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Home Preface 5 Planes of Existence Introduction Five Planes of Manifestation A to Z Contact Related Information BIBLE VERSES |
SACRIFICES, BURNTA symbol of the purifying (fire) buddhic process, by which the lower qualities are raised and transmuted to higher qualities. "I will come into thy house with burnt offerings, I will pay thee my vows, which my lips have uttered, and my mouth hath spoken, when I was in distress. I will offer unto thee burnt offerings of fatlings, with the incense of rams; I will offer bullocks with goats." — Ps. lxvi. 13–15. The lower self aspires through self-abnegation and purification to rise to the causal-body (house of God). Through fixed adherence to ideals, tested in times of trouble, the lower self seeks the Higher. The lower offers up to the Higher the affections, emotions, and desires, in order that it may progress. "For what do the sacrifices of those animals designate, except the death of the Only-Begotten? What do the sacrifices of those animals signify, except the extinction of our carnal life." — ST. GREGORY, Morals on the Book of Job, Vol. III. p. 296. "I, Fire, the Acceptor of sacrifices, ravishing away from them their darkness, give the light." — CATHERINE OF SIENA, Dialogo, 85. "Multitudes of people there are all about us, who thoroughly accept it as the great law and necessity of human life that there must be self-sacrifice. They see that the world would be a dreadful and intolerable place if every creature in it lived only for his own mere immediate indulgence. They own that the higher nature and the higher purpose everywhere have a right to the submission of the lower, and they freely accept the conviction that the lower must submit. There is the need that a man should sacrifice himself to himself, his lower self to his higher self, his passions to his principles. There is the need of sacrificing one's self for fellowmen. There is the highest need of all, the need of giving up our will to God's. . . . I have a right to give the less as a burnt offering to the greater." — PHIL. BROOKS, Serm., Joy of Self-sacrifice. |
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