What can you add to a receptacle that is already full? Nothing. In order to pour something else into it, it must first be emptied. The same applies to human beings: if they do not empty themselves of their weaknesses and bad habits, how can divine ...
‘Renunciation' and ‘sacrifice' are certainly among the words people like least, for they understand them as being synonymous with deprivation, and they tell themselves that if they do without they will die. And it is true that they will die: if they ...
Renunciation must never be a privation but a transposition, a translation to a higher plane. You continue the same activity but with purer, more luminous materials. You give up, for example, tasting a pleasure on the physical plane to taste it on ...
For human beings, the words ‘life' and ‘death' immediately evoke the notion of physical life and death, whereas physical life and death are in fact only very limited aspects of these two processes. Although people may know what life and death are on ...
...ur view, but it is useless to renounce them if we do not at the same time rid ourselves of the thoughts, sentiments and desires that encumber us even further and cloud our inner view. It is commendable to make sacrifices and renunciations, but ...
It is true that when everyone around you is demanding sexual freedom and justifying these demands with seemingly valid arguments, you are not particularly happy to hear about self-mastery. I understand that you do not like being deprived of ...
How can you force any more liquid into a bottle that is already full? You cannot; you must begin by emptying it. The same applies to human beings. How can divine virtues and qualities enter and dwell in someone who is full of vices and bad habits? ...
Giving up certain sensual pleasures is meaningful only if they are replaced by acquisitions and joys of a spiritual nature. Religious people and moralists have done a very poor job; they imposed rules without really explaining why they were useful, ...
Most people only have to hear the words ‘renunciation' or ‘sacrifice' to be seized with terror. They say, ‘If I have to renounce this or that I shall die!' And it is quite true, they will die if they fail to understand that the whole purpose of ...