A truly spiritual person does not deprive themself: they eat and drink and breathe and love, but in realms and on a level of consciousness unknown to ordinary men. When they hear talk of renunciation most people are terrified; they say, ‘If I have to give up everything that makes life worth living, I’ll die.’ And they are right, of course, because if they don’t realize that renunciation can give them something even better they will die. It is not a question of having to stop drinking, sleeping, breathing, loving and procreating, but of doing all these things better.

There is an exchange you have to remember to make every day so as to keep things in motion and create a flow of energies, otherwise stagnation and decay set in and all you have is mould and mildew. New waters have to flow through your life every day, and the only way to be sure of having a ready supply of new water is to keep in touch with heaven by prayer and meditation every single day. For the genuinely new comes from heaven alone.

Of course, men and women have often found out for themselves this solution of replacing things. When a woman has a husband who gives her nothing but problems, for instance, she tries to get rid of him and find another to take his place. Human beings follow the precepts of Eternal Wisdom instinctively; the only trouble is that these precepts are not always correctly applied.

A man may think that if he changes wives he will be much better off, but there is no guarantee that he will find true happiness. It is quite possible that he will simply exchange one shrew for another, even worse. Or a population may overthrow the political party in power but the next one will not necessarily be any better.

Human beings feel, instinctively, that they have to change things but their mistake lies in thinking that they have to change things on the outside whereas they should change things within themselves.

Omraam Mikhaël Aïvanhov
Izvor Book 219, Man’s Subtle Bodies and Centres
Chapter 1, Human Evolution