New Era Community (1926) - 144: When Buddha called a man malodorous, he had first of all in mind the spiritual consciousness. This gangrenous process is not subject to cure. In Our structures avoid touching such people. Spending time on them is equal to depriving a waiting, hungry man of a morsel of food. Agni Yoga (1929) - 429: 429. It is astonishing to see how people spoil their own lives without reason or sense by depriving themselves of possibilities that are theirs by right. It is astonishing to see how readily people diminish boundaries expanded over lifetimes. Fiery World - Book 1 (1933) - 126: 126. In place of the Diplodocus, kangaroos leap; in place of the Pterodactyl, bats fly; in place of the dragon, lizards. What is the meaning of this? Can it be degeneration? Actually, it is only adaptation. Similarly, the club of Hercules would be only a museum rarity nowadays. Thus, also in life, evolution should be understood, not as the growth of the fist, but as condensation of the spirit. From the swinging of the club let us turn to a new understanding of everyday life. The element of fire is majestic, yet even this must be learned in daily routine. It is not right to clothe heroes in a toga alone, depriving them of other forms of garment. Evolution should be accepted from life, amidst life, and for life. The beauty of evolution is not an abstraction, for each abstraction is a misconception. One should well remember this concept of evolution as a vital capacity; thus we shall approach the most complex formulas, where the symbol Aum will not be an inscription but the expression of the highest ingredient. Let us exercise our consciousness toward this. Fiery World - Book 1 (1933) - 454: 454. More than once during successful research work progress has been interrupted by petty difficulties. Among these difficulties repugnance, so called, has a special significance. It arises from many conditions, both external and karmic. It is difficult to describe in words this feeling which shuts, as it were, the fiery centers, thus depriving them of power. Undoubtedly repugnance is akin to fear. But for ascent one must overcome repugnance. In ancient Mysteries there was a special ritual for the conquering of repugnance. Brotherhood (1937) - 392: 392. The man who feels himself unlucky has been called an obscurer of the heavens. He has collected gloom around himself and has infected the distant space. He has harmed himself, but still more all that exists. He has proved himself to be an egoist, forgetting about his surroundings. Depriving himself of good fortune, he has become a breeding ground of afflictions. As the self-satisfied one loses the thread of advance, so does he who is filled with self-pity cut away his own success. It is not fitting for man to doom himself to calamities. Long-sown wails and groans turn into a ruinous vortex. The itch of envy changes into leprosy; from malice the tongue grows numb. A whole hotbed of disasters is built by the man who gives himself over to the illusion of bad luck. Such poisoners are intolerable in the Brotherhood. Yet many dream about Brotherhood without thinking what a burden They bear! How strong is the man who realizes the good fortune of being a man!
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