The Corruption Of Man

[QUOTING]

You must know, my brothers, that there is a dual nature: one pure, spiritual, immortal and indestructible; the other impure, material, mortal and destructible. The pure nature was before the impure. This latter originated solely through the disharmony and disproportion of substances which form destructible nature. Hence nothing is permanent until all disproportions and dissonances are eradicated, so that all that remains is harmony.

The incorrect conception regarding Spirit and Matter is one of the principle causes which prevent many verities of faith from shining their true lustre.

Spirit is a substance, an essence, an absolute reality. Hence, its properties are indestructibility, uniformity, penetration, indivisibility and continuity. Matter is not a substance, it is aggregate. Hence, it is destructible, divisible and subject to change.

The metaphysical world is one really existing, perfectly pure and indestructible, whose centre we call Christos, and whose inhabitants are known by the names of Angels and Spirits.

The physical world is that of phenomena, and it possesses no Absolute Truth. All that we call truth here is but relative, the shadow and phenomena only of truth.

Our reason here borrows all its ideas from the senses, hence they are lifeless and dead. We draw everything from external objectivity, and our reason is like an ape who imitates what nature shows him outwardly. Thus the light of the senses is the principle of our earthly reason, sensuality the motive for our will, tending therefore to animal wants and their satisfaction. It is true, however, that we feel higher motives imperative, but up to the present we do not know either where to seek or where to find.

In this world, everything is corruptible. It is useless to seek here for a pure principle of reason and morality or motive for the Will. This must be sought for in a more exalted world - there, where all is pure and indestructible, where there reigns a Being of All-Wisdom and All-Love. Thus, the world neither can nor will become happy until this Real Being can be received by humanity in full and become its "All in All".

Man, dear brothers, is composed of indestructible and metaphysical substance, as well as of material and destructible substance, but in such a manner that the indestructible and eternal is, as it were , the destructible matter.

Thus, the two contradictory natures are comprehended in the same man. The destructible substance enchains us to the sensible, the other seeks to deliver us from these chains, and to raise us to the Spiritual. Hence, the incessant combat (within and without) between good and evil.

The fundamental cause of human corruption is to be found in the corruptible matter from which man is formed. For this gross matter oppresses the action of the transcendental and spiritual principle, and is the true cause, hence, of the blindness of our understanding and the errors of our inclinations.

When we examine the causes of the obstacles keeping the natural man in such deep abasement, they are found in the grossness of the matter in which the spiritual part is, as it were, buried and bound.

The nerves and fluidity of the brain can only yield us rough and obscure notions derived from phenomena, and not from truth and the things themselves; and as we cannot, by the strength of our thinking powers alone, have sufficient balance to oppose representations strong enough to counteract the violence of external sensations, the result is that we are governed by our sensations, and the Voice of (pure) Reason which speaks internally is deafened by the tumultuous noise of the elements which keep our mechanism going. Reason, which should be an absolute legislator, is continually slave to Sensuality, which raises itself as regent and, governing the Reason that is drooping in chains, follows its own desires.

If man wishes to be led to the True in such manner that we can only act after the laws of Reason, and from the purified Will, it is absolutely necessary to constitute the Pure Reason sovereign in man. But how can this be done when the matter out of which many men are formed is more or less brutal, divisible, and corruptible? Hence, misery, illness, poverty, death, want, prejudices, errors, and vices, the necessary consequence of the limitation of the Immortal Spirit in the bonds of brute and corruptible matter. Sensuality is bound to rule if Reason be fettered.

Thus, the best man is exposed to error and passions; the best man is weak and sinful; the best man is not a free man, and, therefore exempt from pain and trouble; the best man is subject to sickness and death, and why? Because all these are natural inevitable consequences incidental to the qualities of the corrupt matter of which he is formed.

Therefore, there could be no hope of higher happiness for humanity so long as this corruptible and material forms the principal substantial part of his being.

The impossibility of mankind to transport itself, of itself, to true perfection, is a despairing thought, but at the same time, one full of Consolation because, in consequence of this radical impossibility, and because of it, a more exalted and perfected Being than man permitted Himself to to be clothed in this mortal and destructible envelope in order to make the mortal immortal, and the destructible indestructible; and in this object is to be sought the true reason for the Incarnation of Jesus, The Christ.

[END QUOTING]

Excerpted from "Letter IV" of  The Cloud Upon The Sanctuary - published 1802 - Karl von Eckartshausen

~ g
.