Liber Veneris - Chapter 62

Verses

Verse 82

The Asuras came to Shukra and said, Teach us how to defeat the gods. He said, First learn not to defeat yourselves before breakfast.

Verse 83

They asked for weapons. He gave them ledgers.

Verse 84

They asked for spells. He taught them irrigation.

Verse 85

They asked for immortality. He taught them to keep grain dry.

Verse 86

Only after this did they believe he possessed secret knowledge.

Verse 87

A teacher who begins with heaven is often selling something. Begin with the roof that leaks.

Verse 88

Beauty is useful when it makes life worth preserving. Luxury is useful when it serves life rather than replacing it.

Verse 89

Wear jewels if you enjoy jewels. Do not wear them to persuade your own eyes that you exist.

Verse 90

Drink sweetness, but know the hour when sweetness becomes thirst wearing perfume.

Verse 91

Take a lover without making a hostage of the future.

Verse 92

Take wealth without appointing wealth as witness to your value.

Verse 93

Take pleasure without requiring tomorrow to repeat it.

Verse 94

Thus does Venus favor enjoyment without slavery.

Verse 95

One student said, Master, the gods call us impure.

Verse 96

Shukra replied, Purity is frequently the name power gives to its preferred dirt.

Verse 97

Another asked, Why teach demons resurrection?

Verse 98

He said, Because the dead rarely ask whether the physician has respectable friends.

Verse 99

Knowledge that refuses a patient on moral grounds is vanity dressed as holiness.

Verse 100

But resurrection is not always mercy. Ask first what the dead were escaping.

Verse 101

Once they revived a tyrant by mistake. Shukra made the students govern under him for one month as punishment.

Verse 102

Afterward they read the instructions more carefully.

Verse 103

The secret of restoring life was written on no golden tablet. It was carried in discipline, memory, timing, and attention.

Verse 104

Miracles are often crafts whose intermediate steps have been forgotten.

Verse 105

Do not despise matter. Every sermon requires a tongue, every temple a stone, every liberation a body from which to speak of liberation.

Verse 106

Do not worship matter either. A cup is precious because it holds water, not because the thirsty should marry the cup.

Verse 107

The Asuras bowed. Shukra told them to stop bowing and repair the western wall.

Verse 108

They complained this was not spiritual work.

Verse 109

That night the wall held against the storm.

Verse 110

In the morning Shukra said, Behold your enlightenment: you are dry.

Verse 111

And the students recorded the teaching reluctantly, for practical wisdom rarely sounds impressive until the roof begins to leak.