BOOK 2  34-44

The Book of the Spiritual Man 1-11   12-22   22-33   34- 44   45-55

34. Transgressions are injury, falsehood, theft, incontinence, envy;
whether committed, or caused, or assented to, through greed, wrath,
or infatuation; whether faint, or middling, or excessive; bearing
endless, fruit of ignorance and pain. Therefore must the weight be cast
on the other side.

Here are the causes of sin: greed, wrath, infatuation, with their effects,
ignorance and pain. The causes are to be cured by better wisdom, by
a truer understanding of the Self, of Life. For greed cannot endure
before the realization that the whole world belongs to the Self, which
Self we are; nor can we hold wrath against one who is one with the
Self, and therefore with ourselves; nor can infatuation, which is the
seeking for the happiness of the All in some limited part of it, survive
the knowledge that we are heirs of the All. Therefore let thought and
imagination, mind and heart, throw their weight on the other side; the
side, not of the world,.but of the Self.

35. Where non-injury is perfected, all enmity ceases in the presence of
him who possesses it.

We come now to the spiritual powers which result from keeping the
Commandments; from the obedience to spiritual law which is the
keeping of the Commandments. Where the heart is full of kindness
which seeks no injury to another, either in act or thought or wish, this
full love creates an atmosphere of harmony, whose benign power
touches with healing all who come within its influence. Peace in the
heart radiates peace to other hearts, even more surely than contention
breeds contention.

36. When he is perfected in truth, all acts and their fruits depend on
him.

The commentator thus explains: If he who has attained should say to
a man, Become righteous! the man becomes righteous. If he should
say, Gain heaven ! the man gains heaven. His word is not in vain.

Exactly the same doctrine was taught by the Master who said to his
disciples: Receive ye the Holy Ghost: whose soever sins ye re mit they
are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are
retained.

37. Where cessation from theft is perfected, all treasures present
themselves to him who possesses it.

Here is a sentence which may warn us that, beside the outer and
apparent meaning, there is in many of these sentences a second and
finer significance. The obvious meaning is, that he who has wholly
ceased from theft, in act, thought and wish, finds buried treasures in
his path, treasures of jewels and gold and pearls. The deeper truth is,
that he who in every least thing is wholly honest with the spirit of Life,
finds Life supporting him in all things, and gains admittance to the
treasure house of Life, the spiritual universe.

38. For him who is perfect in continence, the reward is valour and
virility.

The creative power, strong and full of vigour, is no longer dissipated,
but turned to spiritual uses. It upholds and endows the spiritual man,
conferring on him the creative will, the power to engender spiritual
children instead of bodily progeny. An epoch of life, that of man the
animal, has come to an end; a new epoch, that of the spiritual man, is
opened. The old creative power is superseded and transcended; a new
creative power, that of the spiritual man, takes its place, carrying with
it the power to work creatively in others for righteousness and eternal
life.

One of the commentaries says that he who has attained is able to
transfer to the minds of his disciples what he knows concerning divine
union, and the means of gaining it. This is one of the powers of purity.

39. Where there is firm conquest of covetousness, he who has
conquered it awakes to the how and why of life.

So it is said that, before we can understand the laws of Karma, we
must free ourselves from Karma. The conquest of covetousness brings
this rich fruit, because the root of covetousness is the desire of the
individual soul, the will toward manifested life. And where the desire
of the individual soul is overcome by the superb, still life of the
universal Soul welling up in the heart within, the great secret is
discerned, the secret that the individual soul is not an isolated reality,
but the ray, the manifest instrument of the Life, which turns it this way
and that until the great work is accomplished, the age-long lesson
learned. Thus is the how and why of life disclosed by ceasing from
covetousness. The Commentator says that this includes a knowledge
of one's former births.

40. Through purity a withdrawal from one's own bodily life, a ceasing
from infatuation with the bodily life of others.

As the spiritual light grows in the heart within, as the taste for pure
Life grows stronger, the consciousness opens toward the great, secret
places within, where all life is one, where all lives are one. Thereafter,
this outer, manifested, fugitive life, whether of ourselves or of others,
loses something of its charm and glamour, and we seek rather the
deep infinitudes. Instead of the outer form and surroundings of our
lives, we long for their inner and everlasting essence. We desire not so
much outer converse and closeness to our friends, but rather that quiet
communion with them in the inner chamber of the soul, where spirit
speaks to spirit, and spirit answers; where alienation and separation
never enter; where sickness and sorrow and death cannot come.

41. To the pure of heart come also a quiet spirit, one-pointed thought,
the victory over sensuality, and fitness to behold the Soul.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God, who is the
supreme Soul; the ultimate Self of all beings. In the deepest sen se ,
purity means fitness for this vision, and also a heart cleansed from all
disquiet, from all wandering and unbridled thought, from the torment
of sensuous imaginings; and when the spirit is thus cleansed and pure,
it becomes at one in essence with its source, the great Spirit, the
primal Life. One consciousness now thrills through both, for the
psychic partition wall is broken down. Then shall the pure in heart see
God, because they become God.

42. From acceptance, the disciple gains happiness supreme.

One of the wise has said: accept conditions, accept others, accept
yourself. This is the true acceptance, for all these things are what they
are through the will of the higher Self, except their deficiencies, which
come through thwarting the will of the higher Self, and can be
conquered only through compliance with that will. By the true
acceptance, the disciple comes into oneness of spirit with the
overruling Soul; and, since the own nature of the Soul is being,
happiness, bliss, he comes thereby into happiness supreme.

43. The perfection of the powers of the bodily vesture comes through
the wearing away of impurities, and through fervent aspiration.

This is true of the physical powers, and of those which dwell in the
higher vestures. There must be, first, purity; as the blood must be
pure, before one can attain to physical health. But absence of impurity
is not in itself enough, else would many nerveless ascetics of the
cloisters rank as high saints. There is needed, further, a positive fire of
the will; a keen vital vigour for the physical powers, and something
finer, purer, stronger, but of kindred essence, for the higher powers.
The fire of genius is something more than a phrase, for there can be
no genius without the celestial fire of the awakened spiritual will.

44. Through spiritual reading, the disciple gains communion with the
divine Power on which his heart is set.

Spiritual reading meant, for ancient India, something more than it does
with us. It meant, first, the recital of sacred texts, which, in their very
sounds, had mystical potencies; and it meant a recital of texts which
were divinely emanated, and held in themselves the living, potent
essence of the divine.

For us, spiritual reading means a communing with the recorded
teachings of the Masters of wisdom, whereby we read ourselves into
the Master's mind, just as through his music one can enter into the
mind and soul of the master musician. It has been well said that all
true art is contagion of feeling; so that through the true reading of true
books we do indeed read ourselves into the spirit of the Masters, share
in the atmosphere of their wisdom and power, and come at last into
their very presence.

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