Open House Series - No. 13
19 February 1987​

[Editor's note: Beginning in the late 1980’s, Ananda conducted a series of Open House  evenings. These were cosy gatherings where Ananda taught using a Question and Answer format, responding to questions asked by the participants.]


Q. Let us take this question here: 'Are all chakras to be kept open at all times?' 

The chakras are not open at all, except in use. They are so little opened that we can’t talk about ‘open’ chakras. The chakras are opening at a certain level of spiritual development – when there is a spiritual development – and they are awakened at a later stage in spiritual development. The chakras are closing down considerably when we’re not using the chakras, and they’re opening up when in use like in meditation, Earth healing service work, writing, creative work, talking, lecturing. Then we see the chakras opening up and, inside spiritual people, looking very awakened, meaning there is a lot of light, and beautiful colours are radiating from them. The chakras will only open due to meditation and unselfish service. People who are meditating therefore will have awakening chakras, over many lives awakening usually from the lowest chakra, the root chakra, to the highest chakra on the crown. But it takes hundreds if not thousands of lives to open them, all of them, and to awaken them spiritually.

Q. Number 2 question is: ‘You have stated that some foods, such as certain meats, slow down the body’s vibrational rate. Could you be more specific as to exactly tell which foods one should avoid?’ 

The food I’m here talking about is red meat – I mean beef, and I mean veal, and to some extent lamb. I’m not talking about chicken, turkey – white meat. Even if it’s not good to eat it, it will not harm the organism as much as red meat does. 

Red meat contains vibrations of the animal nature of fear and that is why, when we eat meat, we add the vibrations of fear and animal feelings and lower vibrations to us. That we have to avoid if we want to spiritualise ourselves. We cannot spiritualise ourselves to a higher level of consciousness eating red meat. Red meat is such a heavy vibration, it will keep us tied to the physical. In some people’s cases, it’s very good to eat some meat – even if it’s white meat, as it also ties you to the physical – because in some cases, the spiritual work is releasing the astral or mental body prematurely from the physical/etheric body. That is not desired. And for the astral and mental bodies not to be released prematurely, eating of meat will keep the astral and lower mental body down with the physical/etheric body, and one will also feel more grounded, more physical, feel more present on Earth. It is a known fact that when one becomes a vegetarian, one is releasing oneself very much from the physical/etheric body. 

For some people, it is too soon to do that. In such a case it is advisable that the human being, the vegetarian, either eats much grain and many nuts, in some cases fish and white meat, because they will function better as a human being doing this. It is like this that a spiritual human being should not leave his or her physical/etheric consciousness, but should remain in the physical/etheric where one works for a good cause – for the Hierarchy even. 

Many vegetarians, when they are performing meditation, have the knack of living too much on the astral levels, having thus left the physical/etheric level because of the meditation and the food partaken of. And that is why some will, by the inner guide or the inner voice, be told: ‘You can eat meat – you can eat that kind of meat, perhaps once a week only.’ And in some cases, you will hear the voice say: ‘Don’t touch meat for so and so long, perhaps forever in this life.’ It all depends what mission you have on Earth and how much you need to stay on the physical/etheric level. If you’re a human being, a spiritual human being, who is to work more on the inner levels than on Earth levels, functioning more on the inner levels than on Earth levels, vegetarian food is very good because it releases you totally from the physical level. But if you’re meant to work a lot from the physical/etheric level, and think and function much in your physical body, sometimes you will hear the voice tell you to keep on eating fish or white meat. 

In some incarnations we are vegetarians, and some incarnations we are eating meat, and then at the end of our incarnations on Earth, we stop eating meat. That is because we are releasing ourselves from our physical body. We no longer need to be totally grounded in our physical body, but it is still for the few. Some people eat vegetarian food for health reasons – that is such an incarnation where the soul is forcing the personality to eat vegetarian food. You can be a highly spiritual human being eating meat and you can be a human being with very little spiritual aspiration, living as a vegetarian. That is quite understood. So it is not the omitting of meat that makes you into a spiritual human being – it is in fact your meditation and it is the way you serve unselfishly on this Earth. To leave out meat will not make you into a saint. 

The last thing I want to say about meat is that sooner or later you have to work on your etheric body, to refine your etheric body. When you come to that process, you eat very little meat because eating meat will not refine your etheric body, it will make it denser, and a little bit heavy and cemented. Again, if you then add a proper meditation and energy work to it, you will find that you can eat meat and still refine your etheric body. 

There are many rules and regulations in the spiritual and we’re not all alike, which is why the inner voice will guide you – each one of you differently from the other one sitting next to you. This is the beauty of this Earth, this Universe. We are not treated the same way, due to difference of spiritual development, difference in human temperament and difference in mission on Earth.

Q. There is another question here. The question is: ‘Does reading tarot cards, some of which include ancient Egyptian symbolism, help or hinder one’s evolution?’ 

In the beginning when we become clairvoyant, we’re using means and tools to become more clairvoyant. We need coffee leaves, tea leaves, coffee grounds. You need tarot cards, you need a deck of cards of any kind. You may need a bowl – such a crystal bowl to glance into – you may need drugs. We’re using all kinds of means to trigger off our clairvoyant abilities on Earth. To use tarot cards is therefore no hindrance on Earth in spiritual development. It can be a great help, if not abused. 

The first thing you have to find out is who is using you when you do the tarot readings. Is it a good guide, is it a bad guide, is it a stupid guide, a sly guide? Is it an intelligent guide? Who are we dealing with? See, if you go into tarot readings with intelligence and unselfish motives, you will attract to yourself a good guide, so the tarot readings become of a great value and help to humanity. But if you want to do tarot readings for the wrong motives, and we can also do healings for the wrong motives – or anything else – you will see that you will contact the negative guides and you will be giving people false information and therefore not be a saintly and holy clairvoyant. 

Tarot readings help man to understand symbols. It is an incarnation in learning to interpret symbols and it’s very valuable. Tarot readings are very good and wholesome as a clairvoyant means, if you just do it the right way. So, I would say that you can certainly help people with tarot readings, you will learn a lot about symbolism. But you should steer clear of Alistair Crawley’s decks of cards, because he was a black magician – self-professed – and nothing good comes out of using a black magician’s tarot cards. Use something else, there are many of them. It is not always the beauty that makes a good and wholesome reading, you have to go for the energy in the cards. It is difficult for you to discern the difference and that is why I give you the advice I can give you: stay away from Alistair Crawley’s tarot cards and stay away from books written by him, because he was a very strong black magician. 

Q. There is another question saying: ‘Are the colours of the aura related to the colours of rays and flames?’ 

On one level, yes – on another, no. That is why I said last time that I think I will explain this more in depth, next time. There is something interesting with colour. Colour shows all your talents, your qualities, your temper, your temperament – everything is shown by the colours in the aura of the personality, and in the colours of the aura of the soul, but you can read within the aura of a personality and soul which rays he is incarnating on. They are very difficult to read, and usually only initiates of the Hierarchy can read the aura and tell you which rays you’re on. 

Now, I know that some astrologers have been given the knowledge to make a chart and to find, via the chart, your rays. These astrologers however, are esoteric astrologers – they’re not ordinary astrologers. They’re highly clairvoyant, highly skilled from past lives, and they’re working selflessly with the astrology charts they make for people. In such cases, you can be given valuable information about the personality and soul rays – what the aura shows, but it is very difficult to read. Even I have difficulties reading because it takes such a long time to discern which rays belong to the physical/etheric, astral, lower mental, soul and so forth, which is why I will only do this occasionally when I have a lot of time. 

The flames, as we know from the Basic Exercise*, do represent the different qualities of different colours and therefore within the aura of man, we can read man like an open book. 

The Book of Life is represented within the aura, but who can read the book properly? I have come across many clairvoyants who are excellently reading the astral body of the client, but they can’t read the mental body, they can absolutely not read the soul body and of course not higher than that. These clairvoyant 
readings can be misleading and sometimes interpreted wrongly 

because of the missing picture, because of only looking at the client with such a little vision within, namely the vision of the lower body, the astral body. It is interesting to look into people’s auras and it’s not an easy task because, as I explained last time, your own aura has to be in control, and you have to have refined and purified your own aura. And that is why I do this at readings – it is usually not done by other clairvoyants: I tune in and I work for quite some time purifying myself and the client before I start reading the client because if I don’t do this even I, who am a soul clairvoyant, may bring forth some of my own problems, what do I know, into the reading of the client. 

We are looking through the eyes of our own aura and therefore should be extra careful, and take precautions, that we are not giving away our own inner conflicts or development when looking at our clients. 

The art of clairvoyant abilities therefore is only at a budding beginning. We don’t have many true clairvoyants on Earth – it is a mighty difficult art. And again, clairvoyant abilities have nothing to do with spiritual development, for most of the initiates of the Hierarchy, and the disciples, do not possess clairvoyant abilities unless they really need them for the work they do. 

What one needs in dealing with the aura of man, interpreting the aura of man correctly, is a high spiritual development, refining of the inner bodies, and an impersonal attitude to the work – ‘impersonal’ meaning you don’t mix your own problems or being, feelings and thoughts into those of your patient or client. And I have noticed that many do this. 

I was visiting, in this country, an astrologer when I first got here. I wanted some information, some dates verified. And she was a very nice lady, but she didn’t work with it as I would have expected her to do, because she started talking – she started putting her own meanings, her own interpretations of life into my reading, and started to talk from her viewpoint which I had not expected from a person who was considered one of the best in the country. 

You have to keep totally impersonal when you do readings, and when you do tarot readings, when you give astrology charts, or else the readings will not be of value to the clients. However, we do learn – it takes many lives. People are quite frequently visiting clairvoyants in this country I’ve noticed, and all over the world they are visiting clairvoyants. And they should stop visiting clairvoyants when they have the wrong motives, because then they’re given bad answers. If you visit a clairvoyant because you absolutely need something, some help, something to enable you to grow spiritually, you will receive better answers. 

But if you come with the motive of hearing about your financial situation, when you get the next partner in life, when you can divorce your husband, and perhaps so and so, you will never get from most clairvoyants, good answers, because the answers you get will be decided according to your motives. And that is why when people come to me for readings, I specify only spiritual growth. I’m not happy about questions about divorce or family and marital relationships because when you come to an initiate like me and you don’t listen to the advice and counselling, you will take on more karma than earlier. 

Therefore, I would prefer that when you come to me, the ones of you who have not had readings, come to me specifically to know about your spiritual growth, past lives relating to this one, soul development, what you can do to further your growth. 

Listen carefully to what I say. It will not be understood straight away, that’s why I give you a tape. You have to listen carefully at home. But don’t come with stupid questions like ‘When do I get more money? Should I divorce this man and take on another one whom I just met five days ago?’ You would be surprised to hear what people ask me about, and it is a waste of time on my behalf to answer such questions, which is why I have put the readings down to a minimum. I am very busy, and I only want to give readings to people who really want to do something about themselves. ‘Spiritual growth’ is the key word.
 
Q. Then we have another question here. The question is: ‘Can you explain what is happening when one, from time to time, feels at one with all surroundings. I am it – it is me.’

We’re talking here about different consciousnesses, different kinds of consciousness. We’re talking here about an astral consciousness, which is the first consciousness where you feel you’re not separated from man or God, that you are one with all living beings. This feeling of oneness with all living, with all people, with God, comes at different levels of consciousness, it just becomes stronger and stronger. An astrally conscious human being can be most in tune with others and God, feel much oneness with nature, but on a lower level than a human being who feels the same on the mental level, which again is a lower consciousness than a human being who feels togetherness and oneness on the soul level. 

We go through many highly illuminating levels of consciousness on this Earth. They are related to chakras, you see. If I look at you in a reading and I see that your astral body, your solar plexus chakra, is this big, you have an astral consciousness. And if you’re purified and if it’s your karma, you will find an astral illumination this life, meaning you can come to feel one with all living, with nature spirits, small nature devas, with God, in the astral aspect of God, with guides and teachers on the inner levels. It is a samadhi state of awareness, but samadhi is not the end. Samadhi is looked upon by yogis to be the end, the ultimate aim of meditation. As a matter of fact, it is an astral consciousness and there is much more to reach. Then you reach the lower mental awareness and you become self-realised. You become more conscious of the Universe, of your godself, on a higher level. You are approaching nirvana, for when you reach soul consciousness, which is God consciousness – again, in a little bit lower aspect than Spirit consciousness – you are reaching nirvana. 

Nirvana, again, has a state of consciousness after it. So when you reach Spirit consciousness, you enter an even higher oneness with God and the Universe. With this, I explain to you that there is no beginning and no end in consciousness; that whatever you might find is the ultimate, is nothing at all. It is only a step further towards something higher. And you must understand that it is wonderful and ‘hooray and hallelujah’ to all people who are gaining samadhi awareness. It’s a mighty step from animal-man and mind, to samadhi. It’s a saintly awareness – but it’s nothing in comparison to your mental consciousness, and when you get soul consciousness and Spirit consciousness, cosmic consciousness, Solar Logos consciousness, and so on. If you look upon this as I look upon it, you will never become ego-centred or a maniac, considering yourself to be worth more than others because you have a higher consciousness. 

I look upon myself – and I hope you will do the same, then you’re on the safe side – as whatever I reach, whatever consciousness, however wonderful, illuminating, enlightening it is, it is only the beginning of something greater. If you look upon life that way, you will never lose your head. You will be grounded, two feet on the ground, and be most happy that there’s more to reach. Isn’t it wonderful that there is no end, there are no limitations. You can continue to fly – you can continue endlessly.
 
So, you can become one with all living tomorrow, and you will then become one with all living in 10–15 years, but in a higher sense of the word. You will not in any way feel your I Am, your Spirit, in the astral consciousness. You are starting to feel the I Am at a mental consciousness, and you will become very much sort of one with your I Am between soul and Spirit consciousness. You can become aware of its existence – how nice, how wonderful it is if suddenly a powerful ray descends into you –but it is only occasional. It is not permanent. It’s not a lasting thing. And as long as it is not permanent, lasting, you haven’t got it. It escapes you. It disappears. You become the same as you were five minutes ago, with a little bit more illuminative power within you. But one day you become the One, the I Am, always, permanently, everlastingly, and you live forever. And that is soul consciousness. I will explain more in the Course of Healing and Wisdom because one has to understand that there are many consciousnesses to reach. 

We have only one I Am, and we strive to find it and get to know it now in this age. This is the age of the I Am. That is why nearly every human being in spiritual work talks about the I Am. They sign their letters with I Am, and I talk much about I Am. What is I Am? It is the voice of God. It can be the Lord Sanat Kumara talking. It can be an Archangel talking. It can be a cosmic being talking. It can also be your own I Am talking. But when the I Am is talking, you will certainly know that something is happening, because it is the voice of thunder and lightning. It’s also the voice of stillness. It is everything, but it is remarkably everything – so it is very far from your ordinary little ‘I am’. 

Q. So there is another question: ‘What is life?’

I am not a great philosopher in this incarnation I must admit, but I will nevertheless strive to answer this. Life is light. Light and love is life. Light is love. Love is light. Life is both. Life is all – all that is love and light, and we have love and light within us, which is why we have life, and the more light and love we have, the more life we have until the end, when we become life itself – we become love and light eternally. Our atomic structure becomes light and love, and therefore we have more life than others. 

When we talk about life, and light and love, we talk about the Masters of the Hierarchy, because They manifest these qualities to perfection. Sometimes we have a little bit of life in us. A little spark of life we always have – but have we more from which to give to others, to let others drink from our life force? How much love have we got, how much light? All this is again due to initiations and higher consciousness. God lives in man and God is life. God is love and light. You are God but know it not, that is why you haven’t got enough light, life and love in you. When you deal with your programs and darkness you’ll become more life, and more light and love, and your godself will become apparent for everyone to see, hear and feel. You become a true disciple. 

Therefore to me and to you, life is all that is wonderful. Life is the spark of the universe in every human being. You can feel this life in nature, in everything living – in the green, in the leaves, in the grass. When it rains, you can smell the life which is in the grass. When people are happy, you can smell life in them – they’re living totally in tune with everything that is good and positive. When people are depressed, there is very little life in them, and no love and no light. Everything is just drained out of them. It is wonderful to behold a human being with an aura of life, light and love, but it is seldom that we see it. However, they’re on the increase – nothing to worry about.

[The next card contains 3 questions.]

Q. The first question is: 'What is the spiritual significance of candles?' 

Candles represent the deva kingdom. Many are not aware of this. Every time you light a candle, you have contacted the deva kingdom, the fire element of the deva kingdom, and also the air element. And candles have a wonderful effect on your meditations and your energy work. The colours of the candles you have to choose according to your desires. What do you want to do? How far do you want to reach in your meditation? Who do you want to call upon? Which Master is it that you’re invoking today? You choose the candles according to the ray, to the Master, to the energy you want to invoke. 

The moment you light a candle, that moment you have reached out for the energy. Red candles are usually used in scandalous ceremonies, black magic, but not always – a beautiful red candle at Christmas is life. To me, red candles represent life – Archangel Michael in His fiery aspect; Mars, strong and powerful – and such an energy you never use apart from certain festivals a year, mostly Christmas. 

If you have no energy, your brain is totally tired, you’re lethargic, you have had a flu, you feel sick to the root of your hair, use red candles now and then – it gives life, dynamic life force. 

White candles represent purity, all that is holy, invoking the 4th ray; they can also invoke the 6th ray because white contains all the rays. They’re pure and holy. White candles are very good to use in all ceremonies and meditations. 
If you choose yellow candles, you invoke the 2nd ray: illumination, love-wisdom. 

Use the candles according to what you learn here in Shan the Rising Light, about the Masters, the energies, the vibrations, and you will find that you can get them to cooperate with you.

Q. Number two question on the same card is: ‘Can candles influence the chakras, the aura, the actual body? If so, how?’ 

The candles influence man. If a man watches and observes a candle, he goes within; he becomes withdrawn; he meditates without knowing it. Candles give you the energy to meditate, to contemplate, to think in stillness. So, because of this wonderful energy, the chakras will of course be influenced because everything influences our chakras. In most people, mainly the solar plexus chakra will be influenced by candles. 
The aura is influenced because of, again, the efforts, the meditation, the unselfish service. The astral body is influenced a lot because we are very much our feelings. Even if we may be of a higher development, we are still much our feelings, and feelings rule our lives a lot. Candles are influencing our feelings. They can purify our feeling body, especially if you use white.

Q. The third question on this piece of card here is: ‘Has Rudolph Steiner reincarnated again, or did he ascend?’ 

Rudolph Steiner is for sure in incarnation. Such a busy initiate as Rudolph Steiner is not lazing on the inner levels. There is no time to be lazy in this hour of deep need in Earth’s history. He must surely have incarnated. 

You can ascend and return. I would not say that he has ascended though, for certain things he will have to learn first. But Rudolph Steiner was an initiate. He was a great disciple of the Hierarchy, and has brought to Earth very interesting philosophies, and interesting ways to cultivate the land and so forth – a very interesting man, very well-advanced in education. 
I would consider his system of education and his agricultural work of more importance than his philosophical work, which is quite confused. He was trying to leave Theosophy. He was very centred into the Christ impulse, wanted everything to centre around Christ on this Earth, and to some extent it does, and to others it doesn’t. He tried to create his own philosophy, but everything is Theosophy on this Earth. The only thing we can do is to use Theosophy as our root, our foundation, and build upon it. But he tried to do without Theosophy, and you will find out one day that there is no way you can ever avoid building upon Theosophy. The Divine Laws and the principles given out in Theosophy, are the foundation of everything we learn on this Earth. 

Theosophy, the divine wisdom, was brought down from Venus 18 million years ago by Sanat Kumara. The divine wisdom has been taught through many groups and people on this Earth but, as you all know, in 1875 the Theosophical Society was founded by the Hierarchy – three Masters of the Hierarchy – with permission from the inner council, because man needed new hope. Man needed to learn about the Law of Karma, the fact of reincarnation, and so man builds further upon the foundation of Theosophy. 

I don’t know how much you know about Rudolph Steiner, but he was a theosophist first and then, for certain reasons which we don’t have to talk about today, he left. Sometimes you have to recognise that you can’t leave the foundation of the world and create your own systems, because the systems you create may have a lesser foundation and collapse around you.
 
Q. Before we have tea, I will answer another question and then after tea you can ask me some more questions: ‘Could you please explain the relationship of humanity to the lower kingdoms and vice versa with respect to the following issues: first, the killing of and consumption of animals by man.’ 

I think I answered that a little bit, but I would like to tell you about something called sacrifice. There is a pattern on this Earth called ‘the pattern of sacrifice’, and that pattern says that everything lower sacrifices itself to everything higher for the higher to live, and sometimes for the higher to work, if the higher is a human being. 
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Do you realise how many people, how many human beings, have sacrificed themselves so that a Christ and the Buddha could live and work? It is like ‘in the higher as in the lower’, and ‘in the lower as in the higher’. The mineral kingdom sacrifices itself to the plant kingdom, the plant to animal, animal to human kingdom – to a certain extent only – and human to the spiritual kingdom. You may have to sacrifice your own life many times to enter the spiritual kingdom, because you have to learn to give of your most precious thing – your body, your life – to the spiritual kingdom. You may see that you will give away, you will sacrifice what is most dear to you, your life, so that a higher teacher can work so that Earth can survive. So we sacrifice ourselves on all levels of existence on this Earth, as well as in the Universe. 

It is no longer considered necessary for the animal kingdom to sacrifice itself for the human. It should have been stopped, but we have become carnivorous human beings. We love our steaks – they smell so wonderful. They may not taste so good anymore, but they smell divinely. Old habits – we have been living on meat and grains here for hundreds of years, more than anything else. There was nothing else to be eaten. But as the Hierarchy says, man has reached an evolution where man no longer needs the animal kingdom to sacrifice itself for him to survive. And what They mean is that soon we shall have on this Earth, due to the shift of the poles, a good climate all over the planet, like in the Garden of Eden and, in such a climate, you no longer need meat to sustain yourself. 

You must always remember something: ‘Rome was not built in a day’, as we say in Danish. Even if the Hierarchy says ‘now’, or ‘soon to be’, ‘just round the corner’, They are talking about hundreds of years. Even the Lord Sanat Kumara, who is no longer the Lord of the World, is not leaving His office ‘just around the corner’. He’s staying for a couple of hundred years longer for the new Lord of the World, the Lord Gautama, to take over, and certain things are happening too for which the Lord Sanat Kumara is still needed on this Earth. He has been released, but He’s still here. He has to help out, because we’re not talking about five years, we’re talking about several hundred years – five to eight hundred years – before things are manifesting. So we are sacrificing ourselves on this Earth for each other, to God, to Christ. 

Some people have been run over by cars trying to save their dog, their cat. We sacrifice ourselves for each other. This is a very necessary pattern in spiritual development. 

The Masters of the Hierarchy are not too happy about man consuming too many minerals because the sacrifice of the mineral kingdom can become too great. There’s an interesting thing that man is not aware of. When you buy crystals, you’ve taken them out of nature, cut them off, you know what I mean, while they were alive, to use for what? See, if you are cutting crystals out of caves or whatever, where they grow, it can only be sustained – your deeds and actions can only evoke less karma – if you use these crystals in your divine work. If you use crystals wrongly, just as decorations, you know, just to have – greedy, grasping: ‘Let’s have them all, I’m going to use them’ – this is no good. 

You see, you have to think before you act. It is good in some ways – it’s nice to give people flowers, but you kill them. You cut them off and you kill them in a couple of days. All right, they fade away and they die in nature, that is the law of nature, but sometimes when you buy a bouquet of flowers, you should think about how you are actually shortening the lives of the flowers because you want to give a gift to someone else, which is why perhaps, in some cases, it is better to give pot plants than cut flowers to people. However, cut flowers are beautiful and they sacrifice themselves for man. They’re also occasionally a sign of gratitude from the Hierarchy. 

The rose is one of the most spiritual flowers on Earth. It is the symbol of Lord Christ Jesus, and many other Masters. And when I get a bouquet of flowers – roses – they are to me a sign of gratitude or love from the Masters. They are not only, shall we say, cut down to an easy death, they also please man. And so, it all depends on how you look upon the gifts you get, the crystals you have, the minerals you eat. Use everything wisely, and it is a lesser sacrifice. 

But sometimes people say to me, ‘How can you eat this steak? How can you eat this … ?’ or ‘I don’t eat steaks anymore, but I did once’ or ‘How can you do this?’ as a general question. I will tell you something, I answer them this way: ‘The carrots you eat are screaming louder than the steaks.’ Don’t believe that because you don’t hear the vegetables screaming when you cut them, that they don’t do so. You hear the animal. It’s not pleasant I can assure you, but it’s not pleasant to hear the vegetables either. 

And when you become sensitive, you realise that whatever you eat – except energy, and sometimes you can also ‘eat’ too much of that – you are eating another being. 

You have to understand about the Law of Sacrifice to understand life on Earth. Just be very careful that you do not buy crystals just for the sake of having them; that you’re not stuffing yourself with minerals when it’s not important to do so, because they have sacrificed themselves for man; that when you buy flowers there is love  – you give them to people out of love, much love – and then the sacrifice will be minimal. 

Yes, my dears, we shall have a break, a short break, where we’ll have tea and scones.


* ​‘The Basic Exercise’ is the original name of the practice now called the ‘Flame Meditation’.