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CONFLUENCE OF OPPOSITES
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The relation between devotion and asceticism is in. dicated in the following from the fourth Gospel (John, xvi. 7): "Nevertheless I tell you the truth; it is expedient for you
that I go away : for if I go not away, the comforter will not come unto you ; but if I depart, I will send him
and you." This plainly meant that the disciple's devotion stood in the way of their practising asceticism which is the source of joy (comfort).
Joy itself is conceived as a bride, the giver of happiness to the bridegroom whence the speech of John, the Baptist :
" He that hath the bride is the bridegroom."
John's dissertation about him that is earthly and speaketh of the earth, and of him that cometh from heaven is also highly instructive. The intellectual ego is not a pure spirit, but a compound of spirit and matter, the bâhirâtman that is made out of the dust of the ground with the vital breath infused in him. It is this outer self, the ego that discriminates between good and evil, and the function of which is exhausted as soon as it has itellectually conceived the divinity of the soul-it is this half material half spiritual self, personified as John, the Baptist; that is to decrease and disappear, while his cousin, the dematerialising ego of Life Triumphant is to wax and increase. In other words, while the process of un-winding in de-materialisation leads to the perfection and divinity of Life, it signifies the dis
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