Logos 242

The Supreme Lord says: “Just as smoke masks fire, just as dust covers the mirror and the womb envelops the embryo, various degrees of lust cover being”.

Three degrees of obscuration can veil the pure consciousness of being, and this obscuration is none other than concupiscence in its various forms. If we compare concupiscence to smoke, it is to indicate that the fire of the spiritual soul remains slightly perceptible, that the being still manifests, albeit attenuated, its consciousness of God, and it is then compared to the fire that the smoke veils. There is no smoke without fire, although at the beginning fire is sometimes invisible: it is the same at the beginning of the development of the consciousness of God. The dust on the mirror reminds us that the mirror of the mind must be purified by spiritual practices, the best being the chanting of the Holy Names of the Lord. And the embryo wrapped in the womb illustrates a hopeless condition, because the baby in his mother's womb is so helpless that he can't even move.

This stage of existence can be compared to the life of the tree. The tree is also a living being, but it displayed such lust that it took on a body almost entirely devoid of consciousness. The example of the mirror that the dust covers applies to birds and animals, that of fire and smoke to humans. The human form offers to be an opportunity to develop one's awareness of God; let him take advantage of it, and the human form will have served to rekindle in him the fire of spiritual life. By carefully handling the smoke, you can turn the fire into a blaze.

The human form therefore constitutes an opportunity for the being to free himself from the chains of material existence. It is the only one which allows him to overcome his enemy, concupiscence, by providing him with the possibility of developing the consciousness of God.

Logos 243

In truth, our death is programmed from our birth. It was already there when we were born. We die every moment, every second. So why are we so afraid of death?

In the end, it is inevitable. Maybe we die today, maybe a hundred years from now, but we cannot escape death. Death is nothing but the destruction of the material body and the forgetting of our last existence. As soon as the body ceases to function, and it mixes again with the five elements of material nature, the spiritual being takes