A Little About Chastity - (2707)

Post Revised: 12/02/2024

Introduction

Here are some notes taken from a lecture (J.C) given on the last day of a retreat held in Sydney. 

Please note, chastity here does not have the usual meaning of refraining from the sexual act.

Chastity

Chastity is a quality of the essence, this we are all quite aware of. However, what does it do in us, how does it function within us? 

We know it is very related to transform­ation. It is also related to the hermetic seal and it is also related to the inward and upward offering of our life to our inner Being.

It is a most fundamental quality of our essence. I once heard a missionary say that chastity can be compared to the roots of a tree. Where if the roots are diseased the trunk and the branches will suffer and eventually wither and die. Through chastity our whole tree of life receives nourishment.

Middle Way

Chastity is so much more than abstaining with great efforts of will from falling into sexual temptation.

It is actually the middle way in relation to sex. It is to use sex so to dignify and enhance our inner Divinity. It is not abstaining from sex.

It not only is present in the area of sex, it is present in every area of life where our energies are concerned.

It is to be very aware of our energies so as to not waste them, but instead, use them for conscious purposes and this includes spiritual development.

We not only lose sexual energy sexually, but through excessive thinking and inferior emotions.

Speaking too much and revealing too much, is also a form of breaking with chastity, where we break certain laws of silence and hermeticism. Which in turn hinder our inner develop and cause problems outside of us. There does exist the virtue of being chaste with the word.

We can not conceive chastity without the transformation of impressions and desires.

In chastity, the main means of trans­forming desires is by transmutation and self-remembering.

Both transmutation and self-remembering have the same orientation of our attention, values and energies. Which is inward and upward.

End (2707).