Latest / Vegetarianism and Occultism / Episode 11 - Impure Vehicles

Transcript

Episode 11 - Impure Vehicles · Vegetarianism and Occultism

• 0:00
  Section eleven. Impure vehicles. It is clear that a man's duty with regard
• 0:08
  to himself is to develop all his different vehicles as far as possible, in
• 0:14
  order to make them finished instruments for the use of the soul. There is
• 0:19
  a still higher stage in which that soul itself is being trained to be a
• 0:24
  fit instrument in the hands of the deity, a perfect channel for the divine
• 0:29
  grace. But the first step towards this high aim is that the soul itself
• 0:35
  shall learn thoroughly to control the lower bodies, so that there shall be in
• 0:39
  them no thought or feeling except those which the soul allows. All these vehicles
• 0:46
  therefore should be in the highest possible condition of efficiency. All should be pure
• 0:52
  and clean and free from taint. And it is obvious that this part never
• 0:57
  be so long as the man absorbs in to the physical encasement such undesirable constituents.
• 1:04
  Even the physical body and its sense perceptions can never be at their best
• 1:10
  unless the food is pure. Any One who adopts vegetarian diet will speedily begin
• 1:15
  to notice that his sense of taste or smell is far keener than it was
• 1:22
  when he fed upon flesh, and that he is now able to discern a
• 1:26
  delicate difference of flavors in foods which before he had thought of as tasteless,
• 1:33
  such as rice and wheat. The same thing is true to a still greater
• 1:37
  extent with regard to the higher bodies. Their senses also cannot be clear.
• 1:42
  If impure in coarse matter is drawn into them. Anything of this nature clogs
• 1:49
  and dulls them, so that it becomes more difficult for the soul to use
• 1:53
  them. This is a fact which has always been recognized by the student of
• 1:57
  occultism. You will find that all those who in ancient days entered upon the
• 2:04
  mysteries were men of the utmost purity, and of course invariably vegetarian. Carnivorous
• 2:10
  diet is fatal to anything like real development, and those who adopt it are
• 2:15
  throwing serious and unnecessary difficulties in their own way. I am well aware that
• 2:23
  there are other and still higher considerations which are of greater weight than anything upon
• 2:29
  the physical plane, and that the purity of the heart and of the soul
• 2:32
  is more important to a man than that of the body. Yet there is
• 2:38
  surely no reason why we should not have both. Indeed, the one suggests
• 2:43
  the other, and the higher should include the lower. There are quite enough
• 2:46
  difficulties in the way of self control and self development. It is surely worse
• 2:52
  than foolish to go out of our way to add another and very considerable one
• 2:57
  to the list. Although it is true that a pure heart will do more
• 3:00
  for us than a pure body, yet the latter can certainly do a great
• 3:06
  deal. And we are none of us so far advanced along the road towards
• 3:09
  spirituality that we can afford to neglect the great advantage that it gives us.
• 3:15
  Anything that makes our path harder than it need be is emphatically something to be
• 3:21
  avoided in all cases. This flesh food undoubtedly makes the physical body a worse
• 3:27
  instrument and puts difficulties in the way of the soul by intensifying all the undesirable
• 3:34
  elements and passions belonging to these lower planes. Nor is this serious effect during
• 3:39
  physical life the only one of which we have to think. If through introducing
• 3:46
  lowsome impurities into the physical body, the man builds himself a course an unclean
• 3:52
  astral body, we have to remember that it is in this degraded vehicle that
• 3:55
  he will have to spend the first part of his life after death. Because
• 4:00
  of the gross matter which he has built into it, all sorts of undesirable
• 4:04
  entities will be drawn into association with him, and will make his vehicles their
• 4:10
  home, and find a ready response within him to their lower passions. It
• 4:15
  is not only that his animal passions are more easily stirred here on earth,
• 4:20
  but in addition to this, he will suffer acutely from the working out of
• 4:25
  these desires after death. Here, again, looked at even from the selfish
• 4:30
  point of view, we see that occult considerations confirm the straightforward common sense of
• 4:36
  the arguments on the physical plane. The higher sight, when brought to bear
• 4:42
  upon this problem, shows us still more vividly how undesirable is the devouring of
• 4:48
  flesh, since it intensifies within us that from which we need to be free.
• 4:54
  And therefore, from the point of view of progress, that habit is
• 4:59
  a thing to be passed out at once and forever. End of Section eleven.