CHAPTER X. The Twelfth Letter. LAMED (). "O sing unto the Lord a new song; for he hath "As I live saith the Lord God, surely with a mighty "He produced Lamed (L) predominant in sexual Hieroglyphically the twelfth letter, Lamed, designates the outstretched arm of a man, or anything that can be stretched out and made rigid to exert strength and to accomplish some definite work. The strength manifested in the eleventh letter, or the hand that grasps,1 must ever depend upon the arm that stretches out the hand or the power that gives strength to the hand, also the invisible force or life back of that strength. Therefore the twelfth letter expresses the power of the exertion of strength and of the expansion caused by a definite inflow of the life-force necessary to accomplish an object. While the strong hand can grasp either good or evil, can be clenched to save or to punish, the arm must be extended and the life-force expand its muscles as it is elevated for either purpose, good or evil. The letter Lamed corresponds with the zodiacal sign Libra (the Balance), for only as we have learned to balance our life-forces and not permit them to sweep us off our feet can we use them for good, and determinedly stretch out the arm to grasp that which shall bring us victory over our lower 1 See also Gimel in The Key to the Universe, Curtiss, 126. animal nature. Again, it is the arm of the Divine Law (Karma) stretched out to hold the scales of justice so that they shall swing free, that the slightest breath of the Spirit of Life may sway them, lest like Belshazzar the strong hand shall write for us on the wall of our temple (physical body) "Thou art weighed in the balances and found wanting." It takes little thought to see why the ancient sages said this letter was "predominant in sexual desire," for is not this force one of the strongest factors affecting the balance of life? Hence this letter primarily symbolizes the equilibrium that must be attained through balancing the sex-forces, and the expansion of strength needed to accomplish this end. The main lesson of this planet is that the perfect balance of all that is expressed through sex must be gained ere we can attain equilibrium or the victory which the Great Law will bring to us. But we must ourselves reach for it with the holy arm or the positive power to accomplish and not negatively pray to some outside power to relieve us from its tests and responsibilities ere it is balanced. Only then can we sing the New Song. We need never expect to do away with sexual desire until we have gained the victory over it and used it for its highest ends according to the mandate of the Divine Law. So long as we adhere to the opinion that it is vile, unclean, and given to man by a capricious God as a stumbling block to test man's endurance and help him to create and people a hell for his own sufferings, so long must we suffer from it. To avoid this we must first balance our minds, set one thing against another and ask why a God of love should place man in the midst of His garden of life and say to him as a part of His blessing: "Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it," if it was not in very truth the great lesson whose solution would bring about the victory here outlined. In other words, to balance it we must see God's end of the scales and not fix our minds solely on man's end and say that it brings so much sin and misery that we will cut off this end, hoping thereby to attain a balance. If we do this the great hand of Karma will still hold out the unbalanced scales and the fury resulting from man's own acts, with which he has filled and unbalanced the scales, will be poured out upon him. If an electric wire be carefully connected it brings even a high current of electricity safely to the lamp at the other end and sheds its blessing of light and warmth around. But if the wire be broken so it hangs down and touches the earth, it flashes, sputters and spreads desolation and death. So is it with the scales of which we are speaking. Indeed, to cut off man's end is even worse for humanity than to make a mistaken use of it. There is a difference between balance and equilibrium. A balance has two opposite ends which must be poised and equal to each other. Equilibrium is the balance produced by the counteraction of two or more forces, equilibrium being the central point-in this case where the One Life is ever manifesting through the two, God's end and man's end. Thus the letter Lamed is associated with sexual desire because the One Life which manifests through man is the force back of all evolution, and without this pushing force neither the stretched out arm nor the strong, virile hand would be effective; nor in nature could a seed grow, a plant produce, nor a blade of grass push through the sod. Therefore the preeminent significance expressed by Lamed is the power of the life-force to produce manifestation. Another meaning of Lamed is that of an ox-goad. Very little thought is needed to correlate this meaning with the one given above, for it is the creative power of the One Life that ever goads on our ox-like physical consciousness. Also in the ox-goad the idea of something with which to beat or chastise the ox is expressed, and the ox-symbol of our animal nature needs this to compel it to complete its labor or to use the abundance of its life-force and energy in creative and useful work for man. Indeed, in England the word lamm is still used to signify a severe beating, our slang term a |