Why is fire so beautiful?

“You have all watched a wood fire blazing in a hearth, but have you ever wondered exactly what happens to make all those dead, dark, twisted logs and branches so bright and beautiful? Isn’t it miraculous to see something that was so black being transformed into something so luminous? But you can do the same: whether you are at home in front of your own fireplace, or here, gathered round the Michaelmas fire at the Bonfin, you can use your imagination to burn your own dead branches- that is, all the instinctive tendencies of your animal nature. All that useless dead wood- into the fire with it! Fire is capable of converting everything into heat and light, and it is you who stand to gain; otherwise, what use would all those dead branches be to you? They can give you neither warmth not light because you lack the power to transform them. Give them to the fire, and it will give them back to you in the form of light and heat.”

Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov”  A New Earth

The extracts for this post are taken from lectures the master gave us at the Bonfin, Frejus, France, at the time of the Michalmas festival. After dark, the whole community gathered around a big fire, with the master, to sing and pray together.

Physical fire, according to the master, is symbolic of the fire of divine love- the spiritual, subtle love which is an expression of our higher self., our other half, so to speak.  This love allows us to reshape our old self in accordance with our  highest aspirations -like a blacksmith forging iron:

Just as physical fire has the power to make iron sufficiently pliant and tractable to be given a new form, so the heavenly fire of divine love has the power to plunge man into a state in which he sloughs off his warped, crooked form and receives a new, bright, harmonious one.

So, in order to change all your old ideas and habits and transform your character, and even your heredity, you must call on heavenly fire. You must beg it to come into you, to envelop and enflame your heart and your whole being. Do not rely on explanations from other people or from books: they can do nothing for you if you are not alight with the blazing fire that makes you as alive as the sun. For the sun is living fire, and it is by going to see the sun rise every morning that we renew our contact with this fire from heaven. If you forge a close bond with the sun, if, wholeheartedly and with all the powers of your intelligence, you let the sun set you on fire, flames will begin to rise from you and enfold you in their burning heat.  

The Splendours of Tipharet