Daily Meditation: Thursday, January 13, 2005

‘It is easier for a camel…’ - commentary

01/13/2005

Jesus said: ‘It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.’ Although seemingly exaggerated, this comparison corresponds to a psychic reality. It is not the physical body of the rich man that is enormous and keeps him outside the gates of heaven, but his astral body, his body of desires. The astral body is insatiable by nature, and in their attempt to satisfy it, the rich seek to accumulate more and more possessions. As for the camel, because of its way of life it has become the symbol of sobriety, of the ability to control one’s appetites. In the human being, appetites can take a variety of forms: ambition, power, sensuality, and so on. Jesus takes the rich man as a symbol of those who attempt to satisfy all the desires inspired by their astral body. It is the astral body which obstructs the door to the Kingdom of God, where only those who have learned sobriety, selflessness and sacrifice are welcomed.