SYMPOSIUMS

LECTURE

No. 7 – SELF-RESPECT AND THE SPIRITUAL PATH

SELF-RESPECT AND THE SPIRITUAL PATH

Respecting oneself and taking care of one’s physical and moral balance, whether one is a believer or not, is a source of personal fulfilment.

But it must be added that in Aumism, His Holiness Lord HAMSAH MANARAH teaches: “God is in each one. The essence of man is divine.”^[1] Respecting oneself therefore also means respecting the Divine within oneself and taking care to develop one’s spiritual dimension.

We will therefore look at three aspects of self-respect that complement each other and overlap:

1) preserving one’s body;

2) transforming oneself in a positive way;

3) living one’s spiritual dimension to the full.

I. RESPECTING ONESELF BEGINS WITH PRESERVING ONE’S BODY

For every human being, looking after one’s body is necessary for well-being and health.

From a spiritual perspective, His Holiness Lord HAMSAH MANARAH tells us: “Let human beings realise how fortunate they are to have bodies that allow them to accelerate their evolution!”^[2] Everyone, whatever their reasons, therefore has a duty to respect this precious body by taking care of it. But this does not mean identifying with it or idolising it even at the cost of suffering, as is often done in an overly materialistic world. In Aumism, the body is the Temple of the Soul.

1) Preserving one’s body means refusing what is destructive

In Une Loi pour détruire le Mal, His Holiness Lord HAMSAH MANARAH warns against the illusion of believing that youth is eternal: every excess ages the body prematurely. Alcohol, drugs, tobacco and other distractions allow the soul to escape the difficulties of life. But they are only temporary anaesthetics that lead to self-destruction.

Souls, whatever their age, are invited to evolve without ever fleeing their responsibilities. Prayer is a great help for all souls, including in helping the evolution of people who have taken their own lives.

Let us add that mortifications that harm the integrity of the body are not acceptable on the Path of Aumism, whatever their pretext.

“True mortification,” His Holiness Lord HAMSAH MANARAH tells us, “is that of the thoughts that cross the field of the mind and that must be tamed through constant effort. The true fast, which leads to the balance of body and mind, is abstinence from every wrong thought and from every desire to flee one’s responsibilities.”^[3]

2) Preserving one’s body also means maintaining one’s health

Getting effective treatment, without neglecting the usefulness of medicine, is a duty when needed: “A sick body,” Lord HAMSAH MANARAH specifies, “should not disdain the precious contribution of medicine in all its forms, including surgery.”^[4]

Preventing problems through a healthy lifestyle is also necessary. The talk at the 2008 symposium entitled “The balance of body and mind” dealt at length with the three pillars: diet, physical exercise and, of course, mental attitude. In the two books Naturopathie et Yoga and Le Yoga de la vie pratique, His Holiness Lord HAMSAH MANARAH sets out, in a very concrete way that is within everyone’s reach, advice on diet and the practice of Hatha Yoga, which brings better self-knowledge and self-mastery, health, strength and vitality. He stresses the need to work on body and mind together, in order to avoid destructive emotions and achieve balance between body and mind.

Despite the ups and downs of daily life, one should maintain a positive mental attitude that fosters serenity and respect for one’s own pace and abilities. A good mental attitude increases both health and longevity. “Man must bear in mind that the secret of prolonging youth and of longevity lies at once in the choice of food, in physical and moral hygiene, in mental attitude… and in becoming aware of the real purpose of life.”^[5]

Here is a technique for longevity taken from Le Yoga de l’Amour dans la Force (pp. 267-268). Simple and useful to all, it combines breathing and positive affirmations. I invite those who wish to share it:

Repeat OM three times to purify the atmosphere.

Send thoughts of blessing to all beings in the six directions of space.

Take deep breaths (3 to 5 times).

Return to normal breathing.

Affirm inwardly that you are in unity with the Cosmos.

Think that the beneficial Forces are at your disposal in the reservoir of the Universe.

Breathe in gradually while repeating mentally, once:

“I absorb Prana, this universal force that brings me energy, health, youth, strength and longevity.”

Hold the breath while thinking:

“I fix within me this energy that fills my cells and floods my body and mind.”

Breathe out while repeating mentally:

“I breathe out the air with all the impurities of my body, and I settle into calm, Peace, serenity and Wisdom.”

This technique is a simple and practical example of the happy combination of Body and Mind.

II. RESPECTING ONESELF MEANS TRANSFORMING ONESELF IN A POSITIVE WAY

Giving in to one’s bad inclinations, wallowing in pessimism and refusing any effort to transform oneself reveal a lack of self-respect. Respecting oneself means striving to take charge of oneself and to move in the direction of personal progress.

1) Self-respect requires an effort on the moral level

The first effort is a work of introspection and self-analysis.

We often tend to neglect our qualities and not see our faults. Yet we must accept to see our noblest feelings, and also our shadowy areas, without identifying with them; not reject the negative aspects of our personality, but transmute them and develop our qualities.

For most of us it is impossible never to express or feel a negative emotion, but each person has the possibility of not settling into these states, of not wallowing in the destructive feelings of anger, jealousy, hatred, revenge and guilt, and of moving instead towards forgiveness and reconciliation with oneself and others.

Choosing to raise one’s thoughts is essential: we will strive to favour kindly thoughts directed towards respect and love for others.

It is important to live in harmony with one’s thoughts and choices, insofar as they respect the freedom of others.

2) In addition, for those who wish, Aumism offers spiritual techniques that accelerate personal transformation, including prayer, the repetition of the sound OM and the “cleansing of the doubles”.

What is a double?

“The double is a crystallisation of negative energy specific to each individual. It is the dark counterpart of each person, created during the present life and past incarnations,”^[6] explains His Holiness Lord HAMSAH MANARAH.

The plantar double is so called because it is located beneath the feet: it is the crystallisation of all negative actions and thoughts, such as fear, pessimism, feelings of guilt and self-punishment, attachment to suffering, and so on.

The aerial double consists of seven crystal spheres and, as its name indicates, is located above the head. These spheres contain one’s entire past history.

The double is the part of our unconscious that chains us to the past and influences our actions negatively without our knowledge. We must therefore cleanse and purify our double, as well as the chakras, or centres of force, described long ago in the occult anatomy of man.

All religions have purification rites: Muslims, for example, purify their feet, hands and face before entering the Mosque; Christians cross themselves with holy water at the entrance to the church and periodically confess their sins. In Aumism, purification is that “of the heights and of the depths”.

To cleanse the plantar and aerial doubles, as well as the chakras, one recites the Sound OM while visualising a white light and then a golden yellow light in these areas.

But Lord HAMSAH MANARAH stresses: “Above all, it is important to maintain a positive state of mind of love, forgiveness of offences, kindness and joy; not to entertain hatred, jealousy or malice in act, word or thought, nor attachment to things and beings, which chains the soul.”^[7] Striving to progress morally while freeing oneself from the pressure of the double makes it possible to regain one’s inner unity, that is to say to respect the presence of the Divine within oneself.

III. RESPECTING ONESELF MEANS LIVING ONE’S SPIRITUAL DIMENSION TO THE FULL

When human beings cut themselves off from God to deify science, money or anything else, they deny their spiritual dimension: they no longer respect themselves in their wholeness, and they mutilate themselves. His Holiness Lord HAMSAH MANARAH helps man to regain self-respect by restoring his divine dignity. He says to each person: “Become the God that you are.”

1) Spiritual progress is linked to the choice of one’s thoughts

Man’s constitution is not limited to the visible physical body: it is made up of various subtle bodies that are increasingly ethereal, whose vibrations become faster and faster as one rises. Each plane of consciousness corresponds to a subtle body that man develops according to the choice of his thoughts and his moral and spiritual work. Whatever planes are considered, they do not correspond to clearly separate bodies, but interpenetrate, even if we separate them for convenience of analysis. This analysis is brief, but I remain available after the talk to anyone who would like more explanation.

The physical body on the material plane is nourished by food; the etheric body transforms the vital energy coming from various sources (the sun, Prana, and so on) and redistributes it to the gross body according to its needs.

The astral body is nourished by emotions, feelings and desires; it is more or less luminous depending on the nature of our feelings (astral plane).

The lower mental body develops through the cultivation of reason, judgement and imagination. It is the plane of concrete thoughts (lower mental plane).

The causal body, or higher mental body, concerns abstract thoughts. It is nourished and develops through the conquest of inner harmony, prayer and meditation (higher mental plane).

The buddhic body is crystallised by the efforts made in previous lives to draw closer to the Absolute; cultivating pure, selfless, universal Love develops it. It belongs to the plane of spiritual intuition.

The atmic body gives access to the plane of the Absolute. It is “the supreme human aspect of the GOD who is within us”.^[8] It is the plane of the high States of consciousness.

The highest State of Consciousness, which makes a human being a Realised Being, is attained through developing the feeling of Unity, Compassion and selfless Service, in addition to many difficult ascetic practices, as the Founder of Aumism has shown by example. Spiritual Realisation is the fruit of a long journey that is sometimes strewn with obstacles. But each person goes at their own pace: what matters is to move forward.

2) Whoever respects and develops the Divine within can win peace and spread it around them

They cultivate kindness, for example by affirming this passage from Le Yoga de l’Amour dans la Force:

“As So-and-so is, so am I. As I am, so is he. We are both subject to suffering and death, bound by the inexorable law of Life. Why should I blame anyone or call anyone my enemy? I must rather purify my mind and wish that he do the same; thus we will both be freed from suffering.”^[9] Being able to hold a thought of Love in the same way, in quality and in degree, for oneself, for a friend, for someone towards whom one feels neutral and for an enemy, frees one from suffering and contributes to Peace in the world. Such a person contributes to peace through harmonising thoughts, such as the following wish:

“May all sentient beings in the ten directions of space be free from enmity, free from ill will!

May they be rid of suffering!

May they be happy!

To the North, to the South; to the East, to the West; to the North-West, to the South-East; to the North-East, to the South-West; above and below.”^[10]

In conclusion, we can therefore say that respecting the Divine within oneself means being able to move towards true fulfilment:

“The purpose of life in the Golden Age is to offer human beings the opportunity to raise their level of consciousness so as to reach true happiness and bliss.”^[11]

It also means being able to contribute to the happiness of all:

“Each progress made by one man is a progress for humanity. When one man takes a leap along the path of perfection, humanity takes several.”^[12]

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[1] L’Unité des Visages de Dieu, p. 404.

[2] L’Aumisme, la Doctrine de l’Âge d’Or, p. 122.

[3] La Loi d’Évolution des Âmes, p. 181.

[4] Vers un Âge d’Or d’Unité, p. 326.

[5] L’Aumisme, la Doctrine de l’Âge d’Or, p. 224.

[6] L’Aumisme, la Doctrine de l’Âge d’Or, p. 168.

[7] L’Unité des Visages de Dieu, p. 299.

[8] Yoga et Sagesse, p. 114.

[9] Le Yoga de l’Amour dans la Force, p. 45.