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Reading for Sunday, February 21, 2010
Healing Papers
Volume 2, Number 2, Lesson 4
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The Source of Bodily Desires
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The source of our bodily desires is one: the breath. When the breath leaves the body all desires leave it also; and as the breath changes its elements, and the elements — earth, water, fire, air, and ether — predominate in the breath by turns, this being caused by the different grades of activity in the breath, so the desires change. Therefore in a certain climate one feels hungry, and in certain weather one feels thirsty, because the influence of weather on the breath kindles in the breath more of a certain element.
The constitution of a person has a great deal to do with his or her bodily desires. Naturally a healthy person is often hungry and thirsty; and the unhealthy person, under the garb of piety, may say, “How material he is!”
All bodily desires show in the physiognomy of a person; and there is no desire without the influence of a particular element behind it. Besides, everybody has a certain element predominant in their physical being, and other elements in a greater or lesser degree. Upon this each person’s habits and desires depend.
The following elements and desires correspond:
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ELEMENTS IN THE BREATH
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DESIRES
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Earth
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Motion
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Water
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Urination
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Fire
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Thirst
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Air
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Appetite
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Ether
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Passion
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There is always a possibility of confusing desire with avidity, which is not a bodily desire, but the desire of mind that has experienced its joy through the bodily desire. Even in the absence of the bodily desire, the mind demands and forces the body to desire. In this aspect every bodily desire is out of place and undesirable, and enslaves one.
The soul, during the satisfaction of every bodily desire, descends to earth from above. That is what the myth of Adam and Eve explains, when they were driven out from the heavens and sent down to earth. This tells the seer that heaven is the plane where the soul dwells freely in its own essence and is self-sufficient, and that the earth is the plane where the soul experiences the passing joys through the satisfaction of bodily desires depending upon external objects.
The soul becomes captive in this physical body, which is subject to death and decay, and forgets the freedom and peace of its original above. That is why at times Sufis experience the satisfaction of desires, and at times abstain by the power of will, to allow the soul to experience its original joy, being in its own essence, independent of mind and body. By doing so the soul knows its first and last dwelling place, and it uses the body, its earthly abode, to experience life on earth. It is as undesirable, according to the Sufi’s point of view, to kill the bodily desires by absolute or partial renunciation, as to over-indulge them and enslave one’s life to them. The Sufi means to possess the desires, not to be possessed by them.
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