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to the powers coming from beings of the higher world. That is so unchallenged, so unchallengeable, that some psychologists have used it as a proof that all religious higher vision is really a form of hysteria, and that all great Saints and Prophets and Teachers of religion are more or less unbalanced, when they have come into touch with the invisible worlds. If you would search safely, if you would keep your balance, your nervous system strong and sane and healthy, then you must be willing to pay the price that all have paid in the past and are paying in the present, that when they affront those keener vibrations, when they allow them to play upon their body, and especially on the brain and the nervous system, they must take up a life different from that led by men and women of the world, and must be willing to tune up the instrument on which the melodies of the Spirit presently are to be played."*
THE KEY OF KNOWLEDGE.
Isaiah points out :
"But they also have erred through wine, and through strong drink are out of the way; the priest and the prophet have erred through strong drink, they are swallowed up of wine, they are out of the way through strong drink; they err in vision, they stumble in jndgment. For all tables are full of vomit and filthiness, so tha there is no place clean" (XXVIII. 7 and 8).
Joel puts it:
"Awake, ye drunkards, and weep; and howl, all ye drinkers of wine, because of the new wine; for it is cut off from your mouth" (1.5).
The new wine' referred to is the wine which exhilarates, but does not inebriate; it is the ecstasy of Self-contemplation, the masti (intoxication) of ananda, that enlivens the soul but does not rob it of consciousness. He who would aspire for spiritual unfoldment must first break his connection with this curse of 'civilisation,' which, as Isaiah declares, is the cause of error in vision and judgment. This is why wine is strongly condemned by Jainism. The Mahomedans also forbid its use. *Initiation,' pages 38 and 39.
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