Theos-Talk Archives (March 1995 Message tl00302)

For Liesel:

> I don't see eye to eye with your HPB quote.  To me, spirit &
> matter manifest together, work hand in glove.  The person who
> loves his spouse dearly, eventually comes to enlarge this love to
> embrace all of humanity, the spouse being a starting point.  At
> least that's the way it was for me.  I came to love humanity
> more, because I loved 1 person who also had a great love for
> humanity.  To me, the 2 are complementary rather than
> exclusionary.  Besides, I think you need a certain amount of
> self-gratification, of loving yourself, & g iving to yourself,
> before you can move beyond that stage to altruism.


The quote from "Occultism versus the Occult Arts" was mainly in
response to the celibacy question concerning HPB as a *practical*
Occultist.  Of course, you are right, we have to start at the
beginning and not at the end and the 'lesser' loves and
affinities we have for our fellow beings is non the less
valuable, if not necessary.  After all, separateness is the great
Illusion and pretence at denying the more noble and elevating
human emotions/feelings is, one would suspect, less than healty.

If one is not mistaken HPB raises the matter somewhere to the
effect that the man or woman of the world is better off being
married than not.

Best wishes.