The Supreme Doctrine - neo-alchemist

OBEDIENCE TO THE NATURE OF THINGS
certainty that it is 'my' Principle. The awakening of Faith carries with it the
awakening of Hope: there is no longer anything to fear, I can hope for
everything, from the moment that the absolute Principle is 'my' Principle.
Thus that which began in the intellectual centre continues in the emotional
centre. Finally the awakening of Faith and of Hope brings the awakening of
Charity. It is in error that Charity is often thought of as an emotion, as
adoration-love; it is in reality desire-love, an appetite felt by the whole of our
organism for a kind of existence that the spectres of duality have ceased to
conceal from us. It is a constant appetite for all aspects of existence. Thus
that which began in the intellectual centre, and which continued in the
emotional centre, ends up in the animal or instinctive centre; that which
began in the head has passed by the heart in order to finish up in the entrails.
In so far as man is still in ignorance the succession is reversed. That
which begins in him is the appetite to exist, the desire to affirm himself as
distinct, the desire for the positive aspects of existence only. This natural
awakening of the desire to exist carries with it the awakening of all sorts of
'hopes' (which are the opposite of Hope), hopes of this or that success on the
plane of phenomena; that which began in the animal centre continues in the
emotional centre. Finally the awakening of the desire to exist, and of hopes,
entails the awakening of 'beliefs' (the opposite of Faith) which build up false
values, the aims which the hopes need, the image-idols necessary to polarise
the impulses coming from below. That which began in the animal centre and
has continued in the emotional centre has risen to the heart, and then to the
head.
One observes the radical opposition which exists between these two
directions that man's life takes. The natural direction is from below upwards:
appetite for the positive aspects of existence, then hopes, then beliefs. The
normal direction is from above downwards: Faith, then Hope, finally Charity
or appetite for all aspects of existence.
The natural direction exists only at the outset of life. Realisation
consists in the appearance of the normal direction and in its final triumph.
This final triumph is satori. Before satori the normal direction should appear
in concurrence with the present natural direction and should play an ever
bigger part at the expense of this natural direction. ('He must increase and I
must decrease.')
When we study the problem of Realisation we incessantly come across
all sorts of paradoxes. 'He who loses his life shall save it,' says the Gospel for
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