may enjoy the greater.

In "Seraphita" Balzac expressed what may be termed spiritual love and that
spiritual union with the Beloved, which the Sufis believed to be the result
of a perfect and complete "mating," between the sexes, on the spiritual
plane, regardless of physical proximity or recognition, but which is also
elsewhere described as the soul's glimpse of its union with the Absolute or
God.

The former view is individual, while the latter is impersonal, and may, or
may not, involve absorption of individual consciousness.

In subsequent chapters we shall again refer to Balzac's Illumination as
expressed in his writings, and will now take up the question of man's
relation to the universe, as it appears in the light of cosmic
consciousness, or liberation.




CHAPTER II

MAN'S RELATION TO GOD AND TO HIS FELLOW-MEN


The riddle of the Sphinx is no riddle at all. The strange figure, the lower
part animal; the upper part human; and the sprouting wings epitomize the
growth and development of man from the animal, or physical (carnal),
consciousness to the soul consciousness, represented by woman's head and
breast, to the supra-conscious, winged god.