Message #160758

[Harconen]

THE LOWER REGION OF HUMAN NATURE

Man if he chooses, may excel the beasts in bestiality --he may descend to depths of which the beast would never have thought.  The beast is governed solely by instinct, and his actions, so prompted, are perfectly natural and proper, and the animal is not blamed for following the impulses of its nature.  But man, in whom intellect has unfolded, knows that it is contrary to his highest nature to descend to the level of the beasts --yea, lower by far.  He adds to the brute desires the cunning and intelligence which have come to him, and deliberately prostitutes his higher principle to the task of carrying out the magnified animal propensities.  Very few animals abuse their desires --it is left for some men to do so.  The higher the degree of intellect unfolded in man, the greater the depths of low passions, appetites, and desires possible to him.  He actually creates new brute desires, or rather builds edifices of his own upon the brute foundations....

....which will result in the soul having to spend many weary years in retracing its steps over the backward road it has trodden.   Its progress has been retarded, and it will be compelled to re-travel the road to freedom, in common with the beast like natures of undeveloped creatures whose proper state of the journey it is, having an additional burden in the shape of the horror of consciousness of its surroundings, whereas its companions have no such consciousness and consequently suffer not.

Yogi Ramacharaka --"Fourteen Lessons in Yogi Philosophy" (1903)