Learning the Science of the Soul 37
not only beautiful in appearance but also saintly in character, and as such
she did not like the man’s advances. The man, however, was insistent
because of his lustful desires, and therefore the girl requested him to wait
only seven days, and she set a time after that when he could meet her.
The man agreed, and with high expectations he began waiting for the
appointed time.

The saintly girl, however, in order to manifest the real beauty of ab-
solute truth, adopted a method very instructive. She took very strong
doses of laxatives and purgatives, and for seven days she continually
passed loose stool and vomited all that she ate. Moreover, she stored all
the loose stool and vomit in suitable pots. As a result of the purgatives,
the so-called beautiful girl became lean and thin like a skeleton, her com-
plexion turned blackish, and her beautiful eyes sank into the sockets of
her skull. Thus at the appointed hour she waited anxiously to receive the
eager man.

The man appeared on the scene well dressed and well behaved and
asked the ugly girl he found waiting there about the beautiful girl he was
to meet. The man could not recognize the girl he saw as the same
beautiful girl for whom he was asking; indeed, although she repeatedly
asserted her identity, because of her pitiable condition he was unable to
eexognize her.

At last the girl told the powerful man that she had separated the ingre-
Gents of her beauty and stored them in pots. She also told him that he :
qapuld enjoy those juices of beauty. When the mundane poetic man asked
a see these juices of beauty, he was directed to the store of loose stool
and liquid vomit, which were emanating an unbearably bad smell. Thus
the whole story of the beauty-liquid was disclosed to him. Finally, by the
gsace of the saintly girl, this man of low character was able to distinguish
@etween the shadow and the substance, and thus he came to his senses.

This man’s position was similar to the position of every one of us who
SS attracted by false, material beauty. The girl mentioned above had a
beautifully developed material body in accordance with the desires of her
gad, but in fact she was apart from that temporary material body and
mand. She was in fact a spiritual spark, and so also was the lover who was
aturacted by her false skin.

Mundane intellectuals and aesthetics, however, are deluded by the
@atward beauty and attraction of the relative truth and are unaware of the
ggaritual spark, which is both truth and beauty at the same time. The
gpiritual spark is so beautiful that when it leaves the so-called beautiful
Body, which in fact is full of stool and vomit, no one wants to touch that
