Chapter 77 Higher Law - 4

Who hasn't eaten with relish, but the stomach has nothing?I once thought with pleasure that due to the so-called knowledge of taste in general, I have a kind of spiritual perception, and I receive the aftermath through the sense of taste.The berries I eat while sitting on the hill nourish my nature. "Absent in mind," Zeng Zi said, "see without seeing, hear without hearing, eat without knowing its taste." Those who can know the true taste of food can never become gluttons, and those who don't are gluttons.A Puritan may devour the crumbs of his bread as a Senator devours a turtle.The entrance of food does not disgrace a man, but his appetite for it does.The problem is not in quantity, not in quality, but in the greed of food and drink. If eating is not to feed our lives, nor to stimulate our spiritual life, but to entangle our stomachs with roundworms.A hunter loves tortoises, muskrats, or other savage food, and a pretty lady loves frozen meat from calf's feet, or sardines from overseas, they are the same, he goes to his lake, she takes hers frozen jars.It's amazing how they, you, me, can live such a vile animal life, just eating and drinking.

Our whole being is amazingly spiritual.There is never a momentary truce between good and evil.Goodness is the only grant that never fails.In the music of the harp, to which the world resounds, the theme of good delights us.The harp is like the traveling salesman in the insurance company of the universe, advertising its rules, and our little good deeds are the insurance premiums we pay.Although young people will always be indifferent in the end, the laws of the universe will not be indifferent, but always side with sensitive people.Listen to the words of condemnation from the west wind, there must be some, those who cannot hear it are unfortunate.Every time we pluck a string, every time we move a stop, a lovely meaning permeates our hearts.Many obnoxious voices, Carried afar like music, A proud and lovely irony of our mean lives.

We know that within us there is a beast that wakes up when our higher nature is dormant.It is sensual, like a poisonous snake, which may be difficult to get rid of entirely; and like some worms, they live in us even when we are alive and healthy.We may be able to avoid it, but we can never change its nature.I'm afraid it has a certain robustness of its own, and we can be healthy but never pure.That day I picked up the jawbone of a wild boar, complete with snow-white teeth and tusks, and with an animal health and spirit different from spiritual ones.This is obtained by means other than abstinence and purity. "The reason why human beings are different from beasts is how much," Mencius said.If I know of a wise man who can teach me how to clean myself, I must go to him. "Being able to control our lust and the external functions of the body and do good deeds, according to the Vedic scriptures, is an indispensable condition for spiritually approaching God." However, the spirit can penetrate and control the body for a while. every faculty and every part of the soul, and transform the grossest sensuality of the exterior into purity and piety of the heart.The reproductive energy, indulged, makes us licentious and unclean; restrained, it makes us exuberant and inspired.Chastity is the flower of man; creativity, heroism, holiness, etc., are but its various fruits.When the channel of purity is cleared, man immediately rushes to God.One moment we are encouraged by purity, the next we are discouraged by impurity.Blessed are those who know that the animal nature in their bodies is disappearing day by day, while the divinity is growing day by day. When people combine with inferior animal nature, they will only be humiliated.I worry that we are just gods or demigods combined with monsters like Fauns and Satyrs, gluttonous and lustful animals.I fear that, to some extent, our whole lives are our shame. ——

"How happy is this man, who cut off the forest mang in his mind, Banish the inner herd to its proper place. ... can make use of his horses, sheep, wolves, and all wild beasts, And compared with other animals, I am not a donkey. Otherwise, man would not only herd a herd of pigs, And there are also ghosts and monsters of this kind, Make them mad, make them worse and worse.