For a lot of people, opera is a challenge, and giving this course also is a unique endeavor because, primarily, people in our modern era usually do not have a taste for this art form, let alone have an interest in studying what these operas mean. So these operas serve a dual function, not merely just to entertain humanity with beautiful music and inspiring crescendos of singing and melody. They are meant to teach us something about our psychology, who we are fundamentally.
These operas were created not merely just for the public, but for initiates, by initiates, people who are knowledgeable about many other forms of mystical art that go beyond just melody and harmony, but teach something very profound about who we are, where we are spiritually, what we need to do in our spiritual path to enter what is known as the path of initiation. Our Purpose Today
While we are not going to view the opera today, I want to introduce to you some basic concepts that will help us to interpret what this opera means by Puccini, La Bohème, the Bohemian, the Fool of the Tarot.
We will talk about the elements of this opera that convey basically four distinct sciences: alchemy, psychology, kabbalah, tarot. We will break down what those are. We will explain some of the context and themes, the motifs, some of the symbols of the operas, and a conceptual understanding for viewing and interpreting La Bohème, especially through the writings of Samael Aun Weor. We will define and describe and elucidate the essential esoteric sciences of alchemy, kabbalah, and tarot, and spiritual psychology as it relates to the opera. By esoteric, we mean hidden, that which is not expressed or openly stated to the public, the hidden, the occult, sometimes we say. But I think the term occultism has a bad reputation because obviously there are a lot of misunderstandings and degenerated interpretations of these traditions. So when we talk about this art form, we are referring to cultivating the hidden, occult, that which is not seen to the visible senses. But obviously, as we are going to talk about, these traditions in a sense have lost the initial thread of their meaning. It was the mission of these great artists and opera composers, to rejuvenate that art form, and so opera contains, as a form of alchemy, a synthesis of multiple elements, a science that teaches us about how to change. Then we are going to provide analysis of these spiritual sciences, explain what they mean, how they apply to our Gnostic esoteric work, and its application within the Gnostic teachings of Samael Aun Weor. 
Three Esoteric Sciences and Their Synthesis
So there are three sciences that are synthesized with what is known as the tarot. We talk about Al-chemia, alchemy, kabbalah, psychology.
We know alchemy is the science of transmuting metals. So the original myth is that through these particular art forms of the Middle Ages, different initiates conveyed a science by which to transmute lead into gold. Obviously, that is a symbol. It is a symbol of how we take the most basic aspects of our personality and our energy and make it divine. Simple. People who are caught in gold lust interpret these myths as a form of getting rich, and they have chased the elixir of long life, ignoring that this is not some external science; it is something internal. It involves a very particular work. Alchemia, the chemistry of Allah, originally from the Arabian mysteries, is a very deep science that we find in all traditions, hidden. But alchemy in the Middle Ages was a profound teaching through symbols about how we actually transform anger, pride, lust into purity. The opera conveys this. We will explain how. Kabbalah is often associated with the Jewish tradition. It comes from the Hebrew קבל kabbel, “to receive.” קבלה Kabbalah initially means “tradition,” what one receives orally from mouth to ear, from a chain of successive lineage or master and disciple relationship. People often associate Kabbalah with the 13th century Spain, especially where the Zohar was said to have originated. Now, in our tradition, we go a little bit deeper in that, the roots of those scriptures, the Kabbalistic doctrine of the Hebrew initiates, is much older. That is why you find threads of it conveyed even within the Hebrew Bible, even in the Gnostic Gospels, which come from the same era, and many other teachings even predating Christianity and Judaism. 
So it is a universal teaching that can help us understand what the opera signifies. Kabbalah is a map, as we see in this image here, of different spheres of consciousness and representation. They are different aspects of our psychology. They represent levels of our understanding and perception of divinity and ourselves?
When you watch operas, you can even correlate different spheres with different characters, and so this helps us to interpret: what does this character represent? What are their psychological qualities? How do they behave in relationship to the music, their libretto, their lyrics, their interactions with other characters? You see basically how the whole tree of life, we say, as a map of our divine character, we can say, interacts. It warns us about the dangers of who we are, what we need to overcome, and how to change. So the dramas and the operas represent these principles, kabbalah, knowledge that is received with the consciousness. The beauty of opera is that the music is kabbalah, not merely in its characterological representations, but in the way that we receive the music. So when we watch opera, you receive music with the mind, heart, and body. It is not merely just an intellectual exercise. That is why music is so powerful. It hits you emotionally. You see the characters play out, you read the lyrics, your mind is enriched, and you literally feel the hairs in the back of your neck raise up in awe because we are sensing something divine here, which is why these artists were not merely artists; they were prophets. They taught through their art the path of initiation. Kabbalah helps us to understand what the symbols of the characters mean. Now it ties into psychology because psychology has to do with our mind, our social relationships, how we interact with the world. Often opera will show these dramas of different characters to highlight and accentuate particular psychological characteristics, almost, you could say, chief features, to quote Gurdjieff, because some characters basically have a predominant flaw, like hubris, pride, anger, lust, and we get to watch, safely from the audience, these characters doom themselves to destruction, so that we can learn not to go down that path, or [on the other hand] to emulate the great heroes. Their psychology is represented in the way they sing, the music that is conveyed, the way they play out in the drama. Psychology comes from the Greek, psyche logos, the relationship of the soul, psyche, with Logos, the divine. It is also where we get the term logic. But in a sense, logic can be a sense of order. The characters too have a sense of structure in the tree of life too. So there is a lot of correlations between these three sciences. We will talk about how the three complement each other, and actually they represent three aspects of one thing, which is most beautifully represented and synthesized by the [Eternal] Tarot [of Alchemy and Kabbalah]. So the tarot has a series of cards, which is the foundation for our modern card sets. Poker, many games that we play in this modern era came from the tarot, or better said, a bastardization, a devolution of those original cards. The cards themselves were a very ancient science, and they were symbols, usually of Egyptian origin or Egyptian artwork, to convey psychological, alchemical, kabbalistic principles. All the cards represent, in their iconography—whether from any tradition, like Egypt, which some people prefer because it is very ancient and ties back to Atlantis—representations of who we are, where we are going, what we are doing, and how do we change. It is also important to remember that the images of these cards, because they vary across decks, are not definitive, because in the internal worlds, or through the science of dream yoga and astral travel, we can have experiences related to the arcana. The tarot are related to what are known as the arcana, meaning “laws” in Latin. Arcanum, singular, means “law.” These are laws of how we transform ourselves in the spiritual path. They teach us what are the dangers and what are the remedies for overcoming particular challenges. In the internal worlds, we can receive these cards or receive a number related to these cards, and then we can immediately know what we are facing in our spiritual path. Oftentimes, the images that you will see in the internal worlds may or may not correlate with the physical deck because the important part is not so much the external form; it is the internal principle. These are laws of being, laws of consciousness, how we operate in a superior sense, not merely in the higher worlds when we dream, but also in our physical life. So opera is particularly beautiful because you find that the tarot is often represented there in different ways. I mean, there are other operas too, besides La Bohème, that kind of hint at the tarot. For example, I believe there is a reference to the tarot in Carmen by Bizet. One of the characters gets a tarot reading from a gypsy, and then knows that her fate is doomed. So there are a lot of tight, hidden correlations with the tarot. Each card, as I said, is a law, which is why, from the Book of Psalms, chapter 40, verse 8, you find that the tarot is mentioned in Hebrew. I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy תֹורָתְ [torat] are within my heart. —Psalms 40:8
Torat means “laws.” Torah means “law.” It is the first five books of Moses. These arcana permeate every religion, not merely the Old Testament, but even the Quran. In the Quran, they are referred to as the Mother of the Book, from which all scripture emerges. There are a couple verses there too.
Who Are the Bohemians?
So the real question is, when we study La Bohème and the Bohemian of the Tarot, we have to understand who or what are the Bohemians.
These are people who pursue unconventional lifestyles, often associated with intellectual, artistic, or literary endeavors. So in the opera, we are opened up to a series of characters who are artists, poor, living on the fringe of society, very passionate, enjoying themselves, and oftentimes, the attitude around the opera is one of optimism and happiness. Like you see, these people that, despite their poverty, are very in tune with their creativity, and it is a source of romance and inspiration. But unfortunately, what people don't grasp about the opera is that it has very serious undertones, and that what happens with these particular characters is something very tragic, and that this sets the stage for a great struggle later on. So the term Bohemian is given to people who are characterized by nonconformity, the fringe of society, and rejection of mainstream norms, people who don't fit in with the operating mainstream culture. Part of the allure of the opera La Bohème is that these characters, initiated by or hinted at by the title, are people who go against the grain, and so we are meant to immediately identify with them, be inspired by them, and feel a sense of joy, especially in the music by Puccini, which is very powerful and beautiful. But oftentimes, what people don't pick up on is that there is something sinister even in the too bright optimism of these characters, especially by the behaviors that they enact. The things that they do are actually quite foolish, and yet people often approach the opera as it is meant to be a source of comedy and laughter, but towards the end of the opera, we see that it actually is a tragedy. Now the term Bohemian often evolved to reference individuals who value creativity, freedom, self-expression, and that is part of the allure, as I said, of the main characters: Rodolfo, Marcello, Colline, Schaunard, the characters we are introduced to in the beginning of the opera, especially, Mimi, who is one of the main protagonists too. But oftentimes, this term has a lot of connotations that are important to acknowledge and also to clarify because people often associate the term Bohemians with gypsies. 
The Gypsies and Fool of the Tarot
The gypsies were often in history—and especially at the time of Puccini composing this work (it is important to identify the correlations)—not necessarily the precise accuracy of the historical connections, but at least acknowledge the associations that people had with the term Bohemians in relationship to the tarot and the gypsy people, because there is a lot of things that are connected there that are very profound.
Oftentimes, when people think of gypsies, they think of the tarot too, especially in operas like Carmen by Bizet. The term gypsies is often pejorative of Romani people, whose origins reside in South Asia. It is a different term, technically speaking—Bohemians are not necessarily gypsies, nor the other way around. But obviously, the gypsies were associated with the tarot because as part of their culture, they were very much endowed to utilize the tarot to carry on a type of mystical interpretation or lifestyle. There is a bit of mystery and magic associated with the gypsy culture that permeates that term, as well as the Bohemian, and so Puccini took the term Bohemian, La Bohème, to insinuate a reference, not openly, but a subtle reference to the tarot themselves. So the tarot was therefore associated with Bohemians. 
More importantly, when we talk about the tarot, there are 22 Major Arcana, which are 22 major laws that are the foundation of the entire spiritual, archetypal grammar of the tarot themselves. So the tarot is like a language. Each card represents a principle, almost even a Hebrew letter, tying into the kabbalah, references psychology, and together, you form an alphabet that can help us learn to interpret our situations in life.
The tarot, when using them specifically, there is a way to perform and use the tarot themselves, where their combinations help to add up in numbers to a synthesis and to an essential meaning. So you ask a question; you get the tarot cards; you add up their numbers in a certain way; you get your synthesis, and then you know your answer. 
In the same way the tarot are used for that, this opera is most associated with the 21st Arcanum, the Fool. We call this card Transmutation in the Eternal Tarot of Alchemy and Kabbalah deck from Glorian Publishing.
We see a man standing over a crocodile. The crocodile relates to Egyptian mysteries too. In this case, these are forces of psychological degeneration that threaten to swallow the initiate. He is standing precariously over this dangerous animal with an ankh cross, a symbol of life, because within his hand he holds the power of life and a staff of power, and also, he has a leopard skin over his shoulder, indicating that, to some degree, he is conquering his animal passions. But unfortunately, he is not done yet, and therefore, he stands precariously as a fool over immense danger that he does not sense. That is paralleled in the beginning of the opera. The opera shows us these characters are doing dumb things, and we are laughing away with them because we think it is normal. That is the great, terrifying message of the opera. We don't see that it is warning us about danger, like this guy in the 21st arcanum. 
What is This Opera About?
So basically, what is this opera about? Just some contextual moments or explanations.
It takes place in 1830s Paris, France, the Latin Quarter, Christmas Eve. This is the birth of Christ. There is a religious backdrop to a basically silly drama of squabbling and adultery and passion and jealousy, but also failed romance. It is the backdrop in order to teach us opposites. We have the backdrop of Christ's birth, a holy and sacred time of somberness and reflection, paralleled by the foolishness of these characters running into danger without even second-guessing themselves. Now, Bohemian artists in this particular opera are trying to survive. The basic premise is that these characters are simply trying to get by. We can relate to them as we witness their struggles—whether it is paying their bills or dealing with other hardships they face. These are basic ways to kind of sympathize and feel sorry for these individuals. It is a warning about what to avoid. These Bohemian artists are trying to survive. They have their friendships, their squabbles, their failed romances. It is also an opera that is very much inundated by sexuality, passion, desire, and lust, especially. That is why a lot of people love the opera because they identify with the negativity of the characters, not seeing that these characters are a foil to ourselves, to help us, like a mirror, see what we should avoid, what we should understand, and then people often mistake some of the lustful interactions of these characters with this form of admiration. The music is obviously very beautiful, but it is subtle, and so they are very much driven not by love, but by lust. They don't see that they are running into the jaws of the crocodile. That crocodile is their own mind, their own desires, which extinguish any potential for possible spiritual change. Only until the end of the opera is there any love, any possibility that things could hopefully work out emotionally because the characters reconcile, mostly Rodolfo and Mimi, the main characters, but by then, it is too late, and that is the danger. 
The Foolishness of Sexual Indiscretion
The Fool, the Bohemian of the Tarot, primarily, is a sexual trope. We have one of the earlier decks of the Tarot, which is referenced by Samael Aun Weor in a book called Alchemy and Kabbalah in the Tarot. I included this because this is a very famous image, especially in esoteric circles.
You see a fool wandering over a cliff with a dog or an animal biting at his leg, sometimes a cougar, a staff with a bag and holes in it, where all his items and belongings are falling out. Literally, he is carrying a rose of passion as he wanders towards an abyss. Now, when we examine the Tarot, we see that these are representations of carelessness, not merely of a material type, like just not meaning to take care of physical life necessities, but spiritual ones. We often fail many times at our own spiritual inadequacies, and it is a warning that if we are not watching ourselves or caring for, most primarily, the use of our sexual energy, we enter foolishness. We could say that the synthesis of all religion and spirituality is the use of the creative energy, the sexual force. People who do not know how to master their sexual desires become slaves to them. This is the primary axis of this whole opera. The characters are driven by sex. They're driven by addiction. They are driven by desire for pleasure and sensations. It is that addiction that Puccini is warning about. If we follow desire, adultery, addiction, sensation, and pleasure to their extreme, we fall off the cliff, which is what happens to the characters at the end—(sorry to give a little bit of a spoiler), but you will see the progression, or better said, regression, from a state of normalcy to a state of complete despair. Now, Samael Aun Weor mentions a couple explanations about this tarot card where he explains these images, and it kind of synthesizes what we are talking about: When examining this Arcanum, we perceive a wretched fool with a shoulder bag on a stick, within which he carries all his absurdities and vices, and who, as a ruthless wanderer, goes wandering aimlessly, with no course or objective. His clothes in disarray leave his sexual organs exposed, and a tiger cat, which is following him, bites him incessantly, and he does not try to defend himself. So sensitivity is represented in this Arcanum, the flesh, the material life. —Samael Aun Weor, Alchemy and Kabbalah in the Tarot
This is precisely the whole opera in a nutshell. Literally, his sexual organs are exposed, in a sense that he has no indiscretion or shame. This represents people who are so identified with sexuality in its most perverse sense, in its most inferior sense, that it drives everything they do. Therefore, there is no sense of reserve or inhibition, even to keep what is private, private. You see this in our modern era, where sexuality now is presented as a public arena, where people are basically combating each other based on passion.
Unfortunately, this is the inverted use of sexual energy. It is not the most, or any sense, spiritual use of that force. This is why we are going to talk about the opposite too, of the Fool, especially. But his clothes are in disarray. His psychology is disorganized. He is not integrated. He is caught up, driven by passion, all over the place, and this tiger cat is biting him incessantly because sexual desire, if it is not tamed, will attack the student all the time. It bites because even a person who may abstain from sexual vices will be tempted in their mind, and that desire will eat at their flesh, and it will not stop until it gets what it wants. Obviously, this is the case for most people, and which is why, in our Gnostic school, we openly teach how to transmute the sexual energy so that it no longer is a tiger cat that bites one, but is integrated peacefully in the psyche, and that one can direct it at will, use it as a part of their psychology and personality in a good way. So also, he does not try to defend himself. That is the great terror of this situation. People are haunted and driven by so much passion, but they don't even question their own desires. This is why the culture war today in the modern era is so heated and strong, especially in relation to sexual identity and passion, because people are more willing to feed their desires and basically with no discretion, not even to question that some desires, or better said, some impulses, can be sacred, some, in most cases with us, are very degenerated. People do not even have any inkling to question what they are and what is driving them. That is the great terror of the situation, and also, this Arcanum relates to the flesh and the material life, which is where you find the Bohemians in this opera, where we begin. 
Sexual Power: The Root of Enlightenment or Ignorance
So sexual power is the root of enlightenment too, not merely just ignorance. Sexuality is the battleground by which angels and demons fight. These are not merely just external representations of some foregone biblical, religious, mystical past. They represent something psychological in us.
Sexual energy can be used for the spirit, which is the meaning of “to be born again” (John 3:3). To be born again is a sexual problem. One does not conquer sex by avoiding it. One conquers it by transforming it. This is why we talk about in these teachings what we call chastity. In our school and our tradition, we clarify that chastity does not mean, in this case, abstinence, to avoid sex. Unfortunately, monks and monasteries of the Middle Ages had misinterpreted the meaning of chastity in scriptures to mean sexual avoidance. Therefore they propagated a confused notion of what sexual purity is, which explains why in some priesthoods you do find people who, by avoiding sex, become slaves of it. Obviously that energy, because it is suppressed and not understood or transmuted, becomes the tiger cat that eats them and drives them to perversities and crimes of a horrible nature. So this is the astral battle in a sense, psychologically, between our inner angel and our inner demons. That energy is the sexual force. Our desires and our own egotism wants, like these demonic figures, to take the sexual force for itself. It will unless we are willing to confront it like Saint Michael, who peacefully mastering his own sexual divine potential, carries the sword of divine justice, a symbol of insight that can cut through illusion and defend the pure. Now that energy, sometimes in the writings of Samael Aun Weor, the sexual force is often called the astral light. It is interesting because when we think of the term astral, we think of the heavens, and we talk about the astral dimension or the astral plane which is where many students wake up through dream yoga and astral travel, and oftentimes find themselves confronting negative entities, like black magicians or sorcerers, in the astral light. So the astral light also can reference the kind of energy or dimensionality of dreams that plays out as a kind of theater or an arena. Oftentimes, this energy, which makes up the astral plane is like a mysterious twilight—a kind of hue or force that manifests very strongly in the early morning hours, like 4:00 AM. This is a time of temptation for a lot of people, especially in their dreams or in terms of controlling their sexual energy. The source of that astral light is the creative sexual energy of the planet. Everything has life force and vitality or chi. In that state one has to learn not only to face one's antithesis in the astral light of dreams, such as sorcerers and black magicians one has to defend against, but also we carry the force of the astral light in our semen. Now not merely semen, meaning not just for men, but in Hebrew שֶׁמֶן “Shemen,” oil, the energy of both men and women, has that astral light in a great potent force. So how we use that light, the energy of sex, which can reinvigorate our spirituality, determines our trajectory. So consciousness and ego fights over the sexual energy. How are we going to use that force? —which is why Samael Aun Weor says in The Perfect Matrimony, a chapter called “The Great Battle”: Gods and demons live in eternal struggle. The gods defend the doctrine of chastity. The demons hate chastity. In sex the root of the conflict between gods and demons is found. The great battle takes place in the astral light. The astral light is the deposit of all of great nature's past, present, and future forms. The astral light is the Azoth and the Magnesia of the ancient alchemists, Medea's flying dragon, the Christians’ INRI, the Tarot of the Bohemians. —Samael Aun Weor, The Perfect Mtrimony, “The Great Battle”
So going back to the arcanum of the tarot, the 21st arcanum, it is related to the sexual force. How we use it determines whether we are fools or heroes.
Sexual Power: The Force of Industry
Sivananda emphasizes a few more points that correlate with this, especially on the value of the creative force, which is why in our Gnostic school we highly emphasize and teach people to work with the creative energies daily—especially for single people, who need to work with pranayama, mantras, prayers, so that by not only conserving the sexual energy itself by avoiding orgasm, one also takes that reservoir force and circulates that energy up the spine, to the mind, to the heart, especially through pranayama.
It is particularly important for people who are single to do that daily, because you need to create that circuitry in your spine and your psychology that will help you be a better vehicle for divinity to act. That helps us prevent walking into dangers blind, because that energy awakens our spiritual senses. It helps us to decide things more accurately, guided by our morals and virtues. It also helps us develop conscience and remorse, allowing us to recognize how certain behaviors are negative—not because someone tells us, but from our own life experiences. In that way, we navigate the boisterous seas of our existence. Sivananda mentioned a few points, in his yoga tradition, about conserving the vital force, which is very beautiful to kind of synthesize: Grasp fully the importance and value of this vital essence of life. Virya is all power (and Virya means semen, sexual force, virility. It is a source of virtue when it is conserved and transformed). Virya is all money. Virya is God. —Sivananda, “The Value of Semen”
Interesting. Some people might have heard of some book or text that talks about transmutation, that people who conserve their sexual force have more enthusiasm, magnetism, vitality, and some people have even said it helps to create more money, literally. So people are more healthy, young, vibrant, virtuous, do better in their careers and obviously make more money. It is a side effect of working with this, but not the focus.
The Lord says in the Gita, Pauruṣhaṁ Nṛiṣhu. “I am the seed of virility in men.” (Also women too, men, humanity, gender neutral). Virya is the essence of life, thought, intelligence, and consciousness. Therefore, preserve this vital fluid very, very carefully my dear readers! —Sivananda, “The Value of Semen” 
Material, Psychological, Spiritual, and Sexual Poverty
Now, the thing to remember is that the characters in the opera are all poor, and that this is not merely a symbol of material poverty. It is spiritual poverty.
There is nothing wrong with being poor. Obviously people are in various social classes in life and the focus of the opera is not to mimic or ridicule the unfortunate. It is a mirror for where we are. We can be well-off physically, but psychologically we are poor, in spirit, to quote the Bible. Now there is a verse in the book of Matthew chapter 5 verse 3 which emphasizes the beautiful attitude that should be emulated in this opera, but is not. What you find are beggars who are poor in spirit. Actually, better said, you find the poor in spirit, who don't have spiritual development, but they are not willing to beg for the mysteries because they are too caught up in their dramas. They don't want to approach the altar of initiation even though they are offered. You see that hinted at in the beginning of Act One in the opera when the main hero, Rodolfo, meets his girlfriend for the first time, Mimi, and they have the option of entering the sacred mysteries as symbolized by, as you will see in the opera, a candle and a key, the key to the mysteries which we are going to talk about. But the Bible mentions (and sometimes the translation is often very poor); they say: Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. —Matthew 5:3
It is better if we unpack this further to know what they really mean, what is originally meant from the Greek.
Blessed are the beggars (πτωχοὶ, πτωχός ptōchos: begging, asking alms, those who are reduced to begging) in spirit (πνεύματι, πνεῦμα, pneuma): for theirs is the kingdom of heaven (οὐρανῶν, οὐρανός, ouranos). —Matthew 5:3
Blessed are the beggars in spirit. Ptochos, “begging, asking alms.” Those who are reduced to begging. Not poor, beggars. These are people who ask for the mysteries: “Knock and the door shall open. Seek and you shall find. Ask and you shall receive” (Matthew 7:7-8).
The characters in the opera do not ask for that. “For theirs is the kingdom of Uranos,” heaven. Uranus, and that planet astrologically relates to sexuality. So Samael Aun Weor mentions in a few lectures that there are sexual cycles on the planet Earth that manifest according to the planet Uranus. Uranus as a planet has a cosmological influence on the way our politics plays out in the physical world. Every 42 years, men dominate. Every other 42 years, women dominate, and the cycle just changes, because depending on the axis of Uranus in relationship to the sun and to our planet Earth, determines what polarity of the masculine or feminine pole of the planet influences our Earth. So that determines many things, how we play out in the physical world. But blessed are the beggars in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of Uranos. —Matthew 5:3
Meaning, those who have mastered that power. You know, especially working in a marriage, male-female, husband-wife, the perfect androgyny that can take one back to Eden.
There is another verse from the book of Proverbs, chapter 21, verse 20 which is also very synthetic of what this opera is about. It also highlights the nature of poverty in a true spiritual sense. They clearly, in the original Hebrew, emphasize the value of conserving the sexual energy, whether from a man or woman: There is treasure to be desired and oil (שֶׁמֶן Shemen in Hebrew) in the dwelling of the wise but a foolish man spendeth it up. —Proverbs 21:20
When we lose the sexual force, we don't have the energy by which to work spiritually. When the oil is gone from the temple, you cannot present light. So that is the essential conundrum of any beginning practitioner of Gnosis, and which is why it is very difficult to even enter the spiritual path because that is the first step by which one enters initiation. That is why this is called a path of initiation because few want it and then few do it. But we will see what the opera has to say.
What Do We Beg For?
The question becomes, what do we really beg for? So in the opera or better said, the beggars of spirit, are these individuals who beg for enlightenment, who want to change.
The Bohemians of the opera do not. They do not long for or practice the mysteries of Uranus, Ouranos, the heavens. They receive the key of the mysteries, but don't enter. Well, maybe initially they begin, but then they regress. Samael Aun Weor mentions that we have to reach a state of absolute rock bottom at some point in our life to be even willing to change. This is the great beauty of this tradition but also the potential of the opera to inspire us, because in a sense we have to reach a state of maximal suffering in our life to be willing to look for answers, to want to be willing to look to change. So Samael Aun Weor clarifies that the poor in spirit are precisely those people who recognize their nothingness, their pain, their suffering, the futility of their desires, the trajectory of life, how we tend to repeat patterns seemingly without awareness or control, and that there is a sense of despair there. Rock bottom. But that is the starting point of initiation, because one has to be tired of suffering so much that one has to be willing to try and practice and experiment with the techniques, and to see if they work, and to try, to attempt it, and to be open. The poor in spirit, or indigent in spirit, are actually those who recognize their own nothingness, shame and inner misery. This kind of being unquestionably receives enlightenment. —Samael Aun Weor, The Great Rebellion, “Drugs” 
We included the hermit of the tarot. Notice that this is very really synchronistic with the opera, because in the former card of the Fool he also carries a staff of power, symbol of his spine, and carries a lamp. In the opera, Mimi carries a lamp, and she loses her key, the key to alchemy, the key to the mysteries. Rodolfo finds it for her, signifying how through the opposite sex, one’s sexual complement, through conscious love, one can have the potential to enter into the initiatic mysteries.
In the opera, Rodolfo and Mimi meet in the moonlight. So the moon is a very profound symbol we will talk about. But here the hermit is guided by the sun, not by the moon. This is very significant in relationship with how the characters in the opera play out. We want to be guided by the solar forces and the solar forces are a symbol or representation of divinity. They give light, life, harmony, and the moon is our own mind, mechanicity, ego. We repeat things, patterns, all the time, without awareness or even suspicion that they exist, but they drive us. 
The Results of Spiritual Virtue and Psychological Vice
There is a simple principle in the book of Matthew, sometimes called the Matthew principle, which has a very profound relationship to the main theme of the opera. While I hinted that the opera starts as a comedy and ends as a tragedy, it really ties into the principle from Matthew chapter 13, verses 11 through 12, which highlight the nature of our trajectory but also what is possible for us, especially. It is a very dark message, very severe. It is also one that is meant to warn initiates about what to do.
For to him who has, will more be given, and he will have abundance, but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away. —Matthew 13:11-13
In a sense, by developing more spiritually our level of being, we will acquire more and more. But people who have no inkling of remorse, have no compassion in their hearts, and who are just driven by the material desires of that tiger cat that afflicts the Fool, the 21st arcanum, even what they have or even the nothing they have will be taken away.
It is a state of intense suffering, and you see that at the end of the opera, which is why people should not be laughing throughout the opera. I mean, it is funny, it is amusing, but also you will see that it is very ironic and that it is sad. You also understand where the characters end up because of the decisions they make, because they are not willing to beg for spiritual help and to take the opportunity that is given to them. Poverty is Not a Crime: The Level of Being
Poverty is not a crime as I said, but what matters is the level of being.
So I want to highlight some quotes given by Samael Aun Weor in Treatise of Revolutionary Psychology, especially his first chapter, where he highlights this. It is not merely just about social classes. We think of the opera as: “Oh, we want to cheer for the underdog, the poor guys who are trying to get by in life. Oh, we should have sympathy for them because they are going through these hardships materially, and therefore they have a right to do what they are doing,” ignoring that their physical level of being or the physical material life, in a sense, is a reflection of their psychology. Now that is not always the case. It does not mean that the poor always have a low level of being, or even that the rich have a higher level of being. In a material sense, we receive things according to karma, our situation, our actions. We can be corrupt people, negative, decadent, and yet we can still do good things, and that can have consequences that help improve our social status in life. Or we could be totally poor and yet a master spiritually. Material conditions don't matter. Spiritual conditions matter. When we are considering this principle in relation to the characters, we have to understand that our level of being shapes our life, and that obviously, our situations reflect our internal circumstances. But obviously, this is not always correlative or concisely even, it is hard to decipher, but we have to learn to sift through our situation with intuition and understanding to change our level of being. We receive circumstances the way we do because of karma, and that so that we can learn something profound on how to change. So in this chapter, I quote most of it. It is very beautiful. Very powerful, and at the end he gives an example of people he watched in Mexico City—Well, you will see the quote. The parachutists, he calls them, where he says it is not their physical lifestyle that is at fault. It is their level of being. It is their mind, anger, resentment, pride, and lust that really makes them negative. Nobody can deny the fact that there are different social levels. There are churchgoing people, people in brothels, farmers, businessmen, etc.
In a sense, we can think that the spiritual work may be achievable tomorrow. Like, we can postpone it for a future time. But the problem is that according to Gurdjieff, the disease of tomorrow keeps us from really making the changes that we need. Or as it is said in Macbeth, one of his final lines in the play after he has been hunted down for murdering the king:
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
So to continue with Samael Aun Weor, we repeat things all the time expecting that situations will change, but they do not—leaving off for tomorrow what we should do today:
All things repeat themselves in their life; they say the same things, do the same things and complain about the same things.
This is why it is interesting that people often come to Gnosis wanting a revolution of our government, our society, our culture. While this is a valid inspiration, it is also misguided, because oftentimes these people are driven by intense hatred, resentment, anger, shame, pride. They fail to recognize that if we want a better circumstance in our external life, we have to change inside, because we are attracting all these things.
With good reason then, we can solemnly declare that the “exterior is the reflection of the interior.” 
The Key of Alchemical Mystery
So the symbol in the opera of a key: basically Mimi is next door in another apartment, asks for a light for her candle, and then loses her key, in the moonlight, in the search of Rodolfo's apartment. That key is a symbol of alchemy.
Husband and wife can learn to enter the mysteries of the perfect matrimony, and so she initially loses the key and Rodolfo finds it. It is another beautiful symbol because she cannot open the door of the mysteries without her husband, and vice-versa. 
So the key is the master key of the ancient masonic mysteries. It is what opens the door of דעת Da’ath. In Hebrew, דעת Da’ath is the door of alchemy. Literally the Hebrew word דעת Da’ath mean knowledge. It is sexual knowledge, symbolized by the middle sphere beneath the top trinity.
The Hebrew letter ד Daleth means a “door,” and that door is entered by working in a marriage. It is this key that can unlock the way out of suffering. It is the key to Pandora's Box so that we release the elements of faith and hope and avoid the pains of this world. Husband and wife can learn to take the creative power of their sexuality, that tremendous force which can give life to a child, and give life to their spirituality. That is a beautiful mystery that Samael Aun Weor taught many times in his books, especially in The Perfect Matrimony, but also in his lectures, and it is the undercurrent of this opera. It is hinted at because Puccini knew it and practiced it. So what is this master key? It is known as the Great Arcanum. So going back to arcana, “laws,” and arcanum, “law,” it is the Great Arcanum. It is the highest mystery, law that any initiate can practice and follow. It is the path of the hermit. Obviously, even married couples have to learn to walk their path alone in a sense because they have to do their psychological work too, both partners. 
One of the cards we did mention is Inspiration, 19, where you see husband and wife holding hands over an ankh cross, where they hold the power of a marriage and life in their hands, spiritually speaking. So that is the great law that can, with that force, help us to be born again and avoid the misuse of the sexual force, which produces desire and pain.
Samael Aun Weor says the following about what this master key is, the ark of the covenant: Obviously there exists a key, a master key of course. It is the key of science’s Ark. —Samael Aun Weor, “The Master Key”
The word ark, the great ark, Noah's ark that saved him from the flood is the Arcanum, the Key. When the floods of passion come to devour the world and cleanse it, one is liberated and freed from those passions by working with the ark of the covenant, the covenant between humanity and divinity. That is where the stone tablets of Moses, the law, the Torah, the 10 laws, main laws of Judaism or ten essential laws of Judaism, are found there in stone. That stone, inscribed within the, to use Masonic terms or alchemical terms, Heliogabalus Stone, the stone of Helios, the sun, the stone of the sexual force. It is the stone of our sexual organs because even the term “stones” represents slang for genitals, stones or the ovaries or testicles. From that energy we build the stone of our temple, the foundation.
How did it come to us? Through the mysteries. What is that key? The great arcanum, the magnus secret of alchemy and kabbalah. With that key we can open the box of Pandora, the ark of great secrets, and make prodigies and wonders. Fortunately, we have it, the Maithuna, the great arcanum. —Samael Aun Weor, “The Master Key”
So what are the wonders and prodigies that one could perform? It is when those energies awaken our spiritual senses and awaken the power of our Divine Mother in the spine. So that through following the divine law, we develop those Torat, laws, in our heart. “Yea, I delight to do thy will, my Lord. Thy Torah / Torat are in my heart inscribed.”
The Divine Nature of Alchemy
This has to do with Maithuna, the divine nature of alchemy. Here we see Cupid and Psyche, Eros, the force of eroticism and divine love, which is not cupidity or lust, but divine purity. People are so acculturated to lust that they cannot see anything outside of it. They can't even conceptualize that the sexual act can be angelic and not carnal and animal or demonic.
Sexual power is natural. Sexual attraction is natural, but lust is not. Lust is an aberration. In the myth, Eros, the power of love, the power of the “heroes,” Eros can awaken us from our slumber, spiritually speaking, and she awakens to the power of a matrimony, especially. Samael Aun Weor gives some quotes explaining what alchemy is, how it is the secret science, how it is practiced and its purpose, its nature: The sexual act is the real consubstantiation of love in the tremendous psychophysical reality of our Nature. —Samael Aun Weor, The Perfect Matrimony, “The Son of Man”
Consubstantiation, meaning, by mixing the masculine and feminine sexual forces, the substances, the energies themselves, when they are activated through the couple, when they are conserved and transformed. You can say in the Christian sense, Transubstantiation—Consubstantiation is similar. Transubstantiation is the reference to the bread and wine becoming the body and flesh of Christ, and in a similar way, through the Holy Spirit and the sexual act, the couple transmutes and transforms their mind. They become like Christ, that force.
Something is created when a man and woman unite sexually. In those moments of supreme adoration, he and she are really only one androgynous Being with powers to create like the gods. The Elohim are male and female. Man and woman united sexually during the supreme ecstasy of love are really one terrifically divine Elohim. In those moments of sexual union, we are really in the Laboratorium-Oratorium of Holy Alchemy. —Samael Aun Weor, The Perfect Matrimony, “The Son of Man”
It is interesting because there are hints of this in the opera. When Rodolfo and Mimi meet for the first time, you hear the beauty of their romance and the haunting melody of chastity initially in the relationship, that spark of divine inspiration between the couple, that they meet for the first time. They feel and they sing, with beautiful arias, this mystery—looking for the key under the moonlight, looking to find each other, and they really should be together. They are, in a sense, destined spiritually.
But how they use that force is what happens later on in the opera. They are inspired like the music of Puccini to create like the gods, and that is why their music is so compelling, why people watch La Bohème. It is one of the most popular operas of all time, and the music conveys this mystery, the beauty of that harmony of a marriage and its potential, what it could offer to the couple. So people are naturally attracted to that. They are naturally attracted to a perfect matrimony, but they don't see Puccini's warning that this becomes corrupted because the couple does not train themselves. “Laboratorium-Oratorium of Holy Alchemy.” Laboratorium is obviously an alchemist's laboratory where you mix substances or chemicals to create a new compound. But Oratorium has to do with speech, and so we talk about in books, like The Mystery of the Golden Flower, Samael Aun Weor taught that we can use mantras in the sexual act with one's partner. When they pray or they're connected together, they do prayers, they are inspired by the divine love of the moment, and they work with certain mantras. So that energy is transmuted from the base of our spine, to our head, and then to our heart—Laboratorium-Oratorium—because those energies are directed through speech, and speech is the power of the word. “In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, the Word was God” (John 1:1). By using those sacred sounds like mantras, like IAO, you work with three major centers or three brains. Those mantras take that already charged force and direct it up to the mind, and then to the heart, and electrifies the couple, and so obviously, when the energy is not wasted, those forces perform their alchemy. It is the chemistry of God, and we learn to create like Elohim, through speech, create solar bodies, great vehicles of the divine, the Kesdjan bodies, the bodies of the soul, the wedding garment of the initiates or the Libas al-Taqwa in the Qur’an, “the garments of reverence,” which only the pure pilgrims wear when they approach Hajj, to the stone of Mecca, the stone of Yesod, the sexual force. Sexual-Spiritual Magnetism
This practice develops our psychology and our physiology with spiritual, sexual magnetism. This is a divine moment, but how we use that force determines its outcome. He continues in his chapter on the Son of Man:
In those moments, the great clairvoyants can see the sexual pair enveloped by intolerably divine splendors. We have then penetrated into the Sanctum Regnum of High Magic. —Samael Aun Weor, The Perfect Matrimony, “The Son of Man”
It is important to remember what this term means. He calls it sexual magic. The word magic comes from the Indo-European root word "mag," which means priest, a magician. A real magician knows how to control the four elements through the fifth: earth, air, fire, water. Air of the mind, fire of the heart, the water of our creative forces, the earth of our body, through Akash, the ether. That ether is condensed within the sexual matter, the sexual force. Akash is the force that is highly activated through the power of the word, the Akashic energy, the Akashic forces or the astral light, to be more synthetic.
With these dreadfully divine forces, we can disintegrate the devil we carry within and transform ourselves into great hierophants… —Samael Aun Weor, The Perfect Matrimony, “The Son of Man”
…a great holy being, Hieros, meaning holy in Greek, a master [of Eros, the sexual force]. We can also, after meditating on certain defects and having understood them, visualize those defects during the sexual act and pray for their elimination, because the power of divinity, the creative force, is Shiva-Shakti. She can destroy any ego we have understood, and that will go to the roots, just annihilate it. That force cannot be stopped. That force of Shiva is the power of destruction, but also the power of life. That is the force of our Divine Mother, the Divine Mother who nurtures the soul, but also helps us to die to our defects, to die on the cross so to speak. This is the meaning of Christ's Passion.
As the sexual act is prolonged, as the delightful caresses of adorable ecstasy increase, one feels an enchanting spiritual voluptuousness. We are then charging ourselves with universal electricity and magnetism. Terrifying cosmic forces accumulate in the depths of the soul. The chakras of the astral body sparkle. The mysterious forces of the Great Cosmic Mother flow through all the channels of our organism. —Samael Aun Weor, The Perfect Matrimony, “The Son of Man” Paradisiacal Psychology
Now, it is interesting to state that obviously, some people hear about alchemy and transmutation, they think, “this is going to take away my enjoyment,” and that is not the case because the pleasure and the joy a couple feels in the sexual act is a natural and divine birthright. In fact, couples who learn to practice alchemy have more happiness, more vitality, more attraction to each other, greater magnetism and compassion. They never lose their love because they do not expel the force which keeps them in Eden.
The word עֵדֶן Eden in Hebrew means “bliss,” and that energy is the force of bliss. You conserve it and maintain it, transform it. The tree of knowledge itself irradiates and illuminates our tree of life, our whole psychology, and so our psychology becomes lighter, peaceful, more serene, more ability to concentrate, to meditate, to understand, to imagine, to act. This is a divine moment. The ardent kiss, the intimate caresses, are transformed into miraculous notes which movingly resound within the aura of the universe. —Samael Aun Weor, The Perfect Matrimony, “The Son of Man”
It is a form of divine music, which is why the great prophets of art: Puccini, Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner, Liszt, Chopin, Tchaikovsky, their music is so heavenly that we can't even grasp it. It is otherworldly. It is because they knew and practiced this science, either in secret or in other past existences. They conveyed through their art the melody and harmony of a perfect matrimony. That is why people are so inspired by their art, because that energy that initiated that music and conveyed it to humanity came from that source, from the top spheres of the tree of life, from divinity.
Kabbalah is mathematics, numbers. Music is mathematical. It is numerological. It relates to the tarot, and so that music conveys heaven. Obviously, in our modern era, we don't have that. We have a lot of degenerate music belonging to the inversion of the sphere of the tree of life, Klipoth, the hell realms. We have no way of explaining those moments of supreme pleasure. The serpent of fire is agitated (which is called the Kundalini, when the sexual force is never let out). The fires of the heart are enlivened, and thereupon the forehead of the sexually united beings shine the terrifying rays of the Father, full of majesty. If man and woman would know how to withdraw without the spasm, if in those moments of delightful enjoyment, they would have the willpower to control the animal ego, and if at that point, they would retire from the sexual act without ejaculating the semen, neither inside the womb, nor outside of it, or to the side of it, nor in any other place, they would have then performed an act of sexual magic. —Samael Aun Weor, The Perfect Matrimony, “The Son of Man”
It is important to remember that semen does not merely refer to the man. Women can lose their שֶׁמֶן Shemen, their oil, their vital forces, their energies. So some people have read Samael Aun Weor and mistaken him to be misogynistic, but he was talking about basic esoteric biology: Shemen, oil, energy. Men and women can lose it both through orgasm. So that has to be not engaged with at all. That is the primary stipulation.
But obviously, alchemy is much more than just refraining from orgasm. It is purity of mind. It is prayer. It is concentration. It is love. It is understanding desire and not acting on it, understanding it, willing to face, being willing to face that tiger cat that may be gnawing at oneself in the sexual act. This is what is called the Arcanum A.Z.F. —Samael Aun Weor, The Perfect Matrimony, “The Son of Man”
Agua, Fuego, Azufre: water, fire, sulfur. Fire of man, water of woman, sulfur, the sexual fire known as Kundalini, that only awakens within a matrimony between couples who are practicing chastity.
Kundalini and Kundabuffer
There are dualities to sex. We talk about Kundalini, we talk about Kundabuffer.
The thing to remember is that what most people call Kundalini often is the opposite. The fire of a matrimony can be used to awaken one's full potential. So there is a duality to Kundalini and Kundabuffer, and what most people call Kundalini is often Kundabuffer. We will talk about the difference. The perfect matrimony awakens the fire and intelligence of the Divine Mother, the divine feminine. Kundalini awakens through the merits of the heart—never by accident, never by compulsion, never by money, never by adherence to a group, never by association. It awakens within a couple that knows how to work in a marriage, when husband and wife can learn to tame the fires of desire and transmute it into the intelligence of the Divine Mother. She is the power of divinity, and she only awakens in a student or initiate, a couple who is responsible, not merely just physically and materially, but psychologically, spiritually. The opposite is Kundabuffer. As we saw from the former Arcanum of the Tarot, the Fool, those who follow their passions and inadequacies, their desires, bitten by the tiger cat of passion, awaken the powers of the opposite, which is Kundabuffer. Kundabuffer is a term given by Gurdjieff and refers to the inversion of that force when it is not heavenly. So instead of rising, it goes down. This force in the inverted sphere creates confusion, suffering, conflict, pain, dissociation, even psychosis, a lot of mental states that don't belong to heaven. They belong to the inverted spheres of the tree of life, Klipoth, the hell realms. Now, with the Arcanum A.Z.F., one learns to take the fire of their matrimony and eternally conserve it so that that fire is what kindles the lamp of their understanding. With the Arcanum A.Z.F, we can retain all that marvelous light, all those cosmic currents, all those divine powers. Then Kundalini, the sacred fire of the Holy Ghost, awakens in us, and we become terribly divine gods. However, when we ejaculate the semen, the cosmic currents merge with the universal currents and then penetrate the souls of the two beings with a bloody light, the Luciferic forces of evil, fatal magnetism. Then Cupid leaves crying. The gates of Eden are locked. Love becomes disillusionment, disenchantment arrives, and the black reality of this valley of tears is all that remains. —Samael Aun Weor, The Perfect Matrimony, “The Son of Man”
This is paralleled in the opera. You see that in the beginning, Rodolfo and Mimi are inspired by their new awakening sense of love to each other. They harmonize for a bit, but then they get into the inevitable conflicts of any relationship. But because they don't continue with the practices that really embody this science, they unfortunately enter pain, and so the beginning of the opera is a comedy, but it becomes a tragedy, disillusionment, despair at the end.
The Three Keys to Suffering
This is all synthesized in the three keys of suffering mentioned by Samael Aun Weor. So we just talked about the key of alchemy. But in synthesis here, we have the three keys of suffering, the doorway into all the problems that exist for humanity.
We already talked about the moon. The moon is a symbol of mechanicity, patterns, and repetition. The moon operates and governs many psychological elements in humanity. We know that there are more crime rates on a full moon. There are influences of the tides and the oceans. Women's sexual reproductive qualities are influenced by the moon. So many aspects of the lunar sphere influences everything, but more importantly, it influences our psychology. It is also important to note that not all negative things come from the lunar force. There are positive influences too, relating to the angelic force of Gabriel, Gibur-Ra-El, the strength, the force of divinity, that knows how to act with the law. But the moon, specifically in the opera, when Mimi and Rodolfo meet in the moonlight, has a fatal tint. So in one sense, their music is romantic and divine. They are inspired by the beauty of their burgeoning matrimony. But hinted at is the twilight of the final hour, a sense of uncertainty, which kind of hangs in the scene, in the air, and the music, but also in between the relationship, as they are kind of wandering in the dark to try to find the key. But they don't see the gravity of their situation and what it could entail. The three keys of suffering are the moon, the fornicating Eve, and the turbid waters. The moon represents our egotism in a strict psychological sense: the ego, our self, pride, anger, lust. These in themselves are basically the mechanical patterns we repeat. We often suffer because we tend to just go along with these impulses. The fornicating Eve has to do with a symbol of sexuality, not merely in a historical personage of the past. It is a symbol of men and women today, but also Adam is a representation of the brain, and Eve is a representation of sex. It is the sexual organs that tempt the mind for pleasure. Basic esoteric anatomy. There are levels and layers to the biblical stories. But Adam is the brain, Eve is sex. Eve from Hebrew means הוה Chavah, “mother of the living,” and the mother of the living is either the masculine or feminine sexual organs. How we use that force determines our trajectory, spiritually speaking. The turbid waters are precisely the creative energies that have become polluted. So it is very rare to find people in this modern era who have a very pure use of the creative force. What happens is that that energy often is contaminated by lust, desire, pride, anger. Even what we eat and drink is polluted oftentimes. It is rare to find pure water now. Food is often contaminated. The air we breathe is filled with smog. But what we take in through our mind, heart, and body, those energies transform into our sexual force, and when our waters are not treated with care, when we don't take care of what we consume, but also what we consume in our mind, those energies are affected predominantly. So these are the three keys of suffering that are hinted at in the opera. Rodolfo and Mimi are representing here a type of Edenic couple that meets and is reunited, and the turbid waters can refer to the tuberculosis that is killing Mimi, water in the lungs, the turbid waters that make her sick. She is sick in the opera. She comes to Rodolfo in a lot of pain. He tries to revive her with wine, a symbol of alchemy. He tries to revive her with the pure force of the Divine Mother. 
Twilight: A Dangerous Arcanum
So we are left with the dangerous Arcanum, Arcanum 18, which is highlighted by two jackals, one white, one black, under a moon. They find the key under the moonlight, Rodolfo and Mimi, but in a sense, they are doomed and haunted by occult enemies. So the Tarot of the 18th Arcanum has to do with the struggle between the forces of good and evil, and that plays out especially within the couple, but also within the drama of the opera too.
This is just a preview of the opera. So we haven't actually watched it. We will not watch the opera today, but I wanted to highlight these things for you because knowing these basics will help us when we actually watch the opera themselves, each act separately. Next time, we will watch act one, give a talk. After that, act two, same thing. And then the last two acts, three and four, will be combined into one lecture, and then we will synthesize and close up. But this is just a preview or introduction to getting ready to actually watch the opera so that when you watch the first act, you will have some tools by which to interpret what this is about. Any questions? Questions and Answers
Comment: So you spoke a lot about spiritual poverty and material poverty, and how those can kind of relate, but not necessarily. Just because someone is materially poor doesn't mean they are spiritually poor. I have heard some gnostic friends saying that certain people who do good works and help others and earn a lot of karma, that is positive, are rewarded not physically with material wealth, but are rewarded with spiritual progress.
Instructor: So I think it depends on the couple or on the student. How we are recompensed is commensurate with the quality of our mind and the orientation of our ethics. Sometimes if we give money, we could be rewarded with money, and there may be a basic reciprocal exchange of goods in a karmic sense. Obviously, the more spiritual actions we enact have more reach. So even giving, in the biblical gospels, a talent or a penny but with a lot of love and with all of our heart, that has more value in heaven than donating thousands of riches with no sentiment or investment emotionally. So it does depend on our level of being and how we give, in terms of what the consequences and effects will be. It is obviously very complicated because to understand how it all plays out is the level of a master of initiation, a hierophant of karma. They know how to manage those forces and to give appropriately. I don't. I mean, we are slugs of the earth, so to speak, I mean, in a literal sense. But those masters, they know how to give. Question: How do we talk about with other people that are maybe in the beginning of this, and we talk about the sexual arcanum (not all on the women, but on the men), about spilling the oil, and they stated facts about health like, “oh, not doing that because of this and cancer” and stuff? And that is like the biggest tool they have to reject the whole teaching. Instructor: The way that you confront that is to explain that scientists do not have an adequate control group for a scientific study on people who do practice chastity. First off, it is hard to find scientists who want to even study that. Second, those who may be even rigorous in their application or use of the criteria for performing an actual rigorous study. Third, finding people who actually want to be studied, subjects. And fourth, actually doing it. And then five, finding people who actually would be interested in the study itself. To disclaim chastity from a scientific basis is also incongruent with a scientific endeavor because those people need to learn how to have a control group: people who don't practice chastity and people who do. But they have not really performed a study, to my knowledge, that actually measures that. So the measurements are not in science alone, they are found in one's experience. And that is the primary barometer or metric we use. As we say in the gnostic tradition, we want to study ourselves. We want to find what works best for our lifestyle.p, and therefore, no one necessarily can prove it to you that this works. You might find examples of people who do practice it, who have great lives because of it. But sometimes, that and in most cases, is not enough. People have to be willing to test and practice it. Comment: In Cupid's Poisoned Arrow, it talks a little bit about some of this. So through the book Cupid's Poisoned Arrow, I think that there is some very limited research on working with a similar practice to this, Karezza, right? So there are just not enough people to study, and people who do practice this don't want to be studied. And it is hard to to show the contrast between the health benefits that the people who practice chastity get, versus people who don't practice it. Question: Don't you think marriage should not be built on lust, right? Any solid marriage is built on love and you know, selflessness and caring about the other. And obviously, the cycle, this sexual attraction, that element. But wouldn't you hope, by default, that humanity would know that if you are going to be with someone, it should not be based on lust alone, right? Instructor: Try teaching that to teenagers. That is the problem. People are inundated by propaganda about what sexuality is, and unfortunately, there aren’t people who first practice this, model it effectively, and then have the skill to teach it, or then have the environment by which they can teach it. Obviously, parents can teach their children about alchemy when they are at a certain age. So we are really pushing against the current. There are a lot of forces at work that do not want this science to be known. Even in the time of Samael Aun Weor, when he wrote The Perfect Matrimony, he was warned internally, “There will be forces reacting to what you just published,” and so he waited many years, waiting for books or people to comment against The Perfect Matrimony. But what happened was that he found out later that the pornography industry picked up. That, unfortunately, decimated our youth and made youth very sick mentally, emotionally, physically, and now they are basically adults, or coming to adulthood, with a lot of propaganda telling them about how to satisfy desires, never questioning that certain desires, as we said earlier, are problematic. It is a terrible situation, and this is why this opera is very fortuitous for our humanity today, which is why we wanted to spend some time explaining this opera, because it explains the situation that we face now. Question: So the people that know this knowledge want to keep it a secret because they want to rule over it? Instructor: So we obviously, you know, we are pretty explicit. We are pretty upfront. Personally, for me, these practices have helped me be the best self I have ever been in my life, and so that is one motivation for me to help other people, because I see it works for me, and to offer it to humanity. But there are forces and people that do not like this. I know Glorian Publishing has gotten a lot more flak than we have ever had. I mean, we are a very small school, and Glorian Publishing has released some videos recently. One of them is called Sacred Sexuality. It is a series of videos. They are coming out with Part Three now. The first video was on YouTube for almost a year, had over a million views, and YouTube recently took it down, saying because of content. So obviously, they are allowing other things of a sexual nature to go unchecked, whereas they are not letting this type of knowledge become propagated. So obviously, it is not in people's best interest to learn, or companies or certain groups' best interests, to know about the effects of chastity and this work. That is the thing to consider and think about. Another Instructor: Also, what we are teaching here with sexual magic is sexual magic in alignment with divine law, which is white magic. But there are those in this world who practice a different form of sexual magic that is against the divine law, that is black magic. And those people do want to kind of gatekeep that knowledge in some ways in order to have more power for themselves, and use the teachings of black magic publicly in ways that will enslave people to lust and desire and egotism and strengthening their pride. As long as you have people hooked on that kind of drug, of feeling like more desires, stronger egotism, then you can manipulate people very easily. So those who teach white magic historically did keep this a secret because the sexual potency, that sexual power, is so dangerous to people who don't know how to control it, who have not trained properly. But now that we are at the end of times for this particular civilization, it was unveiled in the 1950s publicly and is given freely to people because sexuality, now we see, is pervasive in mainstream culture. It is no longer very private. It is a very public thing. If we did not give people these kinds of keys to be able to know how to use it in the right way, then they would only hear how to use sexuality in harmful ways. There would just be no hope at all that anybody might try to work with this in a positive way in order to align themselves with divine law and develop themselves spiritually. So it is public now, but which form of it you get really depends on a lot of factors.
1 Comment
Danielle K Darelius
12/6/2024 12:31:35 am
Fascinating! Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
Leave a Reply. |
The Gnostic Academy of Chicago
Free online courses, lectures, podcasts, and transcriptions. Categories
All
|
RSS Feed
