The capacities of the spirit are infinite but you have to give it the conditions it needs in order to manifest itself. Some people, artists and thinkers especially, reach extraordinary heights of inspiration and enthusiasm that bring them into contact with sublime realities, and then, when they revert to their normal state, they understand practically nothing of what happened to them.

This shows that if human beings became both more receptive and more perceptive, and if they created the conditions that would enable the spirit to manifest itself more fully, they would realize that it has the most extraordinary possibilities.

To expect the spirit to manifest itself through this inadequate instrument is exactly as though you asked a virtuoso to play on a broken piano: however willing they may be and however hard they try, they will only get harsh, discordant noises from it. It is not the pianist who is to blame, it is the piano.

As you can see, therefore, it is the physical body that must be perfected and purified and made more flexible, for it is the physical body that is encumbered with so many impurities and extraneous elements that however highly evolved a spirit may be, it cannot use it as a channel for its strength and light.

The spirit is a divine spark; all the powers and all the knowledge of God Himself are contained in its quintessence. But we have to give it a fitting instrument.

The physical body is precisely one of the most perfect instruments that God has given to man; an instrument built with inexpressible wisdom and endowed with an extraordinary wealth of possibilities. And yet there are those who despise and reject the physical body because it is material, whereas the spirit, you see, is noble, divine…

Omraam Mikhaël Aïvanhov,
The Bonfin, July 19, 1975

Complete Works Volume 17. Jnana Yoga Volume 1 – Know Thyself