Daily Meditation: Tuesday, April 12, 2005

Renounce - is not to deprive oneself but to substitute

04/12/2005

Those who have taught religion and moral philosophy have often done a poor job of it. They have set forth rules without really explaining the reasons for them, thus giving people the impression they are being bullied and asked to live in deprivation. The time has now come for explanations. People are not so stupid or so limited that they cannot understand, and in any case, it no longer serves any purpose to try to impose rules without revealing their usefulness. Initiatic science explains to us that renunciation is not deprivation. To renounce certain comforts and pleasures only makes sense if they are replaced by gains and joys on the spiritual plane. In the spiritual life, renunciation does not entail a loss. To renounce is to replace a pleasure, to transpose it onto a higher plane. It is a question of the same activity, but with purer, subtler elements and a more disinterested goal.