Temptation and Redemption

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Every religion teaches that the soul has a decision to make. We have the opportunity in our lifetime, in our moment-to-moment experience, to either enter a new, superior way of being, a spiritual way of being, or to enter deeper states of suffering. This is determined by our actions, what we do, the conscious or unconscious motivations that drive us or the decisions that we make. This dichotomy had been represented especially in the Abrahamic traditions, but also within the East as the battle of the soul in the work of achieving its own full, conscious divine realization.
 
We have a choice. Two paths open up before those who sincerely wish to know the divine. If you have been studying the sequence of these lectures in this course, we have been talking a lot about the Gnostic mythology, especially Sophia (Greek: Σοφία). 

​Sophia we see represented here. This image is Parsifal and Kundry, Medieval iconography that represents the same Gnostic myth of how the soul, the fallen Sophia, must be redeemed. She is our soul, our consciousness which, when it is elevated, purified, sanctified, becomes the receptacle of Christ, the Holy Grail, the divine chalice that receives superior knowledge and can express it selflessly to humanity.
 
Sophia in us is fallen. We do not know divinity at our current level, if we are honest, if we examine our mind and our heart and the daily problem of suffering, our psychological states. However, the soul, the consciousness can experience that which is known as redemption, which is a state of being free of suffering, in which the soul is fully unified with the divine. In that process, we must be like Percival, Parsifal, the knight, the warrior, the great hero which fights in the path of love, who goes to war against his own impurity, his own weaknesses, his own mistakes.
 
These two figures we see represented here represent the marriage of the soul with the wisdom of Christ, the Christic energy, that cosmic and universal abstract potential, which can become human, particularized within any initiate who is properly prepared.
 
This woman has been known by many names: Kundry, especially within Wagner’s opera Parsifal. Kundry, Sophia, must also redeem her lover. This warrior is, if we use the kabbalistic tradition, represents תפארת Tiphereth, the divine will, the will to do, to work for the spirit, to enact positive, superior action.
 
We see here that while is drinking from a chalice, he is looking in contemplation deeply at the sword. The sword and the chalice are profoundly sexual symbols, and as we are going to elaborate in this lecture, the paths of temptation and redemption have a sexual trope. They also relate to the nature of our psychology, what behaviors in us produce happiness or sorrow. We are going to explain what temptation is, what redemption is, what the path is.
 
It is also important to reflect on the nature of these two souls joined in sacred union. This woman is known in kabbalah as גבורה Geburah. The term means “justice,” the justice of divinity, the Martian, spiritual strength of the soul, the divine soul, and she is married to her knight, her husband, her hero. Together they must face great ordeals and challenges, and by overcoming their own innate weaknesses, their own desires, they can aspire towards higher ways of being, superior knowledge.

​The Nature and Utility of Temptation

​It is important to clarify what temptation is. Samael Aun Weor states the following maxim in many of his writings:

Temptation is fire. Triumph over temptation is light. ―Samael Aun Weor

​What is fire? In a psychological sense, in a sexual sense, it is desire. It is wanting, attachment, craving: “What I want. What I need. What I crave.” Desire has many forms, whether for food, for drink, for alcohol, for sex, for drugs. For some people, their desires are for attention, praise, recognition, fame, titles, security, money.
 
Desire is a fire. It burns. It consumes one’s entire being, the wood of our soul from the Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Life, metaphorically, symbolically speaking.
 
How many of us in our lifetime are driven precisely by desire? By the wanting for something more? Or accumulation? If you examine this metaphor, it directly represents something very profound, how in our striving to fulfill our desires in life, we in fact suffer. The word passion originally means “suffering.” In our Western culture, we tend to ignore this fact. We believe and are taught that by following our desires, we will be happy, and yet we ignore that fulfilling or seeking to fulfill these very drives are precisely what create confusion and pain.
 
If we do not get what we want, we suffer. When we get what we want, we want more. Desire is a flame. It is never satiated. It is like a holocaust, which for many of us defines our very existence.
 
It is also important to remember that by feeding desire, by giving into our appetites, our cravings, our longings for acceptance and praise, for security and money, that our desires will never be satisfied. Even if we had all the wealth―a materialism that could really gratify our greatest yearnings―we will not be happy. We will want more, and therefore, feeding desire will only make it stronger, like throwing clarified butter into a flame. It becomes more extreme, and this explains why many people who acquire more and more in life tend to acquire even greater things and yet they degenerate into great pain.
 
Is it not true of this metaphor that when the fire dies, it becomes snuffed out? We are left with smoke, the aftermath, the taste, the bitterness, the emptiness. The same applies to sexual experience, most importantly. When sexual desire is satisfied, when the fire of sex is snuffed out through the orgasm, what happens is that the couple, seeking to return to that state, crave more and more sensations, and therefore they end up in greater sorrow.
 
However, it is true that the very fire that animates our being, which can give us drive and impetus and direction in life, can also be transformed to do something superior and divine, something sacred. It is true that from fire comes light, wisdom, understanding. From the fire of the creative sexual potential emerges the potential of redemption, because that fire, that energy, that force to create, can be harnessed with intelligence.
 
It is important to remember that our desires, our cravings, attachments, our wantings, our egotism, can also be transformed, can be transmuted from one substance into another, into one form and into another, from one state into a superior state. This is the mystery of alchemy: the transformation of a base substance into a divine and spiritual material, from lead, the denseness of personality and suffering, into the gold of the spirit.
 
But the question becomes, how do we do it?

​The Necessity of Ordeals 

​We do so through ordeals. It is necessary to face sufferings and challenges in life. What is important is that as we are practicing the tools and techniques of this tradition. As we are learning to practice meditation, concentration, understanding, imagination exercises, runic practices, other forms of yoga, mantras, sacred sounds, we have to remember that we must face hardships with serenity. We must face them with calmness of mind. This is because when the waters of the mind are churning with despair, with morbidity, with passion, no image can reflect on its surface.
 
However, when the surface is calm, limpid, cool, translucent, it reflects the heavens. Also, the elements of the mind settle. You begin to see things with greater clarity, with greater wisdom, with intuition, with insight. When we have serenity of mind, we can better apprehend the source of our pain because we will have enough stability of mindfulness, of attention, by which to see clearly within our own psychological nature.
 
However, this is a paradox. How is it that we must be serene and calm, perceiving directly within our own inner nature, and yet must face crises? It seems contradictory. How could we be in crisis or why do we need to be in certain ordeals, and yet we must be serene? This is because when you have a basis of understanding within the consciousness, when you are observing yourself throughout the day, as you are looking within at the secret motives of your impulses, your thoughts, your emotional states, you begin to see things. But you can not see the real, deep rooted problems and wrong mental states if we do not have situations that provoke them. We need to be provoked.
 
For some people it might be their pride, being criticized, being ridiculed. For someone it could be betrayal, the feeling of self-esteem which emerges with great sorrow and pain in response to a friend, anyone in a relationship with us.
 
For some people it is lust. Surrounded by potential partners, one, has the decision to make, whether to be faithful to one’s own work with this creative energy itself, with exercises of transmutation, or to enter adultery.
 
Ordeals are necessary. If the water does not boil at one hundred degrees celsius, then that which must be disintegrated will not be disintegrated. When you are in a situation of opposition, you can really see what you are made of. Without great trials, we can not grow. Without temptation, without the possibility of failing, of making mistakes, we will not recognize that we are faulty. We will not see where we are mistaken, where we are weak, what we must change.
 
Virtue is truly profound and strong when the roots dig deep into hell. When the roots are deep, then the tree can reach higher into heaven. Every ascent is preceded by a terrible and frightful descent. Every exaltation is preceded by a frightful and difficult humiliation.
 
This is why Samael Aun Weor stated the following in Tarot and Kabbalah:

The results speak for themselves. If there are no temptations, there are no virtues. Virtues are more grandiose when temptations are stronger. What is important is not to fall into temptation. That is why we have to pray to our Father saying, “Lead us not into temptation.” Only through the struggle, the contrast, the temptation, and rigorous esoteric discipline can the flowers of virtue sprout from us. ―Samael Aun Weor, Tarot and Kabbalah

​The “Our Father” states, “Lead us not into temptation.” Everybody knows this, but who in us tries to lead us into temptation? 

​The Origin of Temptation

​Many religions, especially the Abrahamic traditions but also in the East, you find many symbols related to demons, demonology, tempting figures or the famous Satan, Lucifer. People do not understand in conventional religion that the origin of temptation is inside, and that the figures we find represented amongst diverse religious traditions are in fact symbols of internal reality.
 
This figure Lucifer frightens many people. They hear the name, and they become scandalized not understanding that Lucifer is a part of us. This term comes from Latin: luci ferus, “carrier” or “bearer of light.”
 
What light is this? It is the light of Christ, the wisdom of direct perception, intuition, conscious understanding of the truth. This figure is a representation of a part of our Being. Samael Aun Weor mentions many times that we have a part of our inner Being, our inner divinity, known as Lucifer. He is the light of Christ but mixed within us, within impurity, within desire. 

​He has a great burden, as you see represented by the chains that wrap this figure. He is the fallen Prometheus who gives fire to man, a beautiful symbol of this sexual trope. Temptation is fire. Triumph over temptation is light. That fire provides light and understanding. It is the creative sexual potential. When we take that energy and use it well for the spirit, we overcome temptation. But if we give into desire, we fall.
 
This figure Lucifer is our psychological trainer. He is responsible for giving us tests and ordeals and temptations, to test whether or not we are serious. We can believe that we are spiritual, that we are compassionate, that we are kind, but the ordeals will teach us the reality. If we say, “I am kind,” we will be faced with situations in which our anger comes up. If we are chaste or think we are chaste, we will face situations of lust. If we are proud or think we are humble, we will be criticized; we will be laughed at, condemned, mocked to such an extent and degree that we will really see our true caliber.
 
Therefore, this figure is something very enigmatic. It can not be brushed aside from vain superstition. The reality is that even in the Book of Job, Yah-Havah, יהוה Jehovah, the divine, allowed Satan, Lucifer, to tempt Job. He was given permission: “Tempt him and test him, but do not think that you can kill him. Let him suffer to the maximum and see whether or not he is a righteous man.” That is because this figure, Satan, or the Hebrew שָׂטָן Shaitan, is “the adversary.” Shaitan, “the adversary” in Hebrew, is precisely that part of divinity that mixes with our own defects.
 
He is imperfect, as you see here in this image. He is in a deformed state because we made him that way. Remember in the myth, whether from Catholicism or Christianity, that Lucifer was once a divine angel, a divine being. However, he fell. That represents us. We were once in a primordial, blissful, Edenic, perfect state, but we fell from our own actions, our own desires. Now it is the job of the intimate Lucifer, the psychological trainer, to put us in necessary and difficult situations so that we can really define our character.
 
We have to free him. He is enchained by our own lust, and therefore he will show you and provide circumstances in your experience that are going to bring out the worst in you, so that you can see them. You can comprehend them, and you can eliminate them. Therefore, we need temptation. We need challenges.
 
This figure is also represented in the Gnostic Gospel of Judas of which we will talk about in a future lecture [Transcendent Betrayal in The Gospel of Judas and Beyond Good and Evil in The Gospel of Judas].
 
Judas Iscariot, a symbol of Lucifer, is the symbol of temptation. He represents how every initiate must enter their Passion by facing contrariety, opposition, pain, so that we can eliminate that which must be eliminated.

​Who Tempts? נפש Nephesh

​Let us examine our psychology in relation to the kabbalah, because the path of redemption and temptation are represented here.
 
There are different aspects of the soul that we must understand and know so that we can be very clear about what in us must change and what actions we must take.
 
We see here in the bottom of this glyph מלכות Malkuth, which is Hebrew for “Kingdom.” It is our physical body.
 
Above that we have יסוד Yesod which is the vital, creative sexual energy. This in Hebrew is known as נפש Nephesh. נפש Nephesh literally means “blood, life force, vitality, appetite, soul,” or “that which breeds.” It is related to יסוד Yesod, the “Foundation” in Hebrew, the creative sexual energy, because this energy, נפש Nephesh, is what gives us life. It is the life force. We could not breathe physically if it were not for נפש Nephesh. It is the circulation of our blood. It is the vitality of our soul. It is the energy that allows one to procreate, to live, to digest, to eat, to consume. It even allows us to think in this physical body. We would not be able to be here if it were not for that impulse, this instinctive force which for most of us is raw. It is unrefined. It is undefined.
 
If you examine the life of any animal like a cat or a dog, you see that they are driven by instinct. They have נפש Nephesh. They have animal soul. This level of consciousness relates to impulse, instinct, and desire. It is also the raw material by which we can create something divine and superior, but we have to take the animal and make it human.
 
It is important to think and understand that נפש Nephesh amongst animals is in an elementary state. While animals like cats and dogs are driven by instinct, they are not as animal as we are. This might seem very paradoxical or contrary, but it is the truth. Many animals are still developing and evolving. They are learning to obey the forces of nature. They do not have intellect, but our humanity with our intellect, with our justifications, with our reasoning, take נפש Nephesh and make it more degenerated. We make it degenerated. Animals are therefore innocent, but because we have reason and we justify appetite, craving, anger, instinct, desire, we make ourselves sick.
 
This is very evident if you examine our television shows, which are saturated with sarcasm, verbal violence, emotional and mental violence, physical violence, adultery, creative ways of killing one another, prostitution, slander, crime. This is not human. This is animal. This level of consciousness has no understanding or perception of God, and נפש Nephesh within us is the desire for more, to accumulate, to acquire, whether it is social positions or money, status, a partner, a spouse. נפש Nephesh is the instinctive drive to survive. It is self-preservation. It is base. It is basic. נפש Nephesh is never satisfied. This is what tempts within us.
 
While we talk about defects and desires, animal tendencies, we label it with this term נפש Nephesh, because it is our soul that is trapped within defects. Part of the inner Lucifer is mixed with that. In fact, Lucifer is precisely the sexual impulse, deeply related, integrated, saturated by defect, desire, within יסוד Yesod, נפש Nephesh.
 
We have to liberate soul. We have to make the animal human. We do so through training. Desire is never satisfied, which is why it states in Ecclesiastes, chapter six, verse seven:

All the labor of אדם Adam is for his mouth and yet the נפש Nephesh is never filled. ―Ecclesiastes 6:7

​Who is אדם Adam? It is us, the terrestrial personality or intellectual humanoid. This reference to a mouth does not mean literally a physical mouth, although food and consumption is one element of נפש Nephesh. At a more psychological level, our mental mouth consumes, eats, masticates, chews, and consumes. We consume images, media, television, books, ideas, lectures. We may consume with our psychological mouth different impressions, different images or media that are saturated with lust, with pride, with anger, and yet our נפש Nephesh is never filled.
 
It is this quality of mind which obscures our conscious potential to see the divine, which is why we study רוח Ruach.

​Who is Tempted? רוח Ruach

​רוח Ruach in Hebrew means, “breath, wind, spirit, the thinking / emotional soul.” It can relate to חסד Chesed on the Tree of Life, relating to the inner spirit. It can also relate to תפארת Tiphereth, the human soul, as I mentioned earlier. This is the origin of ethical perception, insight, guidance.
 
רוח Ruach is that part of us that is truly human. It is the willpower and the spiritual potential to act. It is what can perceive directly any psychological or material phenomenon and understand them. It is the ability to know right from wrong, good from bad, states or actions that produce happiness or those that create pain. It is ethical, relating to the fact that there is a hierarchy, a divine law, that by following we produce great abundance, prosperity of the spirit, and by ignoring that voice in our heart, conscience that tells us, “This is right, this is wrong,” we suffer the consequences.
 
This רוח Ruach, this soul that knows how to understand and to feel superior emotional states, the great happiness of the spirit, is what has the potential to go up or go down, which is why it states in Ecclesiastes, chapter three, verse twenty-one:

Who knoweth the רוח Ruach of the Sons of Man that is going up on high and the רוח Ruach of the Behemah בהמה that is going down below to the earth? ―Ecclesiastes 3:21

​בהמה Behemah means, “beast.” It is נפש Nephesh. It is animality. But who knoweth the רוח Ruach? The soul that knows how to ascend? To go on high?
 
However, רוח Ruach can not do it alone. רוח Ruach needs נשמה Neshamah. 

​Who Redeems? נשמה Neshamah 

​נשמה Neshamah also means, “breath, wind, spirit.” It relates to גבורה Geburah and חכמה Chokmah. גבורה Geburah means, “Justice” in Hebrew. חכמה Chokmah means “Wisdom.” This is the discerning perception of divine reality, objectivity, and truth. נשמה Neshamah is a state of consciousness in which we directly perceive God, whether it is through dreams, through meditation, through out of body experiences. This is a concrete experience in which we are talking directly with our inner spirit, our inner Christ. נשמה Neshamah is the spiritual soul. נשמה Neshamah in some traditions is represented as a divine woman, like in the opening of this lecture: Kundry, Sophia, the divine feminine.
 
תפארת Tiphereth, our willpower, that is also related to רוח Ruach, is the ability to act. This sphere תפארת Tiphereth, meaning “Beauty,” is the beauty of the human soul that knows how to act for the will of God. He is sometimes depicted as masculine, as a knight, because he has a projective quality. Do not think of this in terms of literal, physical genders or sexes, man or woman. These are symbols. They represent abstract realities.
 
נשמה Neshamah has to redeem. She must descend down this Tree of Life into our physical body. She must help רוח Ruach control נפש Nephesh. She must aid our consciousness in understanding our intimate impulses and desires. This is why in the Book of Proverbs, chapter twenty, verse twenty-seven, states:

The נשמה Neshamah of Adam is a lamp of יהוה Iod-Havah. ―Proverbs 20:27

​The נשמה Neshamah of man, of the human being, is a lamp of יהוה Iod-Havah, Jehovah.
 
Why a lamp? A lamp has a case of crystal, glass, translucence, clarity. This is a symbol, a metaphor of the clarity of the soul. This is a state of consciousness in which you directly perceive divinity, but also you have insight into your deepest defects. You see the roots of them. You have great lucidity, insight, understanding of where they come from, how they exist, how they operate.
 
נשמה Neshamah must aid us. We work with נשמה Neshamah precisely with our spiritual exercises, especially alchemy, meditation, transmutation.
 
But there is more.

​Who is Powerful? חיה Chaiah

​We also have what is known as חיה Chaiah. חיה Chaiah in Hebrew means “Life.” It is a “living thing, animal, wild person.” That is because the power of life in us, the power of בינה Binah in Hebrew, the intelligence of God, is unfortunately misused. בינה Binah, the intelligence of the divine, the creative potential, enters down the Tree of Life and manifests even in יסוד Yesod. Our sexual creative power contains the intelligence of the divine. However, we must know how to use it intelligently and consciously. It can not be done without knowledge. It has to be intentional.
 
This force or this aspect of soul, חיה Chaiah, the Holy Spirit, the Divine Mother Kundalini, is related to בינה Binah and דעת Da’ath. דעת Da’ath in Hebrew is the mysterious sephirah located in the middle pillar of the Tree of Life. It means “Knowledge.” It is alchemy. It is the union of man and woman, husband and wife, in order to create the spirit. By working in The Perfect Matrimony, a husband and wife can transform the נפש Nephesh into נפש חיה Nephesh Chaiah. This is the real power of the soul, when נפש Nephesh no longer is animal, but is human.
 
This is why it states in the Book of Genesis, chapter two, verse seven: 

And יהוה אלהים Iod-Havah Elohim formed Adam from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the נשמת חיים Neshamah Chaim and man became a נפש חיה Nephesh Chaiah. ―Genesis 2:7

Who is יהוה אלהים Iod-Havah Elohim? That is a Hebrew sacred name of God within בינה Binah. יהוה Iod-Havah is Jehovah, but אלהים Elohim is a profound, deep word. אל El in Hebrew means “God.” אלה Eloah means “Goddess.” ים Iod-Mem, the masculine plural ending, means “Gods and Goddesses.”
 
When husband and wife unite sexually but restrain נפש Nephesh, animality from the act, they can form the true Adam, the real human being made from prime material, the dust of the ground.
 
What is the dust of the ground? It is our physicality, our physical body, מלכות Malkuth. By breathing in the profound breath of life, by working with breathing exercises and mantra within the sexual act, we form נשמת חיים Neshamah Chaim, the spiritual living soul in man, the human soul became נפש חיה Nephesh Chaiah, perfect, divine. This is the path of redemption.

Who is Real? יחודה Yechidah 

​More than that, there is a higher soul known as יחודה Yechidah. יחודה Yechidah means, “unit, unity, only one, solitary, unique.” It is the perfection and unity of the highest divinity, reality, experience, and being. יחודה Yechidah is listed in the Bible or mentioned in the Book of Judges, chapter eleven, verse thirty-four, in which יִפְתָּח Jephthah, who is a Hebrew initiate. He was entering battle against the Amorites and begged divinity to give him victory for the Israelites, and as a favor from divinity, if he would win the battle, he would offer the first thing that he saw when he returned home in מִצְפָּה Mitzpeh, in Hebrew, “the town of Gilead, in Gilead.”
 
Unfortunately, in the myth it is implied that he sees his daughter emerge from his house. She appears not knowing of his vow and it is implied that he sacrifices her for his victory, and this is the common interpretation for many people.
 
יחודה Yechidah can mean “only,” and its reference in this scripture as “only child.” יחודה Yechidah is the top trinity of the Tree of Life. It is כתר Kether, חכמה Chokmah, בינה Binah―the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit―Christ, the highest divinity, the unity of the light. It is the perfected, absolutely divine and unified, integrated Being. It is perfect. That unity is when the soul has really mastered itself and returned to divinity. When the soul is integrated with the divine, you have יחודה Yechidah, the unity or the Perfect Matrimony between the soul and Christ.
 
Even though some masters or individuals reach יחודה Yechidah, they are tempted, and they fall. You find that allegorized within the story of יִפְתָּח Jephthah, in this Book of Judges, chapter eleven, verse thirty-four:

And יִפְתָּח Jephthah came to מִצְפָּה Mitzpeh unto his house, and behold, his daughter came out to meet him with timbrels and with dances: and she was his only יחודה Yechidah, his only child; beside her he had neither son nor daughter. ―Judges 11:34

It is interesting that מִצְפָּה Mitzpeh means “tower” in Hebrew.
 
What does it mean that “יִפְתָּח Jephthah came to his tower unto his house”? Our house, this house of the spirit, is the Tree of Life, and the tower is the peak, כתר Kether. When we return up the Tree of Life of our spine to the crown chakra Sahasrara or the Church of Laodicea in the Book of Apocalypse, we achieve union with the truth.
 
However, even masters that reach that level can fall, as hinted at by this verse, that יִפְתָּח Jephthah sacrifices his יחודה Yechidah, “his only child.” What does it mean to become a child spiritually, esoterically speaking? If you study the writings of Samael Aun Weor, this will be very clear. A child is a symbol of the perfected master. This individual has returned to the primordial innocence of Eden. Many of these masters greet us internally when we overcome ordeals, particularly through the trials of this path. They come in the form of Cherubim, perfect angels, divine beings like children.
 
Temptation exists even for high masters. This can confuse people. Why is it that if they have no lust or defects that they can still fall? They can become tempted by other things―not lust or desire―but love. Beings who have reached those heights have transcended even our normal conceptions of love. They are terribly divine, beyond good and evil. Even some of them decide to sacrifice their own יחודה Yechidah, their only child, because in the long term they know once they fall, they might return with greater knowledge, but obviously that is a very dangerous path. It is not recommended, and for most people anyways, we are nowhere near that, so that is not our problem. But it is a reality.
 
There are angels who are tempted. They are tempted by love. They fall in love with a person in the physical world even though it is forbidden for them to engage in sexual union, because they have already perfected their נפש Nephesh. They have נפש חיה Nephesh Chaiah. Their נשמה Neshamah, their spiritual soul, is fully unified with them, and therefore they do not need sex to create. They already are perfected, and so it is unnecessary, but some masters, they choose to find a partner regardless. Therefore, they are tempted even at that level.

The Reality of the Rulers

What we are going to do is explain some teachings related in a Gnostic Gospel called The Reality of the Rulers. I want to preface this series of verses by a teaching given by Samael Aun Weor. This is primarily because in The Reality of the Rulers, we find a interesting spin on the conventional story of Genesis, the Garden of Eden. He explains, Samael Aun Weor, that the reference in the Gnostic scriptures to archons or rulers has a very nuanced application to exegesis. We have to be very sophisticated, we can say, in our understanding of what these terms mean and how they apply to The Gnostic Gospels.
 
In the forthcoming Gospel we are going to read, The Reality of the Rulers, Jehovah is replaced, or better said, represented as the archons. Anyone who studied the Gnostic Gospels have approached this topic or have read about this many times, that there are archons who are controlling, better said, the different aeons or realities of existence, and that they are trying to keep Sophia from achieving enlightenment.
 
It is important to understand that this symbol of the archons―which comes from archeus, the Ark, the Arcanum, the law―these rulers really represent two things.
 
One, they can represent divine beings who are following the divine law. In the inferior sense there are archons who follow the law of hell, or better said, the laws of hell, because in the heavenly regions there are simple, divine, less restrictions and laws. There is more freedom there, but in the hell realms there is more complication, complexity, laws that one is subjected to, and therefore it is a state of suffering.
 
Here is what Samael Aun Weor had to say about this in The Gnostic Bible: The Pistis Sophia Unveiled:

The violent judgments of the evil Archons fall upon those who violate the law.
 
The terms good and evil are very discussable. Something is good when it is suitable for us and evil when it is not suitable for us.
 
Evil rulers must be understood in esoteric form. No one can enjoy the violent judgments of the Lords of Karma. This is why they are symbolically denominated as evil Archons.
 
We need to be saved from the Archons or violent rulers of darkness and also from the violent receivers of the outermost darkness. ―Samael Aun Weor, The Gnostic Bible: The Pistis Sophia Unveiled

​Who are these lords of karma? They are divine beings like Anubis. When you meet beings like Anubis in the internal planes, you see their divinity. They are united with the law, with the superior truth, with Glorian, with Christ, and because they are united with Christ, they are beyond good and evil. They see things that we do not. However, due to our limited mental states, our obscured perception of life, we do not see the full picture of things.
 
Unfortunately, when bad things happen in our current experience, when situations go wrong, we like to blame God. This is wrong, but this is the tendency of most people, and this explains why in the Gnostic Gospels, the archons are depicted as evil beings, in one sense. However, there will be some examples from verses that we will read that relate to evil archons, or better said, the black magicians, because there are beings within the internal worlds, within dreams, who operate within hell. They rule the inferior dimensions and, in a way, they, believing to be just and good, inflict suffering.
 
Keeping this in mind, we have to be very delicate with our interpretations, because in some cases the archons could be referring to divine beings, but in some cases to demonic beings. There is a duality there. Keep this in mind as we continue forward.

​How We Delude Ourselves

​We are going to open with a verse from The Reality of the Rulers. This is from another scripture, a collection of gnostic scriptures called The Gnostic Bible [edited by Willis Barnstone and Marvin Meyer].
 
We have here an image of Narcissus looking at his own reflection in the water. We chose this image because in relation to this verse, we see that all the time we are tempted by our self-image. How we think we see ourselves, our identity, our presentation, our mannerisms, our self, really keep us hypnotized. We tend to go through a daily psychological state or series of states that may be defined by vanity.
 
Whatever our self-image is, we tend to hold great fervor and attachment to that particular sense of self. We are tempted in many ways by our own self-image as I said. This is paralleled in The Reality of the Rulers in which the rulers or the archons, these archons in this excerpt, are really representations of our own inner negativities, trying to create a self that is really impermanent―made from mud, from delusion. We tend to create and sustain an identity to keep us, perhaps, in some limited degree and practical utility, sane, because we may have much suffering and confusion in our life. However, any attachment to self and oftentimes our very perceptions of life are limited by animal, bestial desires. Therefore, let us read this verse.

The rulers laid plans and said, “Come, let us create a human that will be soil from the earth.” They model their creature as one holy of the earth. The rulers have bodies that are both female and male and faces that are faces of beasts (חיות Chaioth). They took some soil from the earth and modeled their man after their body and after their image of God that appeared to them in the waters. ―The Reality of the Rulers, The Gnostic Bible

​What are those waters? It is the sexual creative potential. How we see sex determines our identity. If we are filled with lust, then we will look at the sexual act with desire and lust. If we are pure and chaste, we will see the sacred sexual act as something divine. For most of us our self is made from the earth, materialism, desire, relating to things of this world, מלכות Malkuth, the physical body.
 
These archons are female and male. They are really androgynous. They are qualities of both men and women, faces with the faces of beasts that are really representative of both sexes. Both men and women have innate, animal, instinctive, sexual impulses and desires, and it is from these desire in which we fool ourselves, in which we are soiled, impure, tainted, and fooled.

​The Futility of Desire

​However, desire is futile. Desire can not create anything positive, despite what our modern American or Western propaganda would have us believe. Oftentimes we create and perform projects that do not have any fruit. We have a desire. We wish to attain something, reach a goal, and yet if it is driven by passion, we will not get the results we want, especially if we are working in the spiritual path.
 
Desire is actually contrary to our best efforts. One can learn to enact positive, superior action, the will of the spirit, but without desire, without attachment. The soul knows how to perform good works.
 
Oftentimes desire wishes to create things that do not really come to much great results. This is allegorized within The Reality of the Rulers in relation to these three types of soul: נשמה Neshamah, נפש Nephesh, and רוח Ruach, especially―the spiritual soul, the animal soul, and the thinking / emotional soul.

​We have here an image of Typhon Baphomet [from Arcanum 15: Passion], which in The Eternal Tarot of Alchemy and Kabbalah represents Lucifer, the Devil. In us he is blackened because we are impure, and whenever we act from desire, we suffer. Whenever we conquer temptation and passion, enact superior will, we have spiritual potential and force.
 
Sometimes this image of the devil is associated with Samael, but unfortunately people do not have education in these matters, because when they hear of Samael Aun Weor, the writer whose tradition we teach, they confuse Samael the blind god with the Master Samael Aun Weor. The individual Samael Aun Weor was once a demon because he had fallen. However, he is risen through the spiritual work. Samael Aun Weor the master is perfected again. However, our inner Samael is very black, our passion, our inner Lucifer.
 
Samael is the strength and Martian energy of sexual power. If we control that power, we become divine. If we let it drive us, we are powerless, as represented in these verses:

They said, “Come let us hold, lay hold of it (the new Adam) by means of the form that we have modeled, so that it may see its male partner and we may seize it with the form that we have modeled,” not understanding the partner of God (נשמה Neshamah), because of their powerlessness. And Samael breathed into his face, and the man came to have a soul (נפש Nephesh and רוח Ruach), and remained on the ground for many days. But they could not make them rise because of their powerlessness. Like storm winds they persisted in blowing that they might try to capture that image that they might appear to them in the waters. And they did not know the identity of its power. ―The Reality of the Rulers, The Gnostic Bible

​This is a very beautiful teaching. Through the waters of sex, we can see God. We can see the image of the divine within us, but if we are lustful, no matter how much we breathe, we perform mantras, sacred sounds, even within alchemy, we will be powerless. We will not have נשמה Neshamah active.
 
Sexual magic must be performed with consciousness and love. נשמה Neshamah must be active. נשמה Neshamah, the spiritual soul, the force of גבורה Geburah, is the force of Samael, because Mars relates to גבורה Geburah and Samael. That power is what really sanctifies the alchemist couple.
 
We can try to create the solar bodies, working within a marriage to elevate the sexual creative energy to the mind and heart, but if we are lustful, if we do not understand the partner of God, if we do not have נשמה Neshamah present within our minds, hearts, and bodies, it will be fruitless. Desire can not perform alchemy. Only the soul can perform alchemy in remembrance of God.
 
These evil archons, we can say, our own defects and desires, try to create law and order in us, but they fail. They can not lay hold of the divine self-image of the spirit, even though they try to model things in imitation of it with our own psychological states. We have to remove our own defects, which are images in the mind, so that there is only the translucence of the soul there. That is how we can really reflect divine power.

​Kundalini: The Power of Redemption

​When we do this, we receive the power of redemption. This is the Kundalini.
 
Kundalini is the power of redemption. It is נשמה Neshamah. נשמה Neshamah is the feminine creative power of God. It is the fires of Mars that rise up in the spinal column. It is the positive spiritual potential of Samael, which raises the fallen initiates up to heaven. Samael is here not only represented as the master who came and taught in Mexico, but really our inner Samael, our own fires, our own strength.
 
In the work, divinity has compassion for us. Divinity sees our suffering, and if we really, like the Apostles here, receive the fiery serpents upon their heads―the fires of Pentecost written in the Book of Acts, if they really aspire for the truth and maintain their chastity, but more importantly their love―in combination they can receive the favors of the divine. נשמה Neshamah raises the fallen. Samael, from the Hebrew ס Samech, beginning his name, means “support.” It is the support that raises the initiates, and גבורה Geburah, נשמה Neshamah, the spiritual soul, has that function. Here is what The Reality of the Rulers teaches.

Now, all of these events came to pass by the will of the Father of all (יחודה Yechidah). Afterward the spirit (נשמה Neshamah) saw the man of soul (נפש Nephesh and רוח Ruach) on the ground. The spirit (נשמה Neshamah) came forth from the adamantine land. It descended and came to dwell in him, and that man became a living soul (נפש חיה Nephesh Chaiah), and the spirit (נשמה Neshamah) called his name Adam, since he was found moving upon the ground. ―The Reality of the Rulers, The Gnostic Bible

All of us, really, in a spiritual sense, are crippled. We writhe on the ground if we do not have the spirit inside to make us standing upright, to give us life.

How Are We Tempted? 

​This excerpt from The Reality of the Rulers references probably the most important aspect of the Genesiatic story in the Garden of Eden, eating from the Tree of Knowledge. This is a sexual symbol obviously. What happens in a garden between a naked man and a naked woman? However, what is important to understand is the nature of that sexual act, which is dual. It can be positive. It can be negative. It can be divine, or it can be demonic.
 
We have here an image of the Tree of Life transposed upon a human being. The Hebrew letters דעת Da’ath, ד Daleth, ע Ayn, ת Tav, read from right to left, represent “knowledge.” This sphere is located in the throat because from the throat, through mantra, through sacred sounds, we elevate the divine creative force and gain spiritual knowledge. It gives us insight and wisdom.
 
This Tree of Knowledge is related to sex. The Tree of Life relates to the spine. These two trees share the same roots. Our spinal column is nourished through fire, through intentional knowledge, and working with the sexual force.
 
However, the dilemma comes of “to eat or not to eat,” to consume or to abstain from the sexual force―better said―to indulge in the orgasm or to restrain the sexual force and to transform it. Here is what The Reality of the Rulers teaches. It is very interesting. 

The rulers took Adam and put him in the garden, that he might cultivate and keep watch over it. They issued a command to him saying, “From every tree in the garden you shall eat, but from the tree of knowledge of good and evil don’t eat nor touch it, for the day you eat from it you will surely die.”
 
They said this to him, but they did not understand what they said. Rather, by the father’s will, they said this in such a way that he might in fact eat, and that Adam might not regard them as would a man of an exclusively material nature. ―The Reality of the Rulers, The Gnostic Bible

This symbol represents the duality of sex. The rulers obviously take the place of יהוה אלהים Jehovah Elohim.
 
These archons, these rulers said this to him, but they did not understand what they said. Rather, by the Father’s will they said this in such a way that he may in fact eat. Really, there are two ways to consume or work with the sexual energy, to eat it in the animal way through orgasm, or to let the spirit consume the fires of sex so that from the mouth of divinity, He, the spirit, may be empowered.
 
Even the rulers did not understand what they meant, because even those archons who are self-realized to a level or degree of knowledge even, they do not know the full extent, the depth of knowledge that could be attained, because there are levels of spiritual wisdom and knowledge known as objective reasoning. There are levels amongst the archons, the divine hierarchies, the אלהים Elohim, the gods, and so they inspire the initiates to eat chastely. “Let the spirit eat from that divine ambrosia, the food and nectar of the gods.”

I believe even in Das Rheingold by Wagner, the opera within the tetralogy known as The Ring Cycle, you find that the gods eat the golden apples of Hesperides. These golden apples are precisely the sexual energy of יסוד Yesod nourished by Freya, גבורה Geburah, really the divine soul, נשמה Neshamah. We can either eat chastely without orgasm or we consume as beasts. That is our choice. ​

​How to Raise the Soul

​The question becomes, how do we raise the soul? We have an image here of William Blake with the creation of חוה Eve. We know from the traditional story that חוה Eve was taken from a rib from Adam’s side and was raised up, was created. There are many layers of meaning of this myth. At a basic level it can represent our ancient humanity known in the times of Lemuria, in which there existed the division of sexes. There is a hermaphroditic individual symbolized by Adam, who became divided over the course of many millions of years into the two sexes, so both male and female individuals were gradually formed over a prolonged period of time, and that is one symbol of this myth.
 
There is also another alchemical application to this teaching. חוה Eve can represent נשמה Neshamah, the feminine sexual power. נשמה Neshamah, the spiritual soul, is represented by חוה Eve, Havah, the mother of the living. חוה Eve can represent our sexual organs from which rises the spiritual soul liberated from נפש Nephesh.
 
In the undeveloped human being, we have נפש Nephesh, רוח Ruach, and נשמה Neshamah undeveloped. Predominantly we have נפש Nephesh active and רוח Ruach very weak and נשמה Neshamah very distant. However, through the spiritual path, we extract נשמה Neshamah, the spiritual soul. We liberate it. We free it. We purify it. We invoke it so that through purifying נפש Nephesh, by controlling נפש Nephesh, רוח Ruach, with our conscience, we in turn become sacred, elevated. Here is what The Reality of the Rulers teaches.

The rulers took counsel with one another and said, “Come, let us cause a deep sleep to fall on Adam.” And he slept. Now, the deep sleep that they caused to fall on him, and he slept, is ignorance (lacking gnosis). They opened his side which was like a living woman (נשמת Neshamah). And they built up his side with some flesh in place of her, and Adam came to be only with soul (נפש Nephesh andרוח  Ruach).
 
The woman of spirit (נשמת Neshamah) came to him and spoke with him, saying, “Rise, Adam.” And when he saw her, he said, “It is you who have given meחי  life. You will be called (חוה Eve) ‘mother of the living.’ For she is my mother. She is the physician, and the woman, and she has given birth.” ―The Reality of the Rulers, The Gnostic Bible

That sleep which the archons put upon us obviously has to do with our own defects making us unconscious and absurd. Our own ignorance is self-created by our own inner defects, which we take as law, authority, objective.
 
However, by working with the two energetic currents of our spine, which are also represented by אדם Adam and חוה Eve, known in the East as Ida and Pingala, we extract נשמה Neshamah. We raise the spiritual soul within us, the Kundalini.
 
She is the one that raises the human consciousness to redemption. “It is you who have given me life,” he says. “You will be called Havah, Mother of the Living.” This also represents how נשמה Neshamah can relate to the Divine Mother Kundalini, the divine feminine. She is our mother. She is the physician, the one who heals us and the one who gives birth, because from the divine feminine, by the Kundalini sacred power of the divine, we are redeemed. We raise Her up the spine. We elevate Her. We sanctify Her. We do so through the remembrance of Christ, as you see represented in this image.

The Duality of the Sacred Feminine

​But the sacred feminine is dual. There is a positive and there is a negative, as we have been emphasizing again again. We included here the image of the Sixth Arcanum of the Tarot: Indecision. We see an initiate in a pool of water facing to his left towards the whore. That is his own lust, his own desires, his own cravings, his own נפש Nephesh, and you see that an archon, a hierarch of the law above in the top third of the card, is aiming an arrow to slay her, because she breaks the divine law. However, the initiate must turn to his right, towards נשמה Neshamah, the divine feminine, our Divine Mother. In one other sense, it can be our divine soul. There is a duality to that potential―sacred above, demonic below.
 
The archons of the black lodge obviously pursue that image of the divine. They are empowered by sexual force like any initiate, but they channel it through their lust, and they seek to satisfy their desires. Their own defects seek to gratify themselves through their stealing of the sacred potential. This is why in The Reality of the Rulers it stated:

The authorities came up to their Adam. When they saw his female partner speaking with him, they became very excited and enamored of her. They said to one another, “Come, let us sow our seed in her,” and they pursued her. And she laughed at them for their foolishness and blindness. In their clutches she became a tree and left before them her shadowy reflection resembling herself, and they defiled it foully. And they defiled the seal of her voice, so that by the form they had modeled, together with their own image, they made themselves liable to condemnation. ―The Reality of the Rulers, The Gnostic Bible

​Very deep symbol. Obviously the divine feminine, when channeled through lust, becomes passion, desire, prostitution, and so our own defects love sensations of lust, love that type of sensation or experience, but they are blind. They can not see reality. Desire never sees reality, only the soul. She becomes a tree, and her shadow is what they copulate with because the Tree of Life is the Tree of Being, our true human, divine, and complete potential. However, the shadow of the Tree of Life is Klipoth, or in the Qur’an known as the Tree of زقوم Zaqqum, the Tree of Pain, the infernal worlds. They defile the seal of her voice because really, the voice is דעת Da’ath, sexual knowledge. Without the voice, without the verb, we do not create anything sacred in the sexual act. We must transform with the creative verb, even if but mentally, and so they entered damnation.

​The Wisdom of the Serpent

​What is the wisdom of the serpent? It is dual. We find that נשמה Neshamah has a dual purpose. Really it is the spiritual manifestation of the spirit and manifests within the sexual energy when we are conscious.
 
This is why in The Reality of the Rulers teaches that נשמה Neshamah, the female spiritual presence, appears in the form of a snake. The serpent that tempts, however, we find that from this verse that the serpent tries to instruct in an enigmatic way, and if we read between the lines, we will be able to interpret and see that there are two ways to eat from the Tree of Knowledge, from sex itself, metaphorically, alchemically speaking. Here is what The Reality of the Rulers teaches.

Then the female spiritual presence (נשמת Neshamah) came in the form of the snake, the instructor, and it taught them, saying, “What did he say to you? Was it ‘from every tree in the garden you shall eat, but from the tree of recognizing evil and good do not eat?’” The woman of flesh said, “Not only did he say, ‘Don’t eat,’ but even ‘Don’t touch it. For the day you eat from it, you will surely die.’”  ―The Reality of the Rulers, The Gnostic Bible

​That death is spiritual. It is when we become disconnected from divinity through lust and animality. The female spiritual presence, נשמה Neshamah, emerges in the sexual act when we are conscious. It is the instructor which teaches us in the alchemical moment how to proceed. However, does the woman of flesh obey? We may know these principles, but does our body operate with the act? That is the great question. We have to train ourselves. “Do not eat from the Tree of Knowledge,” meaning do not orgasm. Do not touch it, the sexual act with lust, such as through masturbation. “For the day you eat from it, you will die.” You will be disconnected from the truth.

The snake, the instructor, said, “It is not the case that you will surely die, for out of jealousy he said this to you. Rather, your eyes will open, and you will be like gods, recognizing evil and good.” And the female instructing power was taken away from the snake, and she left it behind, merely a thing of the earth. ―The Reality of the Rulers, The Gnostic Bible

​Another deep symbol.
 
In the astral plane divinity can take on concrete forms to teach us something, and often they will abandon those forms once the teaching or instruction has been given within dreams. The snake here is embodied by the spirit, the spiritual soul, to teach something alchemical to the disciple. “It is not the case that you will die,” meaning, if you are chaste in the sexual act, you will not die. “And out of jealousy he said this to you,” meaning, in a sense, by working in this path we will acquire a level of knowledge and perhaps even superior to that of many archons, especially if we have more egos to work with, defects, desires that we must eliminate. Really, from the greatest temptations arise the greatest virtues, as we said earlier, and through chastity, our eyes spiritually will be opened, and we will be like gods recognizing evil and good.
 
But “The female instructing power was taken away from the snake,” meaning, if the spiritual soul abandons the sexual act, if we are not remembering God in the sexual act, then really the sexual act will be a thing of the earth. This is really when the moment of temptation comes.
 
As we know from the Biblical story:

And the woman of flesh took from the tree and ate, and she gave to her husband as well as herself, and those beings, who possessed only a soul (נפש Nephesh andרוח  Ruach), ate. And their imperfection became apparent in their lack of knowledge. They recognized that they were naked of the spiritual (נשמת Neshamah), and they took fig leaves and bound them around themselves.
 
Then the chief ruler came, and he said, “Adam, where are you?”―for he did not understand what had happened.
 
Adam said, “I heard your voice and was afraid because I was naked, and I hid.” ―The Reality of the Rulers, The Gnostic Bible

​It is a beautiful teaching about alchemy, The Perfect Matrimony. If we are not remembering God and if we eat with desire, then the spiritual leaves us. We become naked, abandoned. Obviously the fig leaves are a symbol of sexuality, because the fig tree has many symbolic applications in other scriptures and relates to the Tree of Knowledge.
 
If the spiritual leaves the sexual act, then one is spiritually destitute. This is why the chief ruler, or the archons of the law of karma come to us and say, “Where are you?” Really, what are we doing? “And Adam said, ‘I heard your voice, and I was afraid because I was naked,’” because out of shame that is how we create more desire, egotism, more pain. That is the path of temptation. However, by remembering נשמה Neshamah, the spiritual within the act, by being conscious of God with our partner, we become divine.

​Resources

​I know we have talked for quite a long time, but we see here we have some references and resources that you can rely on and study to go deeper into these topics, especially the basics of kabbalah and alchemy. Really, the way we have been interpreting these scriptures has been based on these two books: Alchemy and Kabbalah in the Tarot and Tarot and Kabbalah [see also the course: The Eternal Tarot of Alchemy and Kabbalah]. Study them deeply. They will help you give you basis for understanding the Gnostic Gospels themselves and for applying the practice of alchemy in your own work if you are married, but obviously if you are single you can work with the creative energies at your level.
 
At this time, I invite you to ask questions. 

​Questions and Answers

​Question: What to do if we continue to fail or fall for the same temptation?
 
Instructor: Meditate. Meditate on the egos or defects that make you fall, that make you fail. There is no other way. When we comprehend an ego or a defect, a desire, in its fundamental root, we can pray for its elimination and in that way, we can eliminate it completely. Therefore, when the temptations arise again, we are no longer tempted. We have no inclination to go along with the situation. We are just conscious of God. Obviously, this occurs in levels, and it takes a lot of meditation to go deep into certain defects, because some defects are very deep. Some defects require a lot of work, even more work than others, because there are the branches from the Tree of زقوم Zaqqum and there are roots which go deep into hell. We have to be very patient when we go into those deep roots, because those are where the worst temptations exist. So, be patient, meditate, comprehend and comprehend day by day what you can so that you make progress.
 
Question: Can you elaborate some of the symbols discussed in the section of the Conjuration of the Seven relating to Adam and Eve?
 
Instructor: Yes. It does tie very beautifully into this lecture too because as we state in the Conjuration of the Seven:

By the divine and human name of ‎אל שדי El Shaddai, by the sign of the pentagram which I hold in my right hand, in the name of the Angel Anael, by the power of אדם Adam and חוה Eve who are יהוה Iod-Havah, be gone Lilith! Let us rest in peace Nahemah! ―Conjuration of the Seve

​Who is this שדי אל חי Shaddai El Chai? It is the Almighty Living God. That is the sacred name of divinity in the Tree of Life within יסוד Yesod. It is the power of divinity. The Almighty Living God ‎אל שדי El Shaddai is a sexual symbol. “שָׂדֶה Shadeh” means, “demon.” I can also mean, “force,” or “strength of God, Chaiah, Life.” Really שָׂדֶה Shadeh is the term used for, “field,” within the Book of Genesis, and the serpent, the נשמה Neshamah, the spiritual potential of creative power is in the Garden of Eden or the field of the beasts. The serpent dwells within שָׂדֶה Shadeh. It is the power of Shaddai. It is the power of the almighty.
 
It is important too to remember that these names are very sacred. If you pronounce the name ‎שדי אל חי Shaddai El Chai in the astral plane, you will see and hear thunder and lightning. It is the expression of the force of Christ. When we invoke that power, we are asking divinity basically to descend into us “by the divine and human name of ‎אל שדי El Shaddai, by the sign of the pentagram which I hold in my right hand.” 

​The pentagram we hold up the symbol of our right hand, the pinky and ring finger closed, the middle finger, index finger, and thumb extended. The pentagram represents the perfect human being. That perfect human being, really, is what we aspire to. It is when our mind governs sex, not the other way around. So, when we are chaste, we have spiritual רוח Ruach, cognition governing נפש Nephesh within sex. The inverted pentagram is when נפש Nephesh is governing רוח Ruach. That is when really, the two polarities of אדם Adam and חוה Eve, עד Od and עבד Obd, to use other Hebrew terms, Ida, Pingala, the solar and lunar currents, are really misdirected, especially the lunar force of חוה Eve, because we have those two energetic currents that rise up our spine in the form of the Caduceus of Mercury, the Holy Eight. That is where the sexual energy rises through in the vital body to reach the mind and then the heart.
 
Eve can represent the lunar energetic feminine currents of our spine, which, when they are filled with lust, they are sent downward and form the tail of demons, Satan. The tail of the negative serpent is known as the Kundabuffer in the writings of Gurdjieff and also Samael Aun Weor.
 
Also, in the Conjuration of the Seven, “In the name of the Angel Anael, by the power of אדם Adam and חוה Eve who are יהוה Iod-Havah, begone Lilith! Let us rest in peace Nahemah!” “אנאל Anael,” means, “the grace of God.” “חנאל Hanael,” in Hebrew. It is an angel but also represents the grace of divinity shows us when we are chaste. When אדם Adam and חוה Eve, when husband and wife, a couple, are practicing the grace of God, by transforming sex into something pure.
 
“In the name of Adam and Eve, begone Lilith! Let us rest in peace Nahemah!” Lilith and Nahemah are demons. They are related to lust. Lilith is more extreme, related to perversions against nature, and Nahemah is relates to adultery and passion. We perform that prayer because we wish to reject lust from the sexual act. Especially when you are married, you work with this conjuration to prepare your home, your space, for the perfect matrimony. That is the power of אדם Adam and חוה Eve, the grace of God, חנאל Hanael, or אנאל Anael, is נשמה Neshamah. It is the spiritual soul that graces us when we remember Her. Very deep. There obviously will be many more nuances and interpretations there, but that is what comes to the top of my head.
 
Question: Does going along with the flow of egos increase the possibility of a sexual fall?
 
Instructor: Yes. Obviously, egos of lust or desires increase the possibility of a sexual fall. If you are thinking lustful thoughts and engaging with lustful emotions and even in your mind indulging in sexual fantasy, that will translate into your dreams especially. This is why people have nocturnal pollutions, because there are lustful elements that are manifesting in the daytime that the disciple is not aware of.
 
The solution is to observe them in action and to meditate. Comprehend those egos. If we just go along with the flow of our mind, whatever it presents to us, whether it is anger or passion or lust, obviously that increases the likelihood of failing. Really, we have to have no mercy for our own ego. We have to be very militant, but also patient, because this is not easy. It is not easy to train נפש Nephesh into a spiritual soul, into רוח Ruach or נשמה Neshamah. If you identify with any ego, obviously you make yourself more vulnerable to failure, as an incorrect psychological state, according to Samael Aun Weor in the Treatise of Revolutionary Psychology, can, is enough, really any insignificant moment in which we fail to remember ourselves, is enough to really bring us disgrace. We have to be very conscious and vigilant all the time.
 
Also, be patient, because especially if our body is used to fornication, it takes a long time to retrain it. But it can be done. Do not go along with the mind. Observe it. Be mindful of it. Understand it.
 
Question: How would one meditate on lust without indulging in it? What is the best way to meditate on lust?
 
Instructor: I say remember chastity. You will not understand lust if you do not understand the virtue that can come from it. We have to not only look at the mud, but we have to look at the lotus that emerges from it. In the process of comprehension, we start to see a duality. We see a duality in the sense that from passion, by comprehending it and seeing it for what it is, we can understand that there is a truth within it, that there is something trapped within that desire. There is something really profound and beautiful enmeshed within that element.
 
When you are meditating on lust, the challenge becomes when you are imaging a scene in which an ego acted, or emerged in your mind. You have to be able to visualize it with enough stability so that you do not get identified. Now, for some people it can be very difficult, especially in the beginning when desire and lust is very big, especially if we have been feeding that element for many years and even many lifetimes. It is going to be very difficult to first hold in one’s imagination the scene of what happened in a day, in which lust was provoked, but more importantly, to concentrate on it with enough stability that we do not get distracted by the mind, because what happens is that lust will fight analysis. It tries to evade. It is a serpent. It slithers out of the way. It moves and is flexible. It is very quick, and you have to be very fast, consciously, to catch it. Observe it. If you find that you are imagining a scene in which lust acted or you are trying to understand an ego, train enough in your concentration so that you can focus on one thing without forgetting, but also train your imagination so that you can see objectively what is there without identifying with it.
 
If you find that it is too much, your lust is making you fantasize and you are staring to daydream, take a break. Pause. Take a walk. Create some art. Do something creative. If you find that lust is really bothering you and it is very difficult to comprehend, it can be good to take a break. Try to relax especially. Relax your mind, because any agitation will make things unclear and come back after you have performed a conscious and creative or beautiful activity, such as sculpture or painting or art. Walking, you can do some transmutation exercises, pranayama, mantras, runes, are very good for that. It is good to have that energy present so that when you do sit to meditate that you have more integration of your perception. You are more stable. You are more relaxed. You are able to calmly recall the image without getting identified. You have more energy by which to perceive it. You have more strength in your consciousness.
 
It is a delicate skill. This is really the difference between an angel or a demon, really, knowing good from evil and evil from good. You have to be able to acclimate yourself to recall the image, but if your find that lust has taken over, look at the lust. Turn your attention to that desire that wants to fantasize. Observe it. Look at it. It is good to perform some psychological judo on the ego in that moment if it is really bothering you, if it is preventing you from seeing clearly what is there. You have to be flexible in your attention.
 
It can be good to redirect yourself in that way. Take a break if you need to, if it is too much, but eventually train yourself to get through it even if it is difficult and painful. But when you comprehend the lust itself, when you can look at that image or see your own lust and desire and understand it, you start to free yourself more and more from it, so little by little, it disintegrates. It gets weaker. It loses volume, so to speak.
 
Basically, you want to have enough concentration to focus on that element, but you have to watch yourself. Watch your desires. See what they are doing. If you start to drift into fantasy, redirect yourself. I believe another element from Tibetan Buddhism too, which focuses on impermanence, if you see a lustful image, you can reflect on the nature of that element, that image. If it is of a beautiful person, you can imagine it as a corpse. Obviously, this lustful body, this body in which one has lust for, or desire for, is going to die. Does one have attraction or lust for a skeleton? For dead organs? For rotting flesh? You can train yourself to bring up that image when lust is very intense, and then balance that, look at that. That is the objective reality of this person one is lusting after, and when you see that, you can transform the impression. You can understand that it is the attachment, or the desire is impermanent, that really it is not real.
 
Comment: I did not mean to say indulge but identify. It is hard for me not to identify, and I just end up avoiding meditation on lust because it is too tricky. Lust is very intense for me. It is really a big struggle.
 
Instructor: Yes. It is very difficult. I understand what you mean. To identify is to, again, give it your energy. But be patient. Do small meditations. Build up to it, and obviously, do not avoid in the long term, because it is not good not to know what we are. Patiently, hack away at it little by little. If you are comprehending lust in the day and observing yourself and reflecting on the nature of chastity, you will have a better sense of what is real and what is true. That can help diffuse lust quite a lot. That is another method too besides the transformation of impressions.
 
Reflect and remember your Divine Mother. Reflect on Her, what She is like, Her beauty. Do we really want to violate the most sacred and divine with our thoughts, with our words, with our emotional states, our impulses? When we remember more what the Divine Mother is within us, we are more more inclined to resist, or better said, comprehend lust and remove it from our lives.
 
I recommend you can even meditate on the Divine Mother, especially a sacred image reflecting Her divine beauty, because She is what is real. She is נשמה Neshamah. She is also חיה Chaiah, the life of the divine.
 
Question: How and why did Kundry help the knighthood despite her being under the control of Klingsor within Wagner’s opera Parsifal?
 
Instructor: For those who have not seen the opera, it is by Richard Wagner. It is probably one of the greatest works of art ever created. It really depicts the drama of temptation within the Garden of Eden, and in a symbolic sense, the path of redemption, Klingsor represents, he is basically a black magician who steals the lance of Longinus from the knights of the grail. He wounds the side of their priest Amfortas who is in pain and trying to be healed. Kundry is the temptress who originally tempted Amfortas the priest, that made him fall. However, she serves the knighthood with great reverence and respect because that power of Kundry, the divine soul, is dual. Sophia wants to return to divinity, wishes to serve the knights of the Holy Grail, that Gnostic Church, with fidelity, because she understands the value of this work, this Path.
 
However, she is still under the control of Klingsor, because like any one of us, as much as we love Gnosis and the teaching, and may practice it with a lot of faith and love, we have a lot of lust. We have a lot of negative elements and egos that belong to the black lodge, our own defects, really, which can access with hell. We are mixed. We are Hasnamussen. We are dual. We want to go to heaven, but we are stuck in hell, and as much as we try and fight against our defects, we have lust, and we lose battles because it is very difficult.
 
I recommend if those who have not seen the opera that you watch it. Watch it or you can read the book by Samael Aun Weor [Parsifal Unveiled], then also watch the opera too. Very powerful.
 
Question: Are there more meanings to the fire symbol such as depicted in the book Christ and the Virgin?
 
Instructor: Fire is a symbol of Christ, the fire of life, the fire of Being. Obviously, fire has dual potential. It can give fire, heat, and life. It can cook our food. It can give us sustenance, or it can burn us. How the fire is used is dependent on us. Do we act with desire and ego? Are we tempted by our own desires to use the fire in the wrong way, or do we channel the spirit as נשמה Neshamah, the Holy Ghost, through chastity? That is the difference. That is the duality of fire. Fire can give life. Fire can destroy. It is Shiva-Shakti, the creative-destructive potential of the Holy Ghost. Those are the two paths, temptation and redemption. The fire can destroy, or it can purify our psychological house and give us light. It depends on us.
 
Basically, the fire is the fire of the Holy Spirit. It is the fire of illumination that can give us life, spiritually speaking.
 
Question: What is the meaning of the translation of Eve as, “farm,” and what is the relationship of אדם Adam and חוה Eve after the separation?
 
Instructor: My initial assumption is that when you think of a farm, you think of crops, wheat, vegetation, the field, שָׂדֶה Shadeh, שדי Shaddai. From Eve, if we cultivate the earth, our physical body through the sexual transmutation of our energies, we become farmers of the spirit.

​I believe there is even an arcanum, from the minor arcana of the Tarot called, “The Plower,” cultivation of the earth. With alchemy, we are plowing the earth to plant the seed of the soul, the seed of the spirit.
 
What is the relationship of אדם Adam and חוה Eve after the separation? In one sense אדם Adam and חוה Eve were the ancient humanity of Lemuria where they divided into male and female sexes. Therefore, when the two sexes separated in that time, it was for the purpose of helping to amplify or magnify this sexual force.
 
In the beginning sexual cooperation did not exist, because they were hermaphroditic beings, but in order to spiritually develop in a higher octave, there had to be a separation so that by coming together again, joining in marital union, the two forces, both male and female, masculine-feminine, man and woman, could join together to create something superior. That was a process in which humanity developed at that time through evolution, so that in a later time, humanity could enter higher stages of knowledge and being.
 
At this point, I know we are running out of time, we are going to conclude. I thank you all for coming!