What is the animal, and what is the spiritual?
- Animal-man is the normal mode. It is politically correct, socially approved, and herd-minded. It includes: love-and-hugs, commercial gratification, mummy's cooking, fitting-in, and false modesty. It involves never individually assuming a position of authority unless others endorse and elect you to such. Animal-man has the security of limitations, such as a career, a specialty, a job, a social position, a school or tradition or cultural brand to belong to. It is safe within its little boundary, safe in itself, and safe to other animal-humans. It is the man you can touch, and feel out, who lends himself to your labels, and submits happily to a relationship to you, with his empty hands raised in surrender in the air.
- Spirit-man is the abnormal mode. Precisely because it is intangible, it seems inhuman, remote, hateful, judgmental, emotionless, and self-obsessed or at least strongly individualistic. The spirit-man possesses nothing, stalks no boundaries, supports no tradition, and gives you nothing. He is invisible - like one who is not there at all.
The way of disgust is the animal, and it can very easily lend itself to fall back into the herd. Let me explain how this happens.
The animal wants security and safety in the herd. It wants to be accepted, approved-of, protected by consensus-based, anonymous social sanctioning. Even if the animal has some concept of spirit, he lacks faith in it. Though he may intuit that the spirit is the higher, the more valuable, the truer, and the good, yet his attachment to the power of boundaries generates a great fear of the mindless animal. He fears its reckless, destructive, thoughtless impulses; this the timid animal-human, with some spirit, fears. He fears because he is still an animal; he still has what can be taken away. His faith in egotism creates the fear of being attacked by animal-humanity. He longs for the smile and the implicit sanctioning of a woman. He will joke around with girls and laugh. He will socialise with groups, feeling the warmth and power of the mob's congregative force. Not only is he enchanted by the childish and coyish playfulness of a young woman, but a great part of him longs to emulate that frivolity, so as to escape the dangerous position of social outcast, on whom the masses will not hesitate to pour unceasing streams of contempt, like the greatest and longest tsunami. So many animals with a small concept of spirit often couple up: then, coupled to a woman, whose animality is greater than his own, his envisioned sanctuary of freedom and joy has now become his nightmare. His animality is encouraged and grows, until he has lost himself in the rude, crude rabble. He no longer has the capacity to appreciate spirit. Now he has joined the ranks of those who attack and hate spirit; he is one of those who benefits and pleasures from the sacrifices of the spirit-man. He cannot sacrifice himself, but sacrifices others for his own pleasure.
So the way of the spirit is something other than this. It is the way of sacrifice and martyrdom.
- The spirit-man has learnt to grow out of this need for social safety. How has he done so?
- He has learnt to judge uncompromisingly, not fearing repercussions. How has he done so?
- The spirit-man doesn't bother reciprocating emotions, yet is free of bitterness or disgust. How has he achieved this?
- He offends without exception, and is friendless, yet is not lonely. What did he learn, to arrive at that point?
- He has great spirit, and no worries. How did it happen?
- He has not suppressed any emotions, or selfishly imposed his views on others, like an autist or psychopath.
How has he freed himself from care, yet not come within a hair's breadth of psychopathy?
Again, the conflict between spirit and animal is so essential for the development of spirit. The sacrifice of oneself to the animal-man is the way it happens. I will explain it.
Being exposed to the animal, being attacked, slandered, accused of all manner of imaginary and hateful misdeeds, not only teaches one about the irrationality of the animal mind, but it gives one an immensely beneficial opportunity to shave off any attraction to those behaviours, and to the mindstates that create them. It teaches one to let go of the animal in oneself, not out of disgust or fear (for that is still animal). The lesson is subtle.
One feels a subtle regret here. Does it not seem like the animal-man is exploited, a hapless victim? One might regret, for the animal-man's sake, that they are necessary to the development of the spirit-man, but one never has encouraged them to behave like that. It happens by their own choice. Their mindless emotional reaction happens because of their own lack of personal responsibility. But one's sadness and regret for their sake, that their suffering and confusion is a vital ingredient to one's own spiritual growth, is another part of the lesson. For, it indicates that one has joined a different family, and that one longs for them to grow up and be alone with Nature. Instead of submitting to the herd's safety, one's sadness means one is happy to be sacrificed for them, and that their being exploited by Nature as a tool for learning, is a gift to aid one's sacrifice - and in a way, an indirect sacrifice on their part for others. One can thank Nature for it anyway, for giving one (and everyone who thereafter profits by their folly) the chance to learn to let go of all traces of bonding instinct, fitting-in, tolerant submissiveness, fear of judgment, and other reckless, ill-forereckoning impulses of the herd-minded.
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