the exchange: their weaknesses filter into you and your strength flows into them until you reach a common denominator. In the long run you will be exactly like each other; you will even look like each other. If you love someone, you end by resembling them. Chemistry tells us that all life undergoes a process of osmosis, of exchange; it is not only human beings that are affected, but the whole universe. The stars exchange with each other and end by resembling each other, and this is what makes it possible to predict that, one day, the earth will become a sun, for there is a constant process of exchange between the earth and the sun. Earth gains in the exchange and the sun loses, but it does so deliberately because of its great love. True love is, first and foremost, sacrifice.

If you centre yourself on the Lord, if you love him and think of him not as the severe, implacable God, the consuming fire of the Old Testament, but as immensity, as a boundless ocean of light and life, then a process of exchange, of synchronization, will be set in motion between you and him; you will begin to vibrate with greater intensity, and tremendous transformations will take place in your thoughts and feelings. Even your health will improve! In fact, instead of swallowing all kinds of medicines, you would do much better to think about the Source of life. You will object, ‘Yes, but I want to get better at once!’ I know, drugs will cure you much faster, but only for a time, and your powers of resistance will be diminished to such an extent that your organism will soon be incapable of defending itself.3

I listened to a programme on the television recently in which some biologists discussed the dangers of an excessive use of antibiotics. They said that the genetic heritage of the human race was threatened and that there was a likelihood of more and more human monsters being born. They also discussed the danger of atomic radiations. May the Lord protect his children, for humans have gone mad and are leading the world to destruction! Many scientists realize that the world is rushing towards disaster and yet, although it is in their power to call a halt before it is too late, they do not dare to raise their voices and call on the scientists of the world to unite and save humankind. They could be all-powerful, but they are content to talk ineffectually.

My dear brothers and sisters, the best way for men and women to protect themselves is to return to the divine Source. When they do this, even atomic bombs cannot harm them, for the vibrations of the soul and spirit are more powerful and of a higher frequency than the vibrations of the atomic dust that pollutes the air. If you really want a lifebuoy you can rely on, forge a bond with the sun and love God. The sun is more powerful than an atom bomb. In fact, nuclear explosions billions of times more powerful than anything that we can produce with our little atom bombs are continually taking place in the sun! If you establish a relationship with the sun you can immunize yourself against atomic radiation; human beings should know this. At the moment, nobody is willing to believe us; they will believe when disaster strikes, but then it will be too late. The only effective remedies are the sun on the physical plane and, on the mental and spiritual plane, the love of God.

Through their hatred and jealousy, their cruelty and their viciousness, human beings are unwittingly spreading vibrations which form a dark, dangerous zone, like a heavy layer of cloud, over the whole surface of the earth, in which multitudes are suffocating. If you want to rise above these layers of poison you must increase the intensity of your vibrations, and the only way to do this is to love God. As long as you continue to love creatures who are less advanced than you, the intensity of your vibrations will continue to sink until they reach the same level as theirs, and you will be trapped beneath the layer of cloud covering the earth. Learn whom to love, therefore! To be sure, you are free to love people; in fact you must love them, but your first love must be the Lord, otherwise you will be brought down to their level. As long as you love God, you can love whoever you like without danger; you will always remain above the clouds of darkness, there will be no danger of your being swallowed up, because you will be strong.

When a lifeguard dives into the water to save someone who is drowning, they tell them to hang on to their feet, and if the person panics and tries to grip their arms, the lifeguard has to knock them out, otherwise they would both be drowned. And you, too, keep your arms free for God, and let human beings hold on to your feet! Don’t give them all your love; otherwise, you will go under with them. You must learn how to love. But human beings cannot be bothered to study the science of love; they love whoever they please, in any way they please, whenever it pleases them, and then they complain that love is the cause of all their misfortunes. Not a bit of it! It is their ignorance about love that is the cause of their misfortunes, not love itself. Love is God; God is love: how could he be the cause of evil? It is impossible. Evil is the result of ignorance. This is why we must begin by loving God and soaking up his vibrations; once we have done this, we can love and help others without danger to ourselves. Since we are connected to the source, we can expend our energies for others without weakening ourselves, for our supply of water is constantly being renewed. But if we cut ourselves off, other people will soon drain us dry, for our reserves will not last for ever.

But let’s go back to what I was saying at the beginning. If you want to learn to reach beyond yourself, from time to time, and see further than your own limited viewpoint, you must seek God. Try to melt into him, learn to look at the world and all its creatures through his eyes, and you will begin to see things in a very different light. This is the best of all exercises, for it develops the will, the intelligence and the heart all at the same time.

To be sure, to begin with, it may seem dreadfully tedious. You decide to love the Lord but you cannot feel anything, so you get bored and let your imagination wander. But you must persevere; tell yourself that your very life depends on it, that you will end by finding joy, intelligence, power and beauty, and in the long run you will find such delight in this exercise that everything else will pale in comparison. Then, at last, you will truly be capable of loving and helping others. If you are rich, well balanced and at peace, you can help billions of people without even setting foot outside your own room. Waves know no frontiers. The harmonious waves emanating from you go out into the atmosphere and influence all the creatures they meet. This is how, without anyone being the wiser, you become a benefactor of the whole of humanity, you contribute something positive to the whole of creation, even to animals, plants and rocks. Blessed are those who understand and live according to this philosophy, for they will be freed from all their misery and limitations! No words can describe the splendour of a human being who has succeeded in becoming free.

Sèvres, 21 January 1962

BIBLICAL REFERENCES

‘Be perfect, therefore,…’ – Matt. 5:48

1 See You Are Gods, Synopsis Coll., Part III, chap. 5: ‘You shall love the Lord, your God’.

2 See The True Meaning of Christ’s Teaching, Izvor Coll. n° 215, chap. 3: ‘Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect’.

3 See Love Greater Than Faith, Izvor Coll. n° 239, chap. 4: ‘Your faith has made you well’.

Chapter Twenty-Six
Live lovingly

I

I know that you think that I talk about the same things too often. You are not used to this method, and you would rather hear me talk about something new. The truth is, though, that we must always be occupied with the same thing but each time look at it differently. In the morning or the evening, before or after a meal, during the night... each time, you will discover a different aspect, you will find that the subject breathes and changes. Look at a garden in the spring and again in the summer, the autumn and the winter. It is still the same garden, but how different it looks! And where spirituality is concerned we have to keep coming back to the same subject and turning it round in all directions to see all its different aspects.

How many times have I told you to eat with love, to smile and think and live with love! But you have neglected and forgotten that; the whole thing bores you because you have not yet begun to do what I tell you. Once you begin, you will realize how glorious it is to eat with love, to look at others with love, to breathe and study, to give thanks with love!

Yesterday I met a man who was, apparently, very unhappy. I asked him, ‘Have you said thank you today?’ ‘Thank you? Who should I say thank you to, and what for?’ ‘Can you still walk and breathe?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Have you had breakfast today?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘And can you open your mouth and talk?’ ‘Yes, again.’ ‘Then you should certainly thank the Lord for all that, for there are people who can neither walk nor eat nor open their mouths. You are unhappy because it has never occurred to you to be grateful. If you want to change that state of affairs, you must begin by recognizing that there is nothing more wonderful than to be alive and able to walk and see and speak.’ Yes, but human beings, especially those who are supposedly intelligent and learned, neglect these things; that is why they have to experience tribulations and misfortunes: to teach them to be grateful at last!

The greatest crime of human beings is their ingratitude. When heaven sees this it closes its doors to them and gives them neither happiness nor joy. Do you know how many billions and billions of entities, elements and particles are involved in keeping just one human being alive? You have no idea of such things and you are perpetually disgruntled and discontented. Be grateful! Start tomorrow morning: the first thing you do when you get up must be to thank heaven. Think of all those who will never wake up again or who wake up paralysed! Say, ‘Thank you, Lord. You have given me life and health again today. I promise to do your will.’ Nobody does this. Human beings only know how to grumble and clamour for things, to nag and demand and curse the whole world. They are incapable of gratitude. But what good have they ever done humanity or the Lord that would entitle them to demand so much for themselves? When the entities of the invisible world look down at humanity, they are astounded and delighted to see someone who is grateful and constantly saying ‘Thank you, Lord; thank you, thank you!’ How stingy not to be ready to give them this pleasant surprise!

Make a statistical analysis and you will see how few human beings are grateful. But they are all ready to rebel and to whine or demand or clamour for what they want. There are factories in every part of the world where the virus of revolt is being manufactured. Yes, it is a virus, the virus of the malcontents. It has never been studied in a laboratory, but it abounds in the world! It sneaks in everywhere; the whole world will soon be contaminated. Here, in the Universal White Brotherhood, is the only place where men and women learn to manufacture the antidote to this virus in order to soothe, pacify and heal others. The thing that is most lacking in the world today is the spirit of peace. People talk about peace a great deal, but they continue to prepare for war.1

I began by saying that we must live lovingly, that we must eat and breathe with love, and you are under the impression that you know all that already, but you are mistaken. When you really begin to understand, with your whole being, what it means to live with love, you will be dumbfounded: love will flow forth ceaselessly, from morning till night, even when you are asleep. It is even possible to reprimand people with love; I have practised this for a long time, and now I am capable of being very severe outwardly, even though I am full of love inwardly. It is difficult, but it can be done. In fact, I have always maintained that this is what mothers should do when they punish their children: they can smack them if they have to, but they must always be full of love inwardly. Usually, they do just the opposite: they raise their voice, frown and clench their teeth, and then they begin to be genuinely angry and cruel and beat their children with real hatred. A child recognizes this; once it has seen hatred in its mother’s eyes it will never forget it;2 not only will she never persuade her child to change but, one day, it will try to take revenge on her.

My dear brothers and sisters, you must live lovingly. To live lovingly is to live in a very exalted state of consciousness which is reflected in every action and brings everything into harmony, maintains a state of perfect equilibrium and is a constant source of joy, strength and health. Give thanks all day long. Gratitude is the most powerful antidote I have ever found in the laboratory that God has given me; it is capable of neutralizing all poisons. Give thanks; give thanks ceaselessly, for hours on end, and you will find that all the evil in you just disintegrates. I have ascertained the truth of this for myself, and as you know, I am never idle. Day and night I am busy with extraordinary experiments of such subtlety that you could never even imagine them. But I never tell you anything if I have not already verified it and found that it has stood the test of time.

Sèvres, 23 January 1966

II

If teachers are always exhausted at the end of the school year, it is simply because they don’t love the children, they don’t think about doing something divine for them. If they did, the guardian angels that have been given the care of these children would reward them abundantly, and they would not have to be so tired. Most teachers do their work for the sole purpose of earning money. They are like mercenaries; they are not really conscious that these beings have been entrusted to them by heaven and that they have the tremendous mission of working on their souls. The spiritual elements that a teacher consciously endeavours to instil into the hearts and souls of the children continue to affect them for the rest of their lives, and they remember the men and women who worked to shape their souls. As things are today, children don’t even remember their teachers or, if they do, it is only to laugh at them or detest them still, years later. Their work has no meaning, because it contains no light, no consciousness and no love.

Personally, I have a very different conception of education. In fact, even though I am not a schoolteacher and you are not children, I apply it with you. I am constantly aware that other beings have sent you to earth in order to evolve, and I know that if I do my work well, with love, the spirits on high, who see everything, will reward and help me. They will say, ‘There’s a rare being; we don’t see many like him on earth: he doesn’t work for money!’ And I will be the one to gain.

Yes, if teachers are tired out at the end of the year, it is because they have never understood how important their work is. There is no task more essential than that of education. Actually though, if anyone is to be educated, we should not really begin with the children, but with parents and educators themselves... If you only knew the terrible notions they so often put into children’s heads! Teachers who are aware of their responsibility and who really want to instil a divine element into their pupils are very few and far between.

The only reason why people are always tired is because they work without love. It is love that gives strength, that vivifies and resuscitates: love! When you don’t have that love and only work for money in order to earn your living, the results cannot be good. Of course, you do get some money for it, but your health deteriorates and you become tense and overwrought. When someone who has such a magnificent profession still manages to end up with a nervous breakdown, it proves they haven’t understood what it’s all about. Educators must understand that their pupils have been entrusted to them by heaven, and this means they must do a divine work with them. When I explained this to some educators, one day, it made them change their attitude: they tried to kindle in themselves that love, that sense of duty and that inner light, and they were able to feel the difference: they did not become so tired.

You can work for hours without feeling tired if you work with love. But if you work for only a few minutes without love, in an attitude of anger or revolt, everything inside you will seize up and you will be exhausted. Today, there are ideologies abroad in the world that are spreading a spirit of revolt and discontent amongst workers in every corner of the globe, and the results they get are fantastic: these ideas spread like wildfire and set light to everything. Introduce the notion of revolt and you will succeed. But try to tell people that discontent is destructive and that they should work with love, and you will get nowhere. People are not mature enough to understand where their true interest lies.

It is important to understand the efficacy, the power of love. Whatever you do, do it with love or don’t do it at all! For whatever you do without love is tiring, and you need not be surprised to find yourself exhausted. Whatever you do without love turns to poison: so be sure to do everything with love! Try it; it all depends on you. A sister once asked me how to become tireless, and I said to her, ‘I can tell you the secret, but you will not be capable of actually doing it. The secret is to love what you do; when you do that, strength flows into you; otherwise, you are soon worn out, drained and paralysed.’3

Yes, you are here, in this divine school, where you are being taught how to rebuild yourselves, how to give yourselves new forms. But you have not yet realized the importance of this task. You should rejoice at the prospect of reconstructing your lives.

When you win the hearts of children, you win youth and eternal life. This is why the worst thing that can happen to you is to fail to love the children you have been asked to educate. Some teachers, and some mothers too, become irritated with their children and give them looks full of hatred. Dear Lord, what ignorance! Children remember such looks for the rest of their lives. They know very well what a look means. You may sometimes have to spank them but, if so, you must do it without a trace of hatred in your eyes, for they will forget the spanking but they will never forget the way you looked at them. In fact, let me repeat the advice I have already given: when you have to punish a child who has been naughty, go and find them and talk to them with kindness. Explain that they have got to be smacked because there are certain laws, certain rules that you cannot go against; kiss them (and even shed a few tears with them, if need be), and then: on with the spanking! If you do this, if you cry with them and kiss them with real affection, they will understand that their punishment was just and necessary. In this way you give them some divine notions of absolute justice. Otherwise, they will accuse you of being unjust and detest you and, one day, try to take revenge on you because of the hatred they saw in your eyes when you punished them.

Children have a very keen sense of justice. Later, as they get older, they become conditioned, but when they are very young they have a passion for fairness. Look at what happens, for instance, when a mother of a family or a teacher shows a preference for one child: she may have every reason to prefer this child, who may have far greater qualities than the others, but she must avoid showing a preference. She has a perfect right to prefer whoever she chooses, but she must take care not to show it, otherwise the other children will feel that she has been unfair and will not love her anymore.

As you see, it is educators who need to be educated rather than children... and not only about this!

The Bonfin, 29 August 1967

1 See The Egregor of the Dove or the Reign of Peace, Izvor Coll. n° 208.

2 See The Book of Divine Magic, Izvor Coll. n° 226, chap. 13: ‘The power of a glance’.

3 See Harmony and Health, Izvor Coll. n° 225, chap. 8: ‘How to become tireless’.

Chapter Twenty-Seven
Our only weapons: love and light

The Master reads the Meditation for the day:

‘People think that they will beat an enemy by grappling with them. No, on the contrary, if you want to get the better of your enemy, you must get away from them and rise to a higher level, so as to create a different picture of them that can overcome the damaging one in your mind. You cannot defeat your enemies by continually nursing a hateful image of them. Sooner or later it is they who will defeat you. You cannot overcome evil people with evil, nor slanderers with slander, the envious with envy nor the angry with anger, because that would put you into the same category; you would be identifying with them.’

Of course, the passage I have just read you will seem quite stupid. Human beings are accustomed to repaying evil with evil. Somebody slaps you in the face and you slap them back, twice, probably! They kick you on the shin and you kick them back... on both shins! The human instinct for revenge comes from the distant past when humans were still animals. And, in fact, there is not much to distinguish them from animals today! Outwardly they look like respectable human beings... but inwardly? They are convinced that they will defeat their enemies by using the means they use, but if you study the question from the point of view of Initiatic Science, if you take the trouble to find out what it has to say on the subject, the answer you receive will be quite unlike what human beings believe and practise.1

In the first place, it is very bad to carry the image of an enemy about with you in your head. This is the best way to reinforce and feed it until it becomes so strong that it utterly destroys you. In fact, even in relation to others, this can be very damaging to you: if you go on and on talking about your enemy, others will see that you are weak and vindictive. But people have never stopped to analyse this attitude; they keep trying to console themselves and get rid of the poison that is in them by looking for a friend and injecting it into them! They don’t realize that they are injuring their friend, and they go on their way, feeling consoled for the moment, or bent on repeating the performance with someone else!

From the initiatic point of view, from the point of view of wisdom, this is a very bad attitude, and it is important for human beings to know this. I have never said you should not try to get the better of your enemies, but you must find other ways of doing so.

The passage I read at the beginning says that if you respond to your enemies by using the same means as they do, you put yourself on a level with them. Yes, because the energy you give off is of the same nature as theirs, and in this way you are open to attack from them: they can reach you and harm you at a distance. Have you never had a feeling of uneasiness, all of a sudden, that you have been unable to explain? There can, of course, be all kinds of explanations, but it could be that someone has been sending you negative thoughts and, as you don’t know how to defend yourself, they have reached their target and upset you. If you want to be protected from such attacks and become invulnerable, you must not stay on the same level as your enemy, otherwise, if they are stronger than you, they can injure you. You have to climb up higher; fly up like a bird, an aeroplane or a helicopter! Obviously, I am not talking about climbing physically; I am not telling you to climb a ladder or a tree or to clamber onto the roof. When I say you must climb to a higher level, I mean you must reach a nobler, purer, more luminous, divine level. Once you have reached that level through an act of will, through prayer and meditation, you will be out of reach of your enemy, because your vibrations will no longer be the same; you will be safe from them.

When people slander you and speak evil of you, go up into those heavenly regions where light abounds. There, you will be protected behind a barrier of light and love and heavenly might, and not only will evil thoughts be unable to wound you, but they will rebound and wound and crush those who sent them. This is how initiates, sages and all the great Masters manage to overcome their enemies: by living pure, noble, honest, radiant lives. For, don’t forget, there is always a rebound. Yes, but the rebound will not function if you are just as weak, vicious, sensual and impure as your enemy. In that case you will be vulnerable to whatever filth others fling at you. But if you rise to a higher level, not only will your way of life shield you, but all the vicious, negative things that are sent your way will bounce off it onto those who sent them. If black magicians and sorcerers are successful, it is because the human beings they attack are so weak and ignorant that they are vulnerable to their evil spells. As long as people have not learned to protect themselves with light, they will always be vulnerable. But if a sorcerer attacks an initiate, someone who lives a divine life, their thunderbolts fall back on their own heads, and quite often they disappear. It is not as easy as all that to wound or defeat someone who is strongly linked to heaven, who has a high ideal, who is consecrated and works for the light! If you want to be protected and safely out of reach of anything others may say or do against you, therefore, you must change your life, get onto a higher register, rise to a region where you will always be protected.

In fact, your triumph will be all the more rapid and spectacular if you increase your love, generosity and kindness. There are beings who have managed to put themselves above every trace of vindictiveness: it is all the same to them if people speak evil of them, detest them or work for their downfall, because they believe in the power of light. Every day, through their spiritual work, they send out rays of light to every creature, and in the long run even their enemies feel obliged to bow before their superiority and become their friends. Instead of exterminating their enemies, therefore, these beings overcome them by means of their own greatness, their own nobility and the power of light, and in this way they win their friendship. For there is one thing you must not forget, and that is that if you overcome your enemies in the usual way, by means of force and violence or through the power of money, it does not mean that you have defeated them once and for all. Your enemies will never be defeated by such means; they will continue to bear you a grudge. They will never forgive you for winning the battle, and in this incarnation or the next you will have the same problem all over again. For the war is never-ending.

Suppose that you have exterminated your enemy; it is only their physical body that you have killed. The fact is that one can never really exterminate a human being, because they have an immortal soul, and in the next world they will continue to hate you. So war goes on and on; it will never end. This is the point of view that has been handed down from generation to generation, but it is utterly prehistoric and it will never solve the world’s problems. It is the wrong answer; everyone has the wrong answer; whole countries have the wrong answer when they think they can conquer another country by means of arms and subversion. True, one country can conquer another for a time, but it will not last; the tables will be turned in the future. Look at the lessons of history: look what happened between France and Germany, Bulgaria and Greece, the Armenians and the Turks! What can we do to break out of the vicious circle? We must do what France did: she held out the hand of friendship to Germany and now the conflict is a thing of the past. If France had not done this, Germany would be preparing for revenge all over again.

It is instinct that urges people to take revenge, not wisdom. Someone hits you and, instinctively, you hit back. Let me tell you a story of three yogis who had retired into the forest to pray and meditate in order to be perfect. Someone came to where they were sitting and slapped the first one in the face. Instantly, he jumped up and slapped the man twice! Truly, that yogi was well on the way to perfection! The second yogi also received a slap in the face and he, too, jumped to his feet, but he thought better of it and sat down again. He, at least, had learned to control himself. As for the third, he never even noticed the slap in the face; he just went on meditating! As you see, there are degrees. The first yogi represents ordinary human beings who respond according to justice... or injustice! The second represents the category of those who reflect and control their reactions; he said to himself, ‘It’s not worth hitting back. It would only complicate things.’ As for the third, he was already so highly evolved that he did not even notice his enemy.

And now I am going to go even further and tell you that your enemies are a blessing. You are thinking, ‘He’s lost his mind. Enemies a blessing, indeed! Whatever next?’ But that only shows that you have not understood a thing. Yes, your enemies are a blessing, because they are the ones who can help you to become strong and mighty and luminous. But, as you are not enlightened, you do not see this and give in. If you were intelligent, you could become divinities. Yes, your enemies are secret friends, because they oblige you to exert yourselves and evolve.2

And now let me tell you another story. Once upon a time there was a young schoolmaster who was very intelligent but a bit weedy, not very strong. One day he was in the village square, talking to a group of friends, and one of them argued with him and disagreed with what he was saying. He was a big, stupid brute of a fellow (you know how it is: people who are physically strong are rarely very strong intellectually!), and when he saw that everybody agreed with the schoolmaster he became so furious that he punched him on the jaw and knocked him out. Well, when his friends had brought him round, the young schoolmaster went off feeling very miserable and humiliated. But when he got home he found that his cow had given birth to a calf. He was so delighted that he stroked and patted it and picked it up in his arms (it was not very heavy) and began to forget about his troubles. The next day, he went to pat his calf and pick it up again. Every day after that, for several months, he would pick up the calf until, one day, it was a full-grown ox! When he realized this, he said to himself, ‘Aha, now that I am so strong, I’ll go and talk to that fellow and give him what he deserves!’ So he went down to the village square, and sure enough, there was the young tough, bragging and throwing his weight about as usual. Going up to him, our hero said, ‘Hello, do you remember me?’ ‘Do I?’ replied the other. ‘You’re the weedy little man I knocked out with one blow a few months ago!’ ‘That’s right’, said the schoolmaster, and grabbing him by the leg he swung the giant up into the air, saying, ‘Make your act of contrition, because I’m going to throw you down and smash you to bits!’ ‘Oh, mercy, mercy!’ sobbed the big man. ‘I didn’t mean it. I’m sorry!’ ‘Well, all right; if you’re really sorry...’, said the schoolmaster, and placed him gently on his feet again. But the bully had had enough; he dashed away as fast as his legs would carry him, while his friends roared with laughter and the young schoolmaster went jauntily home, as pleased as punch at his victory. You see!

Why try to get the better of your enemies with the same despicable, ignoble means that they use against you? Instead of descending to their level and dirtying your own hands, why not let them see you are better than they are? For my own part, for instance, I know very well that I am in a situation where it would be impossible not to have enemies. Take the case of a couple: the husband feels the need to develop his spiritual life, so he comes to the Brotherhood. But his wife is furious and, of course, reviles me and even thinks of going to the police about it! And this is how, without wronging anyone, I still have lots of enemies I don’t even know. It’s inevitable! As soon as you begin to work for the light, some will be dazzled and delighted and others will be enraged. Sometimes it is the wife who comes to the Brotherhood and the husband who is furious. But what fault have I committed in all that? Of course, nobody ever asks me if I am to blame; they just detest me, that’s all. They don’t even know why they detest me! What should I do? Speak ill of them? Exterminate them? No, all I need to do is send them a lot of light.

We must realize that the two principles of light and darkness constantly manifest themselves in the world and that they are always at odds. If you belong to the realm of darkness, therefore, you will be attacked by the forces of light, and if you are on the side of light, you will be attacked by darkness. You have to expect this. Yes, but that is no reason to give up and do nothing; you must persevere in spite of misunderstandings and jealousy, and have recourse only to the weapons of light. Because, I repeat, if you respond with the same hatred and cruelty, it means you have chosen to descend to the region where these hostile forces tear and devour each other, and you will inevitably become weak and ugly and lose all your light. In your desire to defeat the enemy, you will have sacrificed your strength, beauty and light. You will even lose your friends as well, for they will see that you are not nearly as agreeable and charming as you used to be, and they will begin to avoid you. So you see where that attitude can lead you; it is a very costly one. But what is the good of trying to explain this to people? They are so ignorant that they prefer to use the old methods, even though they destroy themselves in the process! The method I offer you is so much to your advantage that, if you have understood me, you will always be on top, you will always win. Yes, because you will be handling higher forces and energies which are still unknown. Enemies are a temptation which the invisible world puts in our way; they are a temptation because we are tempted to pay them back in their own coin and try to show them that we are stronger. But they can also be a blessing, for their existence forces you to exert yourself. Instead of spending your time in idleness or resting on your laurels, you have to practise and exert yourself, night and day. Yes, it is the story of the calf all over again!

Of course, before you can reach this level of consciousness, you must be filled with kindness and love. It is because they have not managed to cultivate these virtues sufficiently that human beings perpetually seek revenge; they think that that is the right attitude, that it is a question of justice. Look about you and you will see how it is in the world: an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth! Do you really believe it is the law of Jesus that prevails? Oh no; it is still the law of Moses; everywhere, the law of Moses! Obviously, each person is free to do as they think best and try to get the better of their enemies as they please. But with those old methods you will always end up finding that you have not really conquered them. Even if you kill them, the problem is not solved; you will have to contend with them again; that is the law; that is karma. You kill your enemy, then it is their turn to kill you, and the process goes on and on until one of you finally becomes capable of more magnanimity and generosity and forgives the other. Only then will the chain of revenge be broken. But do you imagine that if I revealed this to the world at large, one day, anyone would understand me? No, they would exclaim, ‘Poor fellow! What on earth is he talking about?’ They are all so caught up in their passions and instincts – which they call patriotism – that they are incapable of reasoning. They are only capable of giving expression to their instinctive side, and that is no solution.

Naturally, it is much harder to try to perfect yourself than to take revenge. It takes a great deal of effort and a great deal of time, whereas it is very quick and easy to pick up a gun and shoot someone! And the majority of human beings always choose the quick and easy way. Initiates prefer the things that are difficult and take a long time. That is where the difference lies.

The time has come to give humanity new notions that will help them to escape from the hell they have got themselves into. Of course, anyone who prefers to stay there is free to do so, but those who want to free themselves can learn these new methods. Believe me, you will never get the better of an enemy by using humiliation, blows or violence of any kind. They will continue to be recalcitrant, always ready to turn on you, always waiting for the moment to take their revenge. Whereas, if you use the weapons of love and light, you will conquer them completely and for ever; they will even be ready to serve you. This requires a great deal of work and effort, but you must learn to love effort and not look for things to be easy, for that achieves nothing; in the long run it only makes everything more difficult.

The Bonfin, 2 April 1975

1 See ‘Au commencement était le Verbe’, Complete Works, vol. 9, chap. 9: ‘Père, pardonne-leur car ils ne savent ce qu’ils font’, and Cosmic Moral Law, Complete Works, vol. 12, chap. 20: ‘If anyone strikes you on the right cheek…’

2 See The Seeds of Happiness, Izvor Coll. n° 231, chap. 18: ‘Our enemies are good for us’.

Chapter Twenty-Eight
Never stop loving

This morning I promised to reveal a great secret to you. That’s what you love, isn’t it – secrets? The problem is, though, that you don’t know what to do with them. Little secrets, yes, you can use those, but what can you do with big ones?

Actually, you already know the secret I want to reveal to you today, but you don’t know it in its higher aspects. You know it but without understanding it, and that is why you cannot do much with it. In fact, I don’t know what you will be able to do with it even if I do repeat it today. Not that I have become pessimistic or sceptical; it is not that, but my observations and my experience of human nature have shown me that whatever is given to human beings, they are never happy or satisfied for very long. After a time they are dissatisfied and unhappy and resentful again. Haven’t you seen this yourselves? You have received and enjoyed and possessed so many things! But nothing ever lasts, not joy or satisfaction or a sense of fulfilment. You have to continually start looking and digging for more. Yesterday, for instance, you were in such a state of joy and ecstasy that you thought you would feel like that for ever. And then, this morning, when you woke up, you found that your level of consciousness was back to normal, like a river after a flood. It had seemed as though it would engulf the whole world and there it is, back in its normal channels, as peaceful and calm and unruffled as can be! The floodtide did not last long.

This is the eternal problem: how to attain a permanent, stable state of happiness that never varies, that depends only on yourself, that is always at hand, always in your soul, that can never escape. Some people have recourse to talismans, objects that they believe will influence their state or the conditions of their life and will work in their favour, without their having to make the slightest effort. As a matter of fact, this is what so many machines and instruments have been made for. Unfortunately, after a time, even the strongest talismans lose their efficacy; no talisman, stone or pentacle can be effective for ever. If something is to last for ever it must be constantly moved by the spirit, for only the spirit is eternal; everything else changes.1 So don’t delude yourselves. Nothing lasts, not your health, or your wealth, or your love ‒ nothing. A great many men and women swear to love each other for ever and then, only a few days later, they quarrel, divorce and are ready to slay each other! One day, two friends met in the street. One said to the other, ‘It’s good to see you, old man! I haven’t seen you for a long time. What are you doing now?’ The other replied, ‘I’m preparing for a divorce.’ ‘What do you mean?’ ‘Well, I just got married!’ There’s an intelligent man for you: for him, marriage was the first step towards a divorce. What foresight!

Well, what do you want from me? You don’t appreciate the secrets I have already given you; according to you they were not effective. And suppose I told you that the secret I want to talk to you about today is called love? Yes, there you are, you see; you are not interested. In fact, you are disappointed; isn’t that exactly what I was saying? Your reaction is: ‘Oh that! Is that the secret?’ Yes, there is no greater secret. The trouble is that you have heard the word ‘love’ so often on the television and radio, in plays and novels and songs, that it has no meaning for you anymore. And yet love is the mightiest force that exists, but of course it has many, many different degrees.

Love cannot be defined or explained; it contains too many elements. It is a force and, at the same time, a principle, a feeling, a motive, an intelligence and a state of consciousness. Love includes everything. But if it is to be effective you must understand it correctly and use it as an instrument, a magic force, and you must keep coming back to it. For example, when everything seems to be going wrong, when you are feeling sad and discouraged and disappointed, when you are destitute, when the whole world seems to be in league against you, when the sensation of inner darkness and disorder is so strong that you don’t know where to go or what to do, in these conditions love is the only thing that can help you. Whatever happens to you, the only solution is to go on loving: love the whole of creation, love all humankind. The highest philosophy, the most powerful light, the greatest wisdom, is hidden in these words: go on loving.

In every area of life we see the confrontation between two contradictory tendencies: positive and negative, good and evil, light and darkness, love and hatred, etc. My intention today is not to discuss the philosophical point of view, to show you that the existence of the two opposite poles is only an outward appearance, that they are united by a unique principle and are simply the external manifestation of a single entity.2 No, today I want to talk about a much more practical aspect of the question: the fact that human beings generally have a tendency to attach far greater importance to the negative than to the more positive aspects of reality. This is a tendency which can be very damaging to them because, when all their attention is focused on the negative side, they are blind to the other, and this prevents them from evolving. If you focus exclusively on the negative aspects of human nature, you end up affecting your own character to such an extent that you become incapable of loving and understanding others and of being generous and indulgent. Stupidity, cruelty and wickedness exist, to be sure; there’s no denying it. In fact, even if they no longer existed in the world, they would still exist in hell.

But let’s look at the consequences of this bad habit of always criticizing and dwelling on the worst aspects of people and things. Take just one little example: I show a glass of water to one person and ask them, ‘What do you see?’ and they will reply, ‘Your glass is half empty.’ I show that same glass to someone else, and they will reply, ‘Your glass is half full.’ The first sees the emptiness, the second the fullness, and their answers determine the future that lies before these two types of people. When you dwell on emptiness, everything begins to be empty for you; you see only the defects and deficiencies of every situation. You can look at a person and see them as a half-empty glass, but you can also see them as a glass that is half full, and that is much better. Why? Because emptiness, like fullness, is active: it empties you, whereas fullness fills you. If you concentrate on fullness, you will have materials to work with for the rest of your life and you will make many discoveries. It is extremely important that you change your habits now and that you educate your children in this respect also. True, children must be shown the negative aspects too, so that they can be on their guard against them, but there is a great difference between that and an insistence on the negative side of things to the exclusion of all that is positive.

Human beings are quite extraordinary! All day long, they feed only on negative things and they have never even noticed that, in doing so, they soil and defile themselves. They are always remarking on other people’s faults, supposedly with a view to correcting and improving them, but I say, ‘No, that is not the right way to go about it. If you want to help others to improve, start by improving yourself, then by your example you can show them that they are mistaken, that they are barking up the wrong tree.’ Yes, it is your example, your own perfection, that is important. By working to improve yourself, you contribute to the improvement of others: when they see that you are truly exceptional, that you are so much more advanced than they are, it will help them, because they will feel the desire to imitate you. But if you continue to focus on the filth and viciousness of other people, you are really to be pitied, for you will continue to be just as unattractive and uninspiring as they are. Look after improving yourself first, therefore, and leave others alone. Look at my case, for instance: if I had tried to correct the weaknesses of all my brothers and sisters, I would have died of poisoning long ago. So I don’t bother my head about them; that is their business. My business is to work at my own perfection, and it is thanks to this that there is some slight improvement in the collectivity. You must learn not to interfere with other people but to accept them as they are, to be tolerant and patient, and work hard, night and day until you are in a position to show that it is possible to obtain something magnificent, that they can do it too. If they don’t know it already, you will certainly not convince them of it with words!

When you are discouraged and disappointed, when you find no more support or kindness or generosity in others, call on your love. Remember all the wealth, all the abundance and splendour that exist in the world. Yes, for these good things really do exist too. And, when you do this, love will come to you, bringing all the elements you need, and once again you will regain your zest for life; in a single stroke you will be strong, luminous, expressive and full of beauty. Your memory, your vigour, your youth will come flooding back, because this is what love is: the fullness of all things.

But human beings, for all their intelligence and learning, have never understood that they don’t have to remain submerged in a negative state, that they can remedy their situation and set their feet on a new path by calling on love. They go and look for all kinds of medicines, which only make the situation worse, and they never think of using the remedy of love. If they did, if they called on love, everything would change immediately. You can love or you can hate; it all depends on you. Love is there whenever you want it. The only thing you have to do is to decide: to love or not to love.

If you want knowledge, you have to study for a very long time. If you want power, you have to practise and exert yourself for a very long time. Whereas, if you want to love, you can do so at once, from one instant to the next. How often have I put this to the test! I have been given the most powerful poisons; I have had more reasons than anyone to hate the whole world, but I have always told myself, ‘No, wait... If you stop loving, there will be nothing left of you.’ So I clung to love and went on. If people are evil, if they are liars or ungrateful wretches, if they persecute you, it is all perfectly normal. That is what they are like! But do you have to let yourself be wiped out just to please them? People are what they are. There is nothing you can do about it. The only problem for you is to keep on loving, nothing more; and it is that love that will bring you knowledge, power and glory, that will lead you to perfection, all the way to the Godhead. And are you going to tell me that that is nothing? You see: people don’t know how to reason correctly. The slightest little insult makes them stop loving!

What I have revealed to you today is the greatest of all secrets. If you really want to overcome all obstacles and difficulties and win everlasting life, you must never stop loving. And I am not saying that you must love just one or two people: no, you must love the whole of humanity, the whole of creation, the whole universe. Consider your love as your safeguard, your only guarantee of survival. Don’t bother your head about whether or not humankind is worthy of your love. If a time comes when you feel tempted to abandon everything, tell yourself, ‘No, I would be the one to perish. Humankind will continue to exist. The world will continue to go round. There is no way that I can exterminate the wicked, and even if I could, there would always be others to take their place. Insects, mosquitoes, wasps and snakes will continue to reproduce and multiply. I am being stupid. So, come, dear love; my only love, all-powerful antidote and universal panacea, come to me!’ And, before you know it, the fountains of love open within you and put everything right. When everything else has failed, love alone abides. This is the solution, and if nobody has understood it, it is because it is too simple.

You will say that everybody loves. Yes, but most people love in a way that brings destruction and desolation. Of course, that kind of love has its good side too, but it is never very long-lasting or absolute. Whereas, if you have an impersonal love for everything that God has created, you put yourself in direct contact with the ocean of life, from which you can draw strength, health, light and joy, and in this way you become less vulnerable, more enlightened and more generous. In the last analysis, therefore, love is simply the best and most suitable attitude towards life, in other words, towards God, nature and your fellow human beings. Until you adopt this attitude, you will obtain neither joy nor inspiration. Your eyes and even your facial expression will declare to those who see you that you have chosen the worst solution.

Of course, I agree, in this life, it is risky to turn a blind eye to the bad side of people.3 Everyone is well advised to think they mustn’t be too trustful. But I look at things from another point of view, from the spiritual, magic point of view; people never think about this. What interests me is to shed some light on a very important aspect of the question: exactly what happens to the inner life of someone who consistently focuses on the negative side, and what laws and forces are set in motion by such an attitude. Someone who is always ready to pick on people’s failings and talk about them, who even enjoys dwelling on their ugly aspects, triggers exactly the same negative manifestations in themselves and puts themselves in danger of becoming even worse than the people they criticize. And not only that, but they incur a heavy debt to them. When they malign others in their thoughts or feelings, or verbally or in writing, they break the law of love.

If someone has stumbled and fallen, you must help them to pick themselves up. You must never behave in such a way as to be an obstacle in their efforts to purify themselves and evolve. In any case, even if people are not clairvoyant, they can feel it if you send them bad vibrations, and they will avoid you or simply detest you. Whereas, if you are in the habit of sensing their good side, if you focus on that in your thoughts and your way of talking about them, this will strengthen their qualities and, at the same time, trigger them in yourself. In this way, sooner or later, you will acquire all the qualities you admire in others. This is a law of magic. When you distrust someone, they feel your distrust as a cold draught and, although they may not know that it comes from you, they will instinctively protect themselves against it by avoiding you, and you will lose their friendship. If you want to be attractive to someone and get them to love you, you must say only good things about them. Here, again, they may not know exactly why, but they will feel your warmth and be drawn to you; you will be a magnet to them. How little people know about these things! And what terrible things human beings can do to themselves simply by harbouring bad thoughts about each other!

My dear brothers and sisters, you must learn exactly what you stand to lose or gain by your attitude towards others. Initiates do calculate certain things, you know; they are not interested in losing, they are interested in gaining. And what do they want to gain? They want to gain an abundance of heavenly blessings so that they can pour them out on the whole of humanity, for they keep nothing back for themselves. So, the greatest secret of all is to be positive in order to fight against what is negative; not to refuse to see that negative things exist, but never to dwell on what is negative and destroy your own life simply because there are evil people in the world.

Whatever other means you try will never make you happy, because happiness cannot be obtained through knowledge, activity or riches. Happiness is tied to love; love is the only way of obtaining happiness; you must realize this. Only when we love are we truly happy. Some of you may say that, on the contrary, you have been very unhappy ever since you fell in love! That is quite possible, but what kind of love are you talking about? The truth is that only love can give you happiness and life; even if you have no apparent reason to be happy, you will be happy, simply because love is there. Yes, but only if your love is disinterested, because disinterested love does not bind you; it sets you free, completely free.

With other kinds of love there are always ties, obligations, promises, signatures ‒ in other words a form of slavery. You can never be happy for long if you are not free. Whereas, when you love the whole of humanity, the whole of creation, and ask for nothing in return, you are free and, at the same time, filled with something that makes you happy. In these conditions, everything else becomes easy, and whatever you do will be done better, just because it is accompanied by true love. The other kind of love ties you down and troubles you: you are trying to read, for instance, and you don’t understand a word of what you are reading, because that other love distracts your attention and makes you think about all kinds of other things. So it cannot be a help to you in all circumstances. Only a divine, disinterested love can be a help to you in whatever you do: it is always there to encourage you; you feel rich because you can actually see results, you see that you are making progress. Other kinds of love bind and imprison you and prevent you from doing what you want to do. They are forces, powers, that insist and impose their will on you and do you violence, and inevitably in the end you give in to them. And not only do you give in to them but, in the process, you lose all your strength and energy; they suck you dry and leave you empty.

True love is not tiring; on the contrary, it nourishes and strengthens and encourages you, for it is the Infinite, it is Immensity itself, it is the one inexhaustible Source on which you can draw ceaselessly. Other kinds of love exist on a lower level and are further away from us, in little bottles or boxes... Which goes to show that human beings are not very clever, because they rely so heavily on little things that can be so quickly exhausted. They never rely on what is immense, divine and inexhaustible.

You will say, ‘But what’s he getting at? He’s completely out of touch!’ Oh no! Do you really think that I don’t know how ridiculous it may seem to talk about this when, for thousands of years, the whole world has always followed the same old path? And yet I also know that both in the past and today there have always been great initiates who have seen into the secret depths of living nature and discovered other aspects of love, and they have seen that the Creator has given men and women tremendous capacities for manifestation, according to their degree of evolution. But those who penetrated these great mysteries kept their knowledge to themselves; they only entrusted it to those of their disciples who had been prepared and were ready for it. Everybody else clung faithfully to the traditions of their ancestors. I am well aware that the majority will not understand me and, for a long time to come, will continue to love in the most ordinary way. And yet, even though I do not expect to be understood or followed, I keep on trying, in the hope that, in the years to come, there will be a few who will want to live and love according to other laws.

If the Lord has given men and women this urge to love each other, it is because that love is necessary and useful, but it is not absolute. So, you must not go and cut your ties with the one you love, but you must not delude yourself, either: don’t imagine that you can cut yourself off from the Lord and concentrate exclusively on that one little love, in the belief that it will fill your every need. Instead, why not illuminate, enrich and expand your love, thanks to this new understanding, this vital link between you and God? This is the only way to make it truly beautiful, luminous and reasonable. Don’t fool yourselves: without this new understanding, these new elements, your love will inevitably end in ruin, remorse and regrets. I am not asking you to renounce your love for a man or woman; if I did that it would certainly mean that I was completely ignorant, unrealistic and stupid. Everything has a value and a place of its own, but that does not mean that, although I recognize its value, I must content myself with it. This is why I say, ‘Keep the love that you already have, but add to it your new understanding of the higher, immense, cosmic, all-powerful love. If you do this, you will be dazzled by the new joys, new happiness, new hopes and horizons, new worlds that unfold before you!’

When we say that God is love, this is the love we are talking about: the love that creates worlds. Our human love is a reflection, a very dim reflection, here below; it can help us to understand the correspondences and laws of the world above, but it is not all there is. From now on, whatever happens, tell yourself, ‘I’m going to go on loving; I refuse to let the spring run dry!’ When you feel troubled or disappointed or insulted, take a good look at your eyes, your eyelids, your mouth and the colour of your skin, and then call on love, call it to you with all your soul! After a few moments, if you look in the mirror again, you will see the difference: your face will be alive and expressive; something gentle, tender and subtle will emanate from you, and this is encouraging; you cannot be indifferent to the aesthetic aspect. If you had a little mirror handy and could see how ugly you become when you are in a negative frame of mind, I am sure you would be so horrified to see how disagreeable you look that you would decide, once and for all, never to get into such a state again! On the contrary, you would be in a hurry to experience a very noble, exalted state so that you could find the reflection of it in your face. But people don’t study themselves; they don’t look at themselves. Of course, that is not really true of women!

I have a lot of mirrors in my cottage. In fact, it seems that when some people see that, I go down a peg in their estimation. According to them, mirrors were invented by the devil, who gave them to women for their own damnation! But as I am not a woman I am in no danger of losing my soul! On the contrary, I stand to gain by looking in the mirror: it helps me to evolve. You will say that there are other, inner mirrors. That is absolutely true; in fact I much prefer the inner mirrors. But who ever looks at themselves in their inner mirror? If people don’t even study themselves in a physical mirror, how can you expect them to study themselves in their inner mirror? According to traditional moral codes it is not proper to look at your reflection in a mirror too often. But how do you suppose I am able to discern certain states that someone is trying to conceal? It is simply that I have already studied the expressions of those states in my own face. If you don’t study your own face, you will never be a physiognomist. You will not be able to read anything on other people’s faces, and anyone will be able to fool you. You see? Before you start criticizing me for not conforming to certain moral traditions, you would do better to ask me for an explanation. You might learn something from my answer; you might begin to see that I have rid myself of certain conceptions which contributed nothing to the new life, that neither enlightened the mind, nor broadened the consciousness nor liberated the will. The truths I have found are in accordance with a higher morality.

I have always looked for what is full, rather than what is empty, for you can always gain something from what is full. Of course, you can focus on emptiness if you wish, but only if you understand it as fullness. If you do this, then, yes, you will make some marvellous discoveries when you see that it consists of subtler, more etheric particles than fullness. If you want to have some conception of what true emptiness is, you have to look for it on a very high level, where you find that emptiness is fullness. It is this experience of emptiness that is taught in the Orient, where emptiness is not seen as something negative, pernicious or dangerous, but as a very rich and exalted reality. You can even find great riches in evil, on condition, of course, that you are very enlightened and very pure; you must always take the necessary precautions. Only the great initiates and hierophants, who have reached the highest possible degree of evolution, are capable of descending into hell in order to exploit its wealth, for only they are properly equipped to do so. You have all seen how firemen, speleologists, miners and deep-sea divers, or those who have to destroy a wasps’ nest or handle toxic gasses, are equipped. We can handle evil, therefore, on condition that we are strong and well-armed.

But let’s get back to that higher love we were talking about. Call it to you, with all your heart and soul, with all the strength of your mind, and when it comes it will tell you, ‘Whatever happens, whether human beings deserve it or not, keep on loving; never stop loving!’ I often sense that some of you think to yourselves, ‘Can this fellow really be a Master? Can’t he see the state I’m in; can’t he see the filth I’ve only just climbed out of... or just fallen into? Look how warmly he welcomes me; how he smiles at me! No, no. He can’t possibly be clairvoyant, or he wouldn’t be so kind and friendly to me!’ Oh yes, I can see the thoughts passing through your mind. Well, if I stopped loving human beings just because they were not all they should be, because they didn’t deserve to be loved, I would be the loser. Get this into your head: it is not you I love, it is myself! I am only taking care of my own progress, my own future. When you see me smile at you and welcome you with love, in spite of all the shabby things you sometimes do, you imagine I don’t see or feel any of it. But let me tell you this: ‘Don’t bother your head about me; I know what I’m doing. I’m not doing this for you so much as for myself, because I feel much better this way. As for you, well, if you gain a little something because of my attitude, so much the better for you!’ So there you are, you see: the problem is solved. And if some people are not ready to understand me and want to cling to their old philosophy, it is all the same to me. I shall just keep on in the same way, for that is how I amass treasure to distribute to others.

If you want to do as I do, so much the better for you; then you too will gain. For this is what the kingdom of God is all about: loving. I have met so many people who were only interested in obtaining power or knowledge. They were not interested in love; they considered it utterly useless and ineffectual. Well, I have weighed knowledge, power and love against each other, and of course I am not saying that knowledge and power are negligible quantities, but love merits the first place, not only because love is the centre, the heart of everything, but also because it depends entirely on our own will. Anybody and everybody can love, even children, even someone who is illiterate. Whereas, to obtain knowledge you need a well-organized brain that is already prepared; to obtain power, you must also have a strong will and great tenacity and stability. These qualities have not been given to everyone, but everyone is capable of loving; it is the easiest, the most natural thing in the world. Besides, don’t forget that love is connected to the other faculties: love will also bring power and knowledge. When you are feeling completely wiped out and in despair, if you call on love to help you, you immediately feel better. You sit up and say, ‘It’s going to be all right. I’ll survive!’ Isn’t that a sign that power has been given to you? Not the power to raise the dead, perhaps, but enough to resuscitate you, anyway! Later, you will be able to raise the dead as well. And love also gives you greater understanding, for part of the heat and fire of love is transformed into light and enables you to see things more clearly.

Yes, love enables you to obtain both power and knowledge, but if you neglect love and concentrate only on the other two, you may obtain them but they will be very dangerous to you. Knowledge without love will make you haughty, proud and scornful. And power without love will make you harsh, cruel and uncompromising. And what good will power do you if you become a monster? What good will knowledge do you if you become icy and inaccessible? Whereas, if you have love, your knowledge can enlighten human beings, and your powers can be used to heal and save and resuscitate them. Love is capable of harmonizing and reconciling all things; that is why I work with love. Suppose I had neither knowledge nor power, only love. Well, with love I also have faith and hope, and it is perfectly possible to live with faith and hope; I would need neither knowledge nor power.

Sèvres, 25 December 1967

1 See The Book of Divine Magic, Izvor Coll. n° 226, chap. 5: ‘Talismans’.

2 See The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, Izvor Coll. n° 210, chap. 2: ‘The wheel of life’ and chap. 3: ‘Beyond good and evil’.

3 See Love Greater Than Faith, Izvor Coll. n° 239, chap. 10: ‘Base your trust on vigilance’.

Chapter Twenty-Nine
Towards a broader concept of the family

I

The Master reads the Meditation for the day:

‘Just like human beings and all creatures born into this world, nations, countries and peoples are born, mature, grow old and have to make way for others. They all follow the same curve, giving what they have to give and then fading away. It is as though they went to rest before awakening again and producing new riches. We have seen this with successive civilizations, and religions follow the same pattern: they arise rapidly, attain a high degree of theological development and geographical expansion, reach a peak and then gradually become crystallized and begin to lose the keys to life. Even the mysteries, even the temples of ancient Egypt, which once held the keys to knowledge and power, are silent and dead. Where are all those hierophants today? Where is all that Sacred Science? They have all been subjected to the unchanging laws of life: every thing and every being that exists is born and must die and leave room for others. Only what has no beginning will never have an end.

‘But when I say this, I am speaking of forms. It is forms that are ephemeral; it is only forms that are fated to disappear and make way for other forms. The principle, the spirit, is eternal, and it is the spirit that incarnates successively in new forms.’

I think you will remember that I have already talked to you about this question. I explained that God had not given eternal life to forms. Form is necessarily destructible, ephemeral; it cannot stand up to the pressure of time. Only the principle, the spirit, is indestructible and eternal, because it belongs to the divine world. Human beings don’t know this truth, which is why they are always trying to perpetuate forms. You can see examples of this in the great religions, which have clung to certain rites and dogmas for centuries, without realizing that all these things are forms and that they cannot endure for ever. Life is a perpetual birth, a perpetual upsurge, and it constantly needs new forms in which to express itself. It is life itself which finally breaks the forms it uses in its quest for new instruments, new conductors through which to reveal new treasures, new lights, new splendours. This is why, after a time, all forms have to be replaced in order to make way for finer variations, for other, subtler manifestations.1

We can see this in human beings: when they are very young, the physical matter of their bodies is extremely supple, pliant and alive, and it is through this matter that the spirit manages to express itself more and more perfectly, as the heart, the will and the intellect develop. But then there comes a time when the form hardens and crystallizes, and the spirit, which can no longer manifest itself through the withered, shrunken form, is obliged to abandon it and assume another, newer one. It is important to observe what nature does so as to draw the right conclusions in every domain. The church, for instance, has made the mistake of clinging to the same forms for two thousand years. Forms need to be constantly improved and refined so that they may express, more and more perfectly, the new currents from heaven, for heaven has not decided that everything must remain the same for the rest of eternity. Look at all the new needs and tendencies that spring up constantly among men and women: why shouldn’t new forms appear to espouse these new needs? The constellation of Aquarius is approaching, and it is going to overturn and break up all the forms and values that humans believed to be entrenched for ever. Yes, but the thoughts of human beings are not the thoughts of Cosmic Intelligence: Cosmic Intelligence has other plans in mind. This is why the new currents of Aquarius, the new currents of the spirit, are going to turn everything upside down, to show people that they must not keep trying to shackle the spirit by enclosing it in the same old forms.

When we study the history of humankind, we see that all civilizations, with their religions, philosophies and political structures, have always had to change. This does not mean that the present order necessarily represents great evolutionary progress. From one point of view it does, and from another, not at all. There has been great progress in the scientific, technical and industrial domains, for instance, but from the point of view of ethical and moral standards humankind is slipping backwards. And yet, I assure you, a few years from now, all today’s values are going to be transformed, and I hope that you will still be there to see it all with your own eyes.

Now, I want to talk to you about an idea which I know will not be well received by your minds or hearts or souls. Let me tell you in advance that I am sorry that this is so, but I must say what I have to say in order to prepare the ground.

Yesterday I said a few words about the notion of family, and it seems that you went away with the impression that, for me, there was no longer any value in the family as an institution and that it should all be swept away. No, that is not what I think, but I did not explain everything and, as I see, if I don’t do so there will be all kinds of misunderstandings. For thousands of years the family has been considered the essential foundation of human society. Not so much nowadays, for it is beginning to fall apart... and, I must add, I have had nothing to do with this: long before I said anything about it, others had set about destroying it. But in spite of everything, the family unit is still very important. Every human being works for his or her family and is ready to defend it. That is good, I agree that this must be so but, as I see a little deeper into things, I must explain a few things to you.

The family is a creation of nature itself. Cosmic Intelligence saw that this way of life was good for human beings, because in this way they could help and support each other, work together and come to each other’s defence. The family is like a stronghold, a solid, stable shelter. In the past, the members of a family all lived together and were sometimes so numerous that they formed a whole tribe and declared war against another family. Yes, it is nature that has given members of the same family this bond of affection, this need to be together to help and defend each other. You can see the same thing amongst animals. But Cosmic Intelligence did not mean this situation to last for ever. The form in which families were first created must be expanded and become nobler and more luminous. It is time that men and women began to understand that it is this old notion of the family that is holding back the triumph of the Universal White Brotherhood in the world today. It is this that is the obstacle to the formation of a single, great family, because the small family unit is only interested in its own happiness and satisfaction, its own personal advantages.

The family, therefore, is the source of all deviations and all our self-centred enterprises, and it is time now for human beings to broaden this notion, to understand that all families must melt into the larger family; otherwise, the world will continue to see nothing but little clans at war with each other. Disorder and anarchy exist in the world because of this mentality, because for humans nothing is greater or more important than the little family unit. Everybody thinks that it is marvellous and must, obviously, be encouraged. Think of the training that so many parents give their children: how to wangle things to their own advantage, how to cheat and defraud and oust anyone who gets in their way! Nobody inculcates divine ideals into their children’s minds, only the most selfish and egotistical ambitions. From time to time, of course, they are told that they must show a little love, generosity and forbearance, but it seems that we don’t see much evidence of these virtues. Even members of the same family are constantly at each other’s throats!

A family is the basic cell of human society. That is true, but how do the cells of a human body function? They all work in collaboration with each other for the good of the whole body, whereas in society each family is apart and distinct from all the others, and the different ideas, ambitions and intentions of each unit are a constant source of conflict and disorder. It is time now to go a step further in the understanding of the family, and for all families to melt into the one great family, the universal family. This does not mean that they have to disintegrate and disappear, no, but they must join together in one work. Just as all the cells of our body are united in working for the health and well-being of the immense cell that a human being represents, so all individual families in the world must work together for the health and well-being of the whole body of humankind.

Yesterday I told you that it was the spiritual dimension that should be given first place, and the spiritual dimension is this: the great family of humanity, the Universal White Brotherhood, and the little family unit must take second place. As long as men and women continue to give priority to the little family, things will never get any better. This is why this erroneous, obsolete mentality must be replaced. There is no danger of the family disappearing, but it has got to burst its bonds and expand, it has got to take its place in the larger family, and then we shall see the kingdom of God and his righteousness, the Golden Age on earth. And do you know where I learned all that? Where I come from. The inhabitants of Agartha have made this great family a reality: in Agartha there is only one family, instead of two, three or four countries always at war, trying to destroy each other as on earth. Oh, what wisdom human beings have found!

Cosmic Intelligence created humans so that we could study them and transpose onto other levels the laws that we see at work in them. If an organism is in good health and functions as it should, it is because all the individual cells are capable of abnegation; they do not work only for themselves: a person’s stomach does not digest food only for itself, the heart does not beat only for itself, the lungs do not breathe only for themselves. The legs and arms, eyes and ears and brain... they all work for the well-being of the entire body, for the whole person. Whereas, human beings work only for their own interests: what selfishness and cruelty they all show! This is why humankind is a sick organism, so sick that it is going to die. An organism can only be healthy and function correctly if its members respect the law of sacrifice, the law of impersonality.2 Egocentric behaviour by one of the organs of a body, the attempt by a few recalcitrant cells to form a separate organism, can only lead to illness. Cells that refuse to obey the laws of love, that want to live their own, independent lives, form a tumour, a cancer, which eats away at the whole body.

Cosmic Intelligence speaks to us and teaches and explains things through the medium of humans themselves. But human beings prefer to go to libraries and study books written by diseased, worm-eaten creatures, as though it were they who possessed truth! Nobody ever thinks of studying in the living library where nature has written everything we need to know, in the textbook of human nature created by God.

If human beings are to be strong, healthy, beautiful and powerful, all their cells must work together according to the laws of love and sacrifice.3 This being so, why is it so difficult for people to understand how wonderful these laws are, and that humanity as a whole must be built on them? You would all be much healthier if this were so! Instead of poisoning yourselves with all kinds of drugs, give yourselves a dose of this principle of love, loyalty, sacrifice and disinterestedness, and your body will be restored to health without the help of medication of any kind. Of course, doctors never prescribe such treatment to their patients: they prescribe injections, pills, gargles and suppositories, but never the law of love, sacrifice or abnegation. And yet, that is the only true medicine. You must base your whole existence on these laws; in this way, all your cells will begin to work together in harmony and you will know health, strength, joy, happiness and peace. Without this, you can swallow the contents of an entire pharmacy and you will only be more and more ill, because you are not getting anything living, anything divine; you rely too much on external remedies that have no life in them. This is why I tell you that it is life that does everything, that it is life that heals and purifies.

You must get an injection of life, for it is life that is capable of organizing everything else. Most human beings have forgotten about the power of life; they put all their faith in the powers of dead medicines that prevent life from circulating freely. Get more life into you, let it flow through you, it will heal your wounds and purify your blood. Don’t take too many medicines; just be sure to increase the flow of life in you! But people are so ignorant that they don’t even know how to stimulate the flow of life; they no longer even believe that life is all-powerful; they only believe in death. Well, to that I say, ‘Give as many medicines as you like to a corpse; will it get up and start walking and talking? It will not! Medicines have no effect on the dead, only on the living.’ So it is life we need, and then all the rest will be set right.

But let’s get back to the question of the family. I am not against the family; on the contrary, I have great admiration for the family. I have one myself. The family is necessary, but it does not require that we sacrifice everything else to it: it is not what is most important. The family exists in order to help its members to join the one universal family. This is what you must understand: the importance of the great family, for which every single member must work. So far the family has failed in its mission, and that is why it is disintegrating. How many families still live in harmony together? Our conception of ‘family’ is going to have to be stretched until it encompasses the whole world, until the whole of humanity is one family. This does not mean that you must no longer look after the members of your own family. You still have to feed and house them, earn money for them and give them an education. But with this greater awareness I am talking about, you will do it even better than before. You will explain to them that it is when they work for the universal family that they will solve their problems. So far, no one family has ever managed to prevent misfortune, war and poverty in the world, and this will not change until all the little families blend to form one great family. Then it will be finished: there will be no more war, no more poverty.

The solution, the true solution, is to be found in the great family. As long as you are only interested in the welfare of your own little family circle, you will never contribute to that of the whole world: whatever you do will be done only for your own benefit (although it is very doubtful whether you will actually do yourself any good that way). But when you work to bring all families together in the one great family, you are working not only for others but also for yourself. For when this idea becomes reality, it will bring many blessings to the world, and you will benefit from them as much as everybody else. Otherwise you will never do any good to anyone, not even your own children, because, by loving them in that way, you are instilling notions into them that are far too selfish and personal. One day their spirit will reproach you for failing them, for not teaching them divine ideas, for holding them back. So take care, for this question has far-reaching consequences! People congratulate themselves on doing their duty and working for their family; they think they are the last word in kindness and generosity. But, in fact, is it true that they are doing good? From the point of view of heaven, they are not doing anyone any good, for they are content to maintain the members of their family in a narrow spirit of selfishness and obscurity.

The only way you can benefit your family is by putting these new ideas into effect. If you do this, then all those you have helped to come closer to the Lord in this life will come and reward you for it in future incarnations. Because you must not think that you are going to be with the members of your present family for all eternity. They are your family for this incarnation; God alone knows where they will be after this! That depends on many different things. When you come to think of it, is it really so wonderful to have a family for only one lifetime? What is really worthwhile is to have a family for eternity. That is what I am working for: to have a family for eternity... and that is what I shall have! It gives you pleasure, no doubt, to keep your family for yourself, but it is a sure way of losing them. They will leave you and never come back in future incarnations, because they will have too many unhappy memories of life in your company! Whereas, by working as I do, I shall always have you with me, even in future incarnations. You will have to come and look for me, even if I am on another planet, to thank me for all you have received from me! Yes, because what I give you is far more than you could ever receive from an ordinary family.

Are you still sceptical? Very well, let me give you another argument, and you will see that Jesus had the same idea of family as I have. The Gospels tell us that, one day, ‘while he was still speaking to the crowds, his mother and his brothers were standing outside, wanting to speak to him. Someone told him, “Look, your mother and your brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you.” But to the one who had told him this, Jesus replied, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” And pointing to his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”’ For Jesus, therefore, the family includes all the children of God, all the sons and daughters of God, wherever they may be, on earth and even on the other planets. This is what Jesus understood by ‘family’, and this is why I too am in favour of the great family.4

The little family? I don’t want to hear about it! Do you know why everybody is so attached to their family? You will say, ‘Because they love each other, because of their affection for each other!’ Oh no; it is because they are thinking of their old age: they want to be sure of having the love and warmth of the family round them. It is all so egotistical! By contrast, look at how animals behave: as soon as the young cub or fledgling is capable of looking after itself, its mother pushes it out of the den or the nest. Animals are more disinterested than human beings: they never try to keep their young for themselves on the pretext that they love them! Parents like that do not really love their children at all; they are only thinking of themselves. Their attachment is nothing but self-interest or fear. To be sure, a mother will always admire her offspring and be convinced that it will be a genius, a divinity (it is more likely to be a rogue, but it is no using arguing with her!). In any case, as I say, animals behave better than human beings in this respect; the mother protects her young while they are weak and need her protection, then she leaves them to fend for themselves. Whereas human beings... just look at them: a man may be sixty years old and be a governor or minister, and his mother still fusses round him, telling him to wrap up and not catch cold, to be sure to eat enough, etc. What kind of maternal instinct is that? Is it virtue or vice? You will say that it shows she loves him very much, that it is her mother’s fondness... Well, if I were to analyse what it really is... But let’s leave that for another time.

Now, in the light of what I have explained, examine yourselves and try to see how you consider your family: what are your feelings towards it? What are your motives? What are your plans for its future?

If I am able to see things in this light, it is because heaven has given me a point of view. Yes, all my wealth is in one point, a point that can be neither measured nor weighed, a point that I have always looked for, that I have spent my life working for. Nobody knows where it is, but it is thanks to this point that, in the long run, I shall obtain heaven and earth, everything that I desire. This is the highest point of all, from which my gaze embraces everything.5

Let me illustrate this. A university professor, who has three doctorates, is working in his laboratory on the ground floor, while his twelve-year-old son is up in the attic or at the top of a tree in the garden. He is only a little boy, he has no university degrees, but he can see a long way from his look-out. Suddenly he calls out, ‘Dad, auntie and uncle are coming; I can see them.’ ‘Good. What else can you see?’ ‘I can see that uncle is carrying a big parcel...’ So the father, who is too low down to see anything, asks his son to tell him what he can see. And who is that child? It is myself! Yes, I am only twelve, but I have been perched high up, on a point from which I can see in all directions and describe what I see to the professors and scientists and researchers, who are busy calculating and reflecting about things, but who can see nothing, because they are too low down. I am very young, I have no job and no diplomas, but I am very well placed to be able to see a long, long way. Isn’t it worth working hard to reach this point of view? Yes, and it is my point of view that gives me this understanding of what the family really is. Why have none of the innumerable thinkers, psychologists and sociologists ever seen this before? They have never realized that the small family unit is nothing without the great family; they have never thought about this universal dimension of the family. They have always restricted themselves to the limited, individual, personal aspect.

The constellation of Aquarius, which is drawing nearer, will oblige humankind to think in terms of the universal dimension.6 Yes, it is Aquarius that will bring with it the notion of universality. All the tremendous scientific discoveries of recent years have been inspired by Aquarius, and there are more to come! But after these, humans will enter the era of true discoveries, inner discoveries: they will discover that they are immortal, that their love is all-powerful, that light is the only treasure worth winning. This is what is important, then: an all-powerful love, light that reveals all things, and the use of the will to develop inner powers, instead of relying on external means, instruments and machines.

The Bonfin, 19 September 1975

BIBLICAL REFERENCES

Jesus expresses his opinion about his mother and his brothers – Matt. 12:46-50

‘Our Father in heaven’ – Matt. 6:10-13,

Jesus can only help and heal those who have faith – Matt. 8:5-13 and 13:58; Mark 10:52, etc.

II

As human beings have never been instructed in Initiatic Science, they do not realize that whatever they think, feel, desire or hope for flows from them into the invisible world and sets forces and powers in motion, which may be either beneficial or detrimental. And yet, if they did know this, the knowledge would be enough to make every individual realize that their inner life, the life of thought, was an essential factor in determining their own future and that of humankind, and that they should, therefore, give a new direction to their life. For this reason, the very first thing that disciples in an initiatic school learn is to watch their thoughts, feelings and desires and to be quite clear about their goal and the direction they take, so that they can associate themselves with the beneficial forces of nature and work for their own evolution and that of the whole world.

In the meantime, each one is alone, in their own little corner, busily setting in motion the forces of chaos, and when they fall ill or suffer some other mishap, they are the last to realize that they have brought their troubles on themselves. There are four billion ignorant human beings in the world, and every day, without pause, they are engaged in stirring up the forces of destruction. Of course, they have no idea that this is what they are doing, and when you try to enlighten them, they stare at you in astonishment, thinking, ‘He must come from another planet! Thoughts and feelings can’t be seen or touched; how can they trigger events in the world?’ As long as human beings continue to be so ignorant, the situation will never get any better.

Human beings need to suffer before they begin to wish for harmony and peace and the splendour of the new life. If they are not ground down by all kinds of sufferings, they will never understand or make up their minds to work for the kingdom of God. Two world wars have still not been enough to bring them to their senses. And now the third world war is approaching, and I believe that, this time, everybody will understand, everybody will long for the Golden Age. At present, there are only a handful of people who want it; it is not enough; their prayer will never be answered, perhaps never even heard! The whole world must want it and clamour for it; every human being must demand the Golden Age. Yes, but it will never come unless people change their mentality. For years now, I have been explaining what this change must consist of: there are hundreds of different points that have to be reviewed and corrected. If human beings insist on going on as before, they will only have themselves to blame. Nobody can say that I have not done my duty, that I have not shown them the way.

When I spoke to you about the family the other day, some of you were dreadfully upset. You felt that what I said was diametrically opposed to your traditions, convictions and habits. But I cannot help that: I have to reveal the truth and help you to expand your consciousness. So many false conceptions have been piling up for thousands of years, and now they stand in the way of people’s happiness! Look at how they behave: their lives are organized solely with a view to their own survival, to having enough food and clothing, to earning their living, getting married and having children, etc. They only think about themselves. Every now and then, they do a little something for society, but most of the time, whatever they do is for themselves. And this is why the human condition never gets any better: no one thinks of the collectivity, only of themselves. People believe that if they organize their own lives well they will find the security they are looking for, but that is not so.

We live in the collectivity, and if revolution, riots or war break out in that collectivity, our individual property will not be safe. So, even if we try to make everything safe for ourselves, in point of fact we shall never be really safe, because the collectivity itself can be disrupted and destroy everything. History shows that there is always a sword of Damocles hanging over the head of every individual. How many rich and powerful men and women has the world seen, men and women who seemed to be invulnerable until conflict destroyed the collectivity and they lost everything, even their lives! But if the life of the collectivity is improved, each individual will be safe. Everything depends on the stability of the collectivity: it is the only guarantee of security and prosperity for the individual. This is what people fail to understand and, because they don’t understand it, they never make up their minds to work for the larger community. You will say, ‘You’re forgetting all the political parties. They at least are only working for the collectivity!’ Yes, but they work for a very limited collectivity. A country is like an individual; if it is alone it will never be safe: other countries can always attack it. This is not the ideal way of looking at things.

Yes, the only solution is to work for the world community. The leaders of every country in the world must understand that some form of world government is indispensable; all the individual countries must become one country; the whole world must become one family. You will say, ‘You’re asking the impossible!’ and then you will enumerate all the reasons that make you think it cannot be done! Yes, I know all that already. At the moment, of course, you are right: it is impossible. But I work for the future. In the future this unity will be achieved, because events will lead people to adopt this new way of looking at things. Poverty, disaster and war will make people change their outlook. And, as the groundwork will already have been laid by the lectures and books, those who have the authority and the means to do so will be able to build on that and amplify it. This is the direction we must take. Only a collectivity that is built on the most excellent principles will ensure the future and the survival of the individual, and, if we are to reach this collective structure, each one of us must replace their limited, selfish point of view with a far broader, more universal point of view. In doing so they will lose nothing; on the contrary, they will only gain.

The time has come to accept the new philosophy that the Aquarian age is bringing to the world. We must nourish and strengthen it by giving it more and more room in our hearts and minds, in our soul and spirit. The thoughts and feelings of all enlightened beings form a powerful light, which is spreading and influencing the minds of men and women, and one day the whole world will be touched and ‘contaminated’ by this new light. This is why I have often repeated that, when people refuse to believe that thought is an active force, they seriously hamper the evolution of the world. But we know how powerful thought, meditation and prayer are, how beneficial their effects on humankind can be, and thanks to this knowledge we are participating in this great work of light, so that the Universal White Brotherhood may be disseminated throughout the world. And, in fact, the Universal White Brotherhood desires only one thing: for the whole world to be united in one family.

All religions believe that human beings are all children of the same Father. Yes, they believe, they believe! But what use is their belief since they go on behaving as though they believed in nothing? Even Christians, whose special prayer begins with the words, ‘Our Father in heaven’, and who insist so much on the brotherly love that should unite all men and women... look at how they behave amongst themselves! Go to a court of law any day, and you will see if they behave like brothers and sisters! They fly in the face of every precept of the Gospels; people, even members of the same family, show more and more hostility to each other!7

The Universal White Brotherhood is working to make the world one great family in which all love each other, in which all are greeted with smiles and a warm welcome wherever they go, even from brothers and sisters they have never met! Whereas, today, you have to go down on your knees and beg to be allowed into some countries... and, even then, you often meet with a refusal! Brotherhood does not exist! It is here that we are building that brotherhood, a brotherhood that is destined to spread throughout the world. In fact, it is already beginning to spread. You can already see how, since the Universal White Brotherhood was first established in France, public opinion has already changed considerably. People are beginning to speak our language; the ideas of the Teaching can be heard on television and radio and in the newspapers. Before, people scoffed at these ideas, but now they are beginning to accept them. And it is only a beginning!

The Universal White Brotherhood is accomplishing a tremendous work in the world. The results are not very visible yet, but before long, I assure you, they will be seen; everybody will speak our language. Is it such a bad thing to have some part in this work? You should be proud to be able to say, ‘My life has meaning because I am working for the whole world!’ But, instead of collaborating in this immense and glorious work and being of some use to others, people prefer to go on with their bland, insignificant little lives. ‘Yes,’ you will say, ‘but the trouble is that I can’t see any results.’ Well, perhaps the results cannot be seen, but they can certainly be felt!

I am inviting you to collaborate in activities as a result of which you will feel your life becoming so interesting and so luminous that you will be the first to be astonished. You must understand that glory, true glory, true power and true happiness are to be found in this idea, this desire to accomplish a divine work for the whole world, for this is how you attract the higher entities to come and collaborate with you. Here in this centre you have all the right conditions for this work: the philosophy, the living conditions, the environment, the ambience. What are you waiting for? When it comes to taking part in a fight, everybody is ready, but when you are asked to take part in a work for heaven... ‘Oh no, I couldn’t do it!’

Now I have to tell you that this prodigious work that is yet to be accomplished here on earth has already been decreed from above. Heaven has decided that all our human values are going to be changed. The thing is, though, that heaven cannot intervene directly on earth, for the intermediary regions are like zones closed off from each other. It is not that they are really separate from each other, but as the matter that each region is made of is of a different density, nothing can be accomplished in any of them without the appropriate instruments.8 The spirits of the invisible world are extremely powerful, but they cannot act effectively on the physical plane, because they are not made of physical matter. In a spiritualist seance it is the medium who provides the fluidic matter known as ectoplasm, and once the spirits have it they are capable of demolishing a house in a split second, but without it they cannot lift even a feather!

In the same way, the most exalted spirits of the divine world cannot intervene in human affairs unless human beings themselves give them the means to do so. Picture to yourself a huge, solid fortress: unless there is a traitor willing to open the gates from within, the enemy could never enter. One day I remember I was talking to the Brotherhood, and I said, ‘Do you know who I am?’ Well, I had spoken in such portentous tones that everyone expected me to make some great revelation and say, ‘I am Jesus Christ or St. Paul or Tamerlane...’, so they were very disappointed when I said, ‘I am the traitor in your midst!’ To be a traitor, after all, is not something to boast about! But, at the same time, it is not so bad, for the world is one great fortress, and the heavenly hosts cannot enter it unless there is a traitor to open the gates, and that is my role.

You see? You hadn’t understood, either, but now you are beginning to see what a traitor is. The spirits from above cannot do much on earth, for on earth it is human beings who are powerful, as powerful as all the armies of heaven; when humans decide to dig their toes in, there is not much the spirits can do. This is why heaven tries to find someone to open the doors and let them in. Spiritual people, therefore, are always traitors who let the heavenly spirits into the citadel. So now, each one of you must become a traitor, so that the divine spirits can enter and transform the earth.

And then there is another thing: when Jesus healed someone he would ask them, ‘Do you believe?’ Why? Surely he could have healed them without that? No, he couldn’t; there had to be an open door through which his healing powers could enter and begin to restore order. If you have no faith, heaven can do nothing for you, because your doors are closed.9 You often complain that the Lord does not come and heal you and help you in your difficulties. But that is because you do nothing; you give nothing; you don’t even open your doors so that he can come in and work miracles. You weep and moan, ‘Lord, Lord!’ But what do you expect him to do if you yourself do nothing?

So now you know what you have to do: make up your minds to become traitors! We must form a brotherhood of very advanced beings working to open a breach through which the heavenly army can enter and transform the whole earth. And, I promise you, more and more workers will come to join us.

The Bonfin, 25 September 1975

1 See A New Dawn: Society and Politics in the Light of Initiatic Science, Complete Works, vol. 26, chap. 1: ‘Forms and principles’.

2 For a full explanation of Omraam Mikhaël Aïvanhov’s teaching concerning the personality and the individuality, see Spiritual Alchemy, Complete Works, vol. 2, chap. 4: ‘The unjust steward’ and Man’s Two Natures: Human and Divine, Izvor Collection, no. 213.

3 See Life Force, Complete Works, vol. 5, chap. 9: ‘Sacrifice’, and ‘Know Thyself’: Jnana Yoga, Complete Works, vol. 17, chap. 5: ‘Sacrifice’

4 See Sons and Daughters of God, Izvor Coll. n° 240, chap. 13: ‘Sons and daughters of God are brothers and sisters to all people’.

5 See ‘In Spirit and in Truth’, Izvor Coll. n° 235, chap. 1: ‘The framework of the universe’, chap. 3: ‘The link with the centre’ and chap. 4: ‘Reaching for the top’.

6 See A New Dawn – Society and Politics in the Light of Initiatic Science, Complete Works, vol. 25, chap. 1: ‘The age of Aquarius’.

7 See Love Greater Than Faith, Izvor Coll. n° 239, chap. 11: ‘As I have loved you’, and Sons and Daughters of God, Izvor Coll. n° 240, chap. 13: ‘Sons and daughters of God are brothers and sisters to all people’.

8 See ‘Cherchez le Royaume de Dieu et sa Justice’, Synopsis Coll., Part II, chap. 4: ‘Du soleil à la terre: comment la pensée se réalise dans la matière’.

9 See The Faith That Moves Mountains, Izvor Coll. n° 238 and Love Greater Than Faith, Izvor Coll. n° 239.