B806 <=> B808 [BTG XXXIX The holy planet “Purgatory,” p. 807]

“However hard these same beings of your planet who were first interested in this question strove to get clear about this, they arrived at nothing, and it was only the second generation of them who ultimately, after long conscious observations and intensive active mentations, categorically understood that this was indeed possible, exclusive only on condition of a ceaseless fulfillment of being-Partkdolg-duty, and those of them, beings of the said generation as well as certain of the subsequent two generations, who began seriously to actualize this, did indeed attain the expected results.

“But already the fourth generation of those beings who were first interested in this question and who were followers not from essence-conviction but from a property called ‘to imitate,’ which had by that time also become inherent in these terrestrial three-brained beings, also began to exist together and to do as it were the same thing.

“So from that time it began and until now automatically continues, that such followers organize themselves in separate groups and sometimes form solid sects of various denominations and, putting the same ‘abstinence’ as the basis of their aim, exist together segregated.

“Just these same places of theirs for segregated common existence together, are called there ‘monasteries,’ and the separate beings belonging to these sects, ‘monks.’

“At the present time, very many of these ‘monasteries’ exist there, and these innumerable ‘monks’ who enter them do indeed strictly abstain from the ejection from themselves in the customary way of the being-Exioëry or sperm formed in them; but of course, no sensible result at all is ever obtained from this abstinence of theirs, and it is not obtained, because the thought has ceased even to enter the heads of these unfortunate ‘contemporary’ monks that although it is indeed possible, by means of these substances Exioëry formed in them, to perfect themselves, yet this can proceed exclusively only if the second and third being-foods are intentionally absorbed and consciously digested in one’s presence, and this is possible exclusively only if all the parts of one’s presence have been accustomed beforehand consciously to fulfill both sacred being-Partkdolg-duties, that is to fulfill ‘conscious labors’ and ‘intentional sufferings.’