In one of his books Chuang Tzu wrote a chapter called `Perfection. It reads as follows:
‘My master Li Tzu said to Yin, the frontier guard, `A perfect man moves under water without hindrance; he treads on fire without being burned and walks high above the ground without fear. May I ask you how he is able to attain such things?’
Yin, the guard, answered, ‘It is by keeping the perfect breath; it cannot be attributed to skill or daring. Come, sit down, and I will explain.
Whatever has form, sound and colour is a thing. How else could one thing differ from another? But none of those things can equal that which was before any of them. They are merely objects of sense. But the perfect is beyond form and beyond susceptibility to change. When a man attains to the perfect and continues therein, right to the utmost limit, how could any other thing oppose or hinder him? He would be able to occupy the place assigned to him without ever leaving it, and he would remain hidden in trackless time. Rejoicing, he would observe the activity that imparts to all things their beginning and their end.
By restoring his nature to unity, nourishing his vital energy and concentrating his essence, he will penetrate to the origin of things. In that state, in which his heavenly nature is contained completely within itself and his spirit is undivided, how could anything else penetrate?
Take the case of a drunken man who falls off a wagon. Though he may be injured, it will not be fatal. His bones and joints are the same as those of other men, but the in-jury he suffers is different, because his mind is undivided. He has no memory of boarding the wagon, nor of falling off. Thoughts of death or life, of terror or fear, do not enter his mind. Hence he faces danger without shrinking from it. He is capable of being in this state because he is completely under the influence of liquor. How much more intense this state would be if he were under the in-fluence of his heavenly nature! The sage abides in his heavenly nature, and that is why nothing can harm him:
Every sincere pupil of the modern Spiritual School is striving for perfection, for sanctification. He is striving to rise above the barren regions of death and ascend into the new life, having sacrificed everything that belongs to the nature of death.
Those who walk this path of sanctification are freed from anxiety, worry and fear, and the nature-aeons lose their hold on them. They walk in the light as He is in the light, and rise above the nature of death. How is this state attained? By keeping the perfect breath, the perfect breath of the Gnosis!
People who have been influenced by occult movements, or have practised eurhythmy, for instance, may think they understand these words. But such practices do not give access to the ‘new life’ in the sense meant by the Spiritual School. When Yin, the border guard, talked about ‘keeping the perfect breath, he was certainly not referring to mere breathing techniques.
Only by following the path of the rose can one be linked with the breath of life, with the astral forces of the Gnosis. Via the rose of the heart, the sternum is made receptive to the new respiration and, in time, the brain’s magnetic system will also begin to respire in the nature of eternal life. This process of change unfolds gradually, systematically and harmoniously. A person to whom it has been granted to live out of the divine breath knows that this is not achieved by the practice of exercises or techniques, and neither is it the result of courage or endurance.
Chuang Tzu gives us the following explanation: everything in this nature has form, sound and colour; it is a nature of forms in every shape and variety; it is the nature of space and time, in which every manifested thing is `separate, even when it is ‘the same’. No two creatures of space and time can be exactly the same. Even if two creatures replicate each other exactly, they are nevertheless separate from each other; they remain isolated, autonomous, and thus absolutely strange to one another. They are only objects of sense; they are phenomena, things.
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When the human being has followed the path of return to the new life right to the end, he is perfect, and in that final phase there is not one part of him that is not totally beyond form and change, beyond all the aspects and phenomena of the order of time and space. It is not possible to form any image of such an existence, even though it is an actual state of being. Neither should we think of any kind of glorified form, for the new human being in his absolute state is an entity beyond form. Being unbounded, he exists in the illimitable.
Those who begin to inhale the perfect breath of life enter a process of growth that will lead them from the dialectical `something’ to the divine `nothing. Once engaged in that process, they become increasingly free of the limitations and phenomena of the form-world of time and space until, in the end, nothing can withstand them any longer. They will be able to occupy the place assigned to them without ever leaving it. Free of matter, free of the reflection-sphere, free of every dialectical sense-object, and yet an `I am’, they will remain hidden in trackless time.
By following the path of the rose and inhaling the per-fect breath, the human being’s original relationship with the Gnosis is gradually restored. So if a person is following the path of the rose, how could any other thing trouble him?
If you find this explanation too abstract, think of some-one who is befuddled and benumbed by liquor. Thoughts of death or life, terror or fear, do not enter his mind. He
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is without any fear, and even the worst things do not hurt him, because his consciousness has been clouded or driven right out by the alcohol he has consumed.
The candidate for the new life opens his gates to the light and power of the Gnosis, and over him comes the breath of life. And then he is so absorbed by it that he not only rises above all affliction, anxiety, worry, fear and limitation, but they also lose all power to harm him. He enters the peace of the soul.
May this sublime wisdom of 2500 years ago strengthen you in your resolve to walk the path that leads to life. He who walks the path is set free, for all eternity, in the hidden realms of trackless time.