Filename: +quot;RC1011.TXT+quot; Source: +quot;The Desire Body+quot; by Max Heindel [PAGE
Filename: "RC1011.TXT"
Source: "The Desire Body" by Max Heindel
[PAGE 352]
The prime necessity of advancement is equipose. All who aspire ought to
adopt Paul's motto, "None of these things move me."
It is a proof of the benefit of religion that it makes people happy, but
the greatest happiness is usually too deep for outward expression. It fills
our whole being so full that it is almost awesome, and a boisterous manner
never goes together with that true happiness for it is the sign of superfi-
ciality. The loud voice, the coarse laugh, the noisy manner, the hard heels
that sound like sledge hammers, the slamming of doors, and the rattling of
dishes are the signatures of the unregenerate, for they love noise, the more
the merrier, as it stirs their desire bodies. For their purpose church mu-
sic is anathema; a blaring brass band is preferable to any other form of en-
tertainment, and the wilder the dance, the better. But it is otherwise, or
should be, with the aspirant to the higher life.
As proper food feeds the body in a material sense, so the activity of the
Spirit in the dense body, which results in RIGHT ACTION, promotes the growth
of the Conscious Soul. As the forces from the Sun play in the vital body
and nourish it, that it may act on the dense body, so the MEMORY of actions
done in the dense body--the desires, feelings, and emotions of the desire
body, and the thoughts and ideas in the mind--cause the growth of the Intel-
lectual Soul. In like manner the HIGHEST DESIRES AND EMOTIONS of the desire
body form the Emotional Soul.
The Emotional Soul, which is the extract of the desire body, adds to the
efficiency of the Human Spirit, which is the spiritual counterpart of the
desire body.
Having been exiled from the Garden of Eden, the Etheric Region, by
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learning to KNOW the material world, in consequence of repeated sexual abuse
which has focused his attention here, this increased use of the desire body
hardened the dense body and it began to require food and shelter. Thus
man's ingenuity was taxed to provide for the body. Hunger and cold were
whips of evil that called forth Man's ingenuity; they forced him to think
and act to provide for his necessities. Thus he is gradually learning
wisdom; he provides for these contingencies before they come, because the
pangs of hunger and cold have taught him to guard himself. Thus WISDOM IS
CRYSTALLIZED PAIN. Our sorrows, when they are past, and we can calmly view
them and extract the lessons they contained, are mines of wisdom, and are
the wombs of future joys, for by them we learn to order our lives aright.
We learn to cease sin, for IGNORANCE is sin and the only sin, and APPLIED
KNOWLEDGE IS SALVATION, and the only salvation. That seems a broad state-
ment, but if we try it out in thought it will be found to be as absolutely
true and capable of demonstration as the fact that twice two are four.
The vital body aims to build the physical, whereas our desires and emo-
tions tear down. It is the struggle between the vital body and the desire
body which produces consciousness in the Physical World, and which hardens
the tissues so that the soft body of the child gradually becomes thought and
shrunken in old age, followed by death. The morality or immorality of our
desires and emotions acts in a similar manner on the vital body. Where de-
votion to high ideals is the mainspring of action, where the devotional na-
ture has been allowed for years to express itself freely and frequently, and
particularly where this has been accompanied by the scientific exercises
given Probationers in The Rosicrucian Fellowship, the quantity of the
[PAGE 354]
chemical and life ethers gradually diminishes as the animal appetites van-
ish, and an increased amount of the light and reflecting ether takes their
place. As a consequence, physical health is not as robust among people who
follow the higher path as among people whose indulgence of the lower nature
attracts the chemical and life ethers, in proportion to the extent and na-
ture of their vice, to the partial or total exclusion of the two higher
ethers.
When a man passes out at death, he takes with him the mind, desire body,
and vital body, the latter being the storehouse of the pictures of his past
life. During the three and one-half days following death, these pictures
are etched into the desire body to form the basis of the man's life in Pur-
gatory and the First Heaven where the evil is expurgated and the good as-
similated. The experience of the life itself is forgotten, as we have for-
gotten the process of learning to write, but have retain the faculty. So
the cumulative extract of all his experiences, both during past earth lives
and past existences in Purgatory and the various heavens, are retained by
the man and form his stock in trade in the next birth. The pains he has
sustained speak to him as the voice of conscience, the good he has done
gives him a more and more altruistic character.
As the scenes in the life panorama which unrolls before the eyes of the
Ego after death, cause a suffering in Purgatory which cleanses the soul from
a desire to repeat the offenses which generated those pictures, so the salt
wherewith the sacrifices upon the altar of burnt offerings in the Tabernacle
in the Wilderness were rubbed before being placed before the altar and the
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fire wherewith they were consumed symbolized a double fiery pain similar to
that felt by the Ego in Purgatory. Confident in the Hermetic axiom, "AS
ABOVE, SO BELOW," they evolved the method of retrospection as being in har-
mony with the cosmic laws of soul growth, and capable of accomplishing day
by day that which the purgatorial experience does only once in a lifetime,
namely, cleansing the soul from sin by the fire of remorse.
In Purgatory the cleansing process is accomplished by the centrifugal
force of repulsion which tugs and tears the desire stuff, in which the pic-
ture is formed over its matrix of ether, out of the desire body. At that
particular time the Ego suffers as it made others suffer, because of a sin-
gular condition in the lower regions of the Desire World where Purgatory is
located. Some seers who are unable to contact the higher regions speak of
the Desire World as illusory, and they are right so far as the lower regions
are concerned, for there all things appear reversed as we see them in a
glass. This peculiarity is not purposeless--nothing in God's kingdom is;
all things serve a wise end. This reversal places the erring soul in the
position of its victim, so that when a scene unrolls on the screen of its
past life where it did a wrong to someone, the Ego does not stand as a mere
spectator and see the scene reenacted, but it becomes, for the time being,
the victim of the wrong and it feels the pain felt by that wronged one, for
the centrifugal force of repulsion exerted to tear the picture from the de-
sire body of the wrongdoer must at least equal the hate and anger of the
victim which impressed the picture upon the seed atom at the time of occur-
rence.
During retrospection the aspirant endeavors to imitate these conditions;
[PAGE 356]
he tries to visualize the scenes where he did something wrong, and the re-
morse he endeavors to feel must at least equal the resentment felt by whom-
ever he wronged. It then has the same effect of expunging the record of the
injury as does the centrifugal force of repulsion, which accomplishes the
eradication of evil in Purgatory for the purpose of extracting therefrom the
quality of the soul which we know as conscience, and which acts as a deter-
rent in hours of temptation. Thus used, the emotion of remorse cleanses and
purifies the desire body of weeds and tares, leaving the soil free and fos-
tering the growth of manifold virtues that blossom into spiritual advance-
ment and bring greater opportunities for service in the Master's vineyard.
But as the force latent in gunpowder and kindred explosive substances may
be used to further the greatest objects of civilization or to outdo the most
savage acts of barbarism, so also, this emotion of remorse may be misused in
such a manner that it becomes a detriment and a hindrance to the Ego instead
of a help. When we indulge in remorse daily and hourly, we are actually
wasting a great power which might be used for the most noble ends of life,
for the constant indulgence of regret affects the desire body in a manner
similar to that which follows excessive bathing of the physical body.
"As above, so below, and as below, so above," says the Hermetic aphorism,
enunciating thereby the great Law of Analogy which is the master-key to all
mysteries. When we use the centrifugal force of remorse to eradicate the
acts of evil from our hearts during the evening exercise of retrospection,
the effect is similar to the action of the water which removes the miasmatic
[PAGE 357]
poisoned ether from our vital bodies during the bath, and thus leaves room
for an influx of pure health-promoting ether. After we have burned out the
wrong-doings in the sacrificial fire of remorse, the poisonous substance
thus eradicated leaves room for the influx of desire stuff which is morally
healthier and better soil for noble deeds. The more thoroughly we are
purged by this remorse, the greater the vacuum produced and the better the
grade of new material we attract to our subtler vehicles.
But, on the other hand, if we indulge in regrets and remorse during every
waking hour as some do, we are outdoing Purgatory, for though the time there
is spent in eradication of evil, the consciousness turns from each picture
when it has been torn out by the force of repulsion. Here, because of the
interlocking of the desire and vital bodies, we are enabled to revivty the
picture in memory as oft as we please, and while the desire body is
gradually dissolved in Purgatory by the expurgation of the panorama of life,
a certain small amount is added while we are living in the Physical World,
to take the place of that which is ejected by remorse. Thus, remorse and
regret when continually indulged in have the same effect on the desire body
as excessive bathing has on the vital body. Both vehicles are depleted of
strength by excessive cleansing, and for that reason it is as dangerous to
the moral and spiritual health to indulge indiscriminately in feelings of
regret and remorse as it is fatal to the physical well-being to bathe too
much. Discrimination should govern in both cases.
As a vampire sucks the ether from the vital body of its victims and feeds
upon it, so perpetual thoughts of regret and remorse concerning certain
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things because a desire-elemental which acts as a vampire and draws the very
life from the poor soul who has shaped it, and by the attraction of like for
like, it fosters continuance of this morbid habit of regret.
If, by continual prayer, we obtain forgiveness for the injuries we have
inflicted upon others and if we make all the restitution possible, purify
our vital bodies forgiving those who have wronged us, and eliminate all ill
feeling, we save ourselves much post-mortem misery, besides preparing the
way for Universal Brotherhood, which is particularly dependent upon the vic-
tory of the vital body over the desire body. In the form of memory, the de-
sire body impresses upon the vital body the idea of revenge. An even temper
amid the various annoyances of daily life indicates such a victory, there-
fore the aspirant should cultivate control of the temper, as it includes
work on both bodies. The Lord's Prayer includes this also, for when we see
that we are injuring others, we look about and try to find the cause. Loss
of temper is one of the causes and it originates in the desire body.
Most people leave physical life with the same temperament they bring into
it, but the aspirant must systematically conquer all attempts of the desire
body to assume mastery. That can be done by concentration upon high ideals,
which strengthens the vital body and is must more effacious than the common
prayers of the Church. The OCCULT SCIENTIST uses concentration in prefer-
ence to prayer, because the former is accomplished by the aid of the mind,
which is cold and unfeeling, whereas prayer is usually dictated by emotion.
Where it is dictated by a pure unselfish devotion to high ideals prayer is
much higher than cold concentration. It can never be old, but bears
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upon the pinions of Love the outpourings of the mystic to the Diety.
The prayer for the desire body is, "Lead us not into temptation." Desire
is the great tempter of mankind. It is the great incentive to all action,
and in so far as the actions subserve the purposes of the Spirit, it is
good; but where the desire is for something degrading, something that de-
bases the nature, it is indeed meet that we pray not to be led into tempta-
tion.
"Lead us not into temptation" is the prayer for the desire body which is
the storehouse of energy, and furnishes incentive to action through desire.
An oriental maxim says, "Kill out desire," and the Orientals furnish good
examples of the indolence resultant upon attempt to do that. "Kill out your
temper" is the foolish adominition sometimes given those who lose their tem-
per. Desire or temper is a valuable asset, too valuable to be stunted or
killed; the man without desire is like steel devoid of temper--of no ac-
count. In REVELATION, while the six churches are praised, the seventh is
utterly anathematized for being "neither hot nor cold," a wishy-washy com-
munity. "The greater the sinner, the greater the saint" is a true adage,
for it takes energy to sin and when that energy is turned in the right di-
rection, it is as much of a power for good as previously it was for evil. A
man may be good because he cannot summon up sufficient energy to be bad,
then he is so good that he is good for nothing, like the Nicolaitanes.
While we are weak our desire nature masters us and may lead us into
temptation, but as we learn to control our desire nature, our temper, we may
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guide it in harmony with the laws of God and man.
The lowest aspect of the Spirit, the Human Spirit, next offers its peti-
tion to the lowest aspect of Diety for the highest of the threefold bodies,
the desire body: "Lead us not into temptation."
When death has taken place and man finds himself in the Desire World, the
magnetic powers of the seed atom are spent, the archetype is dissolving, and
therefore the centrifugal force of Repulsion forces the desire stuff of the
desire body outward toward its periphery. The matter belonging to the lower
regions is thrown off first by the process of purgation, which cleanses the
man from all evil acts of his past life. This is the result of the same
natural law that in the Physical World causes a sun to thrown off matter
which then becomes planets. To interfere with this law would be disastrous
to any human being even supposing it were possible, which it is not. So it
is useless to attempt to help anyone in that manner.
It is different with the Initiate who goes to the Desire World during
life. Then the seed atom of the desire body forms a natural center of at-
traction, or gravitation, which holds the desire stuff in that vehicle to
accustomed lines. Also it is different with anyone who performs the scien-
tific exercises given in the Mystery Schools. Such a person is constantly
purging his desire body of the coarser matter so that at death he is not af-
fected to the same degree by the centrifugal force of Repulsion as those who
have not had this training.
But there is another way in which we may help someone near and dear to us
provided we have his cooperation. To make this clear it is necessary to
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mention first that the coarser the desire stuff in the desire body, the more
tenacious is its hold upon a man; therefore expurgation by the force of Re-
pulsion causes great pain, and that is what we feel in the purgatorial expe-
rience. If we were perfectly willing to let go and acknowledge our faults
when the pictures of them appear in the life panorama instead of trying to
make excuses for ourselves or being stirred anew by the anger and hate of
the past, then it would involve much less pain to eradicate them from our
desire body. If this fact can be impressed on one whom we are anxious to
help, if we can get him into the state of mind where he is willing to ac-
knowledge his wrongs and mistakes from the very bottom of his heart, then
the process of purgation will be both shorter and less painful, and he will
rise to the higher regions where the force of Attraction holds sway in a
much shorter time than otherwise.
The same result can be accomplished by prayer; also by kind thoughts,
thoughts of upliftment and helpfulness, for these have the same effect on
those who are out of the body as kind words and helpful acts have on people
who live in this world.
Devotion to high ideals is a curb on the animal instincts, and generates
and evolves the emotional soul. Cultivation of the faculty of devotion is
very essential. In some people this is the line of least resistance, and
they are apt to become mystic dreamers. The energies of the desire body are
then expressed as enthusiasm and religious ecstasy. There are also some
people who develop abnormally the faculty of discrimination, which leads
along cold intellectual lines of metaphysical speculation. In either case
there is a lack of balance, a danger. The mystic dreamer, because dominated
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by emotion, may become subject to all sorts of illusion. That, the intel-
lectual occultist will never do, but he may end in black magic if he pursues
the path of knowledge for the sake of knowledge and not for service. The
only safe way is to develop both head and heart.
Since this ancient time (time of Hiram Abiff) the lunar Angels have taken
charge principally of the moist, aqueous vital body composed of the four
ethers, and concerned in the propagation and nourishment of the species,
while the Lucifer Spirits are singularly active in the dry and fiery desire
vehicles. The function of the vital body is to build and sustain the dense
body, while that of the desire body involved destruction of the tissues.
Thus, there is a constant war going on between the desire and vital bodies,
and it is this war in heaven that causes our physical consciousness on
Earth. Through many lives we have worked in every age and clime, and from
each life we have extracted a certain amount of experience, garnered and
stored as vibratory power in the seed atoms of our various vehicles.
Thus, each of us is a builder, building the temple of the immortal Spirit
without sound of hammer; each one is a Hiram Abiff, gathering material for
soul growth and throwing it into the furnace of his life experience, there
to be worked upon by the fire and passion of desire. It is being slowly but
surely melted, the dross is being purged in every purgatorial experience and
the quintessence of soul growth is being extracted through many lives. Ev-
ery one of us is thus preparing for initiation, preparing whether we know it
or not--learning to blend the fiery passions with the softer gentler emo-
tions. The new hammer or gavel wherewith the master workman rules his
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subordinates is now a cross of sorrow, and the new word is self-control.
This desire matter has since evolved; the fiery, martial substratum of
passion and the aqueous lunar basis of emotion have become capable of numer-
ous combinations. As thought furrows the brain into evolutions and the face
into lines, so have the passions, desires, and emotions marshalled the mo-
bile desire stuff into curved lines and whorls, eddies, rapids, and whirl-
pools, resembling a mountain torrent at the time when it is at its greatest
disturbance--it is seldom ever at even comparative rest. This desire stuff
has, in successive periods of its evolution, become responsive to one after
another of the seven planetary vibrations emanating from the Sun, Venus,
Mercury, Moon, Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars. Each individual desire body has,
during that time, been woven into a unique pattern, and as the shuttle of
fate flies back and forth unceasingly upon the loom of destiny, this pattern
is being enlarged upon, embellished, and beautiful, though we may not per-
ceive it. As the weaver always does his work on the reverse side of his
tapestry, so are we also weaving without fully understanding the ultimate
design or seeing the sublime beauty thereof, because it is yet on the side
away from us, the hidden side of Nature.
Anything happening in the Physical World is reflected in all the other
realms of Nature and, as we have seen, builds its appropriate form in the
Desire World. When a true account of the occurrence is given, another form
is built, exactly like the first. They are then drawn together and
coalesce, strengthening each other. If, however, an untrue account is
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given, a form different from and antagonistic to the first, or true one, is
created. As they deal with the same occurrence, they are drawn together,
but as their vibrations are different they act upon each other with mutual
destructiveness. Therefore, evil and malicious likes can kill anything that
is good, if they are strong enough and repeated often enough. But,
conversely, seeking for the good in evil will, in time, transmute the evil
into good. If the form that is built to minimize the evil is weak, it will
have no effect and will be destroyed by the evil form, but if it is strong
and frequently repeated it will have the effect of disintegrating the evil
and substituting the good. That effect, be it distinctly understood, is not
brought about by lying, nor denying the evil, but by looking for the good.
The occult scientist practices very rigidly this principle of looking for
good in all things, because he knows what a power it possesses in keeping
down evil.
As man progresses in the school of life, his experiences teach him, and
his desires become purer and better. Thus by degrees the material of his
desire body undergoes a corresponding change. The purer and brighter mate-
rial of the higher regions of the Desire World replaces the murky colors of
the lower part. The desire body also grows in size, so that in a saint it
is truly a glorious object to behold, the purity of its colors and its lumi-
nous transparency being beyond adequate simile.
When by the increased vibration of the pituitary body, the lines of force
have been deflected sufficiently to reach the pineal gland, the object has
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been accomplished, the gap between these two organs has been bridged. This
is the bridge between the World of Sense and the World of Desire. From the
time it is built, man becomes clairvoyant and able to direct his gaze where
he will. Solid objects are seen both inside and out. To him space and so-
lidity, as hindrances to observation, have ceased to exist.
The philosophy of the attainment of spiritual sight and insight is to
compel the desire body to perform the same work inside the dense body while
we are fully awake, positive, and conscious as it does outside in sleep and
in the post-mortem state.
There are certain currents in the desire body of everyone. They are
strong, well defined and form seven great vortices in clairvoyants, but are
weak, broken, and devoid of vortices in the ordinary man who cannot "see."
Development of those currents and vortices leads to spiritual sight. In the
daytime, when we are engrossed in material pursuits, these currents are
sluggish; but as soon as man draws out of the dense body during sleep and
commences the work of restoration the currents revive, the vortices spin and
glow. The desire body is then in its native element, free from the clogging
weight of the material body.
When he has reached that point of abstraction (during concentration) the
sense centers of the desire body commence to revolve slowly within the dense
body, and will thus make a place for themselves. This in time will become
more and more defined, and it will require less and less effort to set them
going.
We remember that the Hierophants of the old Mystery Temples segregated
some of the people into castes and tribes such as the Brahmins and the
[PAGE 366]
Levites, for the purpose of providing bodies for the use of such Egos as
were advanced enough to be ready for Initiation. This was done in such a
manner that the vital body became separable into two parts, as were the de-
sire bodies of all humanity at the beginning of the Earth Period. When the
Hierophant took the pupils out of their bodies he left one part of the vital
body, comprising the first and second ethers, to perform the purely animal
functions (they are the only ones active during sleep), the pupil taking
with him a vehicle capable of perception, because of its connection with the
sense centers of the dense body; and also capable of memory. It possessed
these capabilities because it was composed of the third and fourth ethers,
which are the mediums of sense-perception and memory.
Since Christ came and "took away the sin of the world" (not of the indi-
vidual), purifying the desire body of our planet, the connection between all
human dense and vital bodies has been loosened to such an extent that, by
training, they are capable of separation as above described. Therefore Ini-
tiation is open to all.
The finer part of the desire body, which constitutes the Emotional Soul,
is capable of separation in most people (in fact, it possessed the capabil-
ity even before Christ came), and thus when, by concentration and the use of
the proper formula, the finer parts of the vehicles have been segregated for
use during sleep, or at any other time, the lower parts of the desire and
vital bodies are still left to carry on the process of restoration in the
dense vehicle, the mere animal part.
That part of the vital body which goes out is highly organized, as we
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have seen. It is an exact counterpart of the dense body. The desire body
and the mind, not being organized, are of use only because they are con-
nected with the highly organized dense body. When separated from it they
are but poor instruments. Therefore, before man can withdraw from the dense
body, the sense-centers of the desire body must be awakened.
The aspirant to the higher life cultivates the faculty of becoming ab-
sorbed AT WILL in any subject he chooses--or rather, not a subject usually,
but a very simple object, which he imagines. Thus when the proper condition
or point of absorption has been reached where his senses are absolutely
still, he concentrates his thought upon the different sense centers of the
desire body and THEY START TO REVOLVE.
At first their motion is slow and hard to bring about, but by degrees the
sense centers of the desire body will make places for themselves within the
dense and vital bodies, which learn to accommodate themselves to this new
activity. Then some day, when the proper life has developed the requisite
cleavage between the higher and lower parts of the vital body, there is a
supreme effort of the will; a spiral motion in many directions takes place,
and the aspirant stands OUTSIDE HIS DENSE BODY. He looks at is as at an-
other person. The door of his prison house has been opened. He is free to
come and go, as much as liberty in the inner worlds as in the Physical
World, functioning at will, in the inner or outer world, a helper of all de-
siring his services in any of them.
Before the aspirant learns voluntarily to leave the body, he may have
worked in the desire body during sleep, for in some people the desire body
becomes organized before the separation can be brought about in the vital
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body. Under those conditions it is impossible to bring back these subjec-
tive experience to waking consciousness, but generally in such cases it will
be noticed, as the first sign of development, that all confused dreams will
cease. Then, after a while, the dreams will become more vivid and perfectly
logical. The aspirant will dream of being in places and with people
(whether known to him in waking hours or not matters little), conducting
himself in as reasonable way as if he were in the waking state. If the
place of which he dreams is accessible to him in waking hours, he may some-
times get proof of the reality of his dream if he will note some physical
detail of the scene and verify his nocturnal impression next day.
He will next find that he can, during sleeping hours, visit any place he
desires upon the face of the Earth and investigate it a great deal more
thoroughly than if he had gone there in the dense body, because in his de-
sire body he has access to all places, regardless of locks and bars. If he
persists, there will at last come a day when he need not wait for sleep to
dissolve the connection between his vehicles, but can consciously set him-
self free.
One stage of the Christian Mystic's spiritual development involves a re-
versal of the creative force from its ordinary downward course where it is
wasted in generation to satisfy the passions, to an upward course through
the tripartite spinal cord, whose three segments are ruled by the Moon,
Mars, and Mercury respectively, and where the rays of Neptune them light THE
REGENERATIVE SPINAL SPIRIT FIRE. This mounting upward sets the pituitary
body and the pineal gland into vibration, opening up the spiritual sight;
[PAGE 369]
and striking the frontal sinus it starts the CROWN OF THORNS throbbing with
pain as the bond with the physical body is burned by the sacred Spirit Fire,
which wakes this center form its age-long sleep to a throbbing, pulsating
life sweeping onward to the other centers in the FIVE-POINTED STIGMATIC
STAR. They are also vitalized, and the whole vehicle becomes aglow with a
golden glory. Then with a final wrench the great vortex of the desire body
located in the liver is liberated, and the martial energy contained in that
vehicle propels upward the SIDEREAL VEHICLE (so-called because the STIGMATA
in the head, hands, and feet are located in the same positions relative to
one another as the points in a five-pointed star), which ascends through THE
SKULL (Golgotha), while the crucified Christian utters his triumphant cry,
"Consummatum est" (it has been accomplished), and soars into the subtler
spheres to seek Jesus whose life he has imitated with such success and from
whom he is thenceforth inseparable.
Continued with file "RC1012.TXT"
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