There are all kinds of ways to avoid the natural environment. To act like you aren't part of the earth. But even so, you can't escape it: we are all, still, just mud and clouds.
This time of year, when winter is disappearing and spring is stepping forth, often feels unstable. ,One hour, you're slipping on half melted dirty ice and getting honked at by some woman in a grungy car, and the next you're marveling at the beauty of the first opened flower, the miracle of breathing, just being alive together.
Some of the plants in my apartment window have suddenly started sprouting little clones of themselves. Tiny sage bushes, strands of mint, leaves of lemon balm. A few others have sections which have suddenly dried up, as if the life that was there was borrowed to make the new life in a neighboring pot.
Seasonal transitions aren't given their due in modern culture. We wake up with a cold, and shrug it off or complain about it. We feel a new calling or interest, and fail to connect it to the ways the Earth is shifting.
The fleeting, ever shifting nature of life is more apparent right now. And whether you choose to honor it or not, the sometimes dramatic nature of change is never too far away. Step on the wrong sheet of ice and you're gonna fall through. Overturn a loose stone and find the ground below has been colonized by weeds.
We are the seasons and the seasons are us. As spring unfolds all around you, pause and remember. Taste the sun that stands higher in the sky now, bringing forth new life.
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"The question of will, of one's own will and of another man's will, is much more complicated than it seems at the first glance. A man has not sufficient will to do, that is, to control himself and all his actions, but he has sufficient will to obey another person. And only in this way can he escape from the law of accident. There is no other way.
"I mentioned before about fate and accident in man's life. We will now take the meaning of these words in more detail. Fate also exists but not for everyone. Most people are separated from their fate and live under the law of accident only. Fate is the result of planetary influences which correspond to a man's type. We will speak about types later. In the meantime you must grasp one thing. A man can have the fate which corresponds to his type but he practically never does have it. This arises because fate has relation to only one part of man, namely to his essence.
"It must be understood that man consists of two parts: essence and personality. Essence in man is what is his own. Personality in man is what is 'not his own.' 'Not his own' means what has come from outside, what he has learned, or reflects, all traces of exterior impressions left in the memory and in the sensations, all words and movements that have been learned, all feelings created by imitation—all this is 'not his own,' all this is personality.
"From the point of view of ordinary psychology the division of man into personality and essence is hardly comprehensible. It is more exact to say that such a division does not exist in psychology at all.
"What then is the deduction; should it be so or should it be changed?" asked someone.
G. smiled.
"That is something people always ask," he said. "Whatever they may be speaking about, they ask: Ought it to be like that and how can it be changed, that is, what ought to be done in such a case? As though it were possible to change anything, as though it were possible to do anything. You at least ought to have realized by now how naive such questions are. Cosmic forces have created this state of affairs and cosmic forces control this state of affairs. And you ask: Can it be left like that or should it be changed! God himself could change nothing. Do you remember what was said about the forty-eight laws? They cannot be changed, but liberation from a considerable portion of them is possible, that is to say, there is a possibility of changing the state of affairs for oneself, it is possible to escape from the general law. You should understand that in this case as well as in all others the general law cannot be changed. But one can change one's own position in relation to this law; one can escape from the general law. The more so since in this law about which I speak, that is, in the power of sex over people, are included many different possibilities. It includes the chief form of slavery and it is also the chief possibility of liberation. This is what you must understand.
" 'New birth,' of which we have spoken before, depends as much upon sex energy as do physical birth and the propagation of species.
"Speaking in general, there are only two correct ways of expending sexual energy— normal sexual life and transmutation. All inventions in this sphere are very dangerous.
"People have tried abstinence from times beyond memory. Sometimes, very rarely, it has led to something but in most cases what is called abstinence is simply exchanging normal sensations for abnormal, because the abnormal are more easily hidden. But it is not about this that I wish to speak. You must understand where lies the chief evil and what makes for slavery. It is not in sex itself but in the abuse of sex. But what the abuse of sex means is again misunderstood. People usually take this to be either excess or perversion. But these are comparatively innocent forms of abuse of sex. And it is necessary to know the human machine very well in order to grasp what abuse of sex in the real meaning of these words is. It means the wrong work of centers in relation to sex, that is, the action of the sex center through other centers, and the action of other centers through the sex center; or, to be still more precise, the functioning of the sex center with energy borrowed from other centers and the functioning of other centers with energy borrowed from the sex center."
"If essence is subject to the influence of fate, does it mean that compared with accident, fate is always favorable to a man?" asked somebody present. "And can fate bring a man to the work?"
"No, it does not mean this at all," G. answered him. "Fate is better than accident only in the sense that it is possible to take it into account, it is possible to know it beforehand; it is possible to prepare for what is ahead. In regard to accident one can know nothing. But fate can be also unpleasant or difficult. In this event, however, there are means for isolating oneself from one's fate. The first step towards this consists in getting away from general laws. Just as there is individual accident, so is there general or collective accident. And in the same way as there is individual fate, there is a general or collective fate. Collective accident and collective fate are governed by general laws. If a man wishes to create individuality of his own he must first free himself from general laws. General laws are by no means all obligatory for man; he can free himself from many of them if he frees himself from 'buffers' and from imagination. All this is connected with liberation from personality. Personality feeds on imagination and falsehood. If the falsehood in which man lives is decreased and imagination is decreased, personality very soon weakens and a man begins to be controlled either by fate or by a line of work which is in its turn controlled by another man's will; this will lead him until a will of his own has been formed, capable of withstanding both accident and, when necessary, fate."
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