‘So why not be like Taras Bulba and take pride in your son who has become so strong? It was you who made him strong by feeding him with your thoughts and desires, so you must be very strong yourself. And now I’ll tell you how you can beat him. What does a parent do when they want to bring a wild, extravagant son to his senses? They cut off his allowance of course, and having no more money, the boy is forced to reason and change his ways.

A continuation from yesterday’s post…

Why keep your son supplied with food and money? Do you want him to go on defying you? Why not cut off his allowance? Since it was you who brought him into existence and support him, you have some authority, but if you don’t exercise your authority you’ll spend the rest of your life struggling and suffering without ever finding a way out of your difficulties.’

Unfortunately there are not many people who manage to look at things this way. They struggle desperately against their own pernicious tendencies, without at all realizing that if they are in such dire straits today it is because they are extraordinarily strong. The stronger the enemy within, the more it shows how strong you yourself are.

It is true, of course, that we do have enemies within us, but if they are our enemies it is mainly because we are very poor alchemists and are incapable of performing the necessary transformations on them.

Yes, this is how you should look at the situation. And once you know the rules of Spiritual Alchemy you will learn how to transform and use even the poisons in you. In fact you will be given the methods you need to make use of all the negative forces which are so plentiful within you. So, be glad, for there is a bright future ahead of you.

The Lord leaves us with certain weaknesses in order to incite us to greater efforts in our spiritual work: that which seems to us to be a weakness may, in fact, be a strength.

Weaknesses must be put to work: they have to make themselves useful. The problem is the same for every form of vice and every failing, whether it be greed, sexual sensuality, violence, covetousness or vanity: you have to know how to enrol their energies in the service of your own cause, how to get them to work with you towards your chosen goal. If you work alone you will never succeed. If you banish all your enemies, everything that stands up to you, who is going to work for you? Who will serve you?

Through great patience humans have tamed and domesticated several different kinds of wild animals which are now very useful to them. Horses used to be wild and dogs were as savage as wolves, and if humans were able to domesticate them it was because they had developed certain inner qualities. Humans are also capable of taming and domesticating the wild beasts within, but in order to do so they need to develop other qualities, and in this case, to understand the rules of Spiritual Alchemy, how to transform base matter into gold.

To be continued (after the following two posts, or click this link)

Omraam Mikhaël Aïvanhov
Izvor Book 221, True Alchemy or the Quest for Perfection
Chapter 1, Spiritual Alchemy