Does this mean that the vain are not capable of loving or experiencing
love?
No of course not. All spirits are capable of loving. In fact every spirit
who has reached the pride phase has passed through the vanity
phase previously and, of course, becoming a giver of love does not
happen overnight, but rather there will be a prolonged period during
which there will be a fight between awakening of feeling and egoism,
between that which lights and that which extinguishes the flame of
love. In vain spirits this flame is weak, it is continually lit and
extinguished. There is still not a firm will to work through feelings and
they do not place emphasis on feeding this flame, as they are still
wrapped up in satisfying their egoistic whims.
Put in another way, whereas the vain have still not been able to light or
revive their own flame and still wish to warm themselves with the fire
that others emanate, the proud have now discovered the way to light
their own interior fire and their will works with greater steadfastness to
keep them alight, as they have recognised and experienced
something of the true happiness which emanates when this flame
burns with force, and they want to experience this with greater
intensity.
And how do spirits learn how to light their own flame?
Through their own experience and the example of other more
advanced spirits.
Generally a vain spirit, whether incarnated in a man or a woman, is
initiated in love by a more advanced spirit, a giver of love, incarnate in
someone close: his or her partner, a relative, such as his or her father,
mother, son, daughter, sister or brother. Very often the less advanced
spirits, accustomed to others working for them, are not conscious at
that moment of what they are being given, and they demand more
and more..., until they lose it. Then nostalgia is awakened for the lost
love and a desire to experience again what they once had, a
conscious awareness and recognition that they were loved and that
they were not capable of appreciating it. This need awakens the first
feelings for the person or people who gave them so much, which will
still remain during other lives. In other words, in order for us to be able
to give love, we must first be capable of receiving it. In subsequent
lives, those spirits will face the experience of living close to other spirits
less advanced than themselves, that will require from them the same
as they required from others and in this way they will be confronted
with their own selves, in order to recognise their own egoistic acts in
those of others. This apprenticeship can endure through a multitude of
lives, alternating the lives in which each spirit plays the part of giver or