and understanding of life's finer forces can only come when one holds his whole being subject to the discipline of higher laws.
There are those who long to possess the very last gifts that life can hand them, yet want to gain them without self-conquest or comradeship with the things which are a part of the larger gain. They want fame, power, strength, wealth, love;–great recognition without the needed spiritual exertion to win it.
There are many who never set any kind of test for themselves. They are weaklings in body, mind and soul. When asked to give up anything,–from a doughnut to a dollar,–they whine, and sulk, and are perpetually sorry for themselves.
"What shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" was the question of the old seer. The new seer says "What shall a man give in exchange for his soul's desire?" The answer is,—"Every thing that will fulfill the law of that desire." And there are seven planes of consciousness on which he has to make the exchange and fulfill the law.
Throughout all time the short cut for exchange has been fasting and celibacy. Whenever the ordinary race man wanted anything more than his own human indulgences, and was willing to put up the proofs by fulfilling the higher law of discipline, he made himself through self control—a magnet attracting to him, from out the Infinite Supply, the things he desired.
