Eliphas Levi says:  “To be an object of attraction for all women, you must desire none;” and every one who has had a little experience of his own must know that he is right.  Woman wants what she cannot get, and what she can get she does not want.  Perhaps it is to the man endowed with spiritual power, that the Bible refers, when it says:  “To him who has much, more shall be given, and from him who has little, that little shall be taken away.”

To become perfect it is not required that we should be born without any animal desires.  Such a person would not be much above an idiot; he would be rightly despised and laughed at by every true man and woman; but we must obtain the power to control our desires, instead of being controlled by them; and here lies the true philosophy of temptation.

If a man has no higher aim in life than to eat and drink and propagate his species; if all his aspirations and desires are centred in a wish of living a happy life in the bosom of his family; there can be no wrong if he follows the dictates of his nature and is satisfied with his lot.  When he dies, his family will mourn, his friends will say he was a good fellow; they will give him a first-class funeral, and they will perhaps write on his tombstone something like what I once saw in a certain churchyard: 

     Here is the grave of John McBride,
     He lived, got married, and died.

And that will be the end of Mr. John McBride, until in another incarnation he will wake up again perhaps as Mr. John Smith, or Ramchandra Row, or Patrick O’Flannegan, to find himself on much the same level as he was before.

But if a man has higher aims and objects in life, if he wants to avoid an endless cycle of re-incarnations, if he wants to become a master of his destiny, then must he first become a master of himself.  How can he expect to be able to control the external forces of Nature, if he cannot control the few little natural forces that reside within his own insignificant body?

To do this, it is not necessary that a man should run away from his wife and family, and leave them uncared for.  Such a man would commence his spiritual career with an act of injustice,—­an act that like Banquo’s ghost would always haunt him and hinder him in his further progress.  If a man has taken upon himself responsibilities, he is bound to fulfill them, and an act of cowardice would be a bad beginning for a work that requires courage.

A celibate, who has no temptation and who has no one to care for but himself, has undoubtedly superior advantages for meditation and study.  Being away from all irritating influences, he can lead what may be called a selfish life; because he looks out only for his own spiritual interest; but he has little opportunity to develop his will-power by resisting temptations of every kind.  But the man who is surrounded by the latter, and is every day and every hour under the necessity of exercising his will-power to resist their surging violence, will, if he rightly uses these powers, become strong; he may not have as much opportunity for study as the celibate, being more engrossed in material cares; but when he rises up to a higher state in his next incarnation, his will-power will be more developed, and he will be in the possession of the password, which is continence.