The Supreme Doctrine - neo-alchemist

OBEDIENCE TO THE NATURE OF THINGS
Every man who observes himself realises that he is unceasingly more
or less overstrained inwardly. He feels it through the agitation of his emotive
states, positive or negative, exalted or depressed, states which correspond
with the unconscious resistance which he opposes to the opening-out of the
folds of his personal form. But, if it is easy to see to what the hypertension in
our concrete psychology corresponds, it is less easy to see in what consists
the normal inner release of this tension. This release occurs at the moment at
which I become conscious of my tension while neglecting the contingent
circumstances in connexion with which this tension appeared, and at which I
accept it in myself.
In the extent to which I have overcome ignorance, in the extent to
which I have understood that reality is not at all to be found in the external
forms which are the object of my fears and of my covetousness, but that it
resides in the vital hypertensive pressure itself; to this extent my attention
abandons forms and directs itself towards my centre, towards my source, the
place from which wells-up my vital pressure. I can do this if I have
understood that my Principle is engaged in leading me to my true fulfillment
and that I need not trouble myself about anything in this matter. Then my
imaginative-emotive activity stops for a moment, and I feel my hypertension
yield. That is all that I feel, but I know furthermore that the capacity of my
balloon has just increased a little as a result of the simplification of its form.
Evidently this docility to the opening-out of folds, which helps my
realisation, is passing, instantaneous, and this 'letting go' has to be done
afresh with perseverance as often as may be necessary.
The comparison we have just used may be criticised, like all
comparisons. But it can help us to understand the modalities of our normal
growth, and above all the essential notion that this growth will take place by
itself right up to its perfect accomplishment if, having faith in it, we cease to
oppose it by our restlessness and our inner manipulations.
Let us return to this idea that man, in the measure in which he is still
ignorant, is lacking in faith, and consequently also in hope and in charity. We
will show that, faith being absent, everything happens in man in a sense
radically opposed to the normal. The normal direction is from above
downwards: when man abandons ignorance his understanding (which preexisted
through all eternity but which was sleeping in unconsciousness)
awakens in his intellectual centre. Of the three theological virtues it is Faith
which leads the way, intellectual intuition of the absolute Principle and
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