Joan Marie wrote: ↑11 Jul 2019, 10:37
Neglect the fire and it roasts like the bonfires of hell; heed it, and it nourishes like the light of heaven.
We are all familiar with the positive changes that fire, or heat, brings to food when we are preparing a meal. If we let the fire go out the meal will never be ready; too much heat and the food gets burned. That's basically what "neglecting" the fire does in the spiritual life. "Heeding" the fire means getting the balance just right to achieve maximum deliciousness.
In our spiritual life we need a constant steady supply of enthusiasm or aspiration. Not too little, not too much. No indifference, no forcing. The Buddhist middle way is advocated. That's what alchemists mean by "heeding" the inner fire. If we lack that kind of "fire" we are spiritually dead, and "it roasts like the fires of hell". We tend to think that NOT to have a spiritual life is a pleasantly bland feeling but, compared to higher spiritual states, that very familiar "pleasantly bland feeling" is actually hellish. Our mind might not feel that anything out of the ordinary is happening but our souls are in torment, not happy.
We could also think of "fire" in the above quote as being equivalent to kundalini energy in meditation. At some point in our spiritual development this force awakens at the base of the spine and travels upwards through the 7 chakras, opening each in turn, bringing each time a fresh expansion of awareness, until it reaches the 7th or Crown chakra, at which point we achieve nirvana or God-realisation or, in alchemical terms, the Philosophers' Stone.
This kundalini fire is an activating force in the same way that the furnace, or athanor, brings about changes to the materials in an alchemist's laboratory. In alchemy proper the alchemist's own consciousness becomes co-identified with the changing materials. It's a spiritual metaphor but it's also literally true, apparently, at a physical or biochemical level. But that shouldn't strike us as strange. Doesn't Christ himself represent alchemical gold - metaphysical perfection made physical. The meeting place of timelessness and historical time. "As above, so below."
The suit of Wands, or Fire, is often associated with sexuality, or what Freud called the libido. Tantric yoga is itself a spiritual path that focuses mostly on the "heeding" of sexual fire, allowing the energy to build and become sublimated, i.e. to move to higher chakras so as to act as a catalyst for inner development. It's a pretty dangerous path, suitable only for brave strong souls in a hurry to make fast progress.
Catholic priests who take a vow of celibacy and then end up abusing children seem to me like classic examples of "neglecting" the fire. Inspired by the very highest motives they are guilty of forcing themselves to carry more fire energy than they are capable of containing. In alchemical terms they apply too much heat and break the vessel. If you try to fiercely control, or repress, sexual energy it will "roast you in the fires of hell." Celibacy has to be approached very carefully. It should never be thought of as giving up something. Sex is, among other things, like a valve for regulating the amount of inner heat in our system. In our spiritual life we gradually develop a tolerance for more and more inner heat.
It's funny how rapidly a "simple" explanation of alchemical terms tends to degenerate into confusion.
