20 december – The only way to master your instinctive impulses is to have a love for a high ideal. And what is a high ideal? It is a longing for beauty, the spiritual beauty that is purity, light and harmony. When you contemplate this beauty, you naturally and spontaneously turn away from all that is unhealthy, dark and chaotic. Your love of beauty is a protection; it is like a garment that you want to keep clean.
What do you do when you are wearing beautiful clothes that you particularly like? You do not engage in activities in which you would run the risk of tearing or soiling them. You instinctively pay attention to your gestures and look where you sit. Well, in the same way, if you make up your mind to develop your taste for the world of beauty and try to draw closer to it, you will feel as though a subtle garment were gradually being woven around you, and in wanting to protect it, you will be protecting yourself.
Omraam Mikhaël Aïvanhov