Letter 16:
TOWER OF DESTRUCTION

"...if the Fall is similarly understood as having taken place on this [terrestrial] plane, innate human evil cannot be understood otherwise than as biologically hereditary, i.e. that it is the flesh which bears it and transmits the seed of evil from generation to generation. Then it is the flesh which is the enemy of the soul and against which one has to struggle. Hence one "disciplines" it by flagellation, one weakens it by depriving it of food and sleep, and one scorns it and mistreats it in many ways -- one is ashamed of one's body.

However, it is the body which, rightly, has more reason to be ashamed of the soul inhabiting it, than the latter of the body. For the body is a miracle of wisdom, harmony and stability, which does not merit scorn but rather the admiration of the soul. For example, can the soul boast of moral principles as stable as the body's skeleton? Is it as indefatigable and as faithful in its sentiments as, for example, the heart, which beats day and night? Does it possess a wisdom comparable to that of the body, which knows how to harmonize such opposing things as water and fire, air and solid matter? Whilst the soul is torn by opposing desires and feelings, this "contemptible" body knows how to unite opposing elements and make them collaborate: the air that it breaths, the solid matter of food, the water that it drinks, and the fire (warmth) that it produces unceasingly within it… And if this does not suffice to change scorn into respect, admiration and gratitude, then one can recall, if one is a Christian, that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, inhabited this flesh and that he honored it to the point of uniting himself with it in the Incarnation Similarly, if one is a Buddhist or Brahmanist, one should not forget that Buddha and Krishna, also, inhabited this flesh and that it served them well in the accomplishing of their respective missions." --VT

"Young Jesus"
stoneware  height 10"