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Saturday, August 4, 2018

Re: Spiritual Alchemy

“... infinitely higher transmutation, that of the soul itself; the cornerstone of this transmutation is, purely and simply, spiritual alchemy. This mystic process consists in one transmuting one’s faults by means of the crucible of life, urged on by the divine fire that burns within us. We are all imperfect, however the ultimate goal of our evolution is to attain that state of perfection which Rosicrucians call the “Rose-Croix state.” This state can only come about, though, when we have purified our personality of its negative shortcomings; this entails awakening the virtues of the divine soul which is within us and which is seeking only to express its capacity
for wisdom. But such a goal cannot be attained in one single lifetime, therefore we have to reincarnate for as long as we are imperfect.
To the extent that one has not awakened the virtues of one’s divine soul, one manifests certain faults such as pride, selfishness, jealousy, intolerance, and so on. In return these same faults are detrimental to the person, for they generate negative karma that is expressed as trials of varying degrees in one’s life. We therefore have at least two good reasons for perfecting ourselves: first, it is part of the process of evolution from which we cannot withdraw, whose ultimate goal is to attain perfection, such as we can demonstrate it as human beings; second, it allows us to “think” our behavior into being positive, and create positive karma for ourselves, which is expressed in our lives as joy in various forms, and is conducive to the happiness we are seeking. Surely what we ultimately want, after all, is to have as happy an existence as possible and to gain mastery of life.
There are several stages required to reach the sought-after goal in spiritual alchemy, just as with material alchemy. The first consists in accepting the idea that we are imperfect and have faults to correct. When I say “accept,” this means our own view as much as that of others. This involves both looking at ourselves as we are, in the mirror of our soul, and also paying attention to the image of ourselves that others send back to us. If we do not do this, we end up becoming blind to our real personality and give even more power to our faults, to the point where they generate negative conduct on our part and give rise to corresponding karmic tests...”

https://31627ead4b8ef9965311-27c3e342e6b4b32f94c1796f94eaeaa1.ssl.cf5.rackcdn.com/Spiritual%20Alchemy%20-%20Christian%20Bernard.pdf