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New Era Community (1926) - 192:
192. The development of the power of observation will permit due attention to surrounding conditions. Anyone will understand that if the walls of your room were covered with an arsenic substance or with a preparation of sulphur, or of resin, or mercury, or musk, then such coverings would have an influence on the condition of the organism - this is a crude example. But now ask your biochemists and technologists what influence the material of dwellings has on the physical and psychic foundation. What is the difference between a house of brick and one of basalt, or between one of granite and one of marble, between an iron and a wooden one, between an oak and a pine one? To what kinds of organisms is an iron bed suitable and to what kinds a wooden one. Who needs a woolen carpet and who a wooden floor? About many conditions technology will be as uninformed as was the cave age. And yet, who would not agree that wood and minerals have an important medicinal significance? It means that essential analysis is at a standstill in the absence of observation. Investigation has gone along a channel of usualness, and for overzealous investigators somewhere a bonfire is already prepared. You may be sure that the spirit of the inquisition is still not very far away; the difference will be in the garb and in the means of eradicating new quests. Agni Yoga (1929) - 485:
Advise your friends to think in this direction. This experiment was begun by primitive man with just two pieces of wood. But energy is far from being fully utilized. Fire, like light, strengthens the human substance. Heart (1932) - 104:
104. People do not want to observe the manifestations of the Subtle World, which are scattered everywhere. So, also, they cannot imagine that ethics is a practical pharmacopoeia for attracting the spatial energies by the simplest method. You will not tire of repeating about the necessity of realizing the application of the heart for the attraction of the highest possibilities. People forget to apply the most simple method of disinfecting life. Much is spoken of the significance of fire; but it's entirely forgotten that the living fire is the best purifier. People were given electricity, but they had to isolate the substance of energy, leaving only a dead light. A bonfire, wood, oil lamp, candles will purify space and destroy many contagious diseases. One can see that those who know have, together with electricity, also a real fire, which very easily attracts the Spatial Fire. Ask a physician what part a lighted candle plays in disinfection. He will probably regard this question as senseless, because he never thought of a living fire. Whence, then, come the oil lamps in temples, if not for purification? Whence, then, come the ancient customs of surrounding a sick man with fire? Thus, fire is sometimes a physician and guardian. The living fire in the oven often wards off the sicknesses of workers. The bonfire as a purifying symbol, verily, is a medical concept. Heart (1932) - 162:
162. It is not sufficient to affirm one's own consciousness; one must become accustomed to safeguarding it, under various conditions. One blade is used for cutting paper, another for wood, and a completely different one for metal. One can compare the physical, the subtle, and the fiery worlds to the resistance of paper, wood, and metal. Verily, one must continuously accustom oneself to the realization of the Subtle and Fiery Worlds; various exercises can lead up to it. Thus, one must become accustomed to a state of constant labor, endless and untiring. Such tension of consciousness is irreplaceably useful for the Subtle World, because people usually labor only for rest, not for limitless perfecting. Therefore, on finding themselves in the Subtle World, facing the Image of Infinity, they fall into consternation and fog. Likewise, for the Fiery World one must accustom oneself to walk fearlessly, as if along the rim of a precipice. Only the highest self-control and readiness for danger can prepare one for the fiery spheres. Heart (1932) - 175:
175. A sealed glass vessel will open only in response to sympathetic vibration. This is already known, but the coordination of the harmony of reverberation with all its astonishing diversity and variation is not yet sufficiently considered. Is it not strange that the same glass will resound either to glass or metal or wood, and to the most varied bodies? Such harmonization of reverberation reminds one once again of the multiplicity of coordinations of combinations. This example is useful for human leaders. Is not the greatest harm inflicted by monotony, which penetrates into all human strata? The law is one, but its vibrations are as varied as the Universe is multifarious. Those who know this law cannot regard the whole of humanity as a pile of homogeneous stones which resound to different vibrations. One must rejoice at this multiformity, for precisely it gives the path to refinement. What would become of the human heart if it reverberated to only one note? Hence, let all leaders remember about multiformity and diversity. Heart (1932) - 291:
291. With keenness, it is possible to observe many scientifically significant manifestations. One can observe how blows upon the aura not only react upon the eyes but also upon the sensitiveness of the skin, especially near the shoulder-rays. So, also one can notice the emanations of light from the most unexpected materials - from wood, linen, glass, rubber, and many objects that do not conform to the usual laws. Of course, you know that so-called electricity represents the most coarse form of the visible energy of Fohat. But when the accumulator - the purified heart - permits passage of the manifestation of the subtle Fohat, then light of a special quality emanates from any surface. Fohat is accumulating everywhere, it is only necessary to reveal it by a sufficiently sensitive apparatus. Only the heart can be such an accumulator. Of course, this cannot be easy when, from a tiger to Fohat, it is necessary to assimilate a multitude of energies. Fiery World - Book 1 (1933) - 430:
430. The inhalation of fire is practiced by certain yogis and is a purifying action. One should not understand this literally. One cannot inhale flames, but fiery emanations are useful. For such inhalation, the yogi chooses a quiet place, keeping his spine erect. Before him the yogi makes a fire of deodar wood, or, if deodar is unavailable, twigs of balu, so arranged that the smoke does not reach him. Then the yogi performs the usual pranayama, but in such a way that the emanations of the resin reach his breathing. There are two results - first, a purification of the body; second, the strengthening of the Agni energy. Nothing so helps the kindling of Agni as the properties of deodar. As you know insects cannot endure the strength of deodar resin. You also know that imperfect entities cannot approach the fire of this wood. Usually, the deodars prefer a volcanic soil to grow in; in this way a significant kinship is manifested. Volcanic soil in general merits study, along with its vegetation. Not only has the inhalation of fire been practiced by the yogis but also lying on deodar planks so that the spine comes in contact with the heart of the wood. Various records of antiquity indicate how ardently people have sought the fiery element. Experiments are necessary in order to understand the value of deodar. The significance of fire should be remembered in order to understand volcanic soil. Fiery World - Book 2 (1934) - 345:
345. No one knows exactly who has died and who has departed. There are many empty tombs and many ashes of wood instead of body. Hence, one should understand the bond with Hierarchy as a manifestation of the Pilot. Even if something is unutterable today, one may understand that the rudder is in Powerful Hands. Supermundane - The Inner Life - Book 2 (1938) - 276:
Long ago, the Thinker noticed that the smoke of campfires is harmful, and urged people to use a kind of wood whose smoke does not obscure the consciousness. He knew then that at some time mankind would poison itself and all that exists.
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