Now, ladies and gentlemen, you need to be turned on in a different way. And that’s from within yourself. You must find the overriding Reason to govern your thoughts and feelings and actions, so that you can function in due season.

And if something isn’t feasible, you just don’t get “turned on.” If you happen not to be married, it just doesn’t bother you—a pretty girl can do a wiggle in front of you, and it doesn’t bother you a bit—you don’t turn a hair.

And the same goes for the ladies in the audience. You’ll not suffer the temptation of a man who is not right for you. His appeal simply won’t be a temptation to you. When you are right within yourself, you will find his charm odious.

But when you are not right within yourself, you are attracted by a man who is weak—or haven’t you noticed it?

Ladies and gentlemen, when you are right within yourself, the fascination is for the beautiful, the right; but if you are ugly and without virtue yourself, egocentric, what is beautiful to you is the ugly. The ugly that is attractive, and the beautiful that is repulsive.

And all your life you will be drawn into wrong relationships with other people—business associates, marriage partners, just name it—and you draw to yourself all kinds of trouble, because the egocentric nature cannot by its own nature (being egocentric) bear anything that is truly right and beautiful, because it would reveal its ugliness and its failings.

Coming back to Paul, if a man is controlled and dignified, and has been taught these principles of self­ discipline in his youth by loving parents, then temptation is not temptation to such a man. It’s not attractive, but repulsive.

"Your hunger is for righteousness, for truth, for virtue, for honor, and for purpose. You are seeking in that direction, and when you seek in that direction, you are fulfilled. You have this life, and the potential of more life, within you. "

And you’d have a hard time getting involved with him, because his nature would not allow it.

You can’t eat something that you actually don’t like, can you? For example, can you think of eating a plateful of worms? You just couldn’t—at least, it would be a very hard thing for you to do.

In the same sense, a person who is virtuous cannot relate to the “worm that dieth not,” the “way of life” in other people. They just don’t match. There’s no interest there at all, no excitement, no fascination.

But when we are ugly ourselves, when we are unvirtuous, never really having found the way, with animal desires and feelings and cravings, needing to be “loved” and admired in order to reinstate our image of ourselves, we seek excitement and stimulation—and then the plateful of worms becomes interesting to us.

When we’re really hungry and thirsty after self-righteousness, the worms become a delicious morsel.

Now, that’s rather a strong analogy, I know, but if you are fulfilled within yourself—you’re full of virtue, full of happiness, full of life and full of energy—you have no need for anything else. You don’t need the love of other people, their worship, or their praise—­you don’t need their big deals to “get rich quick”—you have no need of them because your hunger is not in that direction.

Your hunger is for righteousness, for truth, for virtue, for honor, and for purpose. You are seeking in that direction, and when you seek in that direction, you are fulfilled. You have this life, and the potential of more life, within you.

It’s a constant flow, a constant assurance. You have self-reliance. You’re self-contained, in a sense, and being full of understanding and hope, you’re not hungry. And worms look like worms to you. Ugliness looks like ugliness. It is not attractive to you.