Self-stupefaction through drugs is not in itself a crime, but it is a preparation for all sorts of crimes.
9. The trinity of curse: drunkenness, meat eating and smoking.
10. It is hard to imagine what a happy change would come into our lives, if men ceased to stupefy and poison themselves with whiskey, wine, tobacco and opium.
VI.
Serving the Flesh is Injurious to the Soul
1. If one man has much that is superfluous, many others lack necesaries.
2. It is better that the raiment befit the conscience than fit the body only.
3. In order to pamper the flesh, one must neglect his soul.
4. Of two men which is better off: he who nourishes himself with his own labor, merely to preserve himself from being hungry, clothes himself, merely to avoid being bare, houses himself merely to shelter himself from the rain and the cold, or he who through flunkeying, or what is more usual, through craftiness or force, obtains delicate foods, rich raiment and luxurious habitations?
5. It is inexpedient to accustom yourself to luxury, for the more things you need for your body, the more you will have to labor with your body, in order better to feed it, clothe it and house it. This is an error which only those men fail to perceive who by some fraud have arranged it so that others labor for them instead of laboring for themselves, so that in the case of the rich this is not merely inexpedient, but also a great wrong.
6. If we people had not invented luxurious dwellings, apparel and food, all those who are now in need could live without want, and those who are rich without fear for themselves or their riches.
7. Just as the first rule of wisdom is to know oneself, because only he who knows himself can also know others, so is the first rule of mercy to be content with little, because only he who is content with little can be merciful.
Ruskin.
8. To live for one's body only is to do like the servant who took his master's money, and instead of buying therewith things required for his own needs, as his master had commanded, wasted it upon the gratification of his foolish whims.
God gave us His spirit so that we may do the works of God and for our own good. But we waste this spirit upon the service of our body. Thus we both fail to do the works of God and injure our own self.
9. That it is inexpedient for man to indulge his lusts, but expedient always to fight against them, may be determined by any one by own experience, for the more a man indulges the demands of his body, the feebler become his spiritual forces. And vice versa. Great philosophers and saints have been always abstemious and chaste.
10. Just as the smoke expels the bees from the hive, gluttony and drunkenness drive away all the finest spiritual forces. Basil the Great.
11. What does it matter if the body suffer a little from serving the spirit? but woe if the most precious thing in man—his soul—suffer from the passions of the body.
12. Do not destroy your heart by excess of food and dnnk. Mohammed,
13. "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also," is said in the New Testament. If a man consider his body his treasure, he will employ all his powers to provide it with dainty foods, pleasant accommodations, fine apparel and all sorts of amusements. And the more strength a man expends upon the service of his body, the less he will have left for his spiritual life.
VII.
He Alone is Free» Who is Master of the Desires
of His Body
1. If a man live for his body, and not for his soul, he is like some bird that conceives the notion of walking from place to place on its feeble feet instead of freely flying wherever it pleased by using its wings. Socrates.
2. Dainty foods, rich apparel, luxuries of all sorts— this is what you call happiness. But I think that to desire nothing is the greatest happiness, and in order to approach this highest degree of happiness, you must train yourself to want little. Socrates.
3. The less you indulge the body in matters of food, clothing, housing and amusement, the freer will be your life. And on the contrary, no sooner you begin to try to improve your food, clothing, housing and amusement,—there is no longer a limit to your labors and cares.
4. It is better to be poor than rich, because the rich are more bound up in sin than the poor. And the sins of the rich are more perplexing and entangled, and it is difficult to make head or tail of them. The sins of the poor are simple, and it is easier to be rid of them.
5. No one has ever regretted to hav^ l\\^A. Vc^ -^-jLv^^
THE PATHWAY OF LIFE
6. The rich are so used to the sin of serving the body that they fail to see it as sin, and believing that what they do is for the best interest of their children, they train them from infancy in the ways of gluttony, luxury and sloth-fulness, in other words they corrupt them and store up great suffering for them.
7. What happens with the stomach when you overeat, occurs also in matters of amusement. The more men try to increase the pleasure of eating by inventing refined foods, the more is the stomach enfeebled and the pleasure of eating curtailed. The more men try to increase the pleasure of merrymaking by inventing elegant and subtle amusements the more surely they weaken their capacity for genuine enjoyment.
8. Only the body can suffer; the spirit knows no suffering. The feebler is the life of the spirit, the greater is the suffering. So if you would not suffer, live more in the spirit and less for your body.
SEXUAL LUSTS
SEXUAL LUSTS
In all people, men and women alike, dwells the Spirit of God. What a sin it is to look upon the temple of the Spirit of God as upon a means of gratification of desire. Every woman in relation to man should be first of all a sister, and every man to a woman a brother.
L
The Need of Striving After Absolute Chastity
1. It is well to live in honorable matrimony, but it is better never to marry. Few people can do this. But happy are they who can.
2. When people marry, if they can do without marrying, they act like a man who falls without having stumbled. If he stumbled and then fell, he could not help himself, but if he had not stumbled, why fall on purpose? If you can live chastely, without committing sin, it is better not to marry.
3. It is untrue that chastity is contrary to the nature of man. Chastity is possible and yields much more happiness than even a happy marriage.
4. Excess of food is ruinous to good life, but sexual excesses are still more ruinous to good living. And therefore, the less a man yields to the one and to the other, the better it is for his true spiritual life. But there is a great difference between the two. In giving up food altogether man destroys his life, but in abstaining from sexual gratification, man does not cut short his life, nor destroy his species which does not depend upon him alone.
5. He that is unmarried careth for the things that belong to the Lord, how he may please the Lord:
But he that is married careth for the thii^ diat are of the world, how he may please his wife.
There is a difference also between a wife and a virgin. The unmarried woman careth for the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit; but she that is married careth for the things of the world, how she may please her husband. 1 Cor,, zii, 32-34.
6. If men marry and think that they thereby serve God and man, because they propagate the human species, they deceive themselves. Instead of marrying in order to increase of the number of children in the world, it would be far simpler to sustain and save those millions of young Uves which are perishing from want and n^ect.
7. Although few people may be absoltudy chaste, let every one realize and remember that any man can be more chaste than he has been, and can resume chastity once violated, and the more nearly he approaches to absolute chastity, the more nearly he will attain the state of true blessedness, and the better he will be able to serve the welfare of his fellow-man.