Man, living entirely in his physical nature, goes on and on in the
gratification of the senses until he becomes satiated, and "blasé," and
there is nothing satisfactory left for him upon the sensuous plane.
Then he either crystallizes into a hard, selfish being, or plunges
still deeper into the slough of sensuality from which Divine Love alone
can rescue him. This power is most often manifested by woman, the
natural law-giver and redeemer. For ages man has projected his selfish
human will into all the affairs of life, thus setting aside the higher
law. In the love relations he has specially dominated woman, reversing
the divine order of nature, and thus killing out all possible
inspiration, and consequent happiness. Everywhere he has set up his
own lustful desires as the rule and right of life in his relationship
to woman, destroying the spiritual sacrament of marriage; and by his
selfishness and greed of power, he has reduced her to a condition of
prostitution. He outrages the helpless ones who have confided their
honor, and their lives to his keeping, and the law--the vile, cursed,
man-made law--upholds him in this slaughter of all that should make his
heaven of trusting love. The wails of the wronged ones--specially
those who suffer in the marriage relation--go up incessantly to God,
and the woe of the children who, through these conditions, have
inherited only animal love and instinct is enough to drown the "music
of the spheres."
Parenthood being one phase of unfoldment, each individual must at some
period of incarnation exercise this important function. To the uses of
reproduction, the animal love with its blustering activities of
expression, is, rightly understood, adjusted. But above and beyond
this is the spiritual union which brings forth children of the mind,
the fruitage of the soul, manifest in noble thoughts and brave deeds.
Every expression of love, however crude and animal, is an impulsion of
the flesh-enveloped soul toward the source of all love, and however
distasteful one may seem, to such as have evolved a spiritual
consciousness, and the demand for soul satisfaction, it cannot be
ignored.
Through the pain of satiety, of disease, or suspended activity of the
love nature, the ego at last senses its need of God. It comes to know
that nothing less than divine love can ever satisfy this demand of the
heart. The constant tendency of the inspired human being is to
extremes. The "golden mean" is the "high water mark" of real
cultivation. We have on one side the suppression of the ascetic, and
at the other end of the line the abandonment of the debauchee--both
sinful and false because extreme, both casting a reproach upon the laws
of God as outworked in, and through nature. The ascetic, seeing the
harmful results to the soul attending the usual unlimited, and
undisciplined expression of nature which man accords to his supposed
necessities, draws the line by cutting off all surplus of physical
supplies and, stifling the cries of passion, retires into a cave or
cell, and into himself, thus totally ignoring all the necessary
activities attending the development of this planet and of the human
race. He may thus reach a high altitude of purely spiritual
perception; but it is, after all, a sublimated selfishness. His
example is of no benefit to the world's workers. He is not of those
who think and feel, and who are in the way of divulging esoteric
knowledges to the quest of the vast army of earnest seekers after light
upon these underlying laws of human life.
For the control by man of the love, and the life of woman there is a
cut-and-dried sentiment and an enforced law concerning the segregated
exercise of a natural function. By her acceptance, or rejection of
this onesided "morale," is woman judged pure or impure, blessed or
cursed, as the case may be. If this rule could be enforced equally
upon both sexes, if there were not two distinct sets of moral laws, one
for man, and quite another for woman, there would be no such injustice.
As it is, there is but one way left open for woman. She must develop
the power and will to be a law unto herself, regardless of the
suspicion, and brutality of man, and with this also indifference to the
foolness and the weak protest of her fellow slaves--women. These are
"long, long thoughts." Ages must elapse ere the males of our kind will
have evoluted up to a status where they will see that through justice
to woman alone can they secure to themselves any degree of worthy, or
lasting happiness, or satisfaction.