If you have been studying gnosticism in our tradition for some time, you will be very familiar with a plethora of practices, exercises that we use to develop our complete potential. Most Westerners, especially in terms of development, have a preponderance for the intellect. What we tend to focus more on in our studies is a path of balance. Because we in the West tend to be very intellectual, very theoretical, very philosophical, we often have a deficit in the heart.
It is important that when we study ourselves and the nature of our own psychology, that we take the time to identify our weaknesses. It is important that we examine our heart, our quality of life, our inner states. Our purpose in this lecture today is to address that need, primarily since that, despite our common conceptions in North America or in Western countries, the heart has a more profound intelligence than the mind. There are capacities to our heart that are very deep, in which in our modern lifestyle we tend to neglect, or we fundamentally ignore. This is evident by the widespread problems associated with emotion. You find that people in life are afflicted with great stress, anger, pride, fear, resentment, anguish, and it is a fundamental mistake through our education systems, through our upbringing, through our childhood, that we try to resolve the problems of the heart with the mind. This is like using the wrong tool to build a house. In order to create a structure, we need the right tools. We need to address the right problem with the right methods. 
In terms of religious studies or the symbolism of different traditions that we study, we look especially to Christianity and Buddhism. We have here an image of the Christ with a sacred heart inflamed.
The Master Jesus, more than just embodying a figure to worship or to follow, represents something very deep within our consciousness. This is why in our Gnostic studies we explain the physical personages of the past, from diverse religious traditions, came to represent principles. They lived in their flesh and bone a state of being that we need to cultivate. Therefore, Christ as the human individual represents in us the principle of the inner Christ, our inner divinity, that light which can shine within the depths of our very heart, to illumine the mistakes of our past and the state of our suffering. Our focus today is to learn how to develop that principle in us, to understand what it means psychologically, and to know how to apply methods to develop greater insight in our daily life, especially in terms of how we approach problems, how we cultivate virtue, and also how we conquer vice. We will learn how to awaken, develop, sustain, and expand the intelligence of the heart, the wisdom of the heart, the ability to understand, very deeply, how to negotiate and navigate the great crises that are afflicting our contemporary humanity. We will also learn that the heart must learn to balance the mind if what we really seek is genuine peace. Lastly, we are going to explain a very deep verse given by Samael Aun Weor in his Aquarian Message. Love and wisdom are the secret path of the heart. The wisdom of the seal of the heart is for children, in other words, for those who do not commit adultery with Jezebel who called herself a prophetess. ―Samael Aun Weor, The Aquarian Message
Like many sayings given by Samael Aun Weor in his books, they are not meant for leisurely reading. It is not like reading a newspaper or a novel. Each verse and each line compact entire traditions, and basically knowledge, experiential, deep things that are very practical. What we will do is we will expand upon this, what love and wisdom consist of in life, in the practical, daily grind, in great moments of affliction and suffering and sorrow, ordeals. This is the path of the heart, the secret path, the path of inner initiation into higher mysteries from experience.
As we will explain, this wisdom is the seal of the heart. It is the perfection. It is what leads to the culmination of a highly refined individual, not from mere study, but from the crucible of great hardship, from the heat and extremity of challenges in life. Through refinement of our deepest errors, we learn to acquire and develop and realize our primordial, original, root state of the consciousness, the state of the soul. That state is like a child, innocent, pure, wise―not naïve, not foolish. It is an attitude that learns to investigate things without prejudice, without assumption. It is a mind and a heart that knows how to explore reality and understand its mysteries from experience without the mortifying shackles of theory and belief. This secret path is for those who do not commit adultery with Jezebel. If you are familiar with the Biblical verses in the New Testament, especially, Jezebel was an individual, a symbol of a type of mind, a type of attitude that is very common today―a personality that believes it can predict the future, that it understands the ways of the world, materialistic, dialectic theories, the concepts, the jargon of modern day living. It is a false prophetess, a false attitude, a mistaken mind. We will explain these verses very deeply, what they mean. Inner Balance and Extremes
First, we have to understand wisdom and love.
In our specific work in the Gnostic teachings, we try to acquire balance. We seek to look in our own daily life what behaviors, what impulses, what desires disequilibrate our mental state, our heart. We look to the facts. We look to the reality in its harshness, in its direct, painful circumstances to extract real deep wisdom of how to live appropriately. Obviously in our modern life we are very extreme. Our jobs tend to be very intellectual. We tend to use the mind at the expense of our heart. If we have a job that involves our heart, such as acting or theater, many people tend to exploit and eventually degenerate the heart through too much passion, too much negative feeling, emotions that take the volatile and also very profound force of the heart and channel it through mistaken ways. 
In this process of acquiring balance, we study the Tree of Life. It is a glyph we return to again and again. It is a map of consciousness commonly associated with Jewish mysticism. It is not merely the sole property of Judaism. It is a universal symbol. It has been represented in different traditions in different languages in different names, but we use the kabbalah, to use the thirteenth-century Spanish and Southern French tradition especially, this glyph, to codify a constellation of very abstract symbols. These symbols become very real and living when we understand what they mean.
You notice that there are three pillars here. This Tree of Life mentioned in the Bible with ten spheres is an image representing the complete human being. The three pillars, the left, the right, and the middle, constitute the fundamental reality of our life. The left pillar is associated with, you can say, severity, justice. The right pillar represents love. It represents wisdom. It represents mercy. In synthetic language, in referencing what Samael Aun Weor wrote here in Fundamentals of Gnostic Education, we find that wisdom is associated with the left pillar. Real wisdom comes through understanding the harsh facts, why we are in pain, what we do to create our situation and to perpetuate it again and again through our habits, our attachments. Wisdom is the ability to deeply and profoundly introspect and understand our mind. Love is the right pillar, the pillar of mercy. It is the pillar or principle or quality that knows how to forgive oneself and others. These two pillars, these principles, govern the structure of Being, the structure of divinity. It governs the structure of consciousness, how we operate psychologically, moment by moment, instant by instant. These two pillars must be balanced by the middle pillar. It is the pillar of equilibrium. It is not enough to have wisdom in life, to have some form of knowledge or instruction or education, although that is very fundamental. We need it especially as we grow up and enter adulthood to acquire a job, a career, to know how to have a family, how to support ourselves, how to help others. It is not enough just to have knowledge and wisdom. We must have love. We must have compassion for others. We must know how to give of ourselves in whatever capacity we are able, to be a contributive member of society. Love by itself is not enough. It has to be informed by wisdom. It is not enough to love someone. We have to know how to love them. You can love a family member who is addicted, a person who is an alcoholic, who is repeating behaviors that are very harmful. But if you do not know how to help them, how to love them appropriately, to give them the support that they need, the help, that love is meaningless, or it is ineffective. This is why Samael Aun Weor said in Fundamentals of Gnostic Education: Wisdom and love are the two basal pillars of every true civilization. On one plate of the scale of cosmic justice we must place wisdom and on the other we must place love. Wisdom and love must be mutually equilibrated. Wisdom without love is a destructive element. Love without wisdom can lead us into error. “Love is law, but cognizant love.” ―Samael Aun Weor, Fundamentals of Gnostic Education
Wisdom without love is destructive. Look at the atom bomb. Look at weapons of mass destruction―knowledge, wisdom about how to manipulate nature, but without any ethic behind it.
Love by itself, without being sustained by insight about how to effectively act, can lead us into mistakes. This is why love is the law, but conscious, intelligent, wise. This Tree of Life is a map of the heart, the map of the complete human being. We look to the Hebrew letters to understand some very interesting correlations which can inform our understanding of this glyph. Hebrew is read right to left. The Hebrew word for heart is לב Leb: ל Lamed, ב Beth. Each Hebrew letter relates to a number. ל Lamed is equivalent to 30 and ב Beth to 2. 30 + 2 are known as the 32 paths of God in the kabbalistic, Hebrew, mystical, Jewish tradition. This in itself constitutes 22 Hebrew letters of the Alphabet of Kabbalah, the Jewish mysticism, in ten spheres of Being. The ten spheres are known as סְפִירוֹת sephiroth. They mean “jewels.” They are expressions of divinity, qualities of divinity, qualities of mind, qualities of being, states of consciousness. They are jewels because when these spheres, when these principles are perfected in us, we illuminate ourselves. We receive illumination. We become like a divine jewel, a beautiful, resplendent thing, that shines like a ring upon the hand of divinity―pure, radiant, sublime. The heart must be cleaned. It must be polished, because right now, if we are sincere and examine our habits in life, we can find many moments, many situations, many relationships, many states that we know are harmful. We feel weak. We have pain. We look for solutions. We look for things outside of us that will correct a problem. The reality is that the external circumstances of life are merely the reflection of what we have inside. If we change fundamentally within our interior, circumstances radically change. It is a fundamental law. It is a fundamental reality, and it is something that we can verify. 
The Ultimate Remedy
While we talk a lot about Christianity and Buddhism especially, we can also relate the mystical teachings of Islam, Sufism, which for its merit has strived against literal orthodoxy, interpretations of the Qur’an, which can be very dead letter. In fact, this tradition is very rich and beautiful as well and teaches many things that are of practical import, things that we can apply to our life.
Similar to the Jewish tradition and the Hebrew language, you have the Arabic. Arabic is a semitic language, and likewise each Arabic letter refers to numbers. The Sufis do not refer to this system as kabbalah. They refer to it as the Abjad system, in which you interpret the words of certain Arabic names or terms to understand deeper principles behind them, similar to Hebrew. We have here the word قلب Qalb in Arabic which means “heart.” قلب Qalb, the heart, is the equivalent of Lev לב in Hebrew. The heart has a very special place within the Sufi mystical tradition, the mystical tradition of Islam. The solution to our problems and sufferings in life is that we learn to reconnect to a superior state of being. This is not found in the future. It is not found in the past. It is living in the moment. The heart awakens to superior, higher, more beautiful states of being when we polish it. The heart is rusted in its current state. It is like stone. Many people do not even know how to feel because of repression. They no longer acknowledge the great turmoil of their daily life. It is by openly confronting our emotions and even being willing to sit in them, as overwhelming as they might be, that we learn to polish―not rejecting, not affirming―watching. That state of watchfulness is precisely the doorway of the heart, that opens us up to being able to experience and understand what divinity is, to remember the presence of divinity―not outside, inside―in the heart, in the moment, the presence, the state. As it says in the oral tradition of Islam, the Hadith: There is an organ in the body that, if it is righteous, ensures that the whole system will be righteous, and if it is corrupt, the whole body will become corrupt. This organ is the heart. There is a polish for everything that takes away rust, and the polish for the heart is Dhikr, “the remembrance of God.” ―Prophet Muhammad, Hadith
This is a very difficult thing for many people, especially when we approach religion. We hear this teaching about remembering divinity, and obviously this can be very confusing. How does one remember a state of divinity, to know divinity, to experience divinity, especially in one’s daily life, especially when we are so clouded, so jaded, so afflicted?
Remembrance is a state of watchfulness. It is active looking. It is observation. It is examining the heart, looking at it―not knowing that one is angry, not knowing that one is afraid, but observing the fact. In that state of observation, of looking, of watchfulness, of mindfulness, we start to see new things. We feel new things. We gather data and we learn what in the heart is pure and what is not. This is a very different quality or state of being that we in the West especially are not acquainted with, because we forget ourselves. When faced with a circumstance, a distraction, an object of interest, we become fascinated. We do not even remember our body. We know this when we watch a movie. You watch a film. You see its images, its characters, its dramas, and yet in that moment while focused on the film, feeling the feelings of the characters, one does not even feel one’s own body or has any awareness of it. This is a profound state of sleep. The mind is active, but the heart is not. The soul, the consciousness, is not awake. The consciousness must be awakened. This state of mindfulness, serenity, which is able to look without being disturbed by what it sees, unwavering, equal, in terms of good and bad, yes and no, attachment or craving or aversion, equanimitous, clear, direct―this is the power of the heart, the power of the soul, which in Arabic is قلب Qalb: ق Qaf, ﻝ Lam, ﺏ Bah. ق Qaf is equivalent to 100. ﻝ Lam is equivalent to 30 and ﺏ Bah to 2. In synthesis, you add those numbers together, you get 132. You can even take the first digit (1), apply it to 32, you get 33. Numbers are very interesting. They are not merely for arithmetic. Numbers within mysticism are very spiritual. They represent many things, which is why when you study scriptures like the Bible you find many prominent numbers: 40 years in the wilderness; 40 days and 40 nights meditating in the wild tempted by the devil; 33 years in the life of Jesus. There are 33 vertebrae of the spine, 33 canons or degrees in Freemasonry. These are all symbols about how one works with the heart. How does one master oneself? The spine is made of 33 vertebrae and our spine is our Tree of Life. The spine can be a receptacle of higher energies and realities and principles. We cultivate the energies of the spine through many forms of yoga. Those energies rise in accordance with the heart, the quality of our ethics, the quality and purity of our emotion. Even the name مُحَمَّد Muhammad in Arabic has the same meaning numerically: م Mim (40), ح Ha (8), م Mim (40), م Mim (40), د Dal (4). 40 + 8 + 40 + 40 + 4 is 132 = 32 + 1 = 33. You get the same synthesis. 32 + 1 = 33. 
Knowing How to Think and Feel
As I was saying about the Master Jesus, he represents something inside of us. Likewise, the Prophet Muhammad in the Muslim tradition represents the powers of the heart, the realities of the heart. This brings us to our next point.
If we want to have greater equanimity in our daily life, we have to know how to think and feel. Obviously in our modern world, we can not avoid thinking. It is not like we are just going to go into mystical ecstasy, abandon the world, give up the mind, and avoid it altogether. That is also a wrong attitude. We need to live in our society as contributive members, good citizens, good parents, good children, good husbands and wives. Abandoning the world does not resolve the problem of disequilibrium, although retreats in the past in monasteries and temples were very useful for cultivating a state of serenity, only so that by returning into the world, one has greater focus by which to tackle the problems of life. Strict avoidance is basically rejected in these studies. We do not want to avoid reality, life, modern living, the problems of existence. We want to master them, and if going on retreat for some time to help balance our mind and heart is necessary, we do so, but with the understanding that it is temporary. When we study ourselves, we have to learn how to think and how to feel. Our jobs may be very demanding intellectually. We require the use of the intellect to solve problems, to analyze, to interpret, to communicate. We will not abandon thought in these studies, but it is important that we know how to use it in its orbit. It is possible to use the intellect in an intuitive way. This is very subtle and very beautiful. The intellect must be balanced. A mind that is afflicted, is full of doubt or confusion, distracted, wandering from things to thing, association to association, looking for answers, looking at options, is a mind that is divided. The type of thought that we are communicating here that is superior is understanding. It is intuitive. Rather than the mind deliberating and projecting its ideas and projects, analyzing, we learn to make the mind more receptive. We make it calm. We make it serene so that when the mind is very serene like a lake, suddenly new insights can enter very spontaneously without effort, without exertion. Suddenly like lightning, it hits us, and then we realize the problem and its solution. We know what to do. We did not have to sit and churn and clench our fists and clench our foreheads thinking, “How am I going to solve this?” Instead, it comes to us effortlessly. Likewise, we have to know how to feel. To feel is to not merely just to experience emotions passively, like suddenly someone insults us and we become angry. We have to learn to navigate emotion with intelligence, to identify the moment in which anger is about to bloom. Someone insults us, the impression and words hit our mind, hit our heart, and then the reaction emerges. If we are watching, if we are observing the facts in the moment, and you watch, you wait, you look, you can suddenly differentiate that there is a part of ourselves that is trying to create harm, the reaction, the anger. This is a defect. This is a mistake. In that act of watching and of observing, we recognize that there is a part of us that is superior, that is not conditioned yet, that is not stuck, invested in the anger, unless we give it our energy. That is another story, and that obviously complicates and makes problems worse, acting on anger, acting on resentment, acting on pride. 
There is an interesting dynamic to learn in ourselves. We do this by studying what is known as the three brains.
We have the intellect, the emotions, and our sexuality. We have the brain in our cranium, our skull. Our emotions, our heart is also a brain in the sense that it is a center of physiological action, which processes intelligence, energy, life, sentiment, emotion. Likewise, we have our sexuality, which is part of a larger system, a conglomerate of our instincts, our desires, and our sexuality. It can relate to our spine, but also our sexual organs. When you watch and observe your mind and your heart and your sexuality, your desires, we acquire data. We start to see light, shine light on the dark parts of ourselves, and to understand how our mind, our emotions, and how our desires act. When we study this dynamic, this system in ourselves, we find that the brain, heart, and sexual centers are very deeply related. They are not integrated in us because in one moment we can think one thing, feel another, and have the impulse to act in very contradictory ways. We actually are a disunity, despite the form of our body. Psychologically we are not a unity. Physically, we are, but psychologically, we are not. What we want to do is integrate these centers. We want them to function under one master and not many. Obviously, the intellect may have the desire to read, to conceptualize, to theorize. The heart may feel fear, emotional distress for a problem. Our impulses may push us to want to run away or to fight or to freeze. These three centers are not working optimally, and so what we want is to learn to balance them and to understand the relationship between all three, all three brains, so that they work harmoniously. We do that by mostly really developing our heart, but obviously there are other parts of us that we need to cultivate. It is not just that we want to focus on developing our heart, although that is a very major part especially for us, typically. We have practices in our tradition that help us to balance all three brains. Especially, we work with energies or practices known as transmutation, where we take energy in our sexual organs, raise them up the spine to our brain, and then send them to our heart. There are centers, or better said, channels that exist not merely in the physical body, but in our energetic bodies, parts of us that are not merely physical, but energetic. This is very well known within Chinese medicine. They are known as meridians. They are channels. They are like tubes or conduits that can allow energy to flow, especially if we do it consciously with a lot of purity and divine attention. 
The heart and the mind need to be connected to our sexuality, and the primary practice we use especially in our studies is pranayama. It is a breathing exercise in which you take the energies of our creativity, which is in our sexual organs. You conserve that force. You never expel it. You cultivate it with prayer, with love for divinity. You raise it with breath up the spine, up two energy channels which are related to the symbol of medicine. It is like an eight on the spine, the number eight, the Caduceus of Mercury―two serpents rising on a staff up to the head, and we take the energies that are settled in the mind, which purify the mind, give it light and harmony, then we send it to the heart.
The primary instrument that accomplishes this feat is our emotional state, our intention, our attitude. Most of us have a mind and a sexuality that are dissonant. They do not integrate. The intellect is out of whack because, really, the energies that we have in our body are typically not used in a good way. An energy which can give life to a child is the energy that can give life to the spirit. This is why Jesus said, “You must be born again,” to create a new way of being. Really, the Holy Eight, the Caduceus of Mercury, that is, the energetic channels of the spine, connect the mind and sex and the heart, but in us, really in most people, the mind is sluggish, lacking force, lacking real spiritual intelligence, understanding. It is an overactive and hyper mind that tends to be distracted. But by working with pranayama, we calm the mind, and we elevate the heart. Obviously for many people in these studies, learning to transmute sexual energy can be very difficult, because obviously in our modern life we have bad habits, or we have had bad habits for a long time, and we are trying to cultivate a spiritual practice. It is about training the body, training the mind, and training the heart to know how to operate in a different way. This is why the intellect is so stubborn in the beginning. It can be hard to concentrate, to focus on the practice, to remember how to do it, to not let the mind wander, to think of other things. And the body? Agitated. Wants to move. It is frustrated, in pain, has an itch, has a scratch, and our emotions may be all over the place because we are in a lot of turmoil. If we are diligent with this exercise, day by day, it will help us to acquire equilibrium, balance, calm. In the beginning, the mind fights sex and sex fights the mind. However, there are deeper problems than this, even just getting past some basic knowledge of transmutation as indicated by Samael Aun Weor: 
The brain, heart, and sex of the genie of the earth are symbolically placed in the holy eight in the symbol of the infinite. ―Samael Aun Weor, Light from Darkness
The planet Earth, spiritually speaking, has a holy symbol in its core. It is a symbol of us because we ourselves, our body is like the Earth. It is material, and the genie that operates it is the genius of the consciousness, which must know to awaken, to work with these two energy centers, the two serpents or the Caduceus of Mercury, which form the infinite on the spine.
The two opposed circles on the holy eight represent brain and sex. The center of the holy eight is the symbolic seed of the heart. Terrible is the fight of brain against sex, sex against brain, and what is even more terrible and most bitter is the fight of heart against heart. ―Samael Aun Weor, Light from Darkness
Many people struggle with working with transmutation. Their brain is battling their sex. They are trying to control the energies, to learn to dominate the sexual force, to not have it be an adversary, but to make it a friend, struggling with conserving that force and transforming it. Sex, desires, passions, animality, push against the initiate, fights, wants the satisfactions of its lusts, and so sex and brain are in battle.
Obviously, this can be rectified by consistent and daily practice, and it is achievable. Balance can be formed, but more difficult than just the battle between sex and brain is heart against heart. This has to do with the ordeals of our life, our circumstances, our challenges. Maybe we have a fight with our partner. We have an argument with our spouse. The pain of heart against heart is very deep. This is why individuals, students, instructors must learn to have a lot of equilibrium with the sexual energy, control it, make it our slave, and we, its master―not just by mere exertion and force―but through understanding and patience. When those energies are working upright, our consciousness is enlightened. It is inflamed. It is inspired, so that when we face ordeals in life, challenges, circumstances, in which we are tested―we have an argument with a coworker, with a friend, or whomever―the pain of heart against heart is alleviated or reduced. In synthesis, the mind must become the vehicle of the heart, as I was saying. The intellect must be calm, must be serene, more receptive than the heart, that consciousness. Superior emotions like love and compassion, insight, must be awakened. Samael Aun Weor had some very interesting explanations about this which can help inform our practical life: The mind must convert itself into an instrument of the heart. We must learn to think with the heart. The mind must flow delectable with the exquisite feeling of the heart. The mind must become lovely and simple. The wisdom of the heart illuminates the mind. The wisdom of the heart is placed in the chalice of the mind as the blood of redemption. The mind of the arhat, the meditator, is symbolized by the Holy Grail. The heart’s love is the summum of wisdom. ―Samael Aun Weor, Igneous Rose
Think with the heart. This is a very different mechanism. It is actually not mechanical. It is a different form of being.
If you have a job that is very intellectual, learn to perform it more with the heart. Learn how to do it consciously with the heart, how you relate to others, how you respond to others, how you understand others. Look at your relationships. Use the intelligence of your conscience, the Voice of the Silence: that which knows right from wrong, even if the intellect lacks a definition for it. It can only label with terminology and vapid pleonasms. Instead, the heart must learn to observe, to watch, and the mind with its thoughts, its memories, its associations, must learn to flow. But it does not predominate in our intellect. This cannot be achieved through force. It is achieved through serenity, through observation, through watching. The feelings of the heart must become more sensitive. This is achieved through, really, remembrance, being in a state of watchfulness, observing, not qualifying, looking. The Basis of Spiritual Perception
When our heart predominates in terms of the wisdom of the heart, we suddenly get insights and understanding and intuitions about what to do at our jobs, our marriages, in our careers. If we are watching our emotions, our heart, our intuition will tell us what to do, what to say, what to think, how to act. That is a connection to our inner divinity. It is a form of light. It is a state of perception that is unfiltered, in which we see reality. We understand ourselves. We understand other people.
But that has to occur when the mind is no longer projecting its worries, its doubts, its fears. Turn off the projector, or at least, if the projector in our mind is trying to dictate everything in life, observe the fact and let the intellect exhaust itself. But you do not enter into a struggle with it, grappling with it, fighting it, forcing it, because that makes things worse. Just watch. Look. This is the form of the Holy Grail like the mind, a chalice that can receive the wine of God: superior knowledge, supreme wisdom, understanding about how to work practically in life. This type of perception is very different from our common and ordinary state of mind. We tend to go through our job and career, our life, with a lot of habits. We have our schedules, our demands, the things we need to do moment by moment at certain points. Some of our jobs may be more scripted. Some of us may have more freedom. Maybe we are independent. We have our own business. We set our own schedule. Whatever it may be, we have patterns. We have obligations. We have systems. The thing to remember is that in the grind of life, through the mechanism of circumstances, the things that repeat again and again, we have to learn to approach it with novelty. No matter how redundant our job or career may be, our married life, our careers, our family, experience, we have to learn to approach things with a fresh perspective every time we approach it―to know how to enter into the mechanicity of life and to operate or to respond to it without mechanicity. This form of perception is not intellectual. It is not labeling. It is a state of consciousness. It is a state of the heart, the heart which knows how to navigate, to look, to orient our moral compass about how to respond to people and situations. Ibn ‘Arabi is a great Sufi mystic from the Muslim mystical tradition. He wrote some verses in The Divine Governance of the Human Kingdom, which emphasize and reiterate these points. He emphasizes that the heart has its own intelligence, has nothing to do with reduction or analysis, comparison, association, theory, labeling, naming, identifying, deliberating. Instead, the heart can learn to see the reality of a situation, the reality of the mind, and know how to respond with momentariness, freshness, lightness, spontaneity. It does not mean that one is impulsive. It means that one is correct and is adaptable, can navigate hard situations and respond with wisdom, because the barometer of success is that our communities improve. Our relationships strengthen. People respect us more. People want to be with us. They want to be a part of our life. We benefit them. We help others. We give them inspiration, happiness, joy, contentment, belonging. This is a state of compassion, of love, that is balanced with insight. There are some principles given by Ibn ‘Arabi that relate to the Buddhist tradition as well, which we will emphasize, things that we will clarify and cohere some of the points we have made: We think that we see with our eyes. The information, the influences of perception are due to our senses while the real influence, the meaning of things, the power behind what sees and what is seeing can be reached neither by the senses nor by deduction and analysis, comparison, contrasts, and associations made through intellectual theories. The invisible world can only be penetrated by the eye and the mind of the heart. Indeed, the reality of this visible world also can only be seen by the mind and the eye of the heart. What we think we see is but veils which hide the reality of things, things whose truth, meaning, may not be revealed until those veils are lifted. It is only when the dark veils of imagination and preconception are raised that the divine light (Bodhi) will penetrate the heart (Chitta), enabling the inner eye to see. Then either the sunlight or the light of a candle will become a metaphor for the divine light. ―Ibn ‘Arabi, Divine Governance of the Human Kingdom
The terms I related here are Sanskrit, although this is an Arabic teaching by Ibn ‘Arabi, a Sufi mystic. His statements are corroborated by experience.
We can look to a moment in our life in which we think someone is mad at us or has ill intentions. We have a wrong impression. We are convinced by our own narrative about whom someone is, their station in life, what they want from us, what they intend, yet through confrontation or experience, through unveiling, we realize that we were wrong. This person was not what we thought they were. We were veiled by our own preconception, our own doubt, maybe frustration or passion, maybe fear. This is a mental state. It is a conscious state in which we did not see reality. We were veiled by our own mind. Fantasy, our own preconceptions are erased when we shine Bodhi, “light,” a Sanskrit term for “wisdom,” into our heart, Chitta. That light is perception. 
What Meditators Develop
बोधिचित्त Bodhichitta is a Buddhist term referring to the “light, wisdom, enlightenment or awakening of the heart.” It is a very deep term with a lot of application within diverse schools of Tibetan Buddhism especially, and we mention this in synthesis here because it refers to an altruistic attitude of enlightened compassion, selfless love that is informed by insight into the nature of reality, the impermanence of phenomena, that sensations and perceptions of things are illusory like in the example I provided: we had the wrong impression on this individual, maybe a coworker or family member. We heard stories or tales, or gossip and we believe it and yet, we see the reality and we are mistaken.
Real insight comes to us when the mind is charged with the light of the creative energy. Bodhichitta is in some sense an attitude. It is the aspiration to help all suffering beings escape pain, but it is informed by insight and wisdom, the knowledge for how to do it, understanding the impermanence of life because nothing is eternal in life. Things change, temporality, existence, impressions. Life enters us moment by moment, instant by instant, through sensations in our senses, to our thoughts and feelings, our instincts, our desires. We do not tend to understand that even our mental states are impermanent. They do not last. They bloom. They flower for a moment and then they die. They vanish. They emerge, they sustain, and they pass like clouds in the sky. We can only see this dynamic if we actively watch the origins of our thoughts, our feelings, our instincts, our impulses, our desires. This attitude of watchfulness is a state of perception, which we understand that our state of being is a multiplicity. We are constituted by many factors. We are a disunity, as I said. Watching that state and understanding its reality is understanding impermanence, that even parts of ourselves are not real. They do not last. They are not fundamental, but consciousness, the ability to watch and remember, to act with real love, is reality. Bodhichitta, really in the sense of Mahayana Buddhism, which is the intermediate level teaching of that tradition, is about compassionate love coupled by understanding of emptiness, that emptiness or impermanence, that nothing is substantial in and of itself, intrinsically real, but everything depends on something else, including circumstances. We cultivate bodhichitta through meditation. We cultivate bodhichitta through working with our creative energy. We cultivate bodhichitta through service for others, being a good person, being a good spouse, a good worker, whatever it may be. Whatever our capacity in life, we fulfill it with humility and love, and we serve to benefit others. In a sense bodhichitta is reality, understanding of reality, that because life is impermanent, we suffer, and other people suffer too because they are attached, or they want to run away from facts. Therefore, by understanding and reflection, we have great compassion, and that compassion, that love for others and understanding of their states, inspire us to want to work for them, and to dedicate our spirituality for the benefit of our community, so that it is practical. There is what is known as a Heart Doctrine, a Doctrine of the Heart. Blavatsky mentioned this in The Voice of the Silence. The Heart Doctrine, the dharma of the heart, is the reality or understanding of truth, the reality of existence, the reality of life in Being, in us, and in humanity. The dharma of the “I,” the doctrine of the, “I,” the philosophies of the “I,” of appearances, are all the assumptions and beliefs that we have of ourselves that are not real. We think that we are one way, but we are another. Really, if you are married or you get married, you will know what I mean. I mean, you think you are one thing, but your spouse will point out to you your errors, and if you are humble, you will make the changes that you need. But we are very much unconscious of our own mistakes. Some people see our mistakes easier than we see our own. It is a common fact of life. That is the doctrine of the “I,” of appearances, beliefs, assumptions about identity, who we are, our characteristics, our personality. Some of it may be true, but in reality, these things are temporary. What is real is the consciousness, the soul, that part of us which can resonate compassionately for other human beings and work for them. The Dharma of the "Eye" is the embodiment of the external, and the non-existing.
That state of the consciousness is real, is reality, but we do not see it because we are clouded by appearances, by superficialities. This can change especially when we practice meditation.
Compassion That Works
The Dalai Lama mentioned a few points in the Essence of the Heart Sutra that iterate what we mentioned, how bodhichitta can be aspirational and can be intentional or active.
We can have the aspiration to want to help humanity, the joy or longing to be of service to our communities, but it is another thing to completely do it. Buddhism makes a demarcation between aspirational and active bodhichitta, because it is one thing to intend, and it is another thing to do. Gnosis, our Gnostic tradition, really emphasizes the practical, that we make the effort in our daily life to really embody these principles and live them. Here is what the Dalai Lama stated corroborating our points about wisdom and love: According to Buddhism, compassion is an aspiration, a state of mind wanting others to be free from suffering. It is not passive. It is not empathy alone but rather an empathetic altruism that actively strives to free others from suffering. Genuine compassion must have both wisdom and loving kindness, that is to say, one must understand the nature of suffering from which we wish to free others. This is wisdom and one must experience deep intimacy and empathy with other sentient beings. This is loving kindness. ―The Dalai Lama, Essence of the Heart Sutra
Compassion that works is love informed by wisdom. It is not enough to love a drug addict, but to know how to help them. We have to have wisdom.
Why have compassion, especially as we are examining our own mind and attempting to grasp how to change our daily states? It is important to understand the sufferings of others. When we understand other people’s suffering, we are more in tune with the heart. We have more remorse for our own mistakes and how we contribute to others’ pain. Also, we have greater intuition and sensitivity, greater understanding about how to help others, how to navigate the mind of others, to inspire them and to help in whatever capacity we are able. 
Why Have Compassion? The Three Sufferings
There are three sufferings mentioned in Buddhism:
Obviously, we want to help people maybe if they are suffering physically. We have a job or career, or we are in a position where we can help people ease their physical pain. Obviously, that is a great dharma and blessing. Also, mental pain as well, such as in our relationships, our interactions with people. We might want to be in tune with the feelings of others, to understand what is causing them pain, and to do what we can to help alleviate it to whatever degree possible. The suffering of change is much more profound, relating to impermanence. In a sense, the suffering of change has to do with the fact that the cup of coffee that we had this morning will not last in the evening, so maybe we feel tired after a long day of work. Maybe our appetite, hunger, we eat one moment of the day in breakfast, but then we suffer from change because nothing is permanent. Energy does not last forever, in the sense of how it cycles through the body, and we get hunger and we need to eat again. Or, we have a circumstance when we are at our job. We have a career and then suddenly the job is over. We lose our job, or we get laid off. That is a profound change that creates a lot of suffering for a lot of people. More profound than that is the suffering of conditioning. This is the deepest form of pain in which we suffer, because we have desire. We have defects. We have elements in our mind that are contradictory to our best spiritual aspirations. We have conditions of mind, states of being which keep us in a lot of suffering psychologically. We may want to be spiritual and be a kind person, but we have anger. The circumstances arise, provoke that element in us, and we react seemingly without cognizance if we are not watching, if we are not in remembrance, and that conditioning, that anger, creates a lot of pain, not just for other people, but for ourselves. The consciousness that is trapped in that anger is profoundly in a state of pain because that anger is like a shell. It is a state of mind that traps the energy of the consciousness and processes it in accordance with its mechanicity, with its limitation. That is the greatest form of suffering. When we understand that other people have anger and pride, that they are really a slave to their desires, that they can not help being what they are, we have greater love and compassion for them. Therefore, their words of insult or slander do not mean anything, because we have the attitude of a doctor towards a sick person. Why be angry with the sick? Why be angry with the ill? The ignorant? The lost? We have to have great love for them and others, because there are many conditions of mind that trap people’s way of life. When we see that in ourselves and that we too are helpless in many ways, we have greater compassion for other people, because we have that conditioning too. When we learn to see that conditioning in ourselves, we have greater love for others, because we see that we are in the same boat. We just may have different defects than other people, more predominant or prominent features than others. What we want to do in this process is to study ourselves and study the nature of real compassion, real love. 
Resource
We end with a course from Glorian Publishing on Compassion, a series of lectures that explain some aspects of Tibetan Buddhism especially, but also Christianity and the essence of the Heart Doctrine. We invite you to study this resource and to meditate on it.
Part of this path of developing the qualities of the heart is learning to overcome that which is false in us, as emphasized in that Biblical quote about Jezebel or the reference to the Biblical Jezebel, the mind or prophetess that thinks it knows, but it does not. We must become innocent like children, a state of being which is humble and pure. We can do so by learning to study some resources and practicing exercises like meditation, and also the resources we have available here. At this point I invite you to ask questions. You are welcome to write them in the chat. Questions and Answers
Question: Are there scenarios in life where euthanasia may be objectively the best choice, for example, for one suffering daily from serious brain damage and greatly diminished consciousness to the point where walking the Path feels impossible?
Instructor: Obviously, that is something that is managed by divinity. You have to consult divinity in meditation. Suspend the senses. Suspend the mind. Calm the heart. Introspect and pray. Ask in your Being for the insight that you need and wait. Allow the answer to come to you. Usually this will come in the form of maybe an image, a vision, a dream. These are scenarios that really have to be evaluated from a very clear conscience, because there are serious repercussions in terms of acting in any way for and against. That is something that you really have to consult divinity for. We can not make those decisions. Really, the compassionate thing may be to do it or not. Only divinity will know. Question: I was wondering how you made the insight and connection of people needing to be the master of sex and it being our slave? Instructor: Many spiritual traditions teach about initiates and masters, spiritual individuals, people who have acquired some higher state of enlightenment, whether through figures like Christ, the Virgin Mary, John the Baptist―many masters from diverse traditions and religions. They were the masters of themselves not merely in their emotions but in all aspects of their being. We know just from conventional wisdom that such Gurus, masters, individuals, are very rare, and this is precisely because they have learned to conquer a part of themselves that for most of us is untamed. This is the sexual energy, desire, passion. All the traditions throughout the world have a heart doctrine: an esoteric component to the faith that encodes a deeper knowledge that was not conveyed to the uninitiated. We have exceptions now because this knowledge is now allowed to be provided to the public. That knowledge that we are speaking of is about transmutation, the work with the sexual energy. We know from a basic level that, really, the creative sexual energy can create a child, but according to the Master Jesus, “We must be born again.” This is a sexual problem. “That which is born of the flesh is flesh. That which is born of the Spirit is Spirit.” If our sexual drives command us, drive us, compel us, whether it is fantasies and desires and lusts, then we are not a master of ourselves. Instead, it is logical that a spiritual master is someone who has full control of who they are, not by avoiding instinct, sexuality, but by understanding it and integrating it within a fully developed personality, mind, and being. Rather than having sexuality that is contrary to our spirituality, it is that we make the sexual spiritual. We make something that is commonly filthy and vulgar and make it divine through different procedures. The sexuality of an angel is very different from that of a demon. All beings have sexual drive. Whether or not we are in full mastery of it is another thing. This aspect of the teaching is very well described and explained in the writings of Samael Aun Weor. I would invite you to study his books especially from Glorian Publishing. You can study the book especially called The Perfect Matrimony. That will introduce you to this understanding of the deeper esoteric aspect of religion and how the knowledge of a marital relationship between a husband and wife can empower one’s spirituality. Question: What is the difference between a bodhisattva and bodhichitta? Instructor: Bodhichitta is the altruistic mind of enlightenment that seeks to liberate others from suffering, coupled with selflessness and wisdom of reality. A bodhisattva is an individual that develops within bodhichitta. Bodhichitta emerges first, that altruistic enlightened compassion, that Christic love, the selflessness of divine mercy. That attitude has to be cultivated first. A bodhisattva is a beginning level master who, because of their work in initiation, has developed a state of mind and heart and body that can manage the voltage of divinity and incarnate divinity. Bodhi is light. It is wisdom. A bodhisattva is a being, an entity, an individual who incarnates the divine. Bodhi, “wisdom” and obviously in our Gnostic studies and terms we call it Christ [חכמה Chokmah in Kabbalah, meaning “wisdom”], and the incarnation of Christ symbolized by the Master Jesus is something that we can do ourselves if we are properly prepared. A bodhisattva is a being who is mastering bodhichitta. It is like a child, in a sense, growing within the embryo or the chick within an egg. The egg is bodhichitta. It is the seed plot, the potential, the basis, the energy that can give life to a master. A bodhisattva emerges from bodhichitta. You develop compassion and selflessness first and then through that work you can take a much higher path in your spiritual development, if you reach that point. A bodhisattva is really a master who is beginning to walk the path of Christ. You can study more about this in a course from Glorian Publishing called The Path of the Bodhisattva, which integrates and explains the synthetic teachings of Christianity and Buddhism in their most fundamental depth. Question: Can you go over why it is called the “seal of compassion”? Instructor: What is a seal? It is the covenant. It is the culmination, perfection. When you have written a letter to someone, you seal it. You finished it. The love of divinity is a seal, the seal of the heart. Obviously, we are beginners, and we are learning to develop the heart, but we perfect our compassion when we fully eliminate our own desires, our defects, our errors, our vices. Therefore, Christ love is the seal of compassion―enlightened, divine understanding of nature and reality, that expresses for all beings and fights for the alleviation of their suffering. That seal is something initiatic. There are degrees, levels upon levels of work. You can study this path itself in a course we have been giving called The Voice of the Silence, as transcribed by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky. We seal our work when we perfect ourselves, and obviously that is the goal. We want to be sealed by compassion. We do not want to have any fault, any defect anymore. That is a long patient work. We take our time. We have to work humbly. Question: Is Atman the same as bodhichitta? Instructor: In a sense, there is a relationship, because Atman, to use the Hindu, Sanskrit term, relates to the Hebrew חסד Chesed, spirit, “mercy,” the love of the divine Being within our heart. There is a relationship there, but bodhichitta also is, really, many things. In the most introductory level of Buddhism, bodhichitta is the aspiration to help others. In Mahayana Buddhism, it is understanding of emptiness, selflessness, and compassion for suffering. Within the forms of Tantric Buddhism, it is the sexual energy itself. In a sense, the spirit deeply relates to the sexual energy, as do all parts of the Being. But bodhichitta is like the virtues we develop like jewels in ourselves through purifying our mind and heart through the creative force itself. There are levels of application of bodhichitta. But Atman is the spirit, our own inner God. The spirit mentioned in the Christian Gospel is Atman, the real Being, the real Self, the spirit. We reach Atman, Chesed, the spirit by working with our bodhichitta: our compassion and enlightened selfless wisdom empowered with the sexual energy. Question: I have some Gnosis of the topics explained tonight and I am at a point in the path where I feel pride. Lust has left me vulnerable to different kinds of attacks and I recently fell from a celibate state alone with making a decision to use a drug, and I was addicted to it for many years, but have not used in the last five. Obviously, the mind wants me to believe I have failed and is working on me to throw all my hard work down the drain. My question is, how or where do I find help in learning more advanced techniques of protection? Is there a physical Gnostic Church in Chicago in which I can talk to a priest for guidance because I have lost a lot of confidence in myself in recent weeks? Instructor: Obviously in terms of drug addiction, whatever the substance may be, or abuse, it is good to consult first a professional, especially to see what advice they can give in terms of how to cope with recovery, especially, and get the support you need on a professional basis. Obviously if I am understanding your question right, regardless of any mistake, obviously, we are faulty. We make errors and we make mistakes because, obviously, we are flawed. Sometimes a mistake of that nature or any type of downfall, whether it is morally, ethically, psychologically, spiritually, sexually, this can give us a feeling of defeatism, the feeling that, “I can not do this work because I failed so much.” Right? There is this pessimism and doubt and self-flagellation and despair which accompanies it. There are techniques that we use for protection, especially from outside forces and also our own mind. The best technique for self defense against any type of onslaught is our own psychological state. Samael Aun Weor mentioned that the best weapon we can have in life is a correct psychological state, the correct state of mind. This is bodhichitta. We cultivate bodhichitta through meditation. We look in ourselves, our actions, our mistakes, our desires, how our mind reacted to a situation, what we did, how we behaved, and we seek insight. We go to the root. We look for the root of the problem. Some desire in us made us vulnerable. Obviously, you can use prayers and mantras and certain exercises for protection, like what we provide in a course called Spiritual Defense on our website or for Glorian Publishing’s course Defense for Spiritual Warfare. But none of those techniques will have any effect if we do not understand ourselves. They help. They complement. They can give us a lot of force, especially when we wield them with intelligence. They are not effective if we do not use them as they are intended. For example, if you train at a martial arts dojo for any kind of self-defense or what not, if you train with a weapon, you are only effective in accordance with proper technique. That is something you learn through training. The same thing with the prayers and mantras of spiritual protection. The way that we learn to train in self-defense is by really being understanding of ourselves and following our intuition, our heart. Your heart is the best defense if we listen to it very deeply and follow its intuitions, especially when they inspire us to do noble things. As for a Gnostic Church in Chicago, we do have a center here. Yes, I am a priest, and we do offer classes and we do offer instruction for people who want it. Our class schedule is online. You can find a day if one is convenient for you. We are happy to talk with you. Question: I am currently reading about spiritual vampirism. Recognizing how this can be an aggregate in one or more of the three brains feeding internally on one’s own energy, any suggestions prayers on certain prayers or practices which can help to deal with this? The way we pray upon ourselves? Instructor: Obviously there are beings who steal energy from other people. We call them vampires, psychologically speaking. More importantly, our own lust is a vampire. We try to save the sexual energy, and our lust wants to expel it, to steal it, to use it for passion. The best self-defense that you can use against your own lust is meditation. You observe the fact. You observe what happened in your mind, your heart, your body. You suspend the senses. You go within. You look for the root of that lust and you ask for insight, clarity and deep comprehension from your inner divinity. With patience you begin to see more and more about the root of that problem.
Obviously, you can refer to prayers like “Belilin” which is available on Glorian Publishing too, for defense against lust especially, not only within other people, but ourselves. That is very effective too.
However, we will always fall prey to lust if we do not comprehend it and eliminate it. That is the key. The method for eliminating defects was given in a course on Gnostic Meditation that we have available on our website, specifically the last lecture in that series called Retrospection Meditation. I suggest you study and practice it. Question: Is there any time when it is possible that we have received any initiation of Major Mysteries, but we are unaware of it? Instructor: Samael Aun Weor mentioned in The Three Mountains, I believe, that when he went through the First Initiation of Major Mysteries that he had no memory of it. What happened is that he had the experience but was not conscious. Later, his wife Master Litelantes informed him about what happened, and by meditating, he remembered. It is possible especially with the first degree. Obviously the higher you go, the more consciousness you have, so it is more likely that you will remember. Yes, it is something that can happen in the beginning especially. Question: Is chastity and celibacy the same thing? Instructor: No. In our studies, chastity has to do with upright, virtuous use of sexuality, purity in sex. It does not mean avoidance. Celibacy is avoidance of sex. We make a distinction there because many people have been confused over the centuries, because they believe that chastity in the Bible and other religious practices and scripture has to do with avoiding sexual contact. That is not the truth. Christ said, “You must be born again,” and we are born again through an immaculate conception, meaning, we give birth to the spirit by transforming the sexual energy in our marriage. You cannot be born again through celibacy and avoiding sex. Again, one cannot be a master of oneself by avoiding sex. We have to learn to transform it into a sacrament. Question: How does becoming more like children, as we were children in the past, help with developing compassion? Instructor: You look at a baby, how much love a child has for its parents, how much love! When you are in front of a child, we can really see the beauty of the untarnished Essence, the real soul of a person that is not yet marred by personality, culture, egotism, or whatever. It is just a radiant Essence or essential spirit and soul of the child, of a being that is innocent and pure. That state is an analog for a deeper reality that we can cultivate in our adulthood. Becoming like children again is not about becoming naive or stupid. It is about becoming clearer in our intentions, humble, pure in mind, but with the added sapience of having conquered and comprehended sin. If you look at a child, you really have a barometer. You see what we used to be as children before we entered the world, and maybe became jaded. When you see the love that a child has, you realize that compassion is like that, very pure, very pristine. The compassion of a child pales in comparison to the compassion of a master. In the former state, it is Edenic. In the latter case, it is the return to Eden with greater knowledge and wisdom. Personally, when I am around children especially in my extended family, I definitely witnessed a state of being that is really inspirational. It is something that we have lost with our adulthood but that we can regain. Becoming more like children does not mean regression, it means to eliminate pride, anger, fear, lust, hatred, desire. Instead, we develop the full capacity of real conscious feeling, which is superior. Some people think that by eliminating anger or negativity that they are no longer going to feel, and this is wrong. Listen to a symphony of Beethoven, its tempests, its calm, its rhythms. There is a great dynamic of range of emotion in his symphonies, and they express the full depth and breadth and nature of the soul. Compassion is like that.
Especially the Ninth Symphony, the return to heaven, the Ode to Joy or his Choral Symphony where you hear the compassion of God expressing through a chorus of initiates who have resonated with that law. That is real compassion, real harmony. Becoming innocent again is like becoming that. Music is very profound. It can teach us about the heart.
Question: I have been listening to teachings regarding the Absolute from people that say that it can be done instantly and is a matter of the mind. This is deeply confusing to me because I thought it was a matter of the body and sexual energy. Are they basically saying that body and self is within the mind, so there is nothing but the mind? Can you expand on this? Instructor: In a sense, mind is a form of matter, and the physical body obviously is a form of matter in a physical level. There is a deep connection between the mind, the mental body, and the lower bodies, whether it is astral, vital, or physical. There is a deep connection there that we find connected through our three brains, which are three centers. These three brains are not merely physical. They are also energetic, vital, emotional, astral, and mental. They even relate to our volition our will. 
There are levels and strata of matter, energy, and perception as mapped by the Tree of Life. It is possible to have a temporary experience, a vacation within the Absolute by learning to meditate. This is like getting a visa and living in another country for a little bit and then coming back eventually to America because your time is up. It is the same thing with a meditative experience in the Absolute. You can be a vacationer there. You can visit there. It does not mean you are a citizen. That is a matter of initiation, by mastering all the levels of the Tree of Life.
As to say whether the physical body is itself is in the mind, obviously the body is an entity in itself. It is a separate vehicle, but in terms of perspective. When you are physically awake in a vigil state, your mental body and your astral body operate through your physical brain and your emotional center and your physical body. There is a connection there. Obviously, the mind can wander, but in reality, to say that the body and self is within the mind is kind of a simplification, I would say, of a deeper reality. There is a connection there that we experience with our thoughts and feelings in daily life. To say that the body and self is within the mind, like in the mental body, that it is all in the mental state, I think is ignoring or missing the point. Or maybe I am not understanding something about the question. There is a separation there which you especially experience when you dream. The mental body or the astral body travels outside the physical body. There is a connection, but I would not say that our physical body is within the mind. There is an interconnection there. The Tree of Life and all the dimensions interpenetrate and co-penetrate within this physical moment. As for everything being mind, in a sense, in a cosmic sense, philosophically, yes. The universe is a form of mind. Its different levels and densities are mapped by the Tree of Life, the mind of divinity, levels of nature. I would not mistake physical matter with mental matter like you experience in the world of Netzach within a dream. They are very different. In synthesis, the mind, Netzach, cannot take us to the Absolute. Only self-mastery can of all levels of matter, energy, and perception. The mind or mental body is only one component of a larger dynamic. Question: As consciousness expands, you said we are confronted with more tests and ordeals at an increased rate. What happens if we fail an ordeal but have some awareness of the failure, either way, while it is happening or in retrospect? Instructor: At that point it is like you make a mistake, but you are not so invested in it that you are making it more empowered. Obviously, there are degrees and levels of downfall, especially in a sexual sense, or maybe like with a moment of anger. You may know that it is wrong, and it is happening, but you may not have the power to fully control it. It is like basically a demon has taken possession of our three brains and is acting. Now if you fail an ordeal and you have some understanding of why you failed, that is better than having no understanding. Now the real work is to sit down and meditate and understand the root of these defects, to go deeper. Even to understand in retrospect is better than to not understand at all. Be patient, because it is hard, but it can be done. We just got to be patient. We are going to conclude here. I thank you all for coming! We will have this lecture up and running on our podcast. We appreciate the turnout. We will have an in-person lecture this Saturday and we will have another online lecture in the coming weeks. In this series, it will be the sequel to this called Christ Wisdom: The Seal of the Truth, building on some of these concepts we talked about today. I thank you all for coming!
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