In the Gnostic teachings, we talk a lot about suffering. In fact, if you are familiar at all with Buddhism, the first of the Four Noble Truths is that life is suffering. That in our existence, in our craving and desiring after different aspects and experiences of life, we are actually suffering intensely, but we are asleep to this. We are not aware of it.
Today, will be talking about trauma, and trauma is unique in that it is an experience that cannot be easily denied and that brings us directly into consciousness of suffering. If you have ever experienced something so traumatic, that the pain stuck with you even after the event had passed, or maybe now that pain has shaped your life in a very impactful way, then you understand that you have some consciousness of what suffering truly is. So you, in your own sense, have awakened some level of gnosis. Gnosis γνῶσις is a Greek word that means knowledge, but not knowledge from a book. It is knowledge that is experiential. In this tradition, we often talk about striving for gnosis as direct experience of divinity. How do we have awakened experiences internally in the astral plane? How do we see and talk to God face-to-face and receive answers, not just pray but actually have that connection alive and awake within us? So when we talk about cultivating gnosis, it is something that we really deeply know not just intellectually, but with all of our being. A trauma is interesting, because it is an experience of suffering that often manifests itself in the body. Even rationally we might say, "Well I should be over that, or that shouldn't have impacted me that much, or I don't want to act like this and respond with this much intensity to experiences anymore just because I was traumatized in the past.” Even with that rational resistance to it, we still tense up. We still feel the bodily sensations associated with the pain that we have gone through, and emotionally if you have known anyone who has been traumatized, or if you yourself have experienced trauma, it carries a heavy weight as well. That is why I say it is a type of knowledge or gnosis that cannot be denied, no matter how much our rational mind tries to deny it and say, “This didn't happen to me! This wasn't a big deal. This shouldn't have affected me this much.” It really is a chance for us to wake up. In many ways, trauma can be a wake-up call: a chance for us to say, "There is something in life, in my life, that is fundamentally wrong. This suffering needs to be changed." Trauma can be a chance for us to explore, to seek more answers, to try to find a way to change. For many people, they seek more existential routes to solve their problems. They seek to find a spiritual answer for why people have to suffer some horrible things such as rape, sexual assault, child abuse, even things like divorce: things that can be so painful emotionally, physically, etc. So on the one hand, trauma presents us with an opportunity to radically change our lives, but for many people, it is very difficult to find answers or things that really work to make a change in their life, to really address their suffering. In those cases, trauma often becomes more of a burden, or an obstacle―something that only pushes us deeper into suffering. Perhaps a parent's problems with addiction, when we were a child, now causes us to struggle with addiction, as an example. How do we take the risks associated with trauma and try to transform them through a form of spiritual alchemy, into an opportunity for us to rise above suffering to become stronger, to become more wise, more aware of ourselves and of the mysteries of life? Medical and Psychological Correlations of Trauma
When we talk about trauma, there are some interesting correlations between a medical or psychological, you know, mainstream definition of trauma, and the more esoteric or spiritual significance of trauma that I am going to discuss today.
Starting with a conventional understanding of trauma, we can look at the causes of trauma. In the field of psychology, it is often referred to as “Big-T” Trauma or “little-t” trauma. We acknowledge that sometimes events that seem not so significant to many people―for example a break up when someone is a teenager and feels very unloved―can often be dismissed as not a big deal by adults who don't really have that same perspective on life at that point. That would probably be considered a “little-t” trauma. It still has an impact on us. It still has an effect and many lasting effects often on the way that we would look for, in this example, at relationships in our future. But it might not be considered a “Big T” Trauma. “Big T” trauma would be something like going to war and watching your best friend killed beside you, or experiencing a sexual assault, or perhaps being in a terrifying car accident. These types of long-term abuse or very traumatic incidents can be both considered trauma. Now many times different people can go through the same event and have a different response to it. What this is frequently associated with is the characteristic of resilience. Resilience still remains a bit of a mystery for psychologists, but there is a lot of research pointing to the family structure and the early childhood environment as a major factor in terms of trauma, resilience. So if someone had a very stable and loving family environment, then they might experience traumatic events with more resilience, especially if they had at least one adult figure that was a stable caregiver in their life, versus people who had a lot more instability. Perhaps neglect or abuse in the home can make it much harder for victims to have resilience in a variety of different difficult situations. Situational and Chronic Trauma
I also want to point out that trauma can be both situational and chronic. Now this impacts the brain in a very different way. Situational trauma is usually when someone is already an adult and they have an experience, that is a situation or maybe a few situations, that produce post-traumatic stress disorder. As given in the example, seeing someone's best friend die right beside them will be an example of situational trauma, and that this actually does damage the brain. It does have a psychological impact on the brain, but it is different from chronic trauma.
Chronic trauma is usually associated with childhood. It happens over a period of years. It could be years of childhood abuse, verbal abuse, sexual abuse, etc. This actually changes the whole structure of the brain and the way that the brain develops, so that that individual's personality now has a new structure, so the way that they even interface with the world will be very heavily impacted by the trauma that they went through over the course of those years. Much of that has to do with the fight for survival. If you are coming home to an abusive home as a child, there is a feeling of helplessness. There is a feeling of never knowing what to expect, if today is going to be a good day or a bad day. So that puts tremendous stress on the body, on the nervous system. In that case, the brain has to reorient itself to find a way to survive―to find adaptive coping behaviors that, perhaps later on in life, will seem maladaptive to new situations where the threat isn't so real. Commission versus Omission
Finally, there is trauma that happens via commission or via omission. Often we think of trauma as someone committing an act to me that makes me feel out of control. Being assaulted on the street would be an act of commission that could be traumatic for people. Give people a real sense of helplessness, and “I don't know if I have control over my life. How can I know that it is safe anywhere to go?”
Trauma of omission would be a lack of the needs that a person has. Omission could be childhood neglect or constant blame and that feeling of not being good enough. The absence of what someone needs also gets processed into the brain as a trauma and changes our brain structure. As I mentioned here on the slide, trauma affects the nervous system and the neural structure. One good thing is that neuroscience now has so much evidence that even past the age of our mid-20s, we are still able to restructure our brain and meditation is a tremendous tool to be able to do so. So even though trauma codes itself and creates neural pathways that are very deeply ingrained through prolonged and continuous work, one is able to redirect and to kind of cut away those negative pathways, and produce new positive pathways that change your whole perception of reality, that also, by changing your outlook on reality, change the way that you respond to it. Fight, Flight, and Freeze Responses to Reality
So perhaps you will not have one of these fight, flight, or freeze responses to situations. Take for example a woman who was in a domestic abusive partnership, where you know, continually, she had to be on her guard in order to defend herself from potential attacks from her partner. Now later on, she might enter into another relationship where the partner is loving and supportive, but little things may set this woman off to respond in a very aggressive way―that would be the fight response. To become completely withdrawn and cold towards her partner would be the flight response―or to freeze, to just totally dissociate, to become emotionally numb to the situation that she is in. So that is just one clear example of how that might manifest, but depending on the trauma, these responses can look a little bit different as you can imagine.
Given that those types of responses are what are programmed into the lower levels of the brain, the more instinctive levels of the brain, which is what becomes activated, it affects the entire nervous system and produces instinctive reactions without the ability to truly think consciously. To have that higher thinking process where you say “Hmm… maybe I'm overreacting about this situation; I should calm down; I should look at it more objectively”―when the amygdala, or the lower part of the brain gets activated, it is actually very, very difficult to be able to control oneself and to override that response, because it is such a deep primal part of the brain. However, we do know that through meditation, as I mentioned before, we are able to gradually develop pathways and strengthen pathways that do allow us a bit of separation in those moments, and to repair the damaged parts of our brains so that we can respond in better ways. For many people, trauma leads to what seemed to other people as irrational reactions. In that person's shoes, perhaps they don't even realize that they are traumatized. Perhaps they feel genuinely in this situation, “It is life or death for me. I need to defend myself. I need to survive,” and so they respond with an extreme reaction to the situation. But for someone else who standing around, who doesn't have that same experience of trauma, they may not understand why this person is freaking out about a certain situation. The Spiritual Impact of Trauma
Now if we step into a more esoteric understanding drawing upon teachings from the Gnostic tradition―which we have many lectures about as well, if you'd like to learn more about these―we understand trauma and the way that trauma happens in a different way. So yes, it is true all the stuff that I just talked about―the biological impact of trauma―but more importantly for our concerns is the spiritual impact of trauma.
When we experience life as a consciousness, as a soul that is perceiving different aspects in nature, we experience a variety of sensations as impressions. Now you can live for certain amount of time without food, without water, and even without air, but you can't exist without impressions. Even if you go off to one of the sensory deprivation tanks, still in your mind, there are impressions. There is an impression of darkness where there are thoughts. Impressions both come to us from our environment externally and are impressing upon our consciousness and our perception, but they also come internally. So it may be that we almost step into the road and a bus coming by scares us, and that is an impression that strikes the consciousness, but the result that is produced within us, the fear, the instinctive pull of the body back, you know, the thought of “Oh my gosh, I could have just died right there!”―all of those things are also impressions. This shows us that the consciousness, that which perceives within us, is separate from the body, separate from the heart, and separate from the mind. It perceives these aspects of ourselves: thoughts, emotions, physical sensations, experiences in our external world, but it is separate from them. This is very important, because when we try to meditate, meditation is not just to sit on a cushion and to zone out, but to activate the consciousness that is beyond thought, feeling, and body. We have to have that fundamental understanding that we are not our thoughts. We are not our emotions. We are not our bodies. We are perceiving them, but they are impressions, and we do have the conscious ability to take a step back from them and perceive them without being so identified with, “I am angry. This anger is me. I must act on it!” I have no other choice but to separate a little bit and to realize, “I am feeling anger. I am experiencing anger and right now I have the choice if I want to believe that this anger is worth doing these acts and maybe later on I'll regret, or if this anger is something I can let go of and choose a different path―using my free will.” 
When we talk about the human machine, we understand that for most people, probably all of us here, we are much more mechanical than we are conscious. Like in the example I gave of the bus driving by―that happens in a split second and you react to it. There is no conscious choice in, “Am I going to jump back from that bus? Am I going to feel afraid? Am I going to think these thoughts afterwards?” It just happens. The impression comes in.
The brain, which we would call the intellectual center or the intellectual brain, is one part of us. We also have emotions, the heart, the emotional brain, emotional center in the body, and the motor-instinctive-sexual center of our body related with the spine. With those instincts in the lower brain, those three centers respond immediately, instantaneously to those reactions. In most cases, the motor-instinctive-sexual center is the fastest brain, and we know that the nervous system is throughout the entire body and responds instinctively before your brain can even think or send a message. You touch a hot stove. Your hand pulls off before you can even think about it. That is the fastest brain. The emotional brain is the second fastest. Emotions often come before we have time to process what is really happening to us and think about it rationally, and you know, there is a lot of research on how the heart is actually sending many more messages to the brain, and can actually have a bit of precognition. It can actually respond to something before it even happens. Then finally, the intellectual center of the brain. So, most of us think, “Well, I am a rational person. I respond to life from logic and I am not going to act irrationally. I am not going to respond emotionally or instinctively, you know. I am an educated person” or whatever the case may be. But the truth is, given a certain experience, you will see that we are designed to survive―that we are designed like machines. A stimulus comes in and we respond to it without thought. Why this is important is because the part of us, the consciousness, the part of us that is our soul, that is eternal, is the part we want to activate, because with the consciousness we can achieve that separation and we can respond to life with free will, with choice―not just according to our conditioning―not just “this happened to me when I was kid and this is the way I was raised and so I have no other choice but to respond in this pre-programmed way.” We actually have a choice about “who do I want to be” and “how do I actually do that in the moment.” The consciousness, when it is awakened, is much, much faster than any of these three centers, but awakening the consciousness requires certain conditions that we are going to talk about in a few minutes. The Transformation of Impressions and Psychological Disequilibrium
Now, when we receive impressions in the consciousness and it is not awake, this produces a disequilibrium in us, and especially over time, since most of us are running on autopilot much of the time. We are not even aware of this deep disequilibrium. We think, “Well, that's just the way that I am. If I perceive somebody to be disrespecting me, I am just going to respond like that because that's my character.”
But truly, it may be that throughout our life, we have received impressions and never transformed them. We have never looked within ourselves to say, “What is happening in me when I perceive that somebody is disrespecting me and what is causing me to respond? Do I have a choice to perhaps sink to their level and respond in kind, or to rise above it and be the type of person that maybe I'd prefer to be?” That is why I say here, and we teach in our tradition, that untransformed impressions lead to conditioned behavior and thoughts. If we want to live as a free-willed individual, we cannot be living according to the program that has been conditioned into us. If we want to have the choice to pursue a path of enlightenment, just like Buddha or Krishna, Moses, Jesus, any of these great spiritual figures who at one point were just like us, then we need to begin to radically take control over our situation. We need to stop being who we are and open up the pathways of action that allow us to become someone new. That is why meditation is essential spiritual practice. Now, if you are not from an eastern religious tradition, meditation may take the form as contemplation or prayer, but regardless, we say that meditation is not about necessarily your posture, although posture, incense, those types of things of course can be helpful. Meditation is really about your state of consciousness. You may be walking about through the world and have the consciousness awake, and this can be meditation. If you have experienced a very intense situation where you suddenly felt extremely awake, that may be spontaneous experience of meditation, but we want to, of course, work with the science of meditation to learn the conditions to be able to produce it regularly. So here, our problem of trauma is that we have we have impressions coming in all the time that aren't transformed and they are conditioning us to feel certain ways, to think certain thoughts, and to respond and behave in certain ways. If we don't want to spend our lives on repeat, feeling the same emotions day after day, thinking the same thoughts day after day, repeating the same reactions and behaviors day after day; if we really want to create a new life for ourselves, then we need to be able to wake up our consciousness. The founder of our Gnostic tradition, Samael Aun Weor, makes a very powerful and simple statement about all of this. About receiving impressions in our life. To change one's life is really to change one's own reactions towards it. ―Samael Aun Weor, The Revolution of the Dialectic
A lot of us have the mentality that life is just happening to me―and yes, it is true that our environment, our situation, the different systems in our world, do have an impact on our life, absolutely. But, what really determines the quality of our life is our response to it.
So if one impression strikes us in a certain way and produces negativity, then we are having a negative experience of life. If we can take that same impression and experience something more positive, like gratitude or understanding, then we have changed our experience of life. Fundamentally, life is not about what objectively happens to us out in the physical world. It is about the way that we experience it. We see individuals who have been through intense hardship―war zones, like I said, trauma, childhood abuse―who have been able to transcend that and really have gratitude and experienced a lot of positive emotions in their lives. Then we have individuals who have been, you know, born into wealth, and you can see that they are really miserable people. They can complain about a lot of things. Now, of course, there is every gray area in between. Not everybody who is rich is miserable. Of course, I am not going to say that, but we see that it really depends on the quality of the person in that experience, more than it depends on the situation. So, we have a habit of thinking, “Well, I am only going to be happy if this and this and this situation happens to me,” which is most of the time, out of our control. The Gnostic Esoteric Work
In our spiritual work, we are trying very hard to flip that mentality into, “I am going to be happy if I can really come to understand my situation in life and consciously choose how I am going to respond to it.” This is a process. This is not just wishful thinking of, “Oh, okay I have been traumatized and I am just going to be happy about it.” It is not about belief. It is something much deeper.
So, to get into that, we are going to talk about: what is this work? I say it is a work because it requires a lot of effort, especially deep traumas that happened over the course of years. This is not something that is going to be erased overnight. Even, you know, from a materialistic psychological standpoint, to reverse the effects of trauma in the brain as you create new neural pathways takes a long time and a lot of work. If we have experienced trauma and have a genuine longing to be free, we are willing to do the work. We want to be free from the suffering and we genuinely say, “This is a point in my life where I am turning it around. I am going to radically try to take control of my life and try something new.” Then we can begin to work with these methods. The methods themselves are quite simple in theory, but to truly put our conscious effort into it is what depends on us. It is not about whether the method will work as much as it is about our willingness to continuously apply it and to give it, you know, give it the time it takes to work. 
The Magic of the Roses
In Samael Aun Weor's book, Esoteric Medicine and Practical Magic―as you can see we have copies of the books over there―he teaches one remedy that is called the magic of the roses.
This is what I give as a precursor, because many people who are experiencing trauma, if they even begin to think about that trauma, or if some situation in their life comes and triggers the pain from the past, they are overwhelmed with emotion and pain. From that state, it is very difficult to cultivate the stability needed to be able to truly meditate and try to go deeper into changing ourselves. So, this remedy is a natural remedy for us to heal spiritual and emotional pain and trauma: you know the loss of a loved one, a painful breakup, or even dealing with the after-effects of abuse, self-hatred, etc. To work with the magic of the roses, one takes three glasses or water, pure water, of course, being better if you're able to, and then places one rose in each glass. Position one glass facing the north, one glass facing the east, one glass facing the west. Ideally if you have an altar or a spiritual place where you like to meditate or pray in your home, you would place these glasses there and you would sit and you would genuinely pray―reaching out to your inner divinity, whatever form that may take for you that is most powerful: Jesus or Buddha or the Divine Mother, Divine Father, whatever that may be, and pray for healing. Pray to bless these roses and to give you the healing. Then, drink in the morning before breakfast the glass facing the east, and in the afternoon before lunch, the glass facing the north, and before dinner the glass facing the west. You can refill the glasses and repeat the process for as many days as needed, until you feel like you are feeling better. Now, what is important to point out here is that this is the magic of the roses. So, if we are seriously trying to work with magic or a mystical practice, an esoteric practice, we need a certain type of energy. This is not just based on belief, but it is based on our own quality of consciousness. For one thing, it matters how much you are really conscious and sincere in your prayer to be healed. For another thing, you also will need to utilize a very powerful force. 
Sexual Energy: The Most Powerful Force for Healing
When we think about the most powerful energy within our bodies, it is the sexual energy. What can move people to chase after a desire so passionately, with so much energy over such a prolonged period of time, as much as sexual desire, right?
Sexual energy is the synthesis of everything that we are physically, emotionally, mentally. The things that we have experienced, the things that we have seen and thought, all get coded genetically into the DNA of our sexual cells. This sexual energy is not just the synthesis of who we are in a physical level, but holds a very special spiritual power. The spiritual power of our sexual energy is the power of God, the power to create life. And yes, we understand this on a basic level, physically. What many people are not aware of is the sexual energy's power to transform and give birth within the psyche to new states of consciousness, the ability to awaken in higher state of consciousness, or if used in a negative way, the sexual energy can be used to awaken in lower realms of consciousness. That is why I put here in the slide about transmutation that we want to transmute the sexual energy with purity―not with lust, but with love. Sexual attraction for most of us is always associated with lust. "If I feel desire for someone, it's in a very lustful way and that's just the only way I can think about that person." But what we are trying to do is take lust, start where we are at―you know, we all have lust―and to transform it through different practices. These are called pranayama in yogic traditions, breathing practices where you consciously take that energy and raise it up the spine into the brain to awaken our consciousness. To use that energy helps us to move from being a lustful person to a truly loving person. Lust is “all about me and what I want in this relationship” or in this exchange with another person. Love is about the concern that “I feel for my partner” or this other individual. Love is being willing to sacrifice “what I want in order to support the happiness of both of us.” Being able to move from that is not an automatic process. It requires a lot of consciousness, and being able to do the work of really changing ourselves into a new type of being is not an automatic process and requires a lot of work. This type of energy gives us the ability to have the equivalent of rocket fuel in our spiritual practice and to awaken in that way. These practices are talked about at length in the book The Perfect Matrimony by Samael Aun Weor. He talks a lot about sexual alchemy, sexual transmutation, sexual purity, and being able to be with one's partner in a way that is loving instead of a way that is lustful. I don't have time today to really dive into it, but we do have the book, or you can read it for free online at Glorian.org [formerly gnosticteachings.org]. I'm just going to take one quote from this book. He says: Here, we are not dealing with a matter of believing or disbelieving, of considering oneself chosen, or of belonging to such-and-such sect. The question of salvation is very serious. One must work with the grain, with the sexual seed. […] Only from the sexual grain is the Inner Angel born. ―Samael Aun Weor, The Perfect Matrimony
We look at masters like Jesus, Buddha, Moses, people who had power over nature. This was not an accident. They worked to cultivate it, and from their sexual force was born a tremendous power.
All of us have this capacity within ourselves, and it is not a matter of whether or not we believe it's true. It's a matter of if we do the practice and we really work with it, we see the results. We see the changes in our physicality, in our emotional center, in our mind. We see the changes in our conscious experiences: being awakened in the astral plane or in dreams, etc. And so, it is not a matter of belonging to any group. You can be in any type of religion that you want, but it is a matter of really working sincerely with this science. I begin with this practice, transmutation, as the basis, because although much of the work is in the next two practices I am going to talk about when we are trying to resolve our trauma. Without this basis, we can only go so far. Meditation will be helpful, magic of the roses might be helpful, but in order to create a truly permanent change in our consciousness, not just in our mind, or in our mental pathways within our consciousness, in the part of us that will move on to another lifetime, we need something much more powerful. Sexual energy is the root of who we are spiritually and physically. 
Meditation as Therapy
The real intense work of trying to overcome trauma is in meditation. It is only through meditation that we can deeply comprehend the causes of our suffering. If we have experienced any impression in life, and it seems to be stuck and we are going around and around and around in circles over it, maybe we are thinking about it or we can't stop feeling or reacting to it. Being in meditation―calming the three brains, the mind, the heart, and the body, sitting in relaxation, and achieving the awakening of that consciousness and separating enough from the experiences that we are having emotionally, mentally, or physically―allows us to see what is truly happening to us in a more objective way, to experience it with more consciousness.
There is a whole book about this as well, The Revolution of the Dialectic by Samael Aun Weor. He points out many different techniques for being able to meditate, because if you have ever tried to look at your mind, it is a very complex place, and for most of us when we begin meditating, it is a very chaotic experience. It is like, “I can't pay attention for 5 seconds, how am I supposed to go deeply into comprehending the causes of suffering in my mind?” It takes time to develop relaxation, to find a posture, and you know, an ability to create relaxation within yourself in those three centers. It also takes time to develop concentration, to be able to concentrate on our mind and our experience with such vividness and alertness that we can stay awake even as the body relaxes into sleepiness. Countertransference: The Resistance of the Mind
But in addition to that, we have other challenges, and when it comes to trauma there are a lot of these challenges. The mind has infinite defense mechanisms to protect itself. If you are trying to work on trauma or something that is very painful for you―a wound that you have carried for a very long time―the mind will try to guard itself so that you can't go there.
There is a reason that many traumatic memories get repressed, or that we don't like to think about the past and the bad things that happened. It is because the mind is trying to protect itself from pain, you know, this instinct in us, to go automatically towards pleasure and to go away from pain. Unfortunately, just by ignoring something, we don't resolve it. We don't fix it. Meditation, like I said, is really diving in to do the deep work, to create a lasting change in ourselves because our unconscious mind will respond and react to situations before we have time to think about it. So we go deep and we remove those unconscious structures and mechanisms within our consciousness, our psyche. Then we can respond with free will instead of as machines. Samael Aun Weor writes in The Revolution of the Dialectic: The difficulty of profound introspective analysis (of our mind) lies in counter-transference. ―Samael Aun Weor, The Revolution of the Dialectic
Countertransference, when we think about this in a therapeutic setting, a clinical setting, is about reflecting a past trauma on to someone or something outside of us. Let's say that that in that situation of the woman who was in an abusive partnership, in that case she might try to repress that and move on, but when she enters into a new relationship, even if it's a healthy partnership, that will transfer all of that trauma, will transfer onto the new person or transfer onto different traumatic situations and produce the same reactions.
So even though objectively, these are two very different people and these situations may be very different, subjectively, within that person's experience of life, it is the same experience. They are not conscious of this. They say, "No, no,” that “it's this guy. He's treating me bad, just like my ex-husband,” or whatever, but really, it is within ourselves that is projected onto life. I want to go back again to that earlier statement about “to change one's life is really to change one's own reaction towards it.” That is the flip side. Even if we have been victimized―which many of us in life have been… there are bad people out there right?―it is to take responsibility for our life and how we are going to react to it anyway. To say, “Even though these terrible things happen to me and these people did this to me, I am not going to sit around and blame other people and persist in my pain. I really want to be free. I really want to say that no matter what happened to me, I want to be free from this and I want to choose how I respond and not be conditioned.” That is why the difficulty is countertransference. Countertransference tries to look everywhere else, but at “me and my experience and how I am responding to this.” It does not want to look at the paint. Samael Aun Weor goes on to say that: This difficulty of countertransference is eliminated through structural and transactional analysis. ―Samael Aun Weor, The Revolution of the Dialectic
It sounds very technical, but if we are sitting in meditation and we have achieved enough relaxation, concentration and stability to separate consciously from our experience, from our thoughts, to observe our thoughts―this is not to have a completely silent mind, but to have a silence that observes the mind, observes those thoughts, and observes those emotions in the bodily sensations―then we are able to see that the mind has a certain structure. It has its defenses. It has its walls.
In an example, if a man experienced a break up and his partner did something to really hurt him, and then he responded by shutting this person out, trying to put it all in the past, then in that case, one of the structures is, “I don't think about that. That is over. That is in the past. I am over it―all right.” This is one defense. There is a certain structure, and if this person sits in meditation and he tries to look at that and he says, “Well, maybe there still is some pain there; maybe I am not as over it as I thought, because something reminded me today about it and maybe there is some pain there”―the mind will have a transaction. It will move on to some other defense. It will say, “Uh oh! He's getting through this wall.” So what is this other wall? Anger might come up and say, “Well, really I didn't do anything wrong in this situation. She did everything wrong and she was the bad person.” Again, we see the countertransference and the repression, or the ignorance gets transferred over to anger. We think, “Okay, well, I don't want to be this anger. I don't want to blame the other person. I want to be the better person,” then that transaction can move over to pride: “But really, I am a good person and I was so good to her,” and you know, whatever the case may be for any variety of situations. We have to sit there and have gnosis of our own experience: to become deeply conscious of our experience of what happened, not by analyzing in the mind, but observing the structure of the mind and observing the transactions and the movements of the mind, until finally the mind has to stop deflecting and has to just let you look at the thing that you, perhaps, for a long time had not looked at. That is why Samael Aun Weor goes on to say: It is important to segregate and to dissolve certain undesirable psychic aggregates that are fixed in our mind in a traumatic matter. ―Samael Aun Weor, The Revolution of the Dialectic
The aggregates in our mind would be something like that structure of anger, or that structure of repression, or that structure of pride, and they work together like friends. That's the transaction. So we want to set segregate them, to say, “Ah! Okay, well it just deflects it over here, but I am going to go back and I am going to focus on that until I have been able to dissolve it,” to say “I see this for what it is. I recognize and understand why this is here and I can consciously choose to eliminate it; to let it go; to say it's just not true and it has no power over me anymore.”
So as I mentioned before, belief, and just pushing it down and thinking positive thoughts, is not enough. We need comprehension. We need to go deeply in meditation and really see it for what it is in order to achieve lasting change. That is why this is a work of months or years, because continually, in our daily life, trauma resurfaces, and continually we have to make that choice: that our work to change ourselves is a priority, and that we are willing, again and again, to go and eliminate the different unconscious mechanisms within ourselves―things that have been fixed there as part of “who I am” in a traumatic matter. We want to make a change to them. 
Self-Observation and Comprehension of Trauma
Going hand-in-hand with meditation is self-observation, because as I just mentioned, traumas resurface in our daily life. It said in the psychological community that trauma forces someone to live, permanently, stuck in the past. So even if they are somewhat present to their daily life, a part of them is trapped in the past and still responding to the past, trying to prevent from happening what has already happened.
If I have already been assaulted, I live constantly trying to prevent getting assaulted rather than being able to go back and look at the pain that is there and heal it, and let the wound heal. Comprehend it for what it is. Truly grieve for “what I have been through” and be able to let it go, rather than living as if it is still a threat currently “happening to me.” And so when we go in meditation, this is based on our self-observation: on the things that we see come up in ourselves every day. 
The Traumatic Causes of Karma in Past Lives
In Tarot and Kabbalah, Samael Aun Weor writes:
We need to make ourselves conscious of our own karma. This is only possible through the state of alert novelty. ―Samael Aun Weor, Tarot and Kabbalah
Alert novelty is being conscious and being awake to “what is happening to me,” not just externally, but “what am I feeling? What am I thinking? How is my body responding?” Becoming aware of your body in the chair and how you are feeling emotionally? And what thoughts are popping into your mind? Not just now, but in every moment. That takes tremendous energy, which again, is another reason why sexual transmutation gives us the fuel that we really need to be able to stay awake consciously throughout the day.
Now when he is talking about karma here, karma comes from the root karman, which means: “action and consequence, cause and effect.” So maybe our mainstream idea of karma is just, "Oh, you did something bad to somebody; something bad is going to happen to you!” But a much more scientific understanding of karma, for our terms, is that there is no action that does not produce a consequence. You can't throw a rock into a pool of water without producing ripples. Now the shape of that consequence may take, or the time it may take for that consequence to fully bloom, that can be variable. But everything you do, everything you think, everything you feel has an effect. If you feel anger and you think angry thoughts, even if you don't act on it, it will change the way that you interact with the person you are angry with. At some point it might even bubble up and express itself fully, may be in a worse way for being repressed. Everything in our life produces some consequence, and that is why it is even more critical to be able to become conscious of our response to life, because we might not be able to change what we have done in this life up to now, or even in past lives, but we can change what we are doing now that will alter the future of this lifetime and future lifetimes. He goes on to say that: Every effect in life, every event, has its cause in a previous life; but we need to become conscious of this. ―Samael Aun Weor, Tarot and Kabbalah
If you are really working with meditation, and I say this from my own experience, and you meditate on a trauma, and you go deep enough, you will see causes in previous lifetimes. I can give an example of a painful relationship that I was in where, again and again, no matter how much I tried to change this person, this man and I would continually repeat the same types of behaviors towards each other. As much as we might have cared for each other, it continually remained a toxic relationship.
And so, you know, years after the fact when I am trying to go on and live my life, this keeps resurfacing for me. I am studying the Gnostic teachings. I am working with these practices, transmutation, meditations, etc., and I say “Okay, well, here is a perfect example. This is something I definitely want to change” by going deeply in meditation and understanding, on a regular basis, you know, really working on this day to day until I could get deeper and deeper. First getting through the defense mechanisms, then getting into “Well, how am I really feeling?” Because I have pushed it down and denied it for so long, I haven't even objectively seen my experience, until finally going deeper into what caused this. Why would something like this happen? Why did I have to be stuck in so much pain for so long? And being able to see through astral experiences the exact actions that I had done in multiple previous lives, and that this person had done in multiple previous lives, that caught us in that pattern. Now this was something that I didn't necessarily believe in or expect to happen. I totally felt like, “Well, this just happened to me, whether or not I believe in past lives. This happened because he was a bad person and I was young” or whatever. But to truly go and have an experience so vividly where I saw, instantaneously, those multiple past lives―with those multiple transgressions in different bodies and different times, but seeing the same energetic cycle―was shocking for me. It produced a type of comprehension that really was so deep, I was able to fundamentally alter the way that I looked at myself, because I never saw myself really, deeply, as the aggressor. As much as I might have said, “Well, yeah, I did bad things… I really felt victimized,” it hurt. But when I saw “Oh my gosh! I did that in past lives” and I knew from the experience and how vivid it was, how true it was that I was really there, I wept with remorse, because I would have done anything I could to have changed that and to not have hurt this other person that I cared for. But you know, we have to work from where we are at now. So when we become deeply conscious through self-observation, through what is coming up in our current life, and also through meditation, through going deeply, day after day, into deeper states of meditation, deeper states of consciousness and comprehension, it can produce a fundamental shift. I say that, and I probably still have more work to do on that particular one, but I have profoundly changed, and in a permanent way, which wouldn't be possible for me to react in some of the ways that I had before. He goes on in Tarot and Kabbalah, saying: The law of action and consequence governs the course of our varied existences, and each life is the result of the previous one. ―Samael Aun Weor, Tarot and Kabbalah
Now we see repetition on a daily basis. We see that, “Yeah, you know, when I get in these types of situations, I tend to act the same way. Even if I am trying to change.” We see this in our current life, but even more fundamentally, in past lives, we followed very similar trajectories, because the same energy propelled us. The same desires, the same fears, the same vices, and even the same virtues, in some cases, provoked us to repeat the same patterns.
What we want to do is become conscious of what is propelling us in this lifetime, in this moment, and to have a conscious choice over “which direction do I want to go? Do I want to continue to get stuck in deeper and deeper suffering, to keep doing things that hurt others and hurt myself? Or do I want to change the trajectory of that energy so that the rest of my lifetime or future lifetimes is much improved from this one?” Samael Aun Weor writes: Karma is the law of compensation, not of vengeance. ―Samael Aun Weor, Tarot and Kabbalah
It is cause and effect. It is not some evil old man in the clouds trying to shoot down lightning bolts at you because he is mad at you, because you are a terrible sinner. It is cause and effect. You send an energy into motion to be angry at someone and to hurt someone, and that energy produced effects in that person, produce effects in the environment, and at some point in time, those effects come back. Because when you are angry at somebody and you hurt them, unless they are very awake and they can transform them, that unconscious effect on them produces effects that they want to respond to you with anger, with pain, to make you feel what they feel. This happens in all actions.
There are some who confuse this cosmic law with detriment and even with fatality, believing that everything that happens to the human being in life is inexorably determined beforehand. It is true that the acts of the human being are determined by inheritance, education, and the environment. Yet, it is also true that the human being has free will and can modify his actions to educate his character, to form superior habits, to fight against weaknesses, to fertilize virtues, etc. Karma is a medicine that is applied unto us for our own good. ―Samael Aun Weor, Tarot and Kabbalah
Karma is an opportunity that comes with risks. Karma provides us with the opportunity to see ourselves in a new way―to wake up to our suffering and to change. What did I do to produce this? Maybe not in this lifetime, but in previous lifetimes, and what can I do to change it, if I awake consciousness and respond in a new way? But it also comes with the risk of just getting more identified with that intense pain and going deeper and deeper into suffering, continuing the downward spiral.
And he concludes with quite a bit of severity: Disgracefully, instead of bowing with reverence before the internal living God, people protest, blaspheme, they justify themselves, they stubbornly excuse themselves and wash their hands like Pilate. Karma is not modified with such protests; on the contrary, it becomes harder and more severe. ―Samael Aun Weor, Tarot and Kabbalah
No matter how much we might resist karma or be mad about our situation or say, “Well, I was a good person and I didn't deserve this,” and “Why is this happening?” and yell at our inner God―it won't change cause and effect. It is not going to change the energies in nature that are coming to manifest for us. We will reap what we sow. If we do good deeds that produce harmony in our environment, that produces happiness and other people, they will respond to us with that happiness.
Now, maybe not immediately, but it is a given that any energy you put into motion has an effect. A lot of times, it takes months or years for the good effects to manifest. So, we have to really stick with it and be tenacious because, we have done, you know, all of us have done bad things in our life; thought bad things about bad things; acted in harmful ways; hurt people. So, you know, unfortunately, I said, we can't undo the past, but we can choose right now to respond to our present life in a new way to change our future. 
Selfless Service and Sacrifice: The Transformation of Suffering
Finally, the last force that we work with, to truly transform our trauma, is sacrifice for others, particularly those who suffer similarly to us.
We have talked about how we need transmutation to have the energy and the spiritual power to become someone new, to become conscious in new ways. We need meditation to go deeply to get rid of the conditioning that makes us the same old person, on repeat, all the time. And finally, we need the power of sacrifice, because these are the actions that help us to create those new energies in motion, so that we don't encounter those same negative experiences that re-traumatize us, but so that we can get the healing that we want. As you sow you will also reap. So, if we want to heal from our trauma, we need to begin by healing others. I want to preface this with a bit of caution, in that if you are in a very traumatized state and you are feeling overwhelmed, be careful what types of situations you put yourself into until you have some healing. If you have healthy and stable relationships in your life, you can begin to really do this work and go deeply in yourself, but if not, it can be unsettling especially early on. It is very difficult to manage unless we have a real strength of consciousness in our meditation practice. If you don't have anyone you feel is a stable and healthy support in your life, it can be helpful to see a therapist, or to see someone that specializes in trauma, who understands the process and can be there to support you. You have to do the work, and every therapist will agree that you only get out of therapy the amount of effort you are willing to put into it. But it is really necessary to have some source of stability, because as a consciousness, most of us, are very weak, and there are a lot of Impressions coming in our lives, so we want to keep ourselves, in the beginning, in situations that are positive impressions: healthy places to go; good people to be around; healthy types of music or activities or yoga, things like that, that bring us stability, rather than, you know, going into bars, or places where you know it is dangerous, if you are able to. Not all of us have that luxury, I understand, so doing what we can to produce stability before we really deeply dive into working on our trauma, sacrificing for others, it depends on us and our situation and our willingness. What am I willing to really do to serve other people ? If we have the strength and we start to work on ourselves and we get to a good place, what am I really willing to do to not just serve other people, but to sacrifice for other people? To go above and beyond what is expected of me as a good citizen and to really expend something of my heart, or my time, or my talents, in the benefit of other people―this is what is the true power that produces great change. However, as stated in Tarot and Kabbalah: Many people who suffer only remember their bitterness and wish to find a remedy. But, they do not remember the suffering of others; neither do they remotely think of remedying the needs of their neighbors. ―Samael Aun Weor, Tarot and Kabbalah
When we are in intense pain, that is usually all we can think about: how much I am suffering as a self. Now, if you get into some of the more esoteric teachings of Buddhism and Eastern teachings, you come to understand that there is no such thing as a self, and yet we deeply believe ourselves to be an individual who has such and such experiences, who reacts in such and such a way.
The psyche itself is egotistical. It maintains an illusion of “This is who I am” and “this is how I feel” and “this is what I think.” The consciousness is beyond that, but when the consciousness is asleep, it is fused with the psyche in such a way that it feels very strongly that “This is who I am. That is my existence.” And again, that is why it's important to be able to separate the consciousness a little bit in meditation, to observe the self, not as me, but as a structure or as an entity that can be separated from me. That can be observed as its own individual person with its own feelings and wills, and to be able to do that requires a good deal of stability, concentration, relaxation, and meditation. So when we are trapped in that egotistical prison, a feeling like, “Oh my gosh, everything bad is happening to me! This happened and then years later this happened, and this keeps happening!”―that pain is so intense it is nearly impossible to think about anybody else and anybody else who is suffering. Yet, we should take the time to really think about how much other people are suffering, not as a way of comparing: “Oh, well, I have got it worse than those people or they are worse than me” and making ourselves feel guilty, but to just truly comprehend it and feel it deeply in ourselves. This is to feel the pain of other people, empathize with that, and wish, “I wish things on this planet were better and not so many people were suffering.” We see that we have the power in our limited free time or with our limited gifts to be able to go and help someone else, to say, “Man, if all of us have to suffer this much, I at least want to produce something good for someone else!” Then we are able to break out of our prison of egotism a little bit, and it actually lessens our sorrow. It actually lessens our experience of being so enmeshed and ingrained in our in our own individual pain. The Cessation of Karmic Suffering
I will conclude with a final point from the same book Tarot and Kabbalah:
If those people would think of others, serve their neighbors, feed the hungry, give a drink to the thirsty, dress the naked, teach those who are ignorant, etc., then it would be clear, they are putting good deeds on the plate of the cosmic scale [of karma]. The scale would incline toward their favor. Thus, they would alter their destiny, and good luck would come in their favor. In other words, all of their necessities would be remedied. But people are very selfish; this is the reason for their suffering. No one remembers God nor their fellowmen except when they are in desperation. ―Samael Aun Weor, Tarot and Kabbalah
Again, I want to emphasize that this is not a matter of belief and believing, “Oh well, if I just superficially do a couple nice things and superficially wish good things for others, then all of a sudden my life is going to be perfect and great things are going to happen.”
It is a matter of action. You don't have to believe in this cosmic law of karma and cause and effect for it to have an impact on you. You don't have to believe that you are going to get wet when it is raining in order for you to step outside and get wet. This is the same way. We have a big obstacle in American society and that is cynicism. People genuinely don't believe that if you do good things, then good things are going to happen to you. They think “Well, the only people it works out for are the ones who get ahead and step on everybody else.” This is an obstacle. This is a belief that changes the way we perceive reality, that changes the way we respond to reality. If we are deeply a cynic, we respond to reality with that conditioning and with that negativity and we act in negative ways as a response to it: hopelessness―you know―nihilism. So for us to really change that, we need to be open to trying new things, open to genuinely saying, “Okay, for the next month, I'll go volunteer someplace and I'll do something good in my free time that otherwise I wouldn't do.” We have the free will to choose that, but do we have enough conscious will power to actually do it and stick with it even when it gets ugly, and we are really seeing the suffering, the intense suffering of other people? Are we really willing to stick with it and to see the impact it makes on us? Because that action will not be without consequence. It will change you. It will change your emotional state, your thoughts. You will see the world in a new way if you go into that type of environment, if you do that type of work, if you give of yourself, even when you are tired, or you don't feel like it, etc. As I mentioned, it is a way that we can change things, but to have true faith in karma doesn't come from belief. That faith in karma comes from being awake: observing our life; observing the effects of our actions; the effects of our thoughts, emotions, etc. And that is how we produce a lasting change. It is by deeply knowing that. If I do this, it will produce this result. Then we won't want to produce negative results for ourselves, not just because we believe and we are scared it is going to produce something negative, but because we have seen it happen multiple times in our lives we have experienced it. We have gnosis of those consequences, and so we are not going to do it. You are not going to stick your hand in the fire if you know that the fire burns. Questions and Answers
Question: I found it interesting when you were talking about the cycles that we repeat in as far as our defense mechanisms or past lives. So how does that, in this tradition, rectify with attachment theory? The big thing in psychology now is attachment theory: that a lot of your personality, all these defense mechanisms that you are talking about come from age zero to seven, things that have happened to you: how your parents dealt with you, whatever happened. How much of that is what you are dealing with now as an adult, compared to all the past lives and stuff, or is that an aggregation of all that?
Instructor: Attachment theory, for those who are unfamiliar, is that if we have stable attachment, a healthy safe environment in which we grow up, we experience relationships in a different way, and are much more easily able to have healthy relationships later on in life. If we have an unhealthy or unstable, dysfunctional family or environment as a child, it changes the way our brain is wired, and we have much more anxiety and fear and withdrawal and relationships later in life. Those formative years, not just for attachment, but for all kinds of things in our personality, have a tremendous effect on us, and science has shown us this. How much of those formative years is causing the problems we have now in life versus past lives? And yes, you kind of answered your question. The formative years are the compressed aggregate of many previous lifetimes. So, the formative years is where we see not just lifetimes, you know, like, “Okay, my past ten lifetimes,” but very ancient lifetimes, things that go back to previous civilizations. Things that happened not just as an individual, but as people, as a collective, are encoded into even the way that a fetus forms. If you have ever looked at a human fetus, you know, it goes through phases of evolution, almost looking like a lizard at certain points, and then becoming more human. All of our biology, our DNA, our physical existence, is a code based on our spiritual existence. It is the physical manifestation of the internal existence. So, when we see early childhood traumas and pain like that, it is often from an ancient past of being caught in a cycle with that person's family, with those other souls or individuals that are in that family of harming one another. It is very sad. But you bring up a good point. We shouldn't get too caught up with past lives right off the bat. It is actually more important in the beginning to look at your life and to look at previous experiences in this current lifetime: to just look at what you can observe. You don't want to get caught up in a fantasy of trying to imagine your past lives and then producing more delusion for yourselves. Really, focus in the beginning on just observing this lifetime and what I can remember from this lifetime, and sitting in meditation and allowing those memories to naturally come up spontaneously. You may be sitting, meditating on something, and some seemingly unrelated memory pops up from when you were six years old in kindergarten, and then you are like, “How is that related? That doesn't make any sense.!” So then you can choose: “Okay, maybe I take a break and I'll meditate on that experience in kindergarten and try to comprehend what that was all about.” Then as you meditate on that, you may have an inspiration of, “Oh, now I see, it's not in the mind. It's in the consciousness!” This understanding. This comprehension is much deeper than an intellectual, “Oh, A plus B equals C.” It is a very deep knowledge, like I gave in my example of knowing, vividly, in the experience of seeing my past lives that they were real and that that had been me. Even though I was in different bodies, I knew exactly which one was me, and that is something that is not an intellectual, “Oh, that must be me because she looks like such and such.” It is knowing. In the same way when a memory comes up and you sit with it, and you sink into it, you are praying for guidance from your inner divinity, that can come through. It might not happen in the meditation session. It might happen three hours later when you are washing the dishes. It suddenly clicks. This is the way it is. When our mind takes a break, consciousness can bring us results. Other questions? Question: You mentioned a tradition that correlates with the Buddhist tradition... What tradition was that? Instructor: Vajrayana tradition: the most esoteric levels Buddhism. If you go into the essence of those scriptures, you see they are very similar to ours. Buddhism, in general, has many sects, but in general, it has three levels of traditions. Shravakayana would be the lowest level, the most fundamental based on just the literal teachings of the Buddha. That is a very introductory level for people who are just coming into Buddhism. It is where they usually start. Mahayana, known as the greater vehicle, has more of these mystical elements into it, and at the heart of Mahayana is the service, the sacrifice for others―trying to strive for a lifetime of becoming an enlightened being in order to help humanity, which is suffering so much. So we build on that root of: life is suffering, and I want to escape my suffering by transcending that and going into, “I want to transcend my suffering because I want to help other beings transcend their suffering.” Then Vajrayana, or sometimes called Tantrayana, from Tantra, is the highest level of the teaching, the most esoteric. It has traditionally been the most hidden, although in recent years, a lot of this has come to life because of the internet. It is about expedient methods in which to achieve that enlightenment for the benefit of all beings. So, it builds on the other two, and Tantrayana talks a lot about working with sexual energy and transmuting sexual energy. So that is the direct correlation with our tradition. Another Instructor: The Dalai Lama, in relation to this topic of trauma, related an experience in which he interviewed a Buddhist monk, who was exiled from Tibet after the Chinese had invaded. He was put into prison for 18 years. He was abused and experienced many of the traumas and difficulties of that particular region. And to tie into this discussion of trauma, there was an interesting comment the man made to the Dalai Lama, who asked him, “What was your greatest danger when being in prison?” And the monk said, “Losing my compassion for the Chinese.” So a question we can reflect upon is: how does the force of compassion help to overcome trauma? (especially tying into this need to serve, to sacrifice for humanity and what that does for the individual psyche). As you said, if we are focusing on trauma, if we are focused on our pain, you don't really think about other people, but how is it that compassion unlocks, unties that Gordian knot of suffering? Instructor: You remind me of another quote that is quite popular: “To forgive is to set a prisoner free and to realize that the prisoner is you.” When we let go of our grudges against other people, even if we feel totally justified in them, and even if those people did very evil things, we free ourselves in a very deep way. It can't be expressed in words. It can only be experienced. If you have ever had a time where you were so angry at somebody and you held on to it for so long, and then finally, somehow, you were able to forgive them, the weight was lifted and you were able to perceive life, even that person, without so much pain. Then you have experienced it and you know it's true. Compassion for others is a way of liberating ourselves from suffering. It works with this principle: sacrifice for others. When we do good things for others, we forgive others, so we can be forgiven. It puts into effect powerful causes that transcend previous causes. But when we hold on to anger, when we hold onto pain, we are poisoning our ourselves. It is not pleasant to feel anger. As justified as we may be in being angry, it is suffering to feel that anger and it is freedom to feel good will towards other people, no matter what they have done to you, to keep your distance from people if you need to, absolutely. Keep yourself safe. Don't stay in a situation where you are being abused, but with that prudence, to also be able to not let not let that pain linger with you―to do this type of work and go deep into healing the pain. It doesn't happen overnight, but through that process we say that the law of karma, of action and consequence, is the second law. It is the law of nature, and there is a first law, a superior law which can transcend karma. So, all these bad actions we may have done, which we may be freaking out of like, “Oh man, I know I did bad things in this lifetime, who can imagine past lifetimes!” There is a much more powerful law that we can work with in order to create effects and causes that are even more powerful than those that can, in many cases, overcome the effects of those laws. They can't erase it, but they can be more powerful than the effects of those other actions. It is the law of sacrifice. To do good things for others is a law. It is an intelligent law, is that divine law. It is a law that works with superior principles. The laws of nature are mechanical, karma. Karma has an intelligence, or I should say, it is managed intelligently, but it is like physics. It happens. You can believe whatever you want, and it is still going to happen to you, but sacrifice is a very special divine law. Again, it is something that you can only truly experience the effects if you have done it, if you have given it a try. Like I said, going for a month and really sacrificing, then you experience for yourself, when you sit at the end of that month and you reflect back on it, you know from your experience the effects of that. You don't have to believe in it. Many times, we have in our imagination or in our fantasies, “Well, if I go do that, it's just going to be like this.” And we never actually do something. We just have our projection of the future, a projection of what a situation will be like. Without having experienced it, we think we already know. We need to question our mind because the mind and the imagination are very powerful and condition us, producing the effects it wants us to do, but an action, actually, is much more powerful. Question: So trauma, not properly addressed and not transformed, would you say that it would carry over into another life? Instructor: Absolutely. Yeah, because trauma itself, even if it's something good that happens to us, can carry over to future lives. So good things that happen to us that we become very attached to, like having a loving relationship with a child, you know, even in a future lifetime again, we are going to find that same individual and whatever new relationship and have a strong attachment. So even good things, good attachments, which carry over to lifetime to lifetime, are still unconscious and mechanical. We want free will, both from the traumas and the pains that have conditioned us to respond to people or certain people or certain situations, and in the same way, we want to separate from that and free ourselves and also from any kind of unconsciousness. It doesn't mean we stop doing good things or loving people or having kind relationships, but it means we have a conscious choice about it. So trauma, as I mentioned before, is just a really powerful experience of gnosis that prevents us from denying suffering. But other experiences, good experiences, can have that same kind of un-transformed or un-digested impressions, that same effect on our structure of our psyche. And even though the physical body doesn't carry on from lifetime to lifetime, what we call the astral body, which is made up of our emotions, or the mental body which is made up of, you know, more finer mental substances, they carry on from lifetime to lifetime in the form of the ego. It is a type of matter that is more protoplasmic, that is more malleable than physical matter, and it can exist outside of the physical world. That is why with astral projection, you can go outside of your physical body and you can still have experiences. You can still walk around and talk, but it's not with your physicality. After death, those different aggregates of ourselves can move on lifetime to lifetime. What is important is that if we wake up, we can become very conscious of that experience, not just when we go to sleep, but also after death. We can have more power and more choice in our future lifetimes. Also, we can become a different type of being in higher planes of reality, planes that are more ethereal or subtler planes of nature. They are just as real as the physical plane; in fact, in some way, very much more real, but we are not conscious of them because we are so asleep and so hypnotized by our physical nature. We want to be aware of our physical nature, but also aware of these other aspects of ourselves. So this can be both higher aspects of our emotional and mental nature, but also lower aspects, because we have a lot of unconsciousness, subconsciousness, infraconsciousness trapped in negativity. And that, for us, is hell. If we are trapped in the negative states: anger, pride, greed, lust, etc., we are continually tortured by those desires and pulled in different ways from one minute to the next. It can be completely contradictory desires. This is a state of confusion and suffering. Until we become conscious of it and liberate the consciousness out of that, then we can't really move fully up. We might have parts of ourselves that are up in higher states of consciousness and parts of ourselves trapped in lower states of consciousness, but generally speaking, for most of us, the majority of us are trapped in negativity and lower states of consciousness. That is the work of meditation, not just with trauma, but with everything. It is to enter in meditation into the lower states of our mind, to perceive them not as real and “that is who I am,” but to perceive them as structures in our mind that project images, that project emotions, or fantasies, or plans for the future, and to just perceive it without becoming hypnotized and identified with it. We must comprehend it for what it is, to turn and look at what is the source of this fantasy that is playing, or this fear that is playing, and to be able to comprehend that source and eliminate it through the power of transmutation, which can give birth to something new. Question: Based on the answer it sounds like as far as trauma goes… does the work to transform that energy, that experience prior to death so that you are not going into the next life with that baggage, so to speak. What would be the complete set of things that you need to be looking to do by death so that you are in the best space for the next life? Instructor: Great work, that is, a truly deep work. We do as much as we can, as much as we have the willpower to do. But, it's these three things:
These are the three factors for the revolution of the consciousness. So on a daily basis, doing good deeds, performing good actions, meditating on the unconscious parts of ourselves, whether seemingly positive, negative, or neutral, meditating on them and comprehending them―becoming awake and aware of what is controlling us beneath the surface. Birth is working in transmutation to give birth to new elements in your consciousness and to eliminate those negative structures. Primarily, if we are not working with transmutation, we do not have very much of the substance which can destroy the roots of trauma and of karma. When I act in a certain way, I fuel energy into it, and a lot of times, even if this isn't a lustful situation, even if it's for example, pride or anger, that takes my creative energy, that takes my life force, the essence of who I am, and invests my energy into that. That is being born in me as a living type of substance, a living entity, almost of itself, and that entity is anger, and that anger has a will of its own―a will to speak a certain way, to think a certain way, to act a certain way. And so, until I take that same force, draw it out of the anger―through comprehension and use my own life force to say, “I am eliminating this”―then nothing can be changed on a permanent level. We might be able to do some superficial change, but to really achieve a deep and lasting change, we can't do that. And if you read the book, you'll see that that work with the sexual energy is the work with the Divine Mother. I didn't want to get too much into it today, but we are working with the power of the Divine Mother, or the power of the Holy Spirit. The Third Logos is that power of creation and destruction, of birth and death. And so, that is the power we work with when we utilize that energy. Doing as much as we can before death will radically change us. It is like an exponential curve. The more that you are able to do, then the more that you will be able to do. “If I do this much, then exponentially I'll be able to do that much more, and from that point, I'll be able to do so much more.” Karma really restricts us, and the more unconscious we are and the more karma we have weighing us down that hasn't been transformed, our actions become very limited by our circumstances, by the types of people around us, by our environment, etc. The more that we work with the little three percent of free will that we have to break that karma, to transform that karma, to work with sacrifice and conscious actions, then we get five percent free will. Then ten percent free will, and you know, exponentially the more free will you have, suddenly you have a lot more control over your situation. We see people in the world who have way more freedom than many of us. We also see people in this world who have very difficult situations. You know, to have mental illness, for example, is a type of karma. It is a structure that conditions your ability to act and feel, and you know, there are medications and things we can do that can help, but the very conditioning of our psychology is a part of our matter, a part of our experience of life, and is formed by previous actions and karma. Another Instructor: I would also say that the more we awaken our consciousness, physically and in the internal planes, the more prepared for death we are. In Buddhism, they teach to prepare for death by meditating daily on that inevitability, and by becoming more conscious and working on our traumas, those negative states of anger or pride, the more we will remember and be awake. Because for most people, especially in the West, who have never had any type of training, they don't remember where they came from―their past lives. So, as we were talking about the theory, or what people think is a theory, is not a theory for people who can experience that for themselves. The more we awaken, as we were saying, and the more freedom of perception, and then if we take another body, we will remember where we came from or the level of work we obtained, and in that way we have more opportunities to continue to go deeper and to resolve those traumas that trap us. Instructor: The capacities of our consciousness are practically infinite, but we are not aware of that because we utilize the consciousness so very little, as compared to our intellect, or our physical body. Question: There are so many versions of meditation and different physical ways of experiencing meditation or practicing meditation. Would you say that they are all innately trying to achieve the same thing or are they based on different types of practices that you do or trying to awaken a certain level of consciousness or area? Instructor: That is a good question. Do all different forms and techniques of meditation produce the same results, or strive for the same results? No. I do believe that there are a variety of genuine meditation techniques that can, regardless of which one you work with, if you work with a diligently enough, it can help you along the way to achieve the awakening of consciousness, but much of that is determined upon your own conscious effort. Even if you use the genuine meditation technique from a given tradition, that has helped lots of people to awaken, to become enlightened, if you are not active in consciousness, it is not going to work for you. As the internet proliferates all kinds of things, there are some meditation techniques which could be harmful from a psychological perspective. Meditation techniques that say, “Okay, go and fantasize about your ideal life and really invest in that,” is not going to awaken your consciousness, but it is going to further hypnotize your consciousness, and could even inhibit your ability to see reality, or make you more dissatisfied with reality. We should be careful. Also, different techniques produce different effects. So when I talked about pranayamas as an example, we have a variety of different pranayama techniques from different traditions. Many of which are genuine pranayama techniques, and each of which would achieve this transmutation of sexual energy, but also with slight variations. I believe that meditation is much the same way, you know. When I work with different mantras or different meditation techniques, I can achieve different results, but all of which if they are a good technique, awaken my consciousness. But perhaps one awakens my consciousness so that I am more aware of my heart and activate my heart and feel more compassion, whereas another awakens my consciousness and helps me to astral project. Or, another awakens, you know my ability to try to perceive a past life. So we have hundreds or thousands of techniques in our tradition that you know, many of which also come from other traditions, religions around the world, all in the books. So, we are happy to refer you to books that have those practices if it's helpful. Another Instructor: Another point too is that, as we are mentioning, in Buddhism, there are three schools, and every religion has its systems. In Buddhism, Shravakayana, the introductory level; Mahayana, the greater vehicle; and the most expedient Tantrayana. So meditation, as taught within the introductory levels, are geared with a specific focus. They teach the beginning practitioner how to concentrate, work with ethics, upright action, upright thoughts, and feelings and deeds so that the mind becomes stable. If you think of the mind like a lake, if we keep throwing stones, negative thinking, impressions into the lake, it is going to be churning, unstable. From that point of view, we can't address any trauma, because in order to see clearly, your mind has to be perfectly still. So in the introductory levels of Buddhism or any tradition, we teach ethics, karma, serenity. To develop a serene mind, the meditative practices of that tradition, or any introductory level, will teach you how to develop stability. As it was explained in the lecture, we have to balance our three brains and a brain in esoterism has to do with any type of machine that processes matter, energy, and consciousness. Our intellect is not just the only brain, because we have many forms of intelligence in the heart and in sex. In fact our entire physiology is a marvelous machine that can transform energy, but if we don't use or balance those centers through ethics, upright thought, feeling, action, we can't really enter a state of meditation. We need to really go to the heart of our problems. Once we have that type of serenity developed, then you can start to develop more compassion for others, because you see that other people, who don't have that training, are in tremendous suffering and affliction. That is the Mahayana level, the middle ground, the greater vehicle, and the meditations taught in that tradition are more profound and demand a type of diligence and foundation. So in all the meditations, they lead towards the highest stages, in which we are meditating not just for ourselves, but for humanity. That is when we can do practices like Tantra, or as we say in this tradition, the perfect matrimony: to utilize energy in the highest way, to transform not only yourself, but others, and that is what we are leaning towards. It is important that when we approached meditation, we, in our tradition, have many practices. Work with where we are at and, in most case,s we have to start at the very bottom. Because if you sit to reflect on your mind, you can see that it is difficult to concentrate, or we have no serenity in the beginning. So in our school, we teach all three levels of Buddhism at once, because students are at different levels and have different needs. If you look at other traditions, you may find some schools will only focus on the basics. Some very high, but the problem becomes not having a practical foundation in the steps, because they help to build off one another. Instructor: A great explanation, because everybody wants to jump right to Tantra, and right to the most advanced practices, like “Oh, I want to get out of my body and speak to the Lord of Karma, Anubis or whatever the case may be,” but if we don't have the ability to relax physically, emotionally, and mentally, to separate our consciousness from it, to awaken our consciousness from those three brains, and to have concentration, to maintain our attention and our awareness on the object of our meditation, then we're not able to even work with those more advanced techniques. We are going to try them, and they are not going to work, or if they do work by chance, it could end up being a harmful situation. So really establishing ourselves in the basics allows us to then gradually work our way up to those more advanced practices. Like the example I gave about going deeper and deeper and deeper in meditation, and finally into, you know, a past life experience―that was built on months and years of really working with meditation and basics, working with concentration and relaxation. If you stay for the optional meditation after this lecture, you will be able to try out a basic technique with us in which we're going to meditate exactly on balancing those three brains and working with relaxation and concentration. Another Instructor: Maybe to finish on how the magic of the roses work, because I know especially in North America and the West, when we hear of magic, we think of right circus tricks, or all sorts of people who perform illusions. But how do roses or the magic, the soul of the plant, go with the practice?
With that practice, in our tradition, we use a lot of exercises that work with nature. Magic, in its true sense, is how we as a consciousness can communicate with divinity and interact with the soul of nature. All the vegetable kingdom, the mineral kingdom, the animal kingdom, has this type of soul, in different gradations of complexity. So, minerals are obviously very simple. Plants more involved. They process and channel energy in nature. Animals, of course, are more developed. They are collectively developing a type of will, which is different than plants, until finally we have humanoids, or the intellectual animal. The human being, the soul, anima, with intellect.
We work with plants primarily because the souls of those types of creatures have power. We learn to work and communicate to command the souls of plants to help, because every plant and nature has its type of properties, which can heal. It can perform medicine. We know this very extensively from indigenous cultures, which still retain a type of wisdom that our modern orthodoxy and medicine does not support. The rose is a very elevated plant. It is the queen of flowers. If you know astrology, each plant relates to different planets, because each plant channels the forces of the cosmos. It transmits. So, as you see that the human being is a machine that transmits forces, likewise, minerals, plants, animals. That is why you have such diversity in nature, because each living entity channels force. It is interesting that the rose is especially powerful for healing the heart. Even conventionally, we may give roses to our loved ones in order to show love, especially, romantic love, because the rose, we know instinctually, has a marvelous presence. Even within the internal planes, the soul of that plant is very elevated. We can command the soul of the rose to work with the divided hierarchies of the angels, related to the planet Venus, the star of love, to invoke that intelligence, bring it to our home and deposit medicine within the glasses. So you notice that you have a glass facing the East; you drink this before breakfast; the glass towards the North, before lunch; then the glass towards the West, before dinner. That sequence parallels the trajectory of the Sun, and we know that Venus is the star of the dawn. It channels the forces of the divinity we call Christ, which is a force, particularized in any person who is prepared. So, you pray to your inner Being, “My God, my Divine Mother, command the elemental of the rose to work and deposit healing within these glasses,” by invoking the angels of that force, that bring the particular influence of love, so that we can heal trauma―to at least gain stability to the point that we can meditate further. And you drink in that sequence. Very simple. Healing is very simple. Prayer, relaxation, concentration, faith. Not belief. We have experiences we know, if you awaken in the dream state, you can personally converse with the elementals of nature. Personally, I have been in the habit over the years to meditate on certain elementals, the plants that I have in my home, in which I have been able to communicate with those entities, those beings who are still in Eden. They are innocent. They haven't entered into all the complex problems that we have in the humanoid kingdom through the process of evolution. So they are very simple. They are like angels, but in a very small degree. You can pray and with faith, you have the experience. You know that these elements exist and that the rose can heal pain. Personally, I have used the roses when I have had traumas, in certain betrayals and conflicts that I could not reconcile, and by working with the glasses, you drink, over a sequence of a few days. When the roses wither, you can remove them. Then your pain is alleviated, at least at the surface, to the point that we have enough stability where we can meditate and then look at the problem, because in the moment when we are afflicted, we can't think. You can't concentrate. Those elementals or souls of nature are very powerful. They work and obey divinity. The rose is, of course, held in very high regard in certain traditions, such as the Rosicrucians, the first Gnostics, the Rosicrucian Gnostic Church. The rose is a symbol of the transformation of the soul into the beauty of God. Of course, the rose is very effective for that. You can work with it however much you need. It’s simple. Pray, relax, and concentrate. You drink it like medicine. The good thing is that there are no side effects. Of course, some people in this day and age have traumas and illnesses in the mind, of the heart, that, because that karma is crystallized in the body, some people need to take a drug to be able to find balance. But the wonderful property of this practice is that there are no side effects. Water. Roses. Magic. Because those substances that divinity places are not physical. They are etheric, astral, mental, spiritual, internal. In conjunction with whatever people may have to do to find balance, whether it be medication and therapy, the roses are exceptional. Simple, but profound. That ritual is as effective as your prayer. Prayer is something simple. You don't need formulas when you talk to your inner divinity. You say, “My Father, my God, help me!” Use your words and just ask for that healing and experiment. That practice is of course effective when we are working in transmutation. Work with your creative energy, because your prayer will be empowered when you use that force, and that way it opens the doorway into the internal planes. 
(Manjushri cutting through illusion with
the sword of Prajna: wisdom or insight)
So when we meditate, what we always seek is information. This type of information always carries with itself a psychological flavor of the new. So every time we sit to practice, we should really have the sensation, or the experience, that we are seeing things in a new way. If when we sit to practice and observe the contents of our mind, we perceive everything in a dull way, then we are not awakening the consciousness, the Buddhata, or the Essence. This clear observation of oneself is what Samael Aun Weor referred to as Mo Chao. Mo signifies "serenity," Chao indicates "reflection."
We find Mo Chao expressed in the writings of Samael Aun Weor multiple times when he refers to it as concentration and imagination. Concentration in itself is a serene state. It is a state of awareness or equanimity in which the mind is in silence. This can only be achieved by learning to pay attention, to direct attention. We do this through a moment to moment effort—to be aware of ourselves in whatever circumstance. We have to examine whatever impressions of life enter our mind and psyche in order to stimulate reactions within ourselves. We can say, in synthesis, that the master work of esotericism, of meditation and these types of esoteric studies, is learning how to control and understand the mind and its relationships with impressions. It is a moment to moment effort. It is a moment to moment work. When we truly understand the nature of the mind itself and its hypnotism, the many ways in which thoughts, desires, and impulses really control us, we begin to take life as type of work. Concentration is really the key to understanding the vast breadth and depth of the science of meditation. So while we study kabbalah, alchemy, tantra, astrology, tarot, the tree of life, the tree of knowledge, chakras, and many others subjects, when we don't know how to meditate, all of this esoteric knowledge is really quite useless. If we don't know how to pay attention from moment to moment, they are useless. If we have a psychology that's complacent with sloth, inaction, and lack of attention, if our consciousness is asleep by indiscriminately taking in impressions, when the mind constantly reacts without our comprehension, knowing kabbalah and alchemy will not help us. In fact, what we will have is a lot of indigestion. To really benefit from the science of the tree of life, in general, we need meditation. It is learning how to discipline the mind itself that will allow us to make it an instrument in which our Inner Divinity can act through us. It's by learning how to concentrate, to achieve a serene mind, like a lake which can reflect the Being itself, that opens to door to self-knowledge. This spark of intuition and comprehension doesn't have to be just when we sit to meditate, when we close our eyes to the world and enter into our own internal worlds. In every moment we can and must learn to let the Being act within our three brains, here and now. So when we talk about concentration and learning to pay attention, we're talking about the psyche, the soul itself. This is very distinct and different from what we term personality and what we term ego. If we're honest with ourselves and observe our actions and habits and thoughts, really we can see that the mind is in control of us, and not the other way around. The personality, which takes in the impressions of life, misinterprets everything—it receives impressions and sends them to the wrong centers. Therefore, the personality does not comprehend the nature of those impressions. When we talk about impressions we're talking about the very experience of life itself. As I was saying, the work is learning how to transform impressions. 
This is the basis of Gnosis. Gnosis is about transformation. We refer to this work as a revolution. It is really a spiritual war, but not against anyone outside of us. As much as we like to point and blame other people for our problems, this is a war against ourselves. This is what the Prophet Muhammad called jihad—or better said jihad al-akbar, meaning, the Greater Striving or Holy War. When he was asked by his disciples, as documented in the Hadith or Muslim oral tradition, the Companions of the Prophet asked him what is greater: war against the infidels outside of us, or against ourselves. Prophet Muhammad said that war against yourself is by far most important. The Greater Holy War or Striving really takes precedence and priority.
In relation to concentration, the transformation of impressions is about learning how to transform what we perceive. The senses and the mind are like a great battlefield because we are constantly receiving the many impressions of life, whether tactile, sensory, auditory, visual, olfactory, etc., yet we do not comprehend the nature of what it is we perceive. It is enough to try to sit in meditation for an hour and remember everything you did in the day. If you do not remember certain events, if there are tremendous gaps in your memory, it's because you were asleep as a psyche, as a consciousness or soul. This is especially true if we live in the cities where we are constantly bombarded by information. This is especially difficult. We rarely comprehend the intrinsic nature of what we perceive, since what we know how to do is react towards life, without comprehending and responding with cognizance, peace, and love. We don't really see the depth of the phenomenon that reach us. In synthesis, it's a misinterpretation of impressions that creates problems for ourselves, such as in our interrelationships with people. Generally, what we disagree with in another person is our impressions of that person, not their soul. We can't really say that in this state of mind that we have, we perceive the inherent nature of a person. In the level in which we currently exist on the tree of life (Malkuth, the physical plane), what we exclusively perceive are images and phenomena, impressions or semblances of things. This is well documented in Plato's Allegory of the Cave in The Republic. Now, it's completely different thing to see the noumena of a person (noumena relates with Nous, Spirit, the very essence of a human being, the divinity within a person). Generally, what we see is body, hair, personality, habits, customs, attitudes, etc., and we characterize that as a person that we know. However, we make a very clear distinction: it's a very different thing to know a person and to observe a person. We think we know people, but we don't, because we have never made the attempt to observe another human being with clairvoyance. To say that I know a person is to say something along these lines: "Oh, I can see every atom that so-and-so has in his body." Such a Noetic type of perception is related with very elevated aspects of consciousness, related with the tree of life—superior states of consciousness where you can perceive the atoms and molecules of a person. It's conventionalism, but funny when we say "I know a person," because the truth is we really don't comprehend others in the objective sense, let alone our own selves! It's another thing to observe the fact that our friend or neighbor has a lot of anger, that such an ego is strong in him or her, to really see this person for who or what they are, and not by our mistranslation of their impressions. This is really where we get into a lot of conflict—every person sees life in a completely different way from everybody else. In the true sense of the word, every person is a world in himself, with his own concepts, beliefs, theories, prejudices, enemies, hatreds, defects, and what not. The mind is always projecting these self-delusions, this self-hypnosis onto the screen of our experience. In general, we have not developed concentration in order to have a mind that receives the impressions of life without becoming disturbed, projecting reactions outwards. This is where a lot of conflicts arise. Our interrelations with other people falls in the sphere of what Prophet Muhammad called jihad al-asgar, the lesser holy war. This refers to how you try to help others by teaching the truth, by being a good example, by transforming your mind in order to be of benefit to humanity. We do not wage war through violence, but with compassion. We do not conquer injustice with evil, but by performing good. However, these ideas are meaningless if we don't understand ourselves in practice. It's enough to sit in meditation and to really observe the contents of our mind to see that we really don't have any control. This is a truly necessary step to realize in ourselves, that we don't have control. This lack of organization, coherence, and order in our psyche is what Gurdjieff referred to as the Tower of Babel, relating with three lower types of individuals in psychological hierarchy, persons who gravitate more or less towards one of the three brains. In gnosis when referring to a brain, we are not referring to physical matter alone, but a psychological aspect of ourselves, a machine that processes psychological, spiritual, and bodily energies. A brain transforms energies, interprets information, and allows us to function in life. So when speaking about the three brains of Gnostic esoteric psychology, we have people who are very instinctive, relating with the motor-instinctive-sexual brain. Then we have an emotional type of individual who is always reacting, who is always sentimental, responding with emotions and gravitating to the heart. Then we have the intellectual type individual who interprets the impressions of life in a very intellectual way and always rationalizes. We say that the consciousness is not prohibited or limited to any of these three aspects of ourselves. We can consider the three brains as three floors of a factory. The intellect is where we have thesis and antithesis, the heart is where we have like and dislike, and the motor brain is related with action: to do or not to do. This is really the basic machinery of our psyche and physiology. We find that by learning concentration through meditative practice, we see that our impulses, whether predominately intellectual, emotional or instinctual, are constantly arising in ourselves moment by moment. We don't have much control over that. This is really the source of our problems, for as Socrates taught us, "Ignorance is the greatest sin." Every problem that we face in life is a result of our own minds. It is not the result of what other people say, do, think, feel, or act. Really, the reason we suffer is because of ourselves. We can't blame anyone for the diverse unpleasant circumstances of life, but generally our tendency is to absolve our own culpability and mark others as responsible for our sufferings. The more we learn to meditate to develop serenity of mind, the more we begin to perceive all of this. If we're really honest with ourselves, we will see that this is not pleasant. To see that we are responsible for all the problems that we face takes tremendous courage. We really can't judge other people. This is why Jesus said, "Judge not that you be not judged," because when you take in the impressions of a person and you interpret and make judgments about those impressions, you create suffering for yourself and your neighbor. We are always filled with justifications, "Well I know this person," and therefore we criticize and cause problems. Our critics and enemies are going to do the same to us as we do to them. It's the Law of the Talion, reciprocal violence. This doesn't mean physical violence—it could be of an emotional nature. It could be a battle and argument of ideas, polemics, philosophies, etc., in the mind. We are always misusing our three brains, here and now. Generally, when there's a conflict of this type between people it's because they’re not aware of their own psychology. Like Prophet Muhammad said, people want to fight other people without wanting to take responsibility for their own crimes. Few people ever fight against themselves and their own defects. This is what a Master or a Buddha is: someone who has conquered their very inferior nature—a warrior like Arjuna in the Mahabharata who fought against the multitude of his family members, a conglomerate representing his own egos, defects, vices and errors. As the Prophet Muhammad said, "Happy is he who finds fault with himself rather than faults with others." Really we shouldn't be looking at the mote in the other person's eye. We have to develop awareness of ourselves. This awareness is the beginning and the ending. It is our goal and our purpose. Everything else comes second. The practice of meditation is what facilitates this understanding. It is learning how to pay attention, and as I said, this doesn't just come about when we sit to practice. It is a moment to moment effort to be vigilant. Many traditions have used different terms like vigilance, mindfulness, awareness, self-observation and self-remembering, or dhikr (remembrance), muhasabah (self-accounting) and muhadarah (awareness) within Sufism. Many traditions refer to this. The important thing is that we do it. And this always comes about through struggle. I'm not referring to the exertion of the mind, when the mind struggles with itself and when we seek to repress our defects, because that does not produce harmony. It is the Buddha-nature, the divine principle that we have within, that has to discipline the mind. So the efforts that were talking about are conscious efforts, not forced exertion of the intellect upon the different centers of our human machine. In relations with the field of impressions and understanding the very experience of life itself, we refer to the observation of mind itself. Generally if we've been in these studies for a while, we will be very familiar with these terms: repression, justification and comprehension. So in the field of observation and the field of concentration, when we face the impressions of life and try to understand them in a very integral way, we will come across a common problem (which is really an inevitable problem). It relates with repression and justification, and both of these constitute an identification with phenomenon. It's one thing when we receive a pleasant impression and we like to justify our craving for something. It might be of a lustful nature. We see someone of the opposite sex and that lustful defect emerges within our perception and tries to justify taking in that impression of the opposite sex in order to feed itself, so that it grows stronger. While this is a big difficulty for the disciple of genuine religion, we have another problem—the complete opposite, called repression. This is where we begin to see the many defects of our psychology that arise within us from moment to moment and we, as the mind, don't like to see that. Therefore we push it away from our mind and understanding without comprehending the defect in question. This is called repression. Neither of these constitute what is called real discrimination, comprehension, real awareness. What we seek is third force, a third factor. In other terms we can refer to the three forces as affirmation, negation, and reconciliation. Gurdjieff, who was the founder of the Fourth Way school, taught that humanity is third force blind. Generally in relation to the three brains of our anatomy, our psychology, we are always acting "either/or," and generally, we don't learn to see from a comprehensive, synthetic perspective. For instance, you see this in a lot of political debate, in which things are very two sided: "either you are with our part or you are against us." There generally isn't a middle ground—there isn’t comprehension of another path between the two. There is no synthesis in which there would exist a type of unanimity between two contrasting parties. In philosophy, one movement emerges from another one in order to negate the former, and then another branch of thought comes to negate what was negated in the previous one. This, really, is important in relation to our psychology, because we are doing this on a moment to moment basis with the very contents of our mind. We might have a thought and we might justify it in a given instant. We're affirming something very adamantly about a certain issue, concern, or problem. We feel that "this is an essential part of myself," like "my pride." If someone congratulates me, we say to ourselves, "I like to justify that because it makes me feel good." And then there may be another moment, maybe within five minutes, when someone says something really critical or negative. Shame emerges and we say, "Oh, I'm such a terrible person." Therefore, we constantly swing between justification and repression. We are constantly filled with these types of contradictions, and yet the illusion, the hypnotism, of the mind is so terrible that we really feel we are individuals, that we possess an individual will. We believe we are uniform and we are not. When we talk about self-hood or ego, which in Latin means "I," we're talking about a multiplicity. We're talking about the multifarious nature of the mind that is always contradicting itself. There really is no consistency. In one moment, anger emerges. Someone says something to hurt us and then another element comes up, "Oh, I forgive that person," and then another element cries, "Oh, I'm very happy!" or "Oh I want to go ride my bike." We are the riddle of the sphinx, composed of multiple elements, yet without understanding of who we are. We are merely a conglomerate of conflicting animal impulses and desires. 
In mental dynamics and the comprehension of the mind itself, these first two principles are known as affirmation and negation. In relation with the field of practical life, we either find agreeable or disagreeable impressions. We tend to either affirm or we reject impressions. Our mind will react in either two ways: favorable or unfavorable. Very rarely do we see that sometimes both answers to a problem in life are correct at the same time. This relates with comprehension, with synthesis, with intuitive understanding of the impressions we receive. The very work of gnosis, self-knowledge, is learning how to comprehend these factors in every moment. It is really not enough to do it once in a while, because that will not produce lasting results. It takes a lot of effort, willpower, and discipline. This self-discipline, the understanding of these factors, occurs by walking the path of the Middle Way, the path of the Buddha. This topic is so important that Master Nagarjuna wrote a book within Tibetan Buddhism called Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way.
Neither by affirming nor rejecting the impressions we receive will we know ourselves. Concentration and meditation, serene reflection, is the path of the middle—we learn to receive good or bad impressions. We accept them without bias. We see life for what it is. We don't psychologically seek a way to affirm or negate things at all when we develop in the middle way, because those prior types of attitudes reveal that we are asleep as a consciousness. We rarely see or understand that life is constantly changing. It is a constant flux. Impressions arrive, they sustain themselves, then pass away, and yet the mind, the stubborn donkey that it is, always attaches itself to such impressions as if saying, "In this moment, this is real and my sense of self is real. This 'I,' this 'me' is real." However, we really do not comprehend that it is false! If we do a simple analysis, we can see that nothing is permanent but the Being. Someone tells you a joke and you find it funny—if that were eternally existing, you would always be laughing. There would never be change whatsoever: things would always be permanent. We know from the Vajrayana teachings of Buddhism, particularly from Tibet, that the impressions of life are empty of intrinsic existence. That phenomena are empty of inherent or independent existence means they are dependent upon other factors beyond themselves, and therefore are not eternal. Therefore, we should not grasp at what is ephemeral, like cloud, smoke, and vapors. This is what we call Dependent Origination. It means there is no independently existing thing in this whole universe. There is no eternally existing thing that is not reliant on other factors. This goes from the most grand cosmological scale of Kabbalah, the tree of life, to this very existence. It's what we call karma—cause and effect. And the very nature of existence and the very nature of the impressions of what we perceive is dependent on this. Suffering exists because we don't understand karma. We don't understand the nature of impression themselves: what appears, sustains itself, and passes away. So if no phenomena in life is stable or reliable, why do we hold on to them with our mentality? Why do we always crave certain things and run away from other, when, truly, all phenomena are of equal value? Why do we crave something so badly when it will not bring us eternal happiness? Why do we affirm that our life is real and lasting, taking in a sense of enjoyment and identity in that experience when it will only disappear, bringing us pain? Even in repression, the negation of things, we have a sense of self that is dependent on external factors that are completely empty of themselves. Nothing is going to last except the Being, so why do we always have this attitude that things should always be in one way and permanent when we do not remember the Being? And when we are contradicted by friends, family, society, and our own mind, our whole world falls apart. We like the path of least resistance, whether in social, academic, employment, or personal endeavors, etc. We have the prevailing attitude that we just want things to go well. And when they don't go well, we get very upset. This type of disillusionment is very particular to each us. We have our own idiosyncrasy in relation to the three brains. Some of us will be more intellectual, some more emotional, and some more active—we always want to do things according to our predisposition to one of our three brains, but this is generally in a very dysfunctional way. 
It comes into my mind Alice in Wonderland, which explains this type of psychological teaching. You have the Mad Hatter, the intellect that is always taking in impressions and coming up with gibberish. The Queen of Hearts is always angry with people, crying, "Off with her head!" This is our emotional state or center if we observe ourselves. And there's the instinctive type of character, the White Rabbit, who's always late and always worrying about activities and time. This is an instinctive type of person. These three characters represent the three inferior types of humanoids: the Tower of Babel.
So generally, we will have one predisposition over another. The fact is that in our relations to the impressions of life, our dysfunction generally gravitates to one of these three brains. We use all three brains, of course, but some of us have strong habits that are intellectual, like using the computer, or more emotional, listening to sentimental music. Some of us are more instinctive, always playing sports, practicing martial arts, or training in boxing. The very basis of our psychological dysfunction is because we don't understand the nature of impressions. We don't understand karma. I'm explaining this because these principles are essential to meditation. It's essential to really understand what concentration is, because if we think concentration is identification with life, with certain elements within our three brains, or with the repression of certain elements, there will be no genuine insight. Going with the flow of life is not the nature of insight, the latter which is sharp, clear, and pristine, a shock or bolt of lightning that illuminates, if but for a moment, the dark cloud of our mind. The state of concentration is what leads us to the advent of comprehension. It, in itself, is the path of the middle—neither justifying nor pushing away impression from our psychological sight, but just seeing phenomena as they are. Whether the impressions are intellectual, emotional, or instinctive in relation to our psychology, we simply observe and comprehend where all our different wills come from. It is in this way that we can integrate our consciousness and develop the will of a Master, a God, a Buddha. 
This is the basis of psychology or mental dynamics, Jnana Yoga. Jnana means "knowledge," relating with how we understand and control the mind. When we talk about impressions and the nature of psychology, I was mentioning some principles given in the Vajrayana school, which is the doctrine of emptiness in relation to karma and impressions—how life is always changing, always fluctuating. If we are astute in our efforts to self-observe, we cannot pinpoint something that is eternal within our psyche except the Being. So we talk about not understanding the nature of emptiness, in relation with affirmation and negation, as the foundation of Gnostic psychology. There are two misconceptions that arise with not understanding the nature of emptiness. This teaching was given by Nagarjuna in Four Hundred Verses of the Middle Way. He discussed two fundamentally mistaken views: eternalism and nihilism. Eternalism is the belief that there is an independently existing self that is never changing. This was first adopted by some of the Hindu schools of philosophy in relation to Atman the Inner Self. The Buddhists came to clarify those teachings when Hinduism degenerated. According to the Hindus, Atman was mistaken for the ego, the personality, our negative self-hood. The Buddhist masters who came after knew that Atman referred to one's internal divinity, but in order to clarify the misconceptions about Atman, Buddha taught the doctrine of Anatman, "No self." When Buddhists schools say that there is no self, they're talking about the ego, the "I," our defects—the three traitors of Christianity: Judas, Pilate, and Caiaphas. Pilate relates with the intellect, who always washes his hands clean, justifying and excusing himself for committing crimes. Caiaphas relates with the heart, because he hates Christ, and Judas represents instincts or desires because he sells the lord for thirty pieces of silver, representing fornication and lunar values.
In relation to affirmation and negation, misconceptions regarding their nature arise by not understanding the nature of impressions, by not understanding the very laws and dynamics of practical experiences and their relationship to the mind. Eternalism says there is an absolutely, dependently existing self. Nihilism says nothing matters, since there is no true existence. Both of these views are false. Emptiness is neither of these mistaken views. Really, such misunderstandings emerge from the inability to comprehend karma in action. Karma comes from the Sanskrit, karman. It means "to act." What is cause and effect? To act. In life, we constantly find many types of actions involving the three brains. Karma teaches that every cause has an effect. Every effect has a cause. Nothing is separate. Nothing is independent, existing outside of ourselves. Everything is interdependent and related. Our current psychological state, the sleep of our consciousness, hypnotizes us into thinking that, "I exist in my own sphere and everything else is existing outside," as if there is no direct relationship between our mind and phenomena. For instance, you see a married person leering lustfully towards the opposite sex walking by, and says, "Well, I'm not really committing adultery, because I am just looking." They think that there is no relationship between mind and phenomena. However, Master Jesus said, "Verily you have heard of old, you shall not commit adultery. But I tell you whosoever has looked at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart." ―Matthew 5:28 We also find the following textually stated by the Buddha in his Dhammapada: Preceded by mind are phenomena, led by mind, formed by mind. If with mind polluted one speaks or acts, then pain follows, as a wheel follows the draft ox’s foot. Preceded by mind are phenomena, led by mind, formed by mind. If with mind pure one speaks or acts, then ease follows, as an ever-present shadow. Karma, cause and effect, occurs in every level of existence, even when there is no physical action. Even if we physically do not commit adultery, we commit adultery with our mind by indulging in lust. We have all of these impulses that arise within us without our control and which keep us hypnotized, identifying with the states of existence. Karma applies not just instinctively to the physicality of the person, but to emotions and to intellect. It applies to every aspect of ourselves, in every level of the universe. Perhaps until you self realize and go into the Absolute, you will always be a slave of Karma. Until then, we are subject of the laws of karma, cause and effect, in this universe. The path of self-knowledge is about understanding the law within ourselves. When we do not know how karma functions, we fall into mistaken views of eternalism or nihilism, either that our ego is objective or that nothing matters, so we can do whatever we want without consequences. This is very dangerous. I like to enjoy certain things in life. For me, I enjoy a hot cup of coffee. I can see how certain egos of gluttony like to enjoy those things, believing that such impressions are permanent. However, simple analysis shows that this isn't the case. The impressions of the coffee arise, sustain, and pass away. The problem is not the coffee, but my consciousness for not making a correct transformation of that impression, for not seeing the drink for what it is. The mistake is letting the impression enter the psyche and the mind becoming attached to the sensation of enjoying the coffee. This attachment, this crystallization of desire in the mind, is what we call ego. It is by not understanding karma that we create egos. The impression of the coffee is going to enter my psyche, sustain itself, and pass away, but if I am unaware of this fact, something hardens in my mind, like a mold, crystallizing and trapping the consciousness. This is identification, a wrong transformation of impressions, which crystallizes desire by trapping our consciousness. It is the misdirection of consciousness towards sensation—it is misguided attention, fortification of one's psychological attachment to impermanent sensations, for as Samael Aun Weor wrote, "Wherever we direct attention, we expend creative energy." The ego itself is really a prison, a cage, for the divine nature within, that we ourselves created by misdirecting our will and perception. The root of all of this is ignorance. This is an essential teaching that the Buddha gave in relation to these three factors. The mind is always caught between craving and aversion. We produce our suffering through a lack of cognizance of the third factor—which is synthesis, comprehension, intuition, understanding, the Innermost Being. It is by not understanding the nature of what we perceive that produces suffering, because if we don't understand the very nature of mental dynamics, we continue with wrong perspectives, resulting in the creation of different psychic aggregates or egos. Aggregate is word for compound, heap, or pile, and we can say that the human being is a conglomerate of multiple aggregates or egos. Really all of that is a result of ignorance, a lack of cognizance or relationship with God. The Buddha taught that there are three doorways into hell, into suffering, and they are: craving, aversion, and ignorance. Anger relates with aversion, because when we feel anger it is frustrated desire, wanting situations or people to be different than what they are. When someone is not giving us what we want, we become angry at that person. Craving, lust, or desire is another door into hell. Feeling compulsively attracted to something, always impelled to seek our those sensations that will satisfy us, is a tremendous form of suffering, since such impressions, like the orgasm, are fleeting and momentary. Meanwhile they have disastrous consequences for the mind, since the mind will only crave a greater orgasm, or more powerful experience, which it will never have. Therefore, lust is the original sin, because by wasting the energies of God, we fall into suffering, into craving, into the insatiable appetite of satyrs. Momentary pleasures emerge and pass away. The mind's habit is to be attached to those impressions, as if such impressions are permanent. While craving and aversion are bad, ignorance is truly the greatest sin. What is sin? I'm not sure if your familiar with that term. It comes from archery. It means when you draw your bow and you fire at the target, you go off to the side, to the left. That term was taken into Judea-Christianity to denote these types of principles. When your concentrated in archery and you draw your bow, you can't fire to the right or the left, neither indulging in craving or aversion, but focusing on the center. This is an analogy for the middle path of comprehension within meditation. 
This is why The Odyssey by Homer, who was an initiate, depicts this great Greek hero defeating his enemies, his egos, with a bow and arrow. The story narrates how he battled the Trojans and afterward sought his way home, sailing to many islands, losing his companions, and finally arriving to his own kingdom, Ithaca. He finds out that his wife has maintained her marriage vows to him by not marrying and seeking another husband. However, despite her fidelity to him, there are many suitors who think that he's dead and try to convince her to marry them. These suitors are degenerated, trying to take his wife from him. They represent the egos that we have who are trying to steal our moral purity, our own divinity that we have still free, represented by Penelope, Odysseus' wife; so they're always tempting her. Odysseus is disguised a hermit and goes into his kingdom, drawing them all into a throne room. Meanwhile he is guided by his Divine Mother, Athena, who provides him the bow and arrow so as to mercilessly slay his enemies who are attempting to steal his kingdom, his spirituality. It is a very chilling scene if you read it. The egos are so terrified! They're green with fear and they realize that they're going to die. Truly it is a bloody battle.
Odysseus' power comes from the bow and arrow, knowing how to balance the external world with the internal. This is really the relationship with self-observation. We have to look at what's outside of us in relation to what's inside and that’s what concentration and discrimination are. This is how you go to battle like Odysseus. This is how you fight the illusions of the mind, and this is really the anecdote to how to comprehend states of suffering, because the mind will generally ignore what's inside and always pay attention to what's outside. The spiritual warrior, the samurai with his bow and arrow, observes both the external and internal and understands the relationship between them. So you see these three factors here: affirmation, which is outside. Then you have the mind that is always negating things. That's really the force of negation, always reacting to the impressions of life. And then you have comprehension, which is the consciousness that reconciles the two. So we can say that the impressions life are always affirming themselves by entering into our psychology, and we have the mind that is always reacting or negating, either intellectually, emotionally, or instinctively with greater predominance in one of the three brains. That's really the force of negation, when our mind reacts to impressions. In order to reconcile both impressions and our reactions, we need discrimination, seeing that the external is dependent upon the internal and the internal dependent on the external. This is known as states and events in Treatise of Revolutionary Psychology, and that to live uprightly, one must know how to combine the appropriate internal state with its corresponding external event. Due to this relationship, how the internal really relates with the external, we realize that many of the perspectives that we carry within our self are unfounded, illusory, and ignorant, without real gnosis or cognizance of the truth. Therefore, real awareness, fully-concentrated consciousness, is like a shock. It only takes a moment to take an impression of life and to immediately, intuitively comprehend the relationship of that impression to our mind. This occurs only with awakening the consciousness, so as to cancel out negative reactions. For example, someone insults you, or says something very hurtful, and then your pride is starting to react. Fire is bubbling out of you. If you pay attention in that moment and genuinely perceive that this person is suffering too, instantaneous comprehension helps to renounce such a negative emotion and guides you in the work meditation and elimination. It also develops compassion. In that instant, we understand that this person is subjected to karma, cause and effect, and that there are many factors that are provoking a state of suffering for that person. Achieving this understanding, peace, and harmony between ourselves and our neighbors is not easy, precisely due to the fact that we have rarely disciplined our mind in a conscious way. This is why Friedrich Nietzsche wrote in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, "The narrowest cleft is the hardest to bridge." This is in relation to our interactions with our fellow man. To cross the abyss between ourselves and others, we need to establish the bridge of compassion, by comprehending our neighbor and transforming negative impressions, so that love can blossom from our hearts. This is not an intellectual exercise—it is cognizant, practical mysticism, genuine occult science, and true religion. In the beginning we study this teaching intellectually. The work is to perform religion in every second—cultivating a state of comprehension in every instant. The impression arrives and the mind wants to react. Comprehension helps you look at the two and ask: what is the nature of that impression? What is the nature of my interpretation of those impressions? Cognizance produces a type of canceling. When someone insults us and we comprehend that the insult bears no value, that the individual providing the insult is imprisoned in suffering and needs compassion, and that we ourselves are like dust on the side of the road when compared to the beauty of divinity and the cosmos, we immediately cancel the impression and do not invest any value into those words, which are as intransient as vapor. Samael Aun Weor explained that when we transform the impressions of aggression directed towards us by developing comprehension of such impressions, it is like trying to draw funds with a check from an empty bank account. The check will bounce, and the aggressor will have nothing to retaliate with further. We therefore can irradiate genuine love and peace, which will help our enemies to change and become better persons. Comprehension is like a lightening bolt; it’s a superior type of information. This is what is going to fuel meditation. Meditation is about discovering new information. We do that through our moment to moment effort to observe ourselves. As I was mentioning in another lecture, Swami Sivanada wrote, “The reason why students fail in meditation is that they lack ethics.” They don't know how to discipline their mind from moment to moment. It’s really a lack of discipline that produces inconsistency and failure within meditative practice. That is the explanation for why, although many practice meditation and adopt the austerities of monastic life, they languish within a dull state of existence, of not BEING, when really self-observation, meditation, and serene reflection should be like a crystal, very sharp and pure. Meditation is not spacing out or falling asleep. Eventually as you progress, you let yourself fall asleep so you can go out of your body in order to travel throughout the tree of life. But generally when we fall asleep in meditation, maybe a couple of hours pass and we don't realize what happened. That's why in the beginning we emphasize not falling asleep. Maintain your drowsiness, maintain your clarity of mind while keeping your body in very relaxed state, and with consistency you will learn to astral project during your meditations. As we were stating, Mo Chao, serene reflection, is precisely this clarity of reflection, accompanied serenity. Samael Aun Weor made a point in The Revolution of the Dialectic to explain these terms. How most people define "serenity" and "reflection" are incorrect. Serenity is not a dull state of mind, very lax or lazy, where impressions just emerge in the mind and there is no understanding. This is generally the state that we experience when we go to bed. If we pay attention even for a little bit before we go to sleep, the mind becomes very dull and a lot of images and impressions chaotically emerge. This in itself is not a true state of serenity, because serenity should be very firm, very strong. It’s also very supple, but it isn't just a dull state where we just accept things as they are. Dullness is a lack of conscious observation. Genuine spiritual reflection or insight, in itself, is known as the faculty of imagination.
In many different writings Samael Aun Weor made a point to explain Mo Chao. I've been referring to it in the Chinese way. But you find this also in Kabbalah, the teachings of the Hebrews, and many other forms of mysticism. Mo Chao, serene reflection, serenity of mind, is a result of concentration. Reflection is visualization or imagination. If you are familiar with the Eternal Tarot of Alchemy and Kabbalah, you find this in the very first two cards of the twenty-two arcana or sacred laws. The first is the Magician. He's very active. In one of his hands he's holding a staff and he's pointing in one direction. But he's very active in the card, strong, affirming himself. This represents the Father, or as we say in the Hebraic Kabbalah, Kether, the First Logos amongst the Gnostics. He's really the warrior magician who gave power to Moses. Moses received power from his Inner Divinity, from Kether, for the mantra related with Kether is אהיה אשר אהיה Eheieh Asher Eheieh, which translates as “I Am that I Am” and when Moses was before the burning bush, he asked “Who shall I say sent me?” And Christ said “אהיה אשר אהיה Eheieh Asher Eheieh: I Am the One Who I Am.”
That's the Magician. He needs to fight for His Self-realization. This is the source of willpower, concentration. Then we have the second card of the tarot, the Priestess, who is sitting in a temple, with two columns: Jachin and Boaz, which we find in the temples of Freemasonry and Solomon. She is receptive, for She is the Divine Mother. She's really that force that gives us the faculty to perceive; it relates with clairvoyance. When we talk about imagination and clairvoyance, really, these are synonymous terms. Generally people think that clairvoyance is a faculty that only a few have, which is for people who are very elite, but really this term in itself was instituted by French initiates a couple of centuries ago in order for people to not disturb the study of their science, meaning: they intentionally sought to confuse people in order to protect their teaching, making people think that this is a gift for the few. Clairvoyance and imagination are the same thing—clear perception and imagination is to receive images. But in gnosis we make the distinction that there are different types of clairvoyance. There's the objective perception of the Truth or the subjective perception of the mind, a falsity of ego. It’s a type of imagination that we perceive through wrong perception. This is exemplified when we have really disturbing dreams, or dreams consisting of nonsense, gibberish. That's a type of clairvoyance, but it’s subjective. The type of imagination we seek to cultivate in our practice, through concentrated reflection, Mo Chao, is lucid and objective. Unfortunately, it’s not enough to explain this science in this way because to understand what objective clairvoyance is, true states of comprehension, you have to really experiment with yourself. You have to become like a taste tester to really evaluate what comprehension, concentration and imagination really mean. We must become connoisseurs of spiritual experience, like you’re drinking different kinds of wine to evaluate their quality and purity. What in me is subjective? What is objective in me? That only comes about through practice, through effort. We need to really sit in meditation, remembering our Innermost Self, concentrated on God. Through persistence and consistency with our discipline, perhaps in your practice a new image arises—something very foreign, clear, lucid and powerful. Maybe you see people from far away, from a different part of the globe, or cities, activities, etc. It could be many things. Flashes of imagery, scenes, sounds, tastes, and smells are good signs that imagination starting to awaken—it’s sparkling as a result of our work with sexual transmutation. A new way of life emerges when we dedicate ourselves to meditation, sexual transmutation, and charity, but of course our efforts are always fueled by the science of the Divine Mother: Alchemy for couples, but pranayama for individuals. When we perform exercises of pranayama, we are utilizing the energies of our bodies in relation with the sexual glands and raising it with our breath in the etheric level, in our subtle energetic physiology, and using that energy to fuel the brain. For example, one exercise is Ham-Sah. You perform a prolonged and relaxed inhalation, mentally pronouncing the mantra Ham, bringing that energy to the brain and subsequently to the heart. Then you exhale softly and quickly, Sah and that energy goes to the heart. Since the divine Mother, מרים Miriam, relates with מ Mem, the waters, it relates with the sexual energy, like in the story Pinocchio. He becomes a real man through his Divine Mother, cited as the Blue Fairy in the story. By using that energy through yogic exercises, pranayama, and moreover, through alchemy, Pinocchio becomes a boy of flesh and blood, an Adam Kadmon, a fully enlightened spiritual being. So while we're talking more about the principles of this practice, it’s generally fueled by how you use your energies through the science of breath. That energy is going to fuel your imagination incredibly, because that energy relating with מ Mem, with the waters of the sexual organs, rises up to the מ Mem of the brain, because we know from occidental science that the physical brain is surrounded by a fluid—it’s really a type of water, the cerebral spinal fluid, known as the מ Mem of the brain within Kabbalah. The Kabbalists knew this very well. So when they refer to the Divine Mother they call her Miriam: מ Mem, ר Resh, י Iod and ם Final Mem. מ Mem is water. ר Rosh literally means head. י Iod can also mean head and ם Final Mem again is water. So the Divine Mother relates with energies from our sexual waters in our brain and sexuality, and it is this power that's going to fuel our imagination, our visualization practice. There's many types of pranayama exercises: Egyptian Christic Pranayama as given in The Yellow Book, Ham-Sah as given in The Perfect Matrimony and other lectures. Swami Sivananda gave an extensive variety. There are many different types of pranayama. Basically we use this energy to fuel our imagination practice. However, it's not all to develop perception—it is not enough. Imagination by itself is not enough—it has to be balanced with concentration. 
This brings us to the third Arcanum of the Tarot. After the Magician and the Priestess, you have the Empress. It’s also a feminine card, relating to the third Sephirah, the third sphere of the Kabbalistic tree of life, Binah, which is the Holy Spirit. Binah in Hebrew literally translates as “Understanding,” so as we see in the unfoldment of the arcana (arcana means laws, principles), we see from concentration, the Magician, the Father and imagination, the Priestess, emerges the third force: synthesis, comprehension, or reconciliation.
It’s by learning how to balance our concentration with our perception that we attain insight, meaning: we don't forget we’re meditating, focused on our practice while allowing ourselves to become drowsy enough to perceive new images from the dream world. It’s really the combination of the two that will allow us to perceive something new in our experience, to access the genuine state of meditation. This not only applies when we sit to meditate, but in every moment, every instant. When we transform impressions, we have to be concentrated. We have to pay attention, such as in this moment. You must be aware of the fact that you are sitting and receiving words and information, to not let your mind wander or daydream during the lecture. You need imagination, the ability to perceive those impressions from the instructor. It’s the balance of those two, being attentive and perceiving images, that comprehension starts to emerge. This is essentially important with interrelations with people. Sometimes we may be very concentrated, but we are not clearly perceiving or understanding the nature of impressions. In that sense we need to pay attention to the clarity, quality, and nature of our perception. This a Kabbalistic and alchemical teaching given in the manner and tradition of the Hebrews, but we find this synthesis even in Chan Buddhism: Mo Chao, serene reflection. This is how understanding will emerge in our practice. Understanding the nature of impressions and karma is a direct result of our serenity of mind and how we perceive, because the word reflection reminds us of the reflection of a lake. When you truly reflect on something, what you want is to see the image of something, but in order to reflect an image in your mind, you need to have the waters calm. If the lake is chaotic and the impressions of life are entering the waters like stones, it’s going to create a lot of friction—the waves will expand and the image which should be reflecting God within gets muddled. Establishing and maintaining serene reflection is is a moment to moment effort. This is the work in relation to transformation, understanding the nature of mind itself, and the impressions that we receive. If our meditation practice is muddled, if there isn't much clarity, we need to work on our imagination, our visualization. If we forget that we are meditating when we sit to meditate, that's when we need more concentration. You will find at different times you need more of one than the other, but generally it’s finding balance which will result in new experiences in meditation and comprehension. We have to understand this on a moment to moment basis, because without serene reflection, meditation itself becomes very dry—we won't have the fuel and the energy needed in order to perform meditation properly. Our meditation will become stagnant. All of that fluctuation of impressions, how they sustain and how they pass away on the screen of our mind, will remain confusing and disordered. Achieving clarity only comes about by awakening the consciousness here and now, in every instant of our lives. There are stories of people who have tried meditating for twenty of thirty years, but they don't understand that in order to meditate you have to meditate in every second. 
Every state of awareness that you have, in whatever activity you are doing, is essential for developing true esoteric discipline. Some activities might be more conducive for that. For instance, I take martial arts. That's a very profound form of meditation if you know how to take advantage of it. On the one hand you may think it’s merely a physical calisthenics, exclusively dealing with the physicality of the person. The real purpose of martial arts, the real struggle, is with your own mind. You have an attacker and your mind wants to react—you have reconcile that. You have to work around that. I take Aikido, which is very geared towards this type of philosophy, Chan and Zen Buddhism. If you have the opportunity to take martial arts like that... it could be very helpful to your practice—understanding the nature of impressions through the motor-instinctive brain. It’s a great way to train the mind. Psychological discipline and spiritual training is the origin of all martial arts.
Bodhidharma founded Kung Fu and people just think it was only instituted so that the monks could defend themselves from attackers, but really it was so they can defend themselves against their own minds. This is what the work of transforming impressions is—comprehending life from moment to moment. Really, you have to be like a martial artist—calm, relaxed, and serene, in this moment—meanwhile you could have twelve guys chasing after you with axes. Despite great dangers, you must be composed and in control. It doesn't mean you’re not worried about the situation. Something would be wrong if you weren’t. But what’s important is to be observant, relaxed—then you deal with a given problem, whether it is being attacked or paying your bills in practical life. That's the essence of Zen—that’s the effortless effort. Serenity deals with much more elevated states of concentration, as it's illustrated by the graphic called the Nine Stages of Meditative Concentration, or Calm Abiding: the Stages of Serenity, which we should study and work with. We've definitely talked a little bit about this topic. Questions and Answers
Audience: You mentioned that the magician, the priestess, and empress in succession reflect the three primary foundations of meditation (dynamics). My question regarding the rest of the tarot is: Do they continue to reflect the different aspects of the dynamics of meditation? Instructor: In relation to the mind itself, you have the three principles of affirmation, negation, synthesis. This is what Samael wrote in this book in relation to the transformation of impressions. In understanding the mind itself, those are the most important factors. As to whether the rest of the tree of life correlates, it does, but not in a strict or rigid way. With affirmation, you have a thought that appears, you have negation when you want to react to that, then the synthesis is the actual moment of comprehending and understanding the relationship—if you are paying attention and remembering your Being. That's really the most important thing in relation to meditation practice... because the trinity is the force that creates. 
Relating the tree of life to meditation and the holy trinity, you have three triangles in the tree of life. You have three trinities, the logoic triangle (Kether, Chokmah, Binah), the triangle of ethics (Chesed, Geburah, Tiphereth), and the triangle of priesthood (Netzach, Hod, Yesod)—and seven levels for the first seven sephiroth. But in relation to the three trinities, you have Kether, the Father, in the head, Chokmah, the Son, in the heart, and the Holy Spirit in sex. You can also say that you have Chesed in the mind, a superior type of reasoning, the spiritual Nous. This is what Plato talked about in The Republic, that the philosopher king should have Nous—the illumination of Chesed, the Inner Being within. So you can say that Chesed relates with the head, Geburah with the heart, and Tiphereth in relation to instincts and sexuality. The sixth commandment, “Thou shall not fornicate,” relates with Tiphereth. The sixth arcana of the tarot is related with the choice between chastity, inner purity, and fornication. So Tiphereth is in relation to sexuality according to the sixth card of the Tarot, Indecision. And then you also have the other trinity at the very bottom.
The first triangle is the logoic triangle, the second is the ethical triangle, and the third is the magical triangle. The magical triangle consists of Netzach, which is the mind, Hod which is the heart, and then you have Yesod which is the etheric body related with sexuality. My emphasis is much more on the first three principles because everything comes from Christ—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but that trinity is reflected in all of the Sephiroth. Generally we say that the mind is affirmation, because it is always affirming thoughts, a constant churning of concepts, memories, and ideas. The heart is negation, going back to Alice in Wonderland—always reacting with negative emotions, such as the Queen of Hearts, “Off with his head!” And you have synthesis related with sexuality, because as you see in the motor-instinctive-sexual brain, it’s really a synthesis of three principles. It encompasses movements, instincts and sexuality, so it’s a synthesis. Now to go even deeper, this relates with the three mother letters of the Hebrew alphabet―א Aleph, the Magician relates with the head, ש Shin, fire, Christ, relates to the heart, and מ Mem, Maya, Miriam, the Holy Spirit relates to the waters. They all derive their source from the Trinity. So in relation with the dynamics of meditation, it’s always in threes, really, because everything comes from the divine source. The law of three was mentioned by Master Gurdjieff as the Holy Triamatzikamno. All originate with the Divine Source—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So, you have those correlations definitely. Audience: I notice for myself, and I make, in as much as I remember, an effort to be awake and aware of myself. I will notice certain points in time that I’ll be doing a job that requires almost more of my attention just on that… almost more than my own intention just on that and I have to be aware of myself too, but it’s very difficult. Instructor: That's good that you recognize this fact. It’s very difficult. It’s difficult to spark that comprehension in the first place. It’s difficult to maintain it―that's really what jihad is about. It’s difficult to even realize in the first place, and it’s even more difficult to maintain awareness throughout the entire day. As indicated by the term "mindfulness" in Buddhism, we make a distinction that it doesn't just relate to self-observation. Self-observation is the first step, to be watchful of this moment, and mindfulness is maintaining self-observation through the entire day. So first you observe and then you maintain that vigilance throughout the entire day. If you recognize that its hard, that's a good sign. It is hard. That's really the battle and struggle of the mind. The mind can't do it. So when your mind says, “I can't do it,” comprehension will show you, “This is the only thing right the mind has stated. However, for making this postulation, the mind is wrong. Mind, you are only a vehicle, a machine! You are not my true identity!" The mind really can’t resolve anything—only the consciousness can. Life is really the psychological gymnasium. It’s a work in progress. Even if you self-realize you have work to do. Generally there can be two types of comprehension: hindsight and foresight. Hindsight hurts a lot because your mind stabs you in the back with shame for having made a mistake. Generally, you want to develop a type of comprehension that is instantaneous and helps you to act appropriately in the moment. You know it’s wrong in the instant a defect appears in your three brains and you say “Ah-ha! I'm not going to do that!” And there's real control there, real discipline. That's the type of insight that we need. You can only get that if you’re mind is serene and your consciousness is paying attention. You must let your mind reflect and perceive those images for what they are in a given moment. You’re only going to develop that by working very hard. Remember that if you’re practicing these types of teachings, you’re going to make a lot of mistakes. That's in the case of every Buddha—every initiate has to face that. 
There's one German initiate, by the name of Friedrich Nietzsche, who wrote in his book Thus Spoke Zarathustra a speech that conveys a very inspiring, comforting, and revelatory message. In the text, we have Nietzsche's fictional Zarathustra preaching to his disciples within the solitude of a mountain cave, saying:
The higher its type, the more rarely a thing succeeds. You higher men (initiates) here, have you not all failed? Be of good cheer, what does it matter? How much is still possible! Learn to laugh at yourselves as one must laugh! Is it any wonder that you have failed and only half succeeded, being half-broken (meaning, being weak with ego)? Is not something thronging and pushing in you—man’s future (the promise and birth of the Intimate Christ within, the Superman)? Man’s greatest distance and depth and what in him is lofty to the stars, his tremendous strength (of the Inner Being)—are not all these frothing against each other in your pot (your mind)? Is it any wonder that many a pot breaks? Learn to laugh at yourselves as one must laugh! You higher men, how much is still possible! And verily, how much has already succeeded (meaning: through psycho-analytical meditation and comprehension of mental dynamics)! How rich is the earth in little good perfect things, in what has turned out well! Place little good perfect things around you, O higher men! Their golden ripeness heals the heart. What is perfect teaches hope. —The Higher Men, Book IV, Section 15. Therefore, he was saying, “You higher men (initiates), don't you realize that you’re failures, but is there anything to be upset about that you make mistakes like that? There's still so much, and many rich and beautiful things to accomplish if you fail and realized that you failed. That's good that you recognized your mistakes—now work on them. That's when you realize you'll be making victories.” When you make a mistake and you say, “Really I made a big mistake,” and you accept it and you work on it diligently, then the gods, Buddhas and masters look at you and say “He's progressing.” When you have the maturity to realize that “Yeah, I'm really at fault and I'm going to change it,” to have the perseverance to keep working, that's when they really honor you in the internal planes. Ordeals must be experienced again and again until we conquer them. You may read about this subject in The Perfect Matrimony. The disciple will be submitted to ordeals in the astral plane, right? And generally when they do that, they push you to the very edge so that you react in a bad way. If you control yourself through the science of mental dynamics, they will appear to you as children, golden Cherubim, the children of the immortal dawn, very innocent. They were once like us, but now they're innocent like little children and they honor you because even though you made mistakes and you fail ordeals, you continue onward through jihad al-akbar. They keep testing you, internally. They'll do that when you develop enough Mo Chao, serene reflection, physically, and then internally. They're happy if you succeed after having failed many times. So it’s a work in progress, but don’t think you're some exception, because everyone has their difficulties. The key to unlocking it all is Mo Chao, Self-remembering and serene reflection, in every moment. Then you’ll learn to transform those ordeals into something positive for you. So even after you've broken your pot, you may remember all the good and wonderful things you have received from God as a result of mental dynamics. Then afterward, you may say with peace, like Nietzsche did in the quotation, “Learn to laugh at yourselves as one must laugh! What is perfect teaches hope.” 
In our studies of meditation, we are deeply concerned with levels of being, degrees of consciousness, which, according to the 14th Dalai Lama, is infinite. A very famous Sufi initiate by the name of Abd al-Karim al-Jili, he wrote a book called The Universal Man, Al-Insan al-Kamil. He stated, “The journey to God is short. The journey in God is infinite.”
While this work teaches us how to reunite with divinity, with the Truth, the reality is that upon entering religion, reunion, there are qualities of knowledge, of understanding, which are within the divine. It is infinite. Consciousness has the capacity to expand to an infinite degree, and different traditions teach and map these levels of consciousness in different ways, in varying levels. The conservative Piscean traditions, in which the different doctrines and scriptures originated within the past 2,000 years, speak about these levels of being, these levels of consciousness, in a very abstract manner. The writings are not very explicit and require a lot of experience and initiation from a teacher or a sheikh, a guru, a master, but times are different. We now live in an era related to the astrological influence of Aquarius. Pisces was noted for its conservatism. The knowledge had to be earned, and only when practitioners would meditate for many years, would they be allowed to really understand and be taught the heights of their spiritual tradition, and in Sufism this is no exception. Sufism pertains to the Era of Pisces, and while many manuals of writings were given in that tradition, a lot of that wisdom is very veiled, and only understood by initiates: people who are awakening their consciousness, not only physically, but in the internal planes―whether through dream yoga, astral projection. But whether or not those abilities are developed in us we can begin to appreciate and understand, to approach these levels of consciousness, which the Sufis call stations. A station is a place that people travel to, where people arrive, where people leave. The levels of being are described as places or stopping points in ascension towards the Truth. The highest station among the Gnostics is Marif’ah. It is knowledge of divinity. It is permanent self-realization. It is the full incarnation of God in the soul: the path of resurrection which Samael Aun Weor speaks about in his book The Three Mountains. These degrees or stations of the path as taught by the Sufis, were explicitly provided by Samael Aun Weor in The Three Mountains. So in this lecture we will talk about how meditation applies to the science of the Tree of Life, the Tree of Being, the levels of being, which is a map to understand where we are and where we must go if we truly want to obtain religion, yoga. The levels of Being or these stations, these degrees of knowledge, of development, are made explicit within the writings of the Aquarian knowledge, and I’ll read for you a quote from the book The Aquarian Message by our teacher Samael Aun Weor. The chapter is from Internal Meditation: “The seven degrees of ecstasy through which the mystic reaches the perfect state of the soul are described in the school of Sufism. The school of Sufism teaches about ecstasy. The state and secret of our level is revealed in Sufism, because this is the interior state of life in God.” ―Samael Aun Weor, The Aquarian Message, “Internal Meditation” So what is ecstasy? It comes from the Latin ecstatuo [Greek ἔκστασις ekstasis], “to stand outside oneself.” It is our psychological state that we cultivate as we learn to remove the ego and to go beyond our level of being, to become something more, something profound. Samael Aun Weor writes in Revolutionary Psychology, “What is our level of Being? We must know where we are if we wish to ascend to a higher level.” Our psychological state determines everything, which is why meditation is so fundamental for change. Meditation is precisely the science, the art, the philosophy, the religion of understanding our own conditions of mind, but also our virtues, our qualities of soul. This is much more important than any outward adherence in a group, or participation in a school. While schools are necessary, they provide clarification of how to practice meditation. They also inspire us to work, to want to change, but a group itself is not a defining factor of whether one will reach the goal. Our work is our own. In the Piscean era, and even today, the Sufi schools are very conservative. They only taught the most profound doctrine, the most profound sciences, to those who have proven themselves under the jurisdiction of a teacher, but of course in the Aquarian Era “Initiation is our own life intensely lived with rectitude, and with love” (Samael Aun Weor), which is why even Bayazid Bastami, a Sufi initiate, stated the following, “I stood with the pious and I didn’t find any progress with them. I stood with the warriors in the cause, and I didn't find a single step of progress with them. Then I said, ‘Oh Allah! What is the way to you? And Allah said, ‘leave yourself and come.’” Meaning: leave behind the ego. Eliminate the ego. Strive and fight in yourself, work on yourself. Abandon our previous level of being, what we are now, to become something new, and transformed 
The Levels of Being: Stations of the Sufi Path
These levels of Being are depicted by Kabbalah, the Tree of Life, and it is this image, this map of consciousness, this diagram of divinity that is missing from the teachings of the Sufis, and even many other traditions, because the Tree of Life was not explained openly by the Muslim masters, but it is an essential diagram or graphic that elaborates and explains the stations of the Sufi path.
Ten spheres, ten stations, with all of their multiplicity, their dimensionality, their infinite qualities―this diagram teaches us where we are in our meditation, and therefore those schools that leave aside the Tree of Life do not understand meditation in its heart, because we cannot understand where we are, what our level of being is, where we must go, if we do not understand the Kabbalah. קבלה Kabbalah comes from the Hebrew, קבל Kabel, meaning “to receive.” It also means “tradition,” the secret teachings of the initiates. When we meditate, we investigate, we analyze, we experience, we then receive new knowledge. We understand the depths and intricacies of the soul, and the path that leads out of suffering. But in order to do that we have to abandon what we are. As Abu Sa’id, a Sufi initiate, stated, “Wherever the delusion of your selfhood appears―there’s hell. Wherever you aren’t―that’s heaven.” ―Abū Sa’īd in Ibn Munawwar: Asrār at-tawḥīd, ed. Shafī‘ī-Kadkanī, 299 The ego is the problem. The ego is the obstacle. The sense of “I,” “me,” “what I want,” “what I crave,” “what I desire,” in itself is called the tree of death, in Islam. شجرة الزقوم The tree of Zaqqum, which in Arabia is an actual tree whose leaves are very bitter to taste, became a symbol of the infra-dimensionality of the ego: the subconsciousness, the unconsciousness, the infraconsciousness. So we have to abandon our own pride, fear, laziness, lust, defects, nafs in Arabic, the lower soul, in order to obtain heaven. But this quote is very interesting. It says that “Wherever you aren’t―that’s heaven.” This does not mean that there is a complete nihilism there, that we cannot experience heaven. It depends upon our level of being. Are we attached to our negativities, our hatreds, our self-esteem? Or do we set that egotism aside, withdraw the senses, and awaken the consciousness, the soul, so that we can experience the Being? Remember that this map, this Tree of Life, represents us―who we are, who we really are―not our culture, our language, our name, but divinity. Stations are precisely the degrees of consciousness that we develop in ourselves through work. These are known as initiations. And if you study the writings of Samael Aun Weor, such as The Three Mountains, The Major Mysteries, The Perfect Matrimony, Tarot and Kabbalah, Alchemy and Kabbalah in the Tarot, you understand that this Tree of Life is essential. These are precisely the stations of the path, the degrees of consciousness, which we seek to actualize. Remember that initiation is our own life. It is not found in a physical group, although those schools help. They instruct. They inspire. Real Initiation occurs when we humble ourselves, when we humiliate our ego. Shame comes before honor. If we wish to return to divinity, we have to strip away the baggage, the delusion of self, which is not real. We have to remember the Being, the Tree of Life, because the Being is heaven. When the ego dies, the soul returns to divinity, our true reality: a profound state of omniscience, cognizance, happiness. And so this diagram helps us to understand ourselves. It is very intricate, very deep. Here we introduce it in the context of this lecture to frame the discussion of the forthcoming lectures in this course. Divine Nature in Arabic Kabbalah
So again, initiation is development, qualities of consciousness that we learn to realize here and now. It is obtained through very profound work, but of course the Being, divinity―whom the Sufis and Muslims call الله Allah―is precisely the one who gains the initiation honors, degrees, qualities and experiences, understanding, wisdom. الله Allah in Arabic means “The God.” And if you look at this graphic you find that there is a top trinity that emerges from an abstract Seity, a perfect profound and limitless space known as אין Ain, אין סוף Ain Soph, אין סוף אוֹר Ain Soph Aur. That is the Absolute. That is Allah, because even the term Allah meaning “the God” refers to the most profound heights of the Truth.
In Islam they do not have any images of God. It is considered sacrilegious. That is because it is impossible to anthropomorphize space, and the light that emerges is precisely in this diagram, this top trinity: Kether, Chokmah, Binah: Crown, Wisdom, Intelligence. It is light that expresses in three ways, but is one. There is no division of that light. It is perfect, but it manifests in three ways in order to create life, which is why the Qur’an speaks abundantly about how one of the names of divinity is الخليق Al-Khaliq, “The Creator,” referring to Binah, the intelligence of divinity that creates the soul. 
Likewise we have الرحمن Al-Rahman, the Compassionate, الرحيم Al-Rahim, the Merciful―Chokmah and Chesed―which refers to the beginning of each Surah of the Qur’an with the exception of Surah 9: بِسْمِ ٱللَّٰهِ ٱلرَّحْمَٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Bismillah-ir-Rahman-ir-Rahim, “In the Name of Allah the Compassionate, the Merciful.”
Kether is also Allah, the Crown, Supremacy, and that light which emerges from the unknown is that perfect expression of God. Of course, the Christians refer to this trinity as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but that teaching in that tradition degenerated when people mistakenly believe these divinities to be three people and not energy, consciousness. So that is why the Qur’an is explicit and rejects the trinity. But we study all traditions so that we do not end up in fanaticism or confusion. This light is perfect. It is the Being, and if we wish to know and develop that light as expressed in Surah Al-Nur, the 24th sura of the Qur’an, we learn to enter initiation, to develop that light. We learn to forget our egotism. We put it aside, and remember our true Self, the reality of that light, that great perfection. 
Kabbalah, Numerology, and Persian Sufism
So let us define, according to the Sufis what stations are, initiations, levels of progress. The levels of knowing God, the remembrance of God, occurs in accordance with hierarchy, and even amongst the Sufis, they explain these stations in very different ways: sometimes 7, sometimes 40, other times 100, or even 1,000.
These stations refer to the qualities of ourselves, our soul, such as discipline, contentment, awe of divinity. It is important to remember that these stations are very dynamic. When Samael Aun Weor wrote about these different initiations, he was very specific, and explained something that was never taught publicly. But the Sufis alluded to that teaching in a very abstract way. So as I said, sometimes the Sufis say there are 7 stations, sometimes 40, sometimes 100. The number 7 is important to Kabbalah. It refers to 7 levels of the soul, the lower 7 levels of the spheres or סְפִירוֹת sephiroth, the Hebrew term for “emanations.” There are also 40 stations referring to the 4 worlds of Kabbalah, the 10 sephiroth in the tree of life in the 4 worlds: Atziluth, Briah, Yetzirah, Asiah. 40 also relates to the Hebrew letter מ Mem, which refers to words like מים mayim, water, and even the Arabic مائي mayiyn, which has the same significance. Farid ud-Din Attar wrote a book or a poem called The Conference of the Birds, and he speaks about the 7 stations of the path. Al-Qushayri, who wrote Al-Risalah: Principles of Sufism, explained that there are 40 stations, which are very profound, and much of the knowledge we are providing here comes from that text. And lastly there is the 100 stations of the Sufi path by Abdullah Ansari of Herat. All these initiates were Persian, and I’ll quote for you what Samael Aun Weor wrote in The Perfect Matrimony about Persian Sufi initiates: “The most ineffable part of Mohammedan mysticism is Persian Sufism. It has the merit of struggling against materialism and fanaticism and against the literal interpretation of the Qur’an. The Sufis interpret the Qur’an from the esoteric point of view as we, the Gnostics, interpret the New Testament.” ―Samael Aun Weor, The Perfect Matrimony 
So Sufism teaches us how to interpret the Qur’an, because the language of the Qur’an is Kabbalah, which if you say in Spanish is La Kaba. It is the science of the stone. In the Middle East, Muslims pray towards Mecca, the Kaaba, the stone of the mysteries. That stone is a symbol of the work with Yesod, the vital forces that are essential into entering meditation.
If you say la baca, the same syllables in Spanish, you have “the cow,” and Al -Baqarah is the longest surah of the Qur’an. It is “The Cow,” a reference to the divine mysteries of the eternal feminine, the Divine Mother. There are very profound mysteries here, very deep. The term baqa actually means “subsistence.” The term fana in Arabic means “elimination, annihilation” of the self, so that one can enter the Truth. Baqa is subsistence within the Truth. So once we have died to the ego, the soul subsists and realizes the Being, baqa. That is the mystery of Al-Baqarah: the sacred cow within Islam, the longest surah of the Qur’an. If you are interested in knowing more about these topics you can study specifically The Eternal Tarot course we have available on chicagognosis.org, where we speak a lot about the Muslim mysteries and the Kabbalistic symbolism contained within those teachings. Kabbalah is the science of numbers. They represent principles. The law of 7 is very deep, and it can teach us how to meditate, to understand the Tree of Life in its order. 40 can also relate to 40 virtues, relating to מ Mem in Hebrew, or in Arabic م Meem. The fact that certain Sufis refer to 100 stations can also refer to initiation, because when you add the numbers together, the digits, 1+0+0=1 relates to the first card of the sacred tarot, Arcanum 1: The Magician, which refers to laws of the Being and the soul, the path of development. The tarot and the Kabbalah are one science, and we use these principles when we study meditation. It is a map and it is how we navigate our own internal worlds. The Definition of Stations: Initiations
Stations refer to initiations. And going back to the first card of the sacred arcana, is referring to the Magician, the one who begins, who initiates, who works. The following is from Al-Risalah: Principles of Sufism by Al Qushayri:
“A station consists of certain forms of behavior actualized by the servant through his struggles. He gains access to these through some kind of voluntary effort and makes them a reality through a sort of striving and the endurance of constraints upon his nature.” ―Al-Qushayri, Al-Risalah: Principles of Sufism So these are the levels of being. We access a higher level of Being by working on our mind, by struggling against mechanical habits, defects. We must gain access to the higher worlds through conscious works and voluntary sufferings. This is a very famous quote by Samael Aun Weor: “We can only awaken through conscious works and voluntary sufferings.” He doesn’t mean that we go out of our way to look for problems. It means that we accept the results of our prior actions, and face the consequences with rectitude, with ethics, with love for humanity. That is how we constrain the ego. We allow our ego to suffer when we do not get what it wants. This is fundamental if we wish to enter into initiation, understanding of the higher degrees of meditation. “Everyone’s station is the place that he occupies in this way and with the discipline of which he concerns himself. The necessary condition involved is that no one may proceed from one station to another without fulfilling the requirements of the first station.” ―Al-Qushayri, Al-Risalah: Principles of Sufism There are very clear levels of development, a progression which the Tree of Life maps very explicitly, very beautifully. The path is very layered. There are levels and degrees, if you have studied The Perfect Matrimony, the Minor Mysteries, the Major Mysteries, the Venustic Initiations, the Three Mountains. While these concepts might seem very far away from us and elevated, they give us a diagram, a map, an understanding of where we are and what we must do. So Al-Qushayri continues: “For instance, he who has no contentment cannot properly possess trust. He who has no trust cannot properly possess the quality of surrender. Likewise he who has not turned to God cannot properly know penitence. He who has no vigilance over the morality of his actions cannot properly know renunciation.” ―Al-Qushayri, Al-Risalah: Principles of Sufism If we wish to enter those higher degrees of initiation, we must work with our level of Being. Certain qualities cannot be developed unless we are very intentional. By eliminating certain defects, we give birth to virtues. By learning to renounce our mind, we in turn are vigilant, watchful over our own morality. If we have not repented of our mistakes and really wept profoundly for our errors, we cannot turn to God. If we have no remorse, we cannot change, we cannot wish to yearn or look for help, and if we do not trust our inner divinity, we will never surrender to him with contentment. So all these qualities are very interwoven, dynamic, infinite, but it is useful to combine this study with the Tree of Life because it helps to clarify these qualities in ourselves. Raising One’s Station or Level of Being
Al-Qushayri also continues in his Principles of Sufism, relating how the stations are stepping stones towards the path that leads to divinity,
“The station, place of stay, is the act of staying (iqamah), just as the word madkhal, entry, has the sense of the act of entering (idkhal) and the word makhraj, exit, has the sense of the act of leaving (ikhraj). If his affair is to be firmly constructed upon a sound basis, no one may remain in a given station unless there is evidence that it is the act of God Most High [and not his own act] that causes him to stay in that station.” ―Al-Qushayri, Al-Risalah: Principles of Sufism So as I mentioned to you, stations are stepping stones, degrees, virtues and qualities that we develop in a progression, qualities of the soul that are perfected in the different initiations mentioned by Samael Aun Weor. 
There are virtues that we need to master at certain degrees. In מלכות Malkuth, the First Initiation of Fire, we must have patience, tenacity, endurance in order to awaken the fire of the kundalini, the sacred Shekhinah.
In יְסוֹד Yesod, we must truly repent for our lustful deeds, our desires. In הוד Hod, the heart, the astral world, we have to work on our emotions very deeply: our anger, our resentment, our pride. In נצח Netzach, the mental world, we have to be very diligent about how we think, how our thoughts affect others. While these qualities are not strictly limited to those sephiroth, there are certain idiosyncrasies we need to learn. And that is something you can only know through experience. These stations are places in which one can stay or which one can leave, one can transcend. The goal is never to stay in one place, never to go down, to fall, but to ascend these higher and higher degrees of knowledge. So we are not allowed to stay stationary, unless that is what our divinity wants. There are some practitioners who get stuck because of certain defects they are working on, or do not understand. Other times the Being keeps us at a certain degree because we need to learn something more, to be firmly established in certain virtues, and the understanding of certain actions, but the goal is never to stay in one place, but to always ascend, to go up, to ascend this Tree of Life. This map is very intricate. It is very dense. There are many relationships associated with each sphere. There are many names of divinity, many aspects of the soul and the Being that are diagrammed here. It is a lifetime of study, to really traverse this map of consciousness from experience. These stations are known as maqamat in Arabic. These are initiations, degrees, levels of development. And I will quote for you a very famous Persian text which I mentioned by Abdullah Ansari of Herat, The Stations of the Sufi Path, and I will explain a few points about this teaching of the Tree of Life and how it can aid our meditation. “It has been confirmed that Khidr, peace be with him, said: ‘There are one thousand stations (maqām) between the servant of God and his Lord (mawlā).” ―Abdullah Ansari of Herat, Stations of the Sufi Path The Qur’an speaks about this figure known as Khidr, who helped Moses, and Morya in The Lord God of Truth Within refers to this initiate as Melchizedek, the genii of the Earth, a great master. “And a similar saying has been mentioned from Dhu-l-Nun al-Misri, Abu Yazid al-Bastāmi, al-Junayd, and Abu Bakr al-Kattāni―may God be pleased with them all. Dhu-l-Nun al-Misri said: ‘There are a thousand worlds’ [between the servant of God and his Lord], Abu Yazid and al-Junayd―may God bless their innermost selves, said: one thousand palaces,’ and Abu Bakr al-Kattāni said: ‘a thousand stations.’” ―Abdullah Ansari of Herat, Stations of the Sufi Path So whether 100 or 1000, these refer to initiations. There are ten spheres in this diagram, from מלכות Malkuth to כֶּתֶר Kether, and if you have read The Major Mysteries, Samael Aun Weor refers to these degrees in terms of esoteric time. If you are in meditation and you ask a master or your being to tell you where are you at in your work, they will refer to you in your age. To be 99 years or younger refers to the Minor Mysteries. 10 to the first initiation of Minor Mysteries, 20 to the second initiation of Minor Mysteries, 30 to the third initiation of Minor Mysteries, up to the ninth, 90. And beyond that: 100 to a 1000 refer to these ten spheres of the tree of life, the Major Mysteries, and even beyond. It is a symbol. It is a reference point. We need to know this map so that when we travel to these places in our work and, internally, we do not get lost, we do not get confused, because we cannot interpret our experiences literally. They are symbolic, abstract. “God the Most High, says, ‘Is the person who follows the good pleasure of God like the person who brings to himself the wrath of God, whose dwelling is Hell?―A woeful refuge! (3:162) [Certainly] they are in varying degrees (darajāt) in the sight of God,’ (3:163) and those ‘ascending degrees’ mentioned in this Qur’anic verse are one thousand stations.” ―Abdullah Ansari of Herat, Stations of the Sufi Path So study this diagram with a lot of patience. I only provide an overview of this to provide context for understanding what the different stations we will talk about, but also the qualities of the soul needed to master those states and to progress in our meditations. “The journey to God is short, the journey in God is infinite”―ascending degrees, more knowledge, limitless wisdom, which is why Prophet Muhammed stated in Surah Ta Ha, verse 114: “My Lord! Increase me in knowledge!” Way Stations and Abiding Stations
Abdullah Ansari of Herat explains that there are way stations and abiding stations. These stations are stopping places. They are levels, levels of Being, which always ascend higher and higher towards the divine. And even within the divine there are infinite degrees, levels of Being, which we seek to actualize. This quote explains how this is a very dynamic process, and that we must always strive forward in our work, to question in our meditations, “Where are we at? What must we do in our particular level so that we can renounce what is egotistical and ascend towards what is higher?
“And those one thousand stations are ‘stopping places’ which are traveled by those who are journeying toward God (Haqq) until the servant, having passed [and is helped to pass] through those ascending degrees stage by stage, is honored to be received into the proximity (qurb) of God.” ―Abdullah Ansari of Herat, Stations of the Sufi Path So what is this proximity of God? There are levels to God, which is why we study the Tree of Life, because there are levels and levels of that light. As it is stated in the Qur’an, “Light upon light!” in Surah al-Nur: levels and levels of understanding, but always we want to go higher. That is the goal. “Or the servant himself passes through one stopping place after another until he reaches the final stopping place, which for him is the field of proximity to God. The proximity he leaves behind is only ‘a way-station,’ while that [proximity] where he remains is the [abiding spiritual] ‘station’―like those stations of the angels in the heavens.” ―Abdullah Ansari of Herat, Stations of the Sufi Path So many of us long to be close to God, to have that experience, to have that realization. We have to remember that we must travel, and traveling to a distant country that is foreign unfamiliar, dangerous, requires a lot of courage, a lot of work, striving, effort. The stages of the path are way stations, and we wish to abide within the highest spiritual station, like the angels. And we have to remember that the Elohim or the angels, the buddhas, the Gods, whatever name we wish to use, were once like us. They did not begin from the heights. They rose from the mud. They polished their hearts with dhikr, remembrance of Allah, through meditating on their true nature. One practice we can do is to meditate on the Tree of Life, to ask for clarification of what this diagram means to us. And to understand that these are way stations, places of travel that lead higher and higher. The path of divinity, of the gods, is in a much higher octave, degree, than what we can conceptualize here, and even with the Tree of Life. We know that there are the ten spheres or sephiroth of the tree in which certain masters ascend, but even in the Absolute there are degrees and degrees and degrees, which are incomprehensible for us at our level. But we need to understand this conceptually, so that we know what the goal is―and to meditate on this for ourselves―to know the truth of it from experience. "[As] God, the Most High, says, ‘And there is none among us but he has a known station, (37:164) (and in His saying) They seek a way of access to their Lord, which of them (might be) closest…’ (17:57).” ―Abdullah Ansari of Herat, Stations of the Sufi Path So even the gods, the angels, seek to go higher, and this can inspire us, and humble us―to remember that this path is a process. It is a patient work. Rumi, the great Sufi poet and initiate, explained this process in one of his poems. He talks about the process of the soul elevating higher and higher and higher through a process of the death of the ego. "I died as a mineral and became a plant, I died as plant and rose to animal, I died as animal and I was Man. Why should I fear? When was I less by dying? Yet once more I shall die as Man, to soar With angels blest; but even from angelhood I must pass on: all except God doth perish. When I have sacrificed my angel-soul, I shall become what no mind e'er conceived. Oh, let me not exist! for Non-existence Proclaims in organ tones, To Him we shall return." ―Jalaluddin Muhammad Rumi So what is that non-existence? It is referred to in the Kabbalah as the Absolute: Ain, Ain Soph, Ain Soph Aur―the cosmic space, the Truth, the infinite from which every world manifests. Even the term الله Allah has a negating principle. لا Lah means “no” in Arabic. ال Al is the indefinite article “the.” الله Allah is the negative, “The No,” the negation of all that is not divinity. In order to reach those heights, we have to renounce, renounce, and renounce all that is imperfect in us. We must undergo fana, annihilation of the self so that we can subsist, baqa, within our eternal divine reality. As Abdullah Ansari of Herat states: “So each of these thousand stations is a waystation for the spiritual traveler (ravanda’), but a station (maqām) for the discoverer.” ―Abdullah Ansari of Herat, Stations of the Sufi Path The Six Conditions for Initiation
There are some initiates who are reaching certain heights while others are transcending those―degrees and degrees, a process. We have spoken a lot about Kabbalah and the tarot in synthesis. It is important to remember that the 22 arcana of the Tarot are synthesized in the Tree of Life. And there is one card in particular that can help us to understand what the Sufis wrote about the six conditions for initiation, of aiding our meditation.
If we wish to understand and experience this Tree of Life in its different modalities, expressions, principles, archetypes―we must practice six things according to the stations of the Sufi path. “In those thousand stations, there is no escape from six things, even for the blink of an eye. These six things [conditions] are: respecting the divine command, fearing God’s tricks and ruse, seeking God’s forgiveness, actively respecting the sunna (the Prophetic Tradition), living in friendship and kindness, and being compassionate toward all creation.” ―Abdullah Ansari of Herat, Stations of the Sufi Path 
So the sixth card of the tarot relates to these principles, and is a very wonderful diagram for understanding our situation, and how to really enter initiation, deeply, profoundly.
The sixth arcanum, the sixth law, refers to the lovers of the tarot. It is the soul caught between the ego and the divine. He is looking to his left, his left arm crossed over his right and his feet in the waters of the card, in the bottom third of this diagram, because he has fallen into temptation. He represents us. We wish to enter the path, to understand the path, to practice it, to work, but we have ego. And the woman on the right of the card, or to the left of this initiate, is precisely naked, referring to her lasciviousness, her lust, which is his mind, his own ego, his nafs, his own lower soul. To his right, a divine initiate, a woman, referring to the Divine Mother the sacred cow of Islam, Al-Baqarah. Above there is an angel aiming an arrow towards the whore, the prostitute, the naked woman of this arcanum, in order to slay her, and this teaches us the path, the path of meditation. Meditation is for comprehending our own faults, eliminating our faults, and perfecting our soul. We do this through love, by loving our divinity. But of course, for that we must turn in repentance to our own inner divinity. But we see that the man’s face is towards the prostitute of this card. He is not facing the chaste, divine, beautiful woman on his right. The Qur’an speaks abundantly of turning to God, as having remorse. If we do not have remorse, it means that we do not respect the divine command: the laws of ethics of the soul. Remember that the basis of meditation is founded on how we use our energy. Lust and love cannot mix. They are opposites. Desire says “me,” “what I want,” “what I crave,” “what I need,” and compassion says “you,” “what you need.” Lust fulfills itself. Love or compassion sacrifices for others. 1. Respecting the Divine Command
So what does it mean to respect the divine command? Since we have been studying the writings of Samael Aun Weor, the most specific command is chastity, sexual purity, renunciation of animal desire, fornication. We cannot enter initiation if we are losing our energies, sexually speaking. It means that we do not respect divinity and we are facing the whore of the sixth arcanum, feeding our animality, our lower soul.
beginning meditators often struggle with the reality of lust. This is precisely the path of Indecision, the name of this card. When we struggle to orient ourselves, we renounce lust, again and again, as we enter the stations of the path. Without an understanding of chastity, we cannot understand meditation, to rise to a new station. So we must learn to comprehend and have remorse: to really understand how our own desires create pain for ourselves, and for others. 2. Fearing God’s Tricks and Ruse
This has to do with the ordeals we receive as we are practicing meditation and chastity. These are struggles we have to face that come from divinity. If we do not receive hardship, we will never change. We will never confront the monster that is underneath the bed. Without these troubles and difficult situations in life, our defects will never spontaneously emerge so that we can see them.
This is a psychological gymnasium, which is why Arcanum 6 teaches us the following axiom: “Thou art giving me labor, oh Lord, and fortitude with it.” If you study the lectures on Lucifer, you will know this teaching very well―the tempter, that part of our psychology and divinity that places ordeals and challenges and temptations so that we can overcome them and grow. So this is what it means to fear God’s tricks and ruse, because we face ordeals, but if we don’t comprehend them and eliminate our defects, we end up in more suffering. 3. Seeking God’s Forgiveness
We also must learn to seek God’s forgiveness. Sincere remorse is essential. In meditation it is the crux of how we change, that feeling in the heart that we have made a mistake, and we wish to know how to work on that fault.
4. Actively Respecting the Sunnah (Prophetic Tradition)
And this is how we actively respect the sunnah, a prophetic tradition, the writings of any master or prophet, the life of the prophets, where we see by their examples and spiritual life, like in The Three Mountains by Samael Aun Weor, how to orient our heart when we are troubled.
5. Living in Friendship and Kindness and 6. Compassion Towards All Beings
But also living in kindness and friendship and being compassionate towards all creation. If we want to neutralize selfishness, desire, egocentrism, we must learn to sacrifice for other people. This is what drives us on the path of initiation, how we initiate, how we meditate on what we must change.
Spiritual Acts and Remembrance of God
Lastly, we will talk about spiritual acts and remembrance. Some people think of initiation and the Tree of Life as something abstract, outside of ourselves. But if we wish to really understand meditation, we have to study Kabbalah. We have to understand the symbols and how they apply to what is going on in our life, otherwise we are confused.
I’ll relate to an experience I had many years ago that can elucidate these concepts. I remember that I was meditating very deeply, sometimes hours a day, and I remember falling asleep in my chair in my bedroom. I awoke in the astral plane in my home where I was shown an instructional video. The words “the Path of the Self-realization of the Being” scrolled from left to right in front of my vision or screen. I was next shown a diagram, ten spheres, which are aligned in two rows of five columns, different faces. Mine was at the bottom, far right. I saw figures that I can never forget―different qualities, or different expressions of different faces, or people, which at the time I did not understand. I was never studious about Kabbalah in the beginning, but I was having meditation experiences that I could not explain. I remember seeing, particularly, figures in this diagram, portraits, associated with the Nordic pantheon, such as Wotan, father of the gods, in the far top left, and other faces associated with Germanic mythology. And I remember asking this question of an instructor who directed me to Kabbalah, the Tree of Life. I understood that each portrait or face in that glyph was a symbol of my Being: different faces or aspects of my own inner Truth, levels of initiation. When I understood this symbol, I was relieved, and I had a lot of faith built from my understanding that I was being helped. I just needed the practical knowledge to interpret, and that is why in Kabbalah is essential to meditation, because I was confused. I knew this was from my inner divinity, because of my heart and what my soul was telling me, but when I verified in writing from the books, this reality, it solidified my faith and has helped me to progress through many years of work―to be patient. In this process, we must always go higher, revise our understanding, self-reflect, which is why Al-Qushayri said in Principles of Sufism the following anecdote, “I heard Abu Ali al-Daqqaq say, “When al-Wasiti entered Nishapur, he asked the companions of Abu Uthman [al-Hiri], ‘What did your shaykh use to order you to do?’ They replied, ‘He used to order us to realize the necessity of acts of obedience and to see clearly how we fell short in them.’” ―Al-Qushayri, Al-Risalah: Principles of Sufism So while this pertains to our ethical discipline, of course, there are levels. We emphasize ethics always, but we must not get caught up in concepts, intellectualism, theories which is why: Al-Wasiti exclaimed, ‘He ordered you to sheer fire-worship! Why did he not command you to be absent from these acts in the vision of their Originator and Further?’” ―Al-Qushayri, Al-Risalah: Principles of Sufism Meaning: why did he not teach you to learn how to act selflessly from the Being, to manifest those higher qualities in the vision and remembrance of the Truth? Levels of knowledge. Remember we spoke about Shariah, Tariqah, Marif’ah―ethical discipline, inner work, and the highest realizations. 
Again in that Tree of Life, you can refer to the three trinities of that diagram: above, middle, and below. The top trinity formed by כֶּתֶר Kether, חָכְמָה Chokmah, בִּינָה Binah―the middle trinity: חֶסֶד Chesed, גְּבוּרָה Geburah, תִּפְאֶרֶת Tiphereth, and the bottom trinity: נצח Netzach, הוד Hod, and יְסוֹד Yesod. The three levels of Sufism correspond to the three trinities of Kabbalah: the Tree of Life. The top trinity relates to Marif’ah. The middle trinity relates to Tariqah: the path of the heart, and Shariah refers to the lower trinity, how we work with Netzach, our mind, Hod, our emotions, and Yesod, our energy―levels of knowledge and wisdom.
“Al-Wasiti only intended to safeguard these people against complacency (from being satisfied with their level of development), not to turn aside into realms of negligence (to abandon the ethical practices of our tradition) or to authorize infringement of a single one of the usages of religion.” ―Al-Qushayri, Al-Risalah: Principles of Sufism So remember that the Tree of Life is very intricate. We will approach this glyph systematically to understand how these principles apply to our meditation. Even the terms used in Hebrew relate to the profound development of the consciousness, and so here we introduce these concepts, but we will open up the floor to any questions you may have. Questions and Answers
Question: I was curious, you talked about having a map to know where you are right now, could you talk a little bit more about that?
Instructor: Yes. So, the Tree of Life is precisely the map of our consciousness, and where we are and what we must do. 
So we know from our meditative practice that the lower five spheres of this diagram teaches about the quality of our soul. Malkuth in Hebrew means “Kingdom,” our body. When we meditate, we must learn to calm Malkuth.
We must also learn to relax and to work with our vital forces relating to Yesod, which in Hebrew means “Foundation,” the vital energies. We work with these vital energies through mantra, through prayer, through transmutation, sacred rites of rejuvenation, runes, many exercises that are provided in the writings of Samael Aun Weor. We also learn to calm our emotions, withdraw our emotions from negativities, relating to Hod, the astral body, referring to “Splendor” in Hebrew, the splendor of the heart, the compassion of the heart. As we calm our emotional center, we also let the mind exhaust itself, relating to Netzach, “Victory.” Sometimes Samael Aun Weor mentions how one who conquers his or her mind is victorious, a buddha, and so the mind always wanders from thing to thing, associative thinking. We must learn to control our mind with willpower. We are referring to Tiphereth, which in Hebrew means “Beauty,” the beauty of the soul: profound, intuitive, beautiful action. It does not mean a will that is enmeshed in desire, because in most cases for us, our will is conditioned. We tend to be very weak willed in our studies, especially in the beginning. But through these exercises of meditation, concentration practice, relaxation, pranayama, we learn to fortify our will with divine force. And even when we sit to practice meditation, we can look at this glyph. We can meditate on this diagram and question: where are we in our work? What are we stuck in? Most people do not even get past the physical body. They are always moving their Malkuth. The body, the earth, is always moving. Our inner earth, our body, Malkuth, must always be still when we meditate. Some people work with energy after relaxing the body, work with Yesod. Other times we are caught up with negative emotion relating to Hod, or our mind is too active, chattering, Netzach. And sometimes we need to develop more will, more divine will, action that always serves, submits to divinity, referring to Chesed, the Being, the Innermost in Hebrew, meaning “Mercy.” And the divine soul, Geburah in Hebrew, referring to “Justice,” the mercy and justice of divinity, which always knows how to act in any situation. Of course, to go higher requires work, but in a simple way, this diagram teaches us where we are. And if we learn to really investigate those spheres in the internal dimensions, we can receive even more profound guidance, and be instructed as to what we have to work on. Remember that the science of dream yoga is geared to understanding our own experiences in life. Initiation is our own life, lived intensely, with rectitude and with love. So if we awaken consciousness in those higher regions of nature, we can be shown our level of being, our qualities of mind, our defects that we have to work on, so that when we return to our physical body from sleep, we are charged, we are inspired, because we are receiving the inner guidance of our own inner divinity. So that is a representation of what the stations are, and they can refer to virtues. They can refer to the sephiroth, the Tree of Life. And remember that each sphere of this Kabbalistic glyph refers to qualities of Being and the soul, such as justice and mercy, beauty, victory, splendor, foundations of work relating to energy, and the kingdom that encompasses all of it. So it is a very beautiful diagram that can teach us much. We will go into aspects of this glyph progressively, in this course, in order to relate certain qualities that can help us understand how to work more effectively. Audience: That is great, very helpful, thank you. Instructor: You are welcome. 
The word religion comes from the root religare, which means “to reunite, to bind together.” And real religion is about our own personal journey to reunite with our inner divinity.
The point of this course is to help us to work with our heart when we approach spirituality. So many times, we study a lot of texts and we get caught in the mind and we spend a lot of time accumulating knowledge, but then in our practical life, we are suffering a lot. We are confused. We are having struggles in our relationships or not sure which way we are supposed to go, what direction to take. When we have a connection in our heart to our inner divinity, we can activate a power of conscience, which can guide us. A lot of students, especially in the West, struggle with that, because here, especially in American culture, we are taught that knowledge is approached with the mind. All of us have been in school where we have been forced to memorize a lot of different facts and figures and learn different strategies and formulas, and all of that is in the mind. How often is it that something we have learned really touches us in our heart and really changes the core of who we are? When we talk about cultivating virtue or conquering vice, these are tasks in our spiritual development that we approach with our heart, not just with the mind. In this tradition, we teach that there are three important factors that we use on a daily basis to approach spiritual awakening: The first is death. We say death of the ego. Ego in this sense is one's own self-importance. One's selfish desires that get in the way of our ability to see the truth. So a lot of students in this tradition know the importance of killing one's ego, letting oneself die so that we can be born into who we would like to be, because unless we let go of who we are, we can never become something better, something new. Of course the second factor that we talk about is birth, the birth of the soul. Now, this has levels of meaning on the surface, of course. The birth is what comes after death. When we let go of our ego, what happens next? We don't just become a void. We actually embody virtues. Our soul begins to grow, to breathe, to shine through us, because now it has the space and the energy in our life to be able to develop itself―to not be suffocated by pain and suffering. On a deeper level, which we will discuss a little later in this lecture, birth has to do with sexual regeneration, harnessing one's own creative potential in order to activate their spiritual life. Our creative force is the power of divinity within us, just as divinity has the power to create worlds, you know, all of nature around us. We have the power to create life in our sexual potential, and when we learn to harness that in a divine way, we will be able to awaken our soul―to give birth to the soul within. The third factor is sacrifice for others. Until we do something good for other people, we don't deserve to have anything given back to us. So on this path, we are constantly trying to develop virtues that have the benefit of others in mind. Of course, a common law that people talk about is karma. If you don't have the merits to receive spiritual blessings, then there is nothing that can be given to you to overcome that. If all you do is you go out and hurt people, you are cultivating an energy around yourself that is attracting negative experiences to you. So all of us, we come into spiritual teachings in order approach to truth. We are on the path to truth, right? And we need to cultivate the energy around us that will propel us towards truth and not the energy around us that will propel us into more confusion, more falsehood, and more suffering. In order to do that, we have to sacrifice for others and do the right thing, take ethical action. And yes, you know all world religions teach us a path of ethics: a basic code that we could follow. That is a great starting point, but at the end of the day, we have to truly listen to our heart to be able to know what is the right step to move forward. What is the right thing to do? There are a lot of situations in life that are so particular that we can't just go to the Bible, or go to the Bhagavad-Gita, or go to any scripture and find our exact situation written out there and exactly what we should do. And we feel a lot of pain in those situations, moral pain, because we are not sure what is the right thing to do. Maybe no matter what action we take, somebody gets hurt. Or whatever action we take, we feel like we are not going to be happy with that. Many times, we turn to friends or teachers or different people that we respect and rely upon to find those answers, but our goal in the Gnostic movement is that each person can cultivate within themselves the substance of sincerity: such profound honesty and wisdom within themselves that the confusion passes and that, when they go and they sit down and they enter deep into meditation, to connect with their inner divinity, they know exactly what is the right action to take. Even if it is a difficult action, they feel in their conscience that they know what to do, and that confusion, which is a form of tremendous suffering for us, can lift. Sincerity is so important that it is taught as a practice in the Buddhist tradition that can liberate one from the wheel of suffering. In Buddhism is a concept of recurring rebirths into different realms of suffering. This is taught as the wheel of samsara [or Bhavachakra: The Wheel of Becoming]. Even if one lives a life and suffers terribly after they die, they will be reborn again into another body and have to suffer again. In Buddhism, the ultimate goal is to escape the realms of suffering, to become enlightened, awakened, and free from being caught in this wheel. In a Buddhist scripture called The Questions of the Naga Kings of the Ocean (Sagara-naga-raja-pariprccha), we can find the following passage: Lord of Nagas, a single practice of the Bodhisattvas correctly stops rebirth in the lower realms. What is this single practice? It is the discernment of what is virtuous. You must think, "Am I being true? How am I spending the day and the night?" ―The Questions of the Naga Kings of the Ocean
A bodhisattva is a person just like us who is on the path to truth―who is seeking to become awakened and enlightened―to not just know the truth and the intellect, but to feel the truth in one's heart, to be one with truth. So, it is a very important question to ask ourselves, “Am I being true?” If we are being true, if we have profound honesty with ourselves, then we have the discernment of what is virtuous. We can know, even in a difficult situation, even in a morally gray situation, what is the virtuous action to take. Then we have the freedom to choose if we want to take that action or not.
That is to be truly free, to be free from the confusion which causes us suffering. In a state of confusion, we continue to take actions that lead us into deeper and deeper suffering, more and more problems. But in a state of awakening, a state of profound wisdom, we know which actions will take us out of suffering, and also help others to come out of suffering as well. At the end of the night when one reviews one's day, when one thinks about one’s situation in life, we should ask, “Am I being true? How am I spending the day and the night?” If we say that we want to be spiritual people, we want to be a good person, but all throughout the day we observe in our actions that we are really just looking out for “me, myself, and I,” and we are not trying to be the light that we want to see in the world―that is our starting point. And for most of us, that is where we are at. We begin in a state of realizing that a lot of the times we do things that we regret or that we are not proud of, because we are put in a situation where we are not sure what else we can do. So to be able to be honest with ourselves, that single practice can take us all the way to enlightenment, according to this Buddhist scripture. That single practice of every single day, being continuously honest with ourselves, can help us to find our way out of suffering. But there are two big obstacles in the beginning for people who are really trying to apply the Gnostic methods of birth, death, and sacrifice. The first is a fear of truly seeing ourselves for what we are. 
Observing Our Many Contradictions
An esoteric philosopher was giving these teachings in Russia and his name was Gurdjieff. This was in the early 1900s, and he taught that if a man was to truly see himself for what he is in a given moment, without all the buffers that prevent him from really looking at himself, he would go insane, because of all the contradictions that we carry within. And maybe we realize that in one moment we say we want to do something, and not so long later, another contradicting desire comes out. So how do we know which one is really me? How do we know what is the part of me that I should really follow?
Gurdjieff gives this teaching about being able to observe oneself and also being able to observe reality. He says: Many things are necessary for observing. The first is sincerity with oneself. And this is very difficult. It is much easier to be sincere with a friend. Man is afraid to see something bad, and if, by accident, looking deep down, he sees his own bad, he sees his nothingness. We have the habit of driving away thoughts about ourselves because we fear the gnawings of conscience. ―G.I. Gurdjieff
Many times we are in a situation that is really difficult and we want to focus on the problems with our situation that are blocking us, that are causing us difficulty, that are making us unhappy. We want to focus on the other people that we can blame for our , and it is true that there are many problems with our legal systems, our government, our world, our relationships, and yes, probably everyone has a share in the guilt for the difficulties that we encounter. But at the end of the day, the person that we really have power to change is ourselves, and many times that is the hardest place to look, to place the blame.
It is much easier to say, “Well, I never got anywhere in life because this and this and this,” or “I am unhappy because these people keep doing this to me.” How hard is it to look at ourselves, and see the ways that we are preventing ourselves from having the happiness that we would like, that our own bad actions are producing negative energy in our life, that is affecting everyone around us! So the first barrier is being able to look at ourselves without fear of what we might see there, and to really rest in the knowledge of who we are. Sincerity may be the key which will open the door through which one part can see another part. With sincerity man may look and see something. Sincerity with oneself is very difficult, for a thick crust has grown over essence (which is our soul). Each year a man puts on new clothes, a new mask, again and again. All this should be gradually removed ― one should free oneself, uncover oneself. Until man uncovers himself he cannot see. You must go on trying to be sincere. Each day you put on a mask, and you must take it off little by little. ―G.I. Gurdjieff
So over the years we have developed a self-concept of who we are and “I am this type of person; I like these types of things; I have this type of temperament; these are my characteristics; these are my interests.” And that is the crust that Gurdjieff is talking about. That is such a thin layer of who we are as a living being, and yet, that is the part that we think is who we really are. Sometimes it takes journeying into a new place to see yourself beyond the idea that you have about yourself. It takes going into a new environment to see how you act when all the comfortable things that you are used to are no longer around you. And that is one way to remove our masks.
The other is through meditation. When we watch ourselves throughout the day and we see things that we do and we are like, “I wonder why I did that?” at the end of the day. We teach that you can use a retrospection meditation. Sit down, calm your body, calm your heart, calm your mind. and observe on the screen of your mind with your imagination, the scenes of your day exactly as you experienced them. And as you observe them, you will begin to, without effort, understand something new. I once had an experience where I felt very justified in myself that I was doing the right thing in trying to help other people and other people were angry at me. I felt this was really unfair, because obviously I was trying to help them, so I felt that my actions didn't deserve to be repaid with cruelty. And yet when I sat down in meditation and really calmed myself, and then recalled the images of my day, I saw it from their perspective―and it changed me on such a profound level that I had to stop doing the behaviors I was doing, which I was justifying by saying, “Well, I am right!” And instead, I had to realize that I was doing things that were creating suffering for other people. That is the level of sincerity that we are seeking in our spiritual work. It is not enough for us to just put on a mask and say, “Oh, I am a really nice person!” but then behind the mask we are thinking negative thoughts all the time, having a lot of anger and resentment, a lot of envy―but we are trying our best to be a good friend. We want to really be that genuinely good person―to be so since are in a world which is radically insincere. We want to be the light that can wake people up from a negative state of mind, but it is very hard, and the first step is being able to be sincere. So that is why today we are talking about the barriers to being sincere. 
Prayer and the Divine Mother
The first is, many times when we encounter something painful in ourselves, we don't want to look at it. We say, “Okay, well you know, that's enough meditation. I have got to go off and do something else,” and distract ourselves from it. But if we really want to change our state of suffering, we have to look exactly in the place that our heart is telling us is causing our suffering.
One technique that we use in Gnosis is practiced with our Divine Mother, the divine feminine, which is the embodiment of love and virtue. She has a lot of power, a lot of insight. So, many times in prayer, I have gone and have offered myself and my situation to my Divine Mother and said, “I am lost! I don't know what is going on here. I am suffering so much, and I need the clarity to be able to get out of the situation.” Prayer can be really powerful and have very powerful effects, but we have to approach prayer with sincerity, and remember that our prayer in our spiritual life is not about what other people think about us. It is about our genuine experience, our genuine openness with divinity. In many areas of life, we have to put on a performance, or at least we feel that way. We have to be a certain person. When we go before God in our own heart, whatever that divinity looks like to us, that is where that performance can be put aside, and we can finally be our true selves. Maybe see a part of our self that we don't let ourselves see when we are out in the world, when we are busy, when other people are watching. And that is the power of honesty with oneself and sincerity. That is why it is so essential that, if we don't have that as our basis, spiritually speaking, we might learn a lot of things, we might learn to act a certain way, but in our heart we are not going to fundamentally change. We are not going to have those results that we really, desperately want. Revelations and Self-Transformation through Ordeals
The second obstacle to sincerity is not wanting to hear and listen when other people and situations show us who we really are.
In our daily experiences, just as I have described, we have many situations where we blame the situation, we blame other people, and we don't turn our introspection back on ourselves and say, “What is it? What is going on with me in this situation? What have I not ever seen about myself before that this situation can show me?” People might criticize us. They might really see something about ourselves, but because of our own ego, we want to defend ourselves. We want to say “That person doesn't know anything! Look what they are doing wrong!” and we don't change, because we are not taking a different perspective on situations and on feedback that will actually help us to develop ourselves. If somebody criticizes you and they are right, they have given you such a great gift because now you have the power to see something that you didn't understand about yourself before, and to change. Gurdjieff goes on to say: People do not understand that sincerity must be learned. They imagine that to be sincere or not to be sincere depends upon their desire or decision. But how can a man be sincere with himself when in actual fact he sincerely does not see what he ought to see in himself? Someone has to show it to him. And his attitude towards the person who shows him must be a right one, that is, such as will help him to see what is shown him and not, as often happens, hinder him if he begins to think that he already knows better. ―G.I. Gurdjieff
In both of these quotations, Gurdjieff is pointing out to us that the biggest obstacle is that we already think we know who we are. We already think “I have got myself figured out.” And so if other people try to give us feedback that is contrary to our idea about ourselves, we get offended, we get upset, and we want to run away from that revelation.
If situations seem to turn out in such a way that seems unfair to us, we don't want to look at if the situation is actually what we deserve to be experiencing. We don't want to examine it in that way. We have to have a different attitude towards life, to be sincere. We have to have an approach to life that lets us take feedback, take situations that are difficult, and transform them. 
In the East, the lotus is the symbol of such self-transformation. The lotus is a beautiful flower that grows from the mud, from muck. For a lot of us, our situation in life feels pretty murky. It feels like we are dealing with a lot of painful, ugly things that are going on, different situations. We see it on the news all the time. So how do we take the muck of our situation and use it to nourish the seat of our soul so that we can grow? We can become something beautiful like this lotus, rather than just letting ourselves die in the midst of that.
The Substance, Energy, and Force of Sincerity
Samael Aun Weor is the founder of the Gnostic tradition, and he taught that:
We must cultivate sincerity, because the most beautiful flowers of the Spirit germinate within the substance of sincerity. ―Samael Aun Weor, Igneous Rose
Sincerity is a substance. It is a living thing. It is something we have to cultivate―by creating that space that I just described, where you actually take off the mask and you go before divinity, and you bare your whole heart. You look at yourself and your life situations as they really are, with all of your courage, without running away. That is how you begin to give your soul the space it needs to really grow―to see itself―to experience new perspectives.
A lot of times we go through our days thinking the same things, feeling the same things, doing the same things―on repeat. We never get a chance to think anything new, experience something new, to see ourselves from a different perspective. So we have to create an environment in our lives, whether that is through our meditation practice, or through sincere relationships with friends or family, or the people closest to us, in which we have the space to grow and see things in new ways. Because it is from that substance that radical honesty, that beautiful virtues of our soul can grow, that our spirit can really shine, and will see potential in ourselves that we never thought possible. We can talk about prophets or masters, you know, like Buddha, Muhammad, Moses, Jesus―all those people were people just like you and me, physically speaking, but they worked so hard―whether in their current lifetimes or in previous lifetimes, to develop a closeness with divine truth, with a penetrating love and wisdom of the universe―that they were radically changed. They were able to achieve feats that most of us deem miraculous. All of us have that divine potential within us. In Buddhism it is called the “seed of Buddha-nature” that we can develop, but we have to create a space with which we can do it. If a person says that they are after enlightenment and after truth, but they spend their days lying to people, deceiving people, keeping a lot of secrets out of a sense of defending oneself, one's own idea of oneself, how can they become one with truth? If we spend our time saying lies to people, we create a disequilibrium in own mind at heart and body that affects the people around us and that affects us. It prevents us from being in harmony with the true nature of reality. Sexual Energy: The Power of Truth
Now, another esoteric truth, as I mentioned, is the factor of birth. When we really want to get into the deepest mysteries of truth, we have to be working with the practice of sexual transmutation.
In Gnosis, we know that this practice involves taking one's sexual and creative energy, and using it with purity, whether individually or in marriage with one's spouse, to be able to harness that energy without losing it, and transmute it up to the brain. And when we do that, that energy can awaken all of the centers of our body. It can regenerate us and can help us to really perceive something mysterious within ourselves and within the universe. An old, ancient gospel from the Gnostic tradition is the Gnostic Gospel of Philip, and the author of this gospel wrote something that seems perhaps a little enigmatic on the surface, but I am going to break it apart from the esoteric perspective. It is written in this gospel that: The Word says, "If you know the truth, the truth will make you free.” ―Gospel of Phillip
We have heard this in the Bible. Jesus was the one who said that the truth will make us free. Jesus is an incarnation of Christ, a universal force of wisdom, truth, and compassion. And he is saying that if we know the truth, and not just know it on an intellectual level, but really become one with that truth, we are free.
All those situations of confusion and suffering that I talked about: feeling stuck, and “Like we don't really have the power to change our situation and to get out of it,” if we knew the truth, the truth as a principle, a metaphysical principle beyond any one person, then we would know what is the right path to take. What is important to point out there is that the truth is not something that we can know in one moment and hold in our intellect and then continue to talk about again and again and again. The truth is dynamic. It is deep. It changes in each moment. It changes in each one of us. So, we have to have the openness in the sincerity to say, “Even though I understand this aspect about the truth, there is a lot more that I don't understand. There is a lot more that might be related to this aspect of the truth that I can’t understand”―to keep approaching ourselves, our life, our experience, and divinity with that openness, so that we can truly understand more and more, and not foreclose ourselves early. The verse from the Gospel of Phillip goes on: Ignorance is a slave, knowledge is freedom. If we know the truth, we shall find the fruit of truth within us. If we join with it, it will bring us fulfillment. ―Gospel of Phillip
When we talk about truth as a substance, the substance of sincerity, this is deeply related with our sexual force, our creative energy. Our creative energy is where we define ourselves.
We all know that in an act of sex, we can create a new life. We can radically change our life forever. And in many other ways, sexual actions have tremendous repercussions, whether they can be traumatic, or whether they can be great. So, we have to use this force with sincerity. We have to use this force to our advantage and not become enslaved by it―because, when we are joining with the purity of our own sexual force, we can find a fulfillment that is beyond anything physical. The Gospel of Philip goes on: At present we encounter the visible things of creation, and we say that they are mighty and worthy and the hidden things are weak and insignificant. It is not so with the visible things of truth. They are weak and insignificant, but the hidden things are mighty and worthy. ―Gospel of Phillip
We spend a lot of time working on our physical identity, our physical life. We don't spend quite as much time working on our soul, even though this is the part of us that we believe to be eternal, that we believe to go on after death.
So, many times there are students that really work with these practices. They finally reach the point where they say, “My spiritual life is something that I want to take seriously. I want to become one with truth. I want to apply these practices.” A barrier that they encounter is that they become caught up in the physical changes that take place. When we are working with sexual transmutation, for example, whether as a single person using pranayamas, or as a married person practicing sexual alchemy, we are going to experience changes on all levels. But the physical changes, the energetic feelings that we might have, are the very bottom portion of who we are. The really powerful changes are what are happening on the higher levels of the consciousness and the psyche. Those are what are described here as the hidden things which are mighty and worthy. A lot of times we'll have students ask us, “What do these feelings mean if I am feeling a sensation in my spine or my third eye? Does this mean that I am awakened?” Physical sensations come and go in this work, and we shouldn't let them become obstacles for us. We shouldn't get scared of them. We should accept them. Let them be and understand that with time, we will see the changes in our lives and in the people around us that are really going to be the mighty fruits of the truth that we will find within us. 
Sexual Alchemy: The Path to Truth
Finally, the Gospel of Philip goes on to say, that those of us who are really working with this practice will discover a very powerful force for radical change within ourselves. If we have been working, under the premise that we have been doing sexual transmutation, meditation, sacrificing for others, trying to become more awakened, the Gospel of Philip says:
Perfect things have opened to us, and hidden things of truth. The Holy of Holies was revealed, and the bedchamber invited us in. ―Gospel of Phillip
The Holy of Holies being our sexual alchemy, our sexual work, through which we become purified, we become new, we become born again through sexual transmutation, which is talked about in depth in The Perfect Matrimony by Samael Aun Weor. The bedchamber is the way that we can enter into that, not just know about it as a concept, but truly transform ourselves in our deepest substance, through our creative force―to become something new―to transform.
Now, this next part of the Gospel of Philip, which is what I am going to finish with, is talking about many levels of truth. So yes, it has some relevance to our experience on this planet and in relation to other people, but the deepest significance of it that I want to talk about here today, has to do with our psychological change. We have been talking about ego, being sincere, countering all these things within ourselves. So when we truly see something in ourselves, we finally get that space of sincerity. Maybe we are crying in meditation because we really touched on the point that is hurting us, that is causing our suffering. How do we change it? How do we become something new? How do we kill what is false in us? What is creating pain for us? What is a lie that we have based our life off of and how do we give birth to something new―something that genuinely springs from our center, from the core of who we are, our essence? He talks about the seed of the Holy Spirit. The seed of the Holy Spirit relates to that creative potential, our seed. And he says that: As long as the seed of the Holy Spirit is hidden, wickedness is ineffective, though it is not yet removed from the midst of the seed, and they are still enslaved to evil. ―Gospel of Phillip
Within ourselves, if the sexual potential is utilized [by the Essence], our wickedness will be ineffective, meaning that there is not a lot of power to drive it.
In fact, we can think about times when our sexual energy, our sexual impulse was triggered by ego, by desire, and the lengths that we went through to try to get what we desired. Sexual energy has a tremendous power, and if we do not unlock this power, then in one sense, we become ineffective. We become unable to produce the changes that we would like to see, whether for good or for evil―whether we would like to see people hurt, or whether we ourselves would like to see the benefit of others, and the benefit of ourselves. We have to tap into the sexual energy. In this school, we teach only white tantra, which is working in a way that benefits others. We don't teach black tantra, which is working with sexual energy for one's selfish aims at the expense of others, and ultimately causes the suffering even for the one who is using it. That is why this Gospel of Philip, which was for initiates back in early, early times, they―who knew the secret, who knew about the bedchamber, inviting them into the mysteries of divinity―they would work with this power to change themselves. They would elevate what is good in themselves, and destroy what is false in one's self. That is why the Gospel of Philip goes on to say: But when the seed is revealed, then perfect light will shine on everyone, and all who are in the light will receive the chrism. ―Gospel of Phillip
This means the anointing with the blessed oil, or for our purposes in esoteric significance: the chrism is the sexual energy, the semen, or the sexual fluids of a woman, the chrism, with which we raise to the brain, to the mind, to anoint the head.
The Gospel of Philip says: Then slaves will be freed and captives ransomed. "Every plant that my father in heaven has not planted will be pulled out." What is separated will be united, what is empty will be filled. ―Gospel of Phillip
As I mentioned, yes, this has some significance to people in the world, but most importantly for our purposes, it has significance for us. Within us, there is a multiplicity of identities. Some of them want what is good for others, other parts of us want to hurt other people, want to make other people suffer, because we are suffering.
When we transmute our sexual energy, when we reveal that light through a revelation in our spiritual practice, practically doing it, not thinking about it, but really doing the practices, then this light emerges in our soul, which shines on all the different parts of ourselves, and we become anointed. We become blessed with the light of the Holy Spirit. Many religions, especially I think Pentecostalism, is a popular one nowadays, talk about being blessed with the gifts of the Holy Spirit: being able to speak in tongues or heal the sick or perform miracles. But the practical significance for us as beginners in this spiritual work, is that we can heal what is sick in us. There are parts of our heart, parts of our mind, that are sick, that are diseased, that are dying and suffering terribly, and using the sexual energy can regenerate us. It can awaken us. It can give us access to the light of divinity, the knowledge of divinity, and truly, the power of divinity. So, what is a slave in us will be freed. What is captive in us will be ransomed. Sometimes we feel compelled by a desire to do something that we know is harmful, that we know hurts others, and as much as we try to overcome our addictions, we don't feel like we have the power, but this power gives us the chance to do that. And that is why whatever is planted in us that is not planted by our inner Father, our inner divinity, can be pulled out, can be taken out of us and we can be purified and born again. We are separated from our inner divinity. As I said at the beginning of this lecture, that religion is to reunite with the part of ourselves that we are searching for, that we are longing to know the truth, as a principle that exists within us. Through sexual transmutation, through ethics, through purity, through working on our mind, through awakening our heart, we can be reunited to God within ourselves, and we can be filled with the light of our divinity and no longer feel that emptiness. Questions and Answers
Question: We talk about students who in this type of studies are really struggling with a problem. It could be an addiction or desire, a behavior that they want to seriously change. On the surface, we have this examination of our life, but we feel we don't want to do certain things that are causing suffering, not only for ourselves but for other people. We may find that we know intellectually that doing this and this is wrong, and yet we continue to do it. Okay. So the question is, especially for online students to is, how do you help, with the tools that we teach here, the student to reconcile that conflict?
Instructor: Yeah, because this is a hard path, and especially with the sexual aspect of these teachings, a lot of students say, “Well, I feel that my sexual energy is precious and valuable and I want to use that, I want to conserve that, and I want to work with it through transmutation, but I am struggling because everything in society is telling me other different messages―and how do I overcome that?” So, it takes a really profound sincerity in oneself. Like I mentioned before, the first step is going into meditation, bearing your heart―whether it is to a divine feminine, divine masculine―it doesn't matter. It can be just a gender-less feeling in your heart of, “this intelligence that loves me and wants what is best for me, that I can put my trust in, that I can give my heart to” and say, “I am suffering. This is really what I want. But I have a lot of other pieces in me, whether it is fear, whether it is desire, whether it is envy that are working against me achieving my goal of becoming free” from whatever this addiction might be. In that case, with that sincerity, we start at the beginning. Without the sexual energy, without that transmutation, it is going to be very hard to actually make a lasting change, because if we are being honest in our heart, we are being honest in our words and our deeds, and we are trying our best to be sincere about our spiritual work, but then with our creative energy, we are working completely against that. We are dividing ourselves in that way. We are not being integrally whole with all parts of who we are. Question: Talk too about, even the term virtue etymologically refers to “virile, virility.” How does that virility, that energy, give a practitioner in meditation strength? Instructor: When we harness our energy, it is the substance of our virtue. Our sexual energy as you mentioned, virtue, has the same etymological root as virile, virgin. “Vir” has to do with sexuality, so by harnessing that, we can begin to give birth to those beautiful flowers of the spirit, the virtues of our soul. And that comes from being honest with ourselves and in our actions and in our deeds sexually, physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually. Question: I had thought that while you are going through the path of righteousness and truth, of course you might say it's easier if you have a partner, a friend, friends, and a community. Because then you can sit down and identify and talk about the particular struggles you are having, and for a lack of a better way of saying it, you can plan a strategy of how you want to deal with it and support one another. If you are going through it alone, it is very conflicting. Sometimes you may make a bad decision just out of anxiety, so I have thought of that and never really had that but I always thought that if I had a partner or some friends who understood and who also were truth seekers or community, that we could say, ok we know this exists: How are we going to plan to go through this and survive and have the warmth and light out of life? I think that is missing a lot of times. Instructor: In some cases that can be helpful, definitely. Especially in our physical life, to have people around us who support us in the lifestyle we want to live. If we are trying to, for example, be sober, giving up drinking in a culture where drinking abounds, but then we have a group of people that is like us, trying to be sober, that is going to create an environment that is much more conducive. But, that can also be a barrier, because if I can just go to, you know, my elder and ask him for all the advice, and I myself don't have to develop within a reliance on my own inner divinity, that can become an obstacle. In fact, are you familiar with Tarot at all? Tarot, like tarot readings? [Editor’s Note: see The Eternal Tarot] Comment: Oh yes. 
Instructor: So, they are, esoterically speaking, can represent different principles of reality and the Arcanum Nine of the Tarot is the Hermit, is initiation. It is representing for us, in a symbolic way, that ultimately our spiritual work is done alone, even if we are in an environment with a lot of friends who are into spirituality, and where we can put on the show around our friends. But when it comes down to our heart, we have to do that work inside, and nobody knows and nobody sees that but God, you know?
Why do we as instructors keep our identities private? It is because our true path to truth is lived privately. It is within each one of us. It is not about anybody else, anybody else's opinion. Sometimes people are in spiritual groups, they are saying, “Well, everybody is doing this and saying this is good, so I have to do it” and they themselves, by just going along with the flow, aren't really evaluating, “Is this a good thing?' Put them in a different group and they might do the exact opposite. Another Instructor: In Buddhism, they talk a lot about the three jewels. The Buddha or the teacher, the Dharma or the teaching, and the Sangha, or the school, community. Community is important. It is good to meet with people and to talk about, especially in our organization, we have retreats and activities that involve people to talk about these kinds of things, which are very contrary to the current of our culture and humanity. So, it is good to meet with people who are sincere. When people are practicing by themselves , and developing themselves with the methods we are providing here, that aura of sincerity, that of sincerity becomes strengthened. But of course, as we were discussing, if a group is based off of fanaticism and fear and cultural norms or group norms, when the practitioners are not being sincere in themselves, that is where you have dogma, institutionalization, problems. Question: And one thing we could also ask is when we are cultivating this serenity or this sincerity, how does one know that their prayers or their efforts are going to be answered? Because sometimes you feel that we are being very sincere with our efforts of practice, and we pray and meditate, but we don't get the answer immediately, and that often can create a friction in us where, “This is not working. Because I am trying this this and this. I am following formulas in meditation: ‘process a, b, and c.’ I am trying these practices that we are doing as a group or individually, and I am not getting the results that I want.” So this is something that students often ask us is, well, how does one know whether we are really being effective or not? And how do we tie that into sincerity, being honest with where we are at? Instructor: You know by the fruits. If you notice a change in yourself and a change in your life that is really lasting, and you know that you are approaching it in the right way. If you just feel like you're stuck and you are encountering the same problem again, and again, and as much as you are trying to change yourself and nothing is changing, then you need to go back to the beginning and work on understanding that situation―really putting your all into understanding: why does the situation keep repeating in different ways of my life? What is it that I am doing that is reproducing this situation? You can do that through retrospective meditation and, like I said, you know, working with sincere prayer and meditation to see something new in yourself. Question: Can we get to talk a little bit about the actual process by which, and the procedure by which, we develop sincerity, because the beginning of meditation we know is, our posture, relaxing our body, relaxing our mind―letting go of the residue of the day: tensions and anxieties―and developing a state of equanimity. But in order to be really sincere, maybe you can comment on this, is, once we have that serenity developed and are no longer pushed around by lying, how does one go into the mind to work on a specific defect so that through comprehension, you can eliminate it? Instructor: The first obstacle is actually getting relaxed enough physically, emotionally, and mentally, that your mind calms down, that you can focus your attention on one point without becoming distracted. If we have achieved that, then the next point is to be able to go into the place that hurts. So in the quote that we talked about, people are afraid to look at themselves. If you have achieved that stability of mind and you can actually look at the area of your life that is causing you pain, you have to be able to hold your attention there, and really look at it, and not just one day, but working on it day after day. Sometimes the insight will come not in meditation, but it will come in a dream. It will come later on when you are cooking, and you are not even thinking about it. So, the approach, if you find a place that really touches in your heart, then you know, this is what I have got to be looking at. It is not something in the mind, “Oh, is this what is important or is that what is important?” and not only weighing it on an intellectual level, but really feeling with our heart. What is it that is hurting me here? What is it that is hurting me most? Why am I suffering and going in that direction? Question: When meditating, I have seen some people laying on the ground, does it matter which position you take? I like to meditate laying down. Instructor: Me too. The important thing with meditation postures―we can try all different kinds of asanas or postures―but what is really important is you have a position where one: you are comfortable enough that you can actually relax, and two: you are not so comfortable that you fall asleep. If you have a position, if you are the type of person who can lay down and you can still stay awake and keep your mind concentrated, but that is what helps you to relax, then go for it. Yeah, you don't need to sit up or sit in a chair or lotus posture or anything like that. Another Instructor: More importantly what is essential for medical practices is having a posture that we can relax fully but without losing the thread or practice, and this is where sincerity becomes so essential, primarily because if we are meditating and for 30 minutes we are daydreaming, remembering what happened in the day, following a chain of associative thinking, memories, being overwhelmed by emotions, and then suddenly you remember, “I was supposed to be meditating!" or we fall asleep and we lose our attention―that means that we weren't meditating for those 30 minutes. This is why it is important to be sincere about practice because, we talk with a lot of students, where people are going through certain problems and are trying to resolve conflicts in their life through meditation, but the way that they approach it is an issue. We focus on an event in the day and try to really visualize and to understand what defects or behaviors we engaged in, in that moment. When students concentrate, when you are meditating in that way, you visualize an event in the day, you recall the thoughts and the feelings and the impulses to act in that specific moment. Question: How does one work against the mind and comprehend that particular situation, and also be seen in the context of being sincere, not trying to change what happened? They say “Oh well, I think this is what happened…” but instead to really look at the facts. So how does one go about that process of that practice of retrospection? Instructor: Well that has to do with our stability of mind. Our stability of mind is dependent upon what we are doing throughout the day. So, if somebody is changing things, egotistically going through, then they don't have enough control over their attention. That is something that we have to be really relaxed, emotionally relaxed. So taking a deep breath if we are feeling overwhelmed, or if our mind is getting distracted with other thoughts, going back to the beginning, working on that again and again, and every meditation is going to help us over time to achieve the technique that we need. But what is really important―a lot of schools might focus on asana, your postures, different mudras, different mantras―those can be great and those can help, but really the focus that we have is much deeper than that. We are looking to achieve a change on a spiritual level that is within the body, but it is also beyond the body. If we have a posture in which we can sit comfortably, we have a state of mind in which we can concentrate to a fair degree, then we have enough to begin doing a deeper work. As we do that deeper work and we change on a deeper level, we might realize, “Okay, I need to adjust my posture” or we might have better control with our mind, but ultimately if we have just enough to get started on the deeper work, then we shouldn't get fixated on physically, “How am I sitting? What different energies am I feeling in my body?” Those can be great. Sometimes they are pleasant. Sometimes they are not. Just experience them as they are. Let them be, but the intention at least with the Gnostic path is to become one with truth, and you don't become one with truth by sitting in a certain posture. I mean, we have had people sitting in those postures for thousands of years and yet, our planet is still the way that it is today. So, what is really important is going deep within yourself. If people are on a path and they want to learn about awakening different energies, there are a lot of techniques you can do. The techniques in our tradition also awaken energies, but it is not for the sole sake of awakening those energies. It is for a deeper purpose. Question: Talk about comprehension, because once we have that foundation and serenity where we can actually focus on a problem of the day, or a defect we saw in our self-observation that we want to work on: how does one go about comprehending those elements and removing them? Because some people, they go into retrospection and they will reflect on what they saw in the day, but we get caught up in being angry again, or being resentful, being proud, being fearful and not being able to separate from that. So again, we talked about the serenity for being able to see that, but not how we could identify with it. Being serene is one thing. It is the beginning. But the real work is being able to perceive those particular defects or egos, and how do we go about comprehending them? Instructor: You are saying for someone who already has stability of mind and is able to observe something in themselves without becoming identified with it how do they develop comprehension? Audience: Yes, on a deeper level. We get that question where they say, “I am seeing that I have anger, that I have lust, that I have fear, that I have all these things; and I know I have these faults, but I am not changing fundamentally.” One thing is to know it intellectually, “I have this” or they will say “I have anger and I shouldn't have done that.” Instructor: So do we really feel it in the heart? Samael Aun Weor writes, comprehension comes through the heart. When we are observing something, have we meditated on it from the other person's point of view? Maybe we see it more like “Yeah, I shouldn't have done that wrong.” But have we really contemplated how we might have affected or hurt the other person? Many times, taking the perspective of others, being empathetic, can really trigger our own remorse. Remorse can be a virtue. Guilt is not a virtue. Guilt can just create, you know, more baggage for us. We don't want to be beating ourselves up necessarily, but feeling genuine remorse of “I want to change in our heart” is the beginning of comprehension. Sometimes we don't comprehend it right there in our meditation session. But if we are really, sincerely working, an opportunity, another experience will come that can teach us another deeper level about that defect that we want to work on. We have to just keep at it with persistence. Consistency is really the key. Tenacity and consistency: to be able to continually work on a defect in different levels. We might understand it on a superficial level, intellectually, “Yeah, that is wrong, that hurt somebody,” but to go deeper into it with our heart, to awaken our heart is really the key to changing, because when somebody really feels it in their heart like, “Oh man, I messed up. I wish I hadn't done that!” That is when we can really change. We have practices and mantras like the mantra, 'O' that works specifically with awakening the heart, and if we feel like our heart is cold and we are stuck in our mind all the time, we can work with that. If we feel like our heart is suffering too much and we are overwhelmed by emotional pain, we have the practice with the Magic of the Roses to help us heal our emotional pain. If we are feeling way too overwhelmed by a topic, then maybe we need to take a break from it. You know, there are extremes. We got to be in balance. You don't want to go so much into something where you are overwhelmed and then you can't function in the rest of your life. This balance depends on you knowing yourself well enough to know, “Am I too intellectual? In which case I need to be working more with my heart,” or “Am I too emotional? In which case I really need to work with calming down―you know, getting serene, being able to back off emotionally so that my heart calms down enough that I am not in confusion.” Sometimes the best thing to do is to be patient and to wait, because as long as we are funneling more energy into the situation, we are probably creating more problems. If we stop funneling our energy into the situation, we relax. We just let it be what it is. People are saying bad things about me, whatever. Whatever the problem is, just let it be what it is. Sometimes people get distracted and they start talking about somebody else instead and it just disappears. But if you keep funneling energy into it, it is going to get worse and so with patience, with stepping back, we can calm down enough that maybe the correct action that we should be taking will emerge for us. But, if we are just throwing more energy into the problem, we are creating disequilibrium in our mind and heart and in our situation. Question: What about meditating on virtue? As oftentimes, in this work, we can see a lot of things we don't like. Oftentimes, many students and even instructors will face certain conflicts in their daily life that provoke very subconscious tendencies that are very ugly. And what does it mean to meditate on the virtues and how can it help anyone practicing meditation to not become morbid. Instructor: That is actually going to be another part of this course, is not being overcome by despair. Question: (paraphrasing) I recently started to realize... getting certain dimensions and being out of the third dimension and into the fifth dimension and being in higher dimensions, but the more that you see into that dimension, the more sad it can get because you see, you start to see people for who they are... You start to feed off people's energy and it can affect you if you are not careful, but you are also stuck like… What do I do or, when you are around your environment and stuff? Instructor: It is a very real challenge that as you begin to wake up, you are realizing all these beautiful truths and virtues and also look at the reality of, you know, what is inside of people― what is inside of me―which is ugly. What is inside of other people which can be pretty ugly too. Yeah. Absolutely! So I will answer both of these. So the first question, it can be very beneficial if we see something in ourselves, that is really negative, to meditate on what is the antidote to this, because just as we carry a lot of ugly things within ourselves, we also carry beautiful things within ourselves. The proportion at which we express them might be different, but we can just as easily be generous as we can be greedy. And so, for those of us who think we’re saints, we have got to be aware that we have a dark side that is just as easily activated. And for those who become overwhelmed and become morbid about their negative attributes, they should sit and meditate on what would be the right thing to do in this situation. To go and do that is liberating in itself―to see that you have the power to do something virtuous that you think is the opposite. So we are trying to work with duality to create a unity. It doesn't have to be either good or bad. In fact, those terms aren't really useful for the purposes of your direct lived experience. Your experience is what it is. So if you see something that you find repulsive, go and apply something that you think is beautiful to it, and create a unity there, create something that is balanced. In terms of what you are talking about, that as we awaken and we become more aware of what is around us, we see how those energies can affect us, especially if we have a more open kind of psychological state of being. We have a lot of practices to protect ourselves [see The Divine Science by Samael Aun Weor]. These aren't practices that hurt other people. They are just strictly to create a space around myself that is protected, to cultivate a space within which my energy can radiate outwards and help other people, but I don't become drained by them. So one important thing is, if there is somebody really toxic, as much as you might want to help them, you might need to help them from a distance, because becoming ingrained in a “like best friendship,” with somebody who is really toxic, you are mingling your energy with them on a regular basis, and you know, we take on the color of the people that we are around, and it can really drain us. You might lift them up a little bit, but at what cost to the other people in your life who need you? I mean loving people from a distance. There are some books too. We can give you a book for free so that you can learn about protecting yourself in those situations and to not be discouraged by the state of the world. It can be really difficult. But we also see really beautiful things in ourselves. We see beautiful things that people are capable of, like you were describing, other places, other parts of the world where there are beautiful things. It doesn't mean any place is free of problems, but every place and every person has some good in them, and we have to be encouraged that if we are doing our part with creating beauty in ourselves, creating that light, that you know, other people are capable of the same. If they choose to do that, they are capable of it. We have to hold on to the hope that, you know, other people are doing the best that they can to try to live happy lives, and if people are really creating problems for themselves and struggling, you know, that is their free will and we have to respect that. We have to do what we need to do to protect ourselves, but you know, at any point in life, people can change and I know that because, I went in a certain direction in life, and at a certain point, I had had enough with what I was doing, and was able to change. So I have hope for other people because of what I have lived through, and then, when I become overwhelmed with some of the things that I see, people close to me really suffering, I just have hope that if they want to, that opportunity will come for them. 
The reason why many people approach spirituality often comes from the results of organized religion. We often find in popular institutions teachings that, while they resonate with our heart, they are lacking something critical, something profound, and something fulfilling. It might seem unusual that the very thing missing in organized religion is an understanding of sexuality.
People often, on the news and on television, show the results of monastic life, such as in the Catholic Church, which profoundly ignores how sexuality can be used for a divine purpose. In organized religion, they do not know how to utilize the natural expression of the human being, because sexuality is a part of life, and despite what people think, sexuality is also a part of religion, in a genuine sense, not from an institutional dogma. The reason why there are cases of abuse, violence, is because priests do not understand how sexuality should be used and understood, and not repressed. People look at sexuality as something filthy, something perverse, or something to gratify the pleasures of a couple. There are extremes in our culture. In religion, we are taught to reject sex, which has its problems, because as you have seen with institutionalization and the rejection of sexuality, that quality of the human being has to be controlled or understood or worked with, and when people try to repress sexuality, it ends up in forms of perversion, such as molestation of children, deviant sexuality, abuse and degeneration. But we have this other extreme in our culture, where in America, or all throughout the world, people feel that we should indulge in sex. We should acquire as many sensations as we can, pleasant experiences, relationships, and yet, we look at the results in humanity: divorce, suffering, marital conflicts, pain. So it is very clear that when we look at society, people and religion do not understand what the role of sexuality is, from a spiritual perspective, from a divine perspective. Some people think that sexuality is simply a means to procreate, to create children. That is a very noble aspiration, to be a father or a mother, to have a family, but, we do state that that is not the entire gamut of what sexuality is. To procreate the species, that is one part. People don't really understand that sexual expression, as the natural birth right of the human being, can be something divine, heavenly, sacred: not from the Christian perspective, that we are going to use this act as something to create a child, to create a family, but there is another purpose that has been taught in all the ancient schools of religion and mysteries that, unfortunately, have been gutted out, removed―primarily because people face a difficult problem when addressing this issue of sexuality. Sexuality in itself, the creative energy itself, has marvelous potential. It can empower our most divine attributes. It can ennoble the soul, our most divine qualities, because the sexual energy is the ability to create. It always acts. It always has to move, to flow, to work. But the question is how? In what way do we use this energy which resides in our glands, whether male, female? Unfortunately because people have not been educated, we think that sexuality is simply indulging in desire, pornography, prostitution, adultery, and our society worships these qualities and believes that you can indulge in all these actions and think that there are no consequences. But you see the result of what happens to people, the life of prostitutes or adultery. Sexual action is the most profound action a human being can perform. If we push it away, it churns in the subconsciousness and becomes desire that is never satiated, and then it becomes a monster, which is why priests who don't understand how to consciously work with this energy in a divine way―with practices, with exercises, to transform that energy into something creative, into something expressive―that energy then ferments. It rots. It becomes putrid. This is why you see priests committing such horrible crimes against young people. It is really disastrous. So we have to look beyond just the beliefs about what our culture wants us to think. It is better if we can analyze and investigate what this energy is, and the purpose of this lecture is to talk about how the creative energy, in itself, has the potential to develop our spirituality, our true nature, which is the soul. Consciousness and Desire
You might have listened in to previous lectures. We talked a lot about the soul, consciousness, our true nature. Sometimes people think of Buddha nature in Buddhism. It is the pure element of consciousness that can reflect divinity, who is inside, in our hearts and our very qualities of being, qualities like compassion, happiness, serenity, faith, understanding, patience, love.
These are qualities that we have deep down, but unfortunately we have mixed it with impurities: anger, hatred, lust, envy, greed, which religion calls the seven deadly sins. Every tradition has its names for what we call ego, defects, desires. And all that, according to a real meditative tradition, has to be removed. All those negative qualities have to be eliminated. But first we have to comprehend them, understand how our own anger makes us suffer and makes other people suffer, how our own pride injures our neighbor and ourselves at the same time. We don't really understand how our own egotism creates problems for ourselves, and because people do not understand how to work with the mind in an effective way, they take the most powerful energy available to them―the sexual energy―and they channel it through anger, through violence, through perversity. This is how you have all the monsters of today that are very abundant. 
Divine Eroticism and Awakening
So this is a very serious topic and we'll talk about how the soul, known as Psyche in the Greek myth, can be awakened to her true nature through Eros. Eros is the god of love, Cupid, in the Greek myth, which is a symbol. It teaches how our own divine spiritual nature, how through divine love, a divine marriage, the force of Eros, eroticism, awakens our full potential, which is pure, divine.
Different traditions symbolize that work in many ways, but of course, in this lecture we will be very explicit about what these traditions are. You may have heard of alchemy in the Middle East or medieval Europe, Middle Ages. They talk a lot about how we must transform lead into gold. But of course, that is symbolic. It teaches something spiritual, and even psychological. Our egotism, our defects are like lead. They weigh us down. But if we learn to work with energy, the creative sexual energy and learn to direct it with our consciousness, our soul, that energy is going to empower us radically, and with that force we can transmute, transform, elevate, make our egotistical consciousness become a divine consciousness―lead into gold. 
In this image, we have Padmasambhava with his consort, his wife. They are in sexual union, but there are many misunderstandings about what this tradition teaches called Tantric Buddhism. A couple, man and woman, who embody masculine and feminine principles, can combine their energies to work in a very transformative way, and these ancient traditions teach us, whether from the East or the West, how a man and a woman, using the energy that is available to them, and the power and ability to procreate, can take that energy that they awaken within sexual union and transform it, use it to empower and create the soul.
As Jesus taught in the gospel, “that which is born of flesh is flesh” through the common sexual act. But the same sexual act or the sexual act transformed can be utilized for the Spirit, since “that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit.” So many Christians ignore what this teaching is about. They have no clue, because people haven't been educated. The physical sexual act can create a physical child. Anybody knows this. But with certain procedures, if the couple retains the sexual energy in their union and uses that energy with the soul, it can transform their marriage and make it a sacrament, a holy union. This is the meaning of religion, from the Latin religare, “to reunite.” This is the highest yoga, from the Sanskrit yug, “to reunite.” It is also known as tantra, which is where this image comes from. The medieval alchemists, whom people denigrate today, knew this secret science. It was never taught publicly because it has tremendous power. The sexual energy can create anything, a child. It perpetuates the species. Sexual drive motivates every aspect of society, every aspect of life. Even chemicals, compounds, molecules, electrons, atoms, are driven by sexual propulsion, energy―attraction, rejection, repulsion, combinations of energies, a form of marriage. That energy is everywhere, and in the human being, that most profound force, the ability to create, is in our sexual glands. This energy is so powerful that it can develop a human being to their highest potential. So for many centuries, this knowledge was kept secret, because unfortunately many people would abuse it. But we are living in a very different age now, where this type of knowledge and spirituality, information, is given openly. The doors have been opened by divinity for people to understand this kind of knowledge, so that people who want to transform themselves and have a method to help them attain that goal, can. 
The Symbolism of Alchemy
But of course, the alchemical science was taught in symbols in medieval Europe to prevent persecution, such as with the Inquisition in the Catholic Church, which had completely extirpated the sexual teachings of esoteric Christianity.
Alchemy comes from Allah in Arabic, meaning the God, the name of divinity in Islam. And khemia, the Greek word for chemistry. It is the chemistry of God. It is how a couple, man and woman, using their sexualized polarities, can take their energy, combine them, and restraining the sexual energy, circulate that force, learning to control their egotistical desires, and unite out of love, to dominate their subconscious passions. Those individuals, those couples, can unite with God or divinity, whatever name we wish to give to that impersonal energy or force. 
In Greek, the word khemia can also mean “to fuse or cast a metal.” There are many symbols in the Bible that retained this knowledge. Moses lifted up a brazen serpent on a staff to heal the Israelites wounded by divinity for having disobeyed Him. If you study alchemy, the science of metals, bronze is an amalgamation of copper and tin. Copper in alchemical science relates to femininity, woman, love, Venus. Tin relates to Jupiter, masculinity, man. When husband and wife unite their energies, they can awaken the brazen serpent known as kundalini amongst the Gnostics and the Yogis of the East. That serpent can be raised upon a staff, the spinal column, so as to heal our soul from the afflictions of our daily life.
In the Bible, Moses represents willpower, the power and the will to dominate temptation and desire. It doesn't mean to run away from sex, but to approach the sexual act with respect and veneration, with love, to remove passion and desire and connect out of divine love. So this couple, Padmasambhava and his consort, are not united out of lust, to fulfill their animal desires. Unfortunately, people look at these kinds of images and only think with animality, with satisfying and having pleasant sensations. Pleasure is natural to the sexual act, but it should not be the only basis for which a couple unites. It should be for the couple to really develop their love, their consciousness, to take that energy and, through certain exercises, controlling the breath, even performing sacred sounds like mantras, we learn to circulate the energy. Instead of making go from in to out, to expel it, one makes the energy to go out to in, to circulate it, to control it, to elevate it. 
This is the mysteries of Jesus being baptized in the river Jordan. The word ירדן Jordan in Hebrew means “descender.” That energy that is deposited in our sexual glands is divine. It can create life. It is the power of life. The Jews say לחיים L’Chaim, to life, and the Christians call it the Holy Spirit, even if they don't understand what that energy is.
So that power of life can create spiritual life. The couple needs to learn to take that energy, which usually descends down into us and we expel it through a moment of pleasure or a few seconds of pleasure, which are fleeting―that energy instead of descending, we can learn to make it reascend, to make the river turn its course, which instead of going out, it goes in. It circulates as energy. You have the actual matter or entity of semen, which is physical in either men or women. Sexual fluid, those waters which are symbolized in the Bible as the waters of Genesis, the waters of generation, we can learn to be baptized with that energy, transform it, the substance into divine power through very specific procedures. This is very well documented in every religious scripture in the world, but in allegory. 
Jesus performed his first miracle at a wedding, the marriage of Cana. He turned water into wine. People think it is a literal story of Jesus getting people drunk, and they can believe that. But more profoundly, he is teaching a couple who knew this science, to transform the water or entity of semen, into energy, into the wine or ecstasy of the spirit, circulating it. And that is how you are baptized with water. He turned water into wine.
The mystics of Islam, the Sufis speak very beautifully about this too. Very abundantly, they talk about love of God. “Muhammad was in love with God,” and they make it an erotic teaching, which scandalizes many people because people like to separate religion from sex, and don't understand that you show true religion by loving your wife if you are a man, and as a woman, loving your husband. This is a science from Egypt, from Al-Khem. This is a very ancient science that was studied in all the primeval cultures of the world before they degenerated, before people, instead of respecting these types of teachings or laws in themselves, decided to indulge in desire, because sexuality can be for animal pleasure or lust. Or it can be for the soul. It depends, and you have the judge in yourself how that is. This is why we study meditation too. So this is a very deep topic. We are introducing some of the basics, because to really practice like Padmasambhava without lust, united sexually with his wife, takes a lot of work. Because of course, in the beginning we are full of animality, desire. But with training, we can ride upon desire, like a donkey, as Jesus rode up on a donkey into Jerusalem, the heavenly city. Symbols, but not explained for many years. The Sufis also mention that, I believe the poet Rumi, who is the most popular poet in the West today, said that when you look at a cup full of water and you have your own desires, you only see your own face in it. But if you are looking as a result of love of God, you will see God in those waters. He is talking about this. If you are married or husband and wife, male-female, in a relationship that is sexually active, we show our love for divinity in the sexual act. But of course, with training. One has to be educated how to do that. It takes time, but it can be done. Or if one is filled with desire, we look at the sexual act and see just the gratification of pleasure. That is one extreme. Tantra
So this teaching is known as tantra in the East. In Sanskrit, it is a word for “continuum” or “unbroken stream.” It comes from the Sanskrit “tantrum, literally loom, warp.” Hence, it is a “groundwork, a system, a doctrine.”
What is this continuum? When the sexual energy is retained and transformed, it circulates in our body. We have certain energetic channels in our spine, in our body, that can take that energy and circulate it. And we will talk about what that particular aspect of our physiology relates to. But the energy has to be controlled. It has to be contained. That is the only way for energy to circulate. If the energy is released through the orgasm, there is a short circuit. That continuum is broken. So we are very explicit about how tantra works, because there are people who think that tantrism is just about sexually uniting with one's partner, enjoying pleasure, and then reaching the orgasm. There are many people who teach that kind of doctrine, but unfortunately, that type of action feeds desire. In these studies, we are working to remove our imperfections like lust or desire itself. We want to empower the soul but in order for Psyche to waken, we have to work with Eros and retain that power. Even the 14th Dalai Lama explained that in tantra, the seminal force is never let out. We can contain it, conserve it, and make it circulate through mantras or prayer, through breath work. That is how it becomes an unbroken stream. That is how we perform the loom of God. A loom is where we create clothes. When we work with the energy, we create something. If that energy is conserved and worked with for many years, internally we create vehicles of expressing divinity in us. We talk a lot about this in the studies of alchemy as the vehicles of God, the wedding garment of the soul. In the Gospels, it is stated that one cannot attend the marriage of divinity without the wedding garment. So that is the loom. We have to create a type of vehicle in which our soul can act. It is not physical, but it is internal, vehicles that relate to different aspects of our psyche within different dimensions. We will be explaining about what these vehicles are in-depth, but I just want to introduce to you that the energy has to create something. It can create a physical child, or it can create the vehicles of the soul, the soul itself, which is like a wedding garment. Isn't there a saying that you are what you wear? Or “the apparel oft’ proclaims the man,” states Polonius in the play Hamlet. So we weave the soul through this energy. It is a groundwork. It is a system. It is a doctrine, from the word tan, “to stretch or extend.” Of course, this has a sexual significance, as represented by the erection of the male phallus. Tantra refers to “that continuum of vital energy that sustains all things.” So I stated, the creative energy is within our sexual glands, but we find it within everything, from down to the atom, to the galaxy. It is also “the class of knowledge and practices that help us harness that vital energy which can transform us radically, thereby transforming the practitioner.” 
Transmutation
Some people also call this transmutation. You may hear this term a lot within the books of Samael Aun Weor and throughout different lectures on this topic. Tantra, alchemy, and transmutation are the same thing. So transmutation is broken down from trans, which is a prefix we find in words like transcend or transfix. It means to take something “across, beyond or through; to change something thoroughly; to move.”
The word mutate we find relates to “causing something to change in form or nature.” So what is transmutation or sexual transmutation? It means, through practice, to take the actual entity of the semen retained within our body, our receptacle, and with certain prayers, mantras, exercises of breath, we can take that actual matter and transform it into energy, mutate it. I know we are probably familiar with X-Men, mutants, people with power, but people don't want to recognize that Jesus, Buddha, Krishna, Moses, and many prophets were mutants. They took that energy of sex and created, or recreated themselves spiritually. They became such great beings because they were married. They had that energy available to them, and through love, they changed themselves. So all those qualities that we admire and beings like the prophets, Jesus, their selflessness, their compassion, they did that because they became mutants. They mutated that matter and became an energy. They carried over that force within themselves, raising it from the sexual glands to the brain, and then to the heart. 
If you are familiar with the shepherd's staff so popular with in Biblical allegory, it refers to that image, the serpent of Kundalini rising from the coccyx to the head and then down to the heart. That is how one leads flocks, spiritually speaking, because they have that energy manifest, at least true teachers, with true prophets or gurus. Therefore, transmutation is “the act of changing, or the state of being changed into another form.”
It is logical that that energy which can create a child can create something inside of us. It has tremendous force. It is power of divinity. Divinity creates through the sexual act, through the sexual energy, but it depends on the quality of our mind. What are we doing with that energy? Are we expelling it out? You can more radically take that force, conserve it, transmute it, make it into something more powerful, because as it is now, it is in a very rudimentary state, but that energy can really grant us access to many things. 
Animal Desire and Divine Sex
So as I said, Krishna was a great mutant. He changed his spiritual form, and he had many powers that are documented in the Bhagavad-Gita, which of course, there was a master in the Hindu Pantheon who actually came many thousands of years ago to represent this principle known as Krishna. He is what is known as the Hindu Christ.
As I said Christ, divinity, is not a person, but an energy. It is impersonal. It is universal. And that energy is synonymous with sex. The power of life, the power of Christ, the power of the Holy Spirit, the power of divinity, is here. Krishna, who is a beautiful symbol of that force, had power to act precisely because the soul or the person was working with that energy very beautifully, very profoundly. As I mentioned, divinity is the sexual energy. It is a sacred force, which is why even in the Qur’an, the doctrine of the Muslims, some of the sacred names of divinity is Al-Khaliq, “the Creator,” and Al-Wadud, meaning: “the Loving.” And that scripture mentions how, “Did we not create you from a sperm-drop…” which of course can be a literal thing. We are created from the sperm and the ovum, but more profoundly, if you know the science of alchemy, Allah-Khemia, divinity creates in us by taking that very same matter and transforming it, transmuting it, creating the soul, creating life. "And truly it is easy for us if you are but believers." Meaning: people who are not fanatic or dogmatic, but who learn to be through the power of love. Be-lieve. That was the original meaning of the term. Now belief is something just to accept a doctrine with the intellect or to feel something is true, but to not know. So there are a lot of parallels in different scriptures, but I would like to quote from the Bhagavad-Gita, which is a very powerful statement of how Krishna, Christ, is that creative energy. I am the strength of the strong, devoid of काम kama and राग raga. I am धमम kama which is not contrary to धमम Dharma. ―Bhagavad-Gita 7:11
There are a lot of words from the Sanskrit that have a lot of different meanings depending on the context of the phrase. So the same word काम kama in some context can mean, “sex life.” It can mean “lust.” It could be “desire,” or just “pleasure.” On the contrary, it can be “chastity.”
Chastity is an interesting term. People have been miseducated to think that chastity means abstention from sex. It is logical that people came up with this definition, because when people think of sexuality, they think of animal gratification. So what does it mean to be chaste? It means not to engage in the sexual act with the orgasm. Chasity simply means “purity, immaculateness.” And it refers to a couple learning to use their energies. They can be sexually connected, but chaste. No confusion there. People get hung up on the idea of immaculate conception. Was Jesus really born from Mary when she did not have sex with anyone? Obviously, that is a very ludicrous interpretation, because the only way to create is through the sexual act. But the question is: what is the definition of chastity? Obviously, Jesus was born from his parents, and through an immaculate conception, which means through a union that did not involve orgasm. It is not necessary to expel millions of spermatozoon to create a one child, because only one sperm is going to fertilize an egg. It is not necessary. If the couple is working seriously and is working with divinity, if they want to have a child and they are praying to divinity to give them a son or a daughter or a girl, they can concentrate on their divinity and pray and work with the creative energy. If it is accordance with the law of divinity, they can take one sperm out from the man and it can fertilize the egg. That is an immaculate conception. Obviously, it is very magical, you could say, because the sperm that is utilized in that instance is going to be very superior than one ejaculated out of lust. Obviously, there is a psychological quality embedded in the energy, depending on how we use it. If we are chaste and are pure in our minds and hearts, really loving our spouse and being divine or loving divinity, that energy becomes superior, elevated, for concentration and prayer. So: I am the strength of the strong, devoid of काम kama and राग raga. ―Bhagavad-Gita 7:11
Devoid of lust, and the word for raga is “attachment, grasping; to clutch and to pull; to hold.” Pretty sure we can look at our own lives to see how much of our sexual activity was based on attachment, clinging, holding, grasping. We want those experiences. We chase after them. We change our appearance. We model our behaviors so that we can find a partner. We are grasping at sexual pleasure and sensations and being in a relationship and satisfying those desires. That is raga.
Love is something very different, something divine, which is born in the soul when the time is ripe and the appropriate partner is met. But raga is sexual attachment: wanting to indulge in animal pleasure, the sensations of sex, and grasping at those experiences at the expense of our soul. Desire is one thing, but the soul is another. The soul knows how to love, to respect the partner. Desire only wants to satisfy itself. That is the distinction between an angel and a demon. An angel has love, Eros towards Psyche, but desire only wants to fulfill itself at any cost. So: I am the strength of the strong devoid of lust and attachment. ―Bhagavad-Gita 7:11
But then he uses something very interesting here.
I am काम kama which is not contrary to धमम dharma. ―Bhagavad-Gita 7:11
So many people get confused about this statement. How is it that he says I am not kama and yet he says I am kama? Because the word kama is dual. It's dualistic. It can mean lust. It can mean love. It can mean desire. It can mean chastity. So he is sexual drive that is not contrary to Dharma, and Dharma means “religious principles, law, truth, reality, virtue.”
So contrary to popular belief, there is a type of sexuality that is divine. It doesn't have to be animal. And in fact, Krishna is saying that “I am a sexual union of husband and wife, male-female, that is not contrary to the divine law.” It is respected by the gods, because the buddhas or angels or masters or prophets became what they were because of certain causes and conditions, spiritual laws. Like, if you wish to create a physical child, there is a procedure through the common way, through lust. But there is also a divine law that says if you want to create the soul, to be born of the spirit, one can use certain procedures or the science of alchemy. So “I am sex that is not contrary to spirituality.” When we think of laws, we tend to think of laws given by society, by governments. When I mentioned husband and wife, I don't mean marriage papers. People are not married because of a paper or a ritual. Real marriage occurs between a couple when they sexually unite, and that is all that divinity really cares about, because when a couple unites, they are sharing all their mind, their energies, their emotions, their forces. It's a marriage. It is a type of union, but unfortunately, many of us have engaged in relationships or entered the sexual act with many partners without knowing about the Dharma, which is, you know, our situation. But of course, that can be changed and rectified. This is why we give classes on this type of knowledge. So what I mean by law, Dharma, truth, reality, has to do with the causes and conditions that produce our happiness in the soul, our spiritual development, to help us become like Jesus or Buddha or Moses or the prophets. 
Liberation from Desire
So again, I show Padmasambhava with his consort. He stated very interestingly that:
Lustful people do not enter the path of liberation. ―Padmasambhava
Marriage, sexual union, the sexual act, can produce one's greatest happiness and one's greatest damnation, suffering. Look at humanity today, as I mentioned―people engaging in sexual behaviors that produce pain. Of course, people being hypnotized by kama and raga, desire and attachment, always go towards those experiences, grasping at pleasant experiences, and don't recognize that that very same act of lust and desire produces pain. Because once lust is fed, sex has culminated with animal pleasure, it can result in disillusionment pain, suffering.
The sexual act itself, tantra, alchemy, is the narrow way mentioned by Jesus in the Gospels. Straight is the gate and narrow is the way that leadeth unto life and few there be that find it. ―Matthew 7:14 
Of course, people think of this path of liberation as something devoid of a sexual flavor, but literally, the narrow way is when husband and wife unite, male-female. This is the symbol of the cross. Vertical phallus. Horizontal uterus. They unite so that those energies accumulate, and when directed by the couple, it can crucify our defects. It is a symbol of Jesus going on His Passion. He lived it literally, physically, but he was showing something symbolic and allegorical and sexual.
That energy which can create life can also destroy impurity. That is the nature of the Kundalini. It is the nature of Shiva-Shakti amongst the Hindus, the creator and destroyer. Shiva is the power of the Holy Spirit or the sexual energy, which in tantra. That energy can be directed at any defect, any fault that we have, that we have understood profoundly through meditation, and to remove it so that the soul is liberated and the soul is united with divinity. That is the path of liberation, the secret path that Jesus taught that few find. It is obvious that humanity does not know the path, because you look at the state that it is in. Lustful people do not enter that path, meaning: they may be married and they may know this teaching and may know about conserving sexual energy and working on the mind, but if they don't actually work on themselves, they don't enter the path from experience. On our websites we talk a lot about Gnosis, from the Greek, meaning “knowledge,” to have experience born from spiritual practice. We cannot have genuine spiritual knowledge, experience of divinity, if our soul is asleep, if Psyche is dormant, but we can awaken the soul by learning to use this energy. Of course, married couples have much more power to work with, but individual practitioners can learn through pranayama, spiritual exercises, how to work with that energy as an individual until, with work and patience, that person may find their partner in accordance with divinity. They may be helped. They may find their marriage. This was originally the meaning of monastic life, which of course lost its true purpose. Monks and nuns would practice individually at their monasteries for many years, learning to circulate and work with that energy individually. When the time came, they would be brought their partner and they would learn to practice alchemy. Unfortunately, the Catholic Church and many groups didn't like the sexual flavor of this type of teaching, because, of course, it scandalizes many people, unfortunately. This is the stone of Peter: the rock of offense upon which we should build our church. “Is it not marvelous?” it says in the gospels (1 Peter 2:7-8). Many teachings hidden there. 
The Caduceus of Mercury
Lastly, we will talk about how that energy can circulate. The Bible calls the circuitry of tantra, those energetic channels that rise from our coccyx to our brain and then to our heart, the two witnesses in the Book of Revelation. It is known as Ida and Pingala in Sanskrit amongst the Hindu yogis. These are the two serpents that entwine a staff on the symbol of medicine, because we heal our soul like the bronze serpent healed the Israelites in the wilderness by working with these two energetic channels in us.
These two serpents are two forms of energy: masculine-feminine, solar-lunar, copper-tin. So whether we are male or female, we have those two energy circuits in our spine. But of course, men will tend to polarize more of the masculine energy and woman the feminine energy in their physicality, which is why it is important that if one is going to work with this energy in a marriage, you need both polarities to create. Physical man, physical woman. Together, just as they can create a child, they can create something more. But we also have those circuits in our spine. As you notice, Adam-Eve in the Bible, male-female, Ida-Pingala, Solar and lunar. We can do certain exercises like in books called Kundalini Yoga, The Yellow Book, even some practices in The Perfect Matrimony by Samael Aun Weor, to work with mantras and prayer and breath work. If we are single, we can take that energy on our own and circulate it, and train ourselves so that we can use that energy to empower meditation. That is the primary purpose of working with that energy, to empower our soul. 
But if one is married, of course, it is more energy, more fire, but more difficulty, because the difficulty that couples face is that they are trying not to eat the forbidden fruit. In the Bible, Adam and Eve ate from the forbidden fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. It is a symbol of how they didn't respect the law of divinity, of conserving the energies of God in themselves. They expelled it, or better said: they expelled themselves from Eden, which is a symbol of the state of bliss in spirituality that our humanity once knew before it indulged in desire. This is eating the forbidden fruit, the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, of positive and negative, Ida-Pingala: the two witnesses.
That forbidden fruit is, of course, the orgasm. Divinity said, “You shall not eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Do not take that energy and expel it out of yourselves because the day that you do, you will surely die, spiritually speaking.” This is the foundation of the Judeo-Christian Bible. Of course, the one that tempted them was a serpent, because that serpent above is Kundalini. But if we are filled with egotism and desire, it is the tail of the demons, the tail of temptation We have many practices that can teach you how to work with energy. To really understand how all the different symbols and traditions teach this science takes many years. It is very extensive studying the Bible or the Qur’an or the Bhagavad-Gita and many scriptures. I just wanted to introduce some of these elements for you to see that is very vast. It is a very profound teaching, which you can verify not only through reading books by Samael Aun Weor or other authors, but really examining the original root scriptures of tantra, of alchemy. It takes a lot of time to learn and understand how this science was taught and also more importantly, how we practice it in ourselves. Do you have any questions? Questions and Answers
Question: You were talking about how we can use this energy, how we can eliminate imperfections. Is that only for married couples or is that for single people?
Instructor: Good question. For both. Obviously, a single practitioner is going to have energy to a degree. They can learn to direct that energy through pranayama, mantras, prayer, so that they can eliminate certain defects that they have to a very minor extent. When a person is married, they have available to them the fire of a sun. More power. So when they are sexually united as a couple, they can have more force by which to eliminate defects. So compare a single person to the light of a candle. Compare a married couple to the light of the sun. You can't compare the magnitude of that force. It is truly tremendous. So obviously, individuals can eliminate ego, defect, desires, but married couples can eliminate much more. They can do the totality of the work. So eventually people who are single, if they really want to pursue this type of path, they have to eventually get married. But of course, that is a delicate thing, a long process, and depends on the unique situations of the individual. Question: What is the Buddhist root tantric script? I studied online, and I guess many teach adultery and black tantra in the scriptures. Are there any tantra scriptures that are still in tact that the Dalai Lama uses or any in other tradition? Instructor: Sure. Just to be clear, as I mentioned, there are different forms of tantra. There is positive tantra. There is negative tantra. We call them white and black. White tantra refers to purity in sex, meaning: never expelling the sexual energy in any form or way, whether physically, mentally, emotionally, to orgasm, or through desire. You have black tantra, which is exclusively focused on expelling the energies and even taking that energy and directing it into desire, which of course is not what we teach here. That is something different. That's called black tantra because it is impure. It is the science of demons. People who really feed their lust and desire direct that energy into anger and pride and fear, laziness, to fortify those elements. So obviously in the end, that produces a lot of suffering for individuals and other people. There is also gray tantra, which sometimes a couple unites periodically. Sometimes they conserve the energy. Sometimes they expel it. Gray is in the middle, but eventually gray tantra degenerates into black tantra, because obviously these desires accumulated from indulging in lust. It becomes comes bigger. The Dalai Lama talks a lot about Padmasambhava. He wrote a book called The Tibetan Book of the Dead: Bardo Thodol. A lot is about consciousness and dreams, but is one of the most seminal tantric texts available, which you can read about. It talks a lot about states of consciousness and dream yoga, dream science, which you can learn to take the energies of tantra, transmutation, prayer, pranayama, so that your consciousness can awaken from dreams, which is partially one of the symbols of Psyche and Eros. She awakens from her sleep, meaning internally, even when being in the dream state. She awakens our consciousness so that she can investigate those regions, those realms called heavens, different dimensions, which is where we gravitate to when our physical body sleeps. We go out in the dream state usually hypnotized by our own projections of mind, dreams, but we can awaken from dreams by using that energy. So that is a key text that the Dalai Lama introduces, and I believe one of the most recent publications of that book, The Tibetan Book of the Dead and the works of Padmasambhava especially are powerful. Tsong Khapa too. It has more Mahayana Buddhism, but you know, he teaches the foundations by which to understand tantra, especially. And of course the study of tantra is very deep. [See also Tsong Khapa’s The Great Exposition of Secret Mantra in three volumes, also a key tantric text]. I just want to just give you a bit of the gamut of what that tradition is like, because people were never introduced to tantra right off the bat. This is a very different lecture than what has been done traditionally for thousands of years, because they would make the student study under a guru or sheikh or teacher or prophet, or whatever, for 10, 20, 30, 40 years, before they taught them, “Now that you know how to work with your energy as an individual, now, I am going to teach you the science of how to practice in a marriage.” So there are tantric texts out there and I can give you some references too to write them down. Question: A lot of tantra from the Dalai Lama, they speak about visualization a lot. To visualize yourself as an enlightened being and visualize a mandala... How does Gnosis combine that visualization? Instructor: You can read The Mystery of the Golden Flower as one book that we have available, where Samael Aun Weor explains how when a couple is united and after they have meditated profoundly, they can work together, and when they are sexually united, they can imagine an event and their day in which a certain defect that they observed in themselves popped up. Imagine that defect. If it's the husband's defect, he explains to his wife, “This is the defect I saw in myself earlier in this day at this moment. This is what I have comprehended. I noticed I saw lust in myself,” as an example. The partner, the wife imagines with him. They both develop their imagination and visualize that defect that they want to eliminate together. They pray. They do mantras, and they work to eliminate that defect through concentrating upon what we call the Divine Mother. The Divine Mother Kundalini is Her name. She can eliminate defects when the couple is working together. Of course, that is a very powerful practice. It just takes a lot of communication and work and support, you know. You can read about that in The Mystery of the Golden Flower specifically. The whole book just talks about how to do that. You imagine the defect you want to eliminate, and because the couple is united, they are like God. They can create. Male-female. Adam-Eve. Or in the Hebrew name: יהוה Jehovah, Iod-Havah. י Iod is masculine, Adam. A הוה Havah is Eve, because the word for Eve in the Bible is חַוָה Chavah. Iod-Havah is our divinity. So the couple has to work together, unite their polarities, and they can visualize together what they want to eliminate in the husband. And then, after the husband and eliminates that defect, together they eliminate that fault because they are sharing that power to create and destroy. They take turns and the wife can present a defect she observed in herself, understood, and meditated upon. They work on that defect together. That is the procedure. Of course, it takes a lot of time to learn that. Actually, you can read about it, but when you are practicing, it is another thing. Question: Can single people do the visualization? Instructor: Yeah, they can visualize whatever defect they have understood in themselves and ask for annihilation through certain mantras like Krim, is one mantra.
The vowel S is another.
We have explained this process of meditation in our course Gnostic Meditation on chicagognosis.org if you want to know how to practice that type of meditation. You can study the last lecture in that course that is called Retrospection Meditation. Any final comments or questions? So I invite you to study, because I know we talked about a lot of different things, but the main purpose is to present the breadth of this science. It is very deep and extensive. It takes a lot of study and practice and understanding. So if you are interested, you can see some of the books we have available that talk about these things. But also, if you want to read these books and scriptures online, you can go to Glorian.org, which has everything available electronically too. 
It's convenient that we finish this lecture series on Turandot after the Jewish holidays, specifically Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, which began on Monday of last week and culminated on Wednesday of this week. The last two acts of this opera relate to these two holidays, specifically the Jewish New Year, ראש השנה Rosh Hashanah and Act II culminating with יום כיפור Yom Kippur.
Rosh Hashanah literally means, “Head of the Year," from Hebrew ראש Rosh, “the intellect," the head, and השנה Hashanah meaning, “the year." Rosh Hashanah commemorates the creation of the world, and the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur, is a day of prayer and fasting, where many Jews observe certain rituals in their synagogues as an atonement for their sins, for their faults before divinity. So, all these religions, or better said, all these dynamics of this holiday relate esoterically to this opera. Rosh Hashanah reminds us of सुषुम्णा Sushumna in Sanskrit. Sushumna is the channel of our spinal column which unites with the head, Rosh. We have the two serpents, Ida and Pingala, in the Caduceus of Mercury, and Sushumna is the central channel or spinal column through which the Kundalini rises to Rosh, the head. Rosh Hashanah, therefore, symbolically speaking, is how we enter initiation, the beginning of life and a way of being, because every time we raise a serpent of fire from the chakra Muladhara up our Sushumna channel to our head, we are achieving the Major Mysteries, as well as certain developments in the soul related to time, to esoteric age. If you're familiar with the writings of Samael Aun Weor, he states in The Major Mysteries that to learn of your age in the internal planes is symbolic. We stated previously that there were nine initiations of minor mysteries, in which we walked the probationary path described in Act I of this opera. We also find that the nine degrees of minor mysteries relate to the ages 10 through 90. The first initiation of minor mysteries relates to 10 years. The second initiation of minor mysteries relates to 20, and likewise, up to 90. So, if you ask your Being or the masters of the White Lodge, "Where am I in my development?" they'll tell you, "You are twenty years old" or "You are ninety years old," referring to either the 2nd or 9th degrees of minor mysteries, respectively. To enter the ages such as one hundred to nine hundred, or above and beyond, relate to the initiations of fire, the Major Mysteries. The Major Mysteries pertain to the awakening of the sacred fire within Sushumna to your Rosh, your head, when you achieve any initiation of fire, whether it be from Malkuth, Yesod, Hod, Netzach, Tiphereth, Geburah, or Chesed. The seven initiations of fire relate to the seven sephiroth upon the Tree of Life, which pertains to seven hundred years of age. So, when we read in the Bible that Abraham was ninety-nine years old or Noah was five hundred years old, it relates to the minor mysteries and the Major Mysteries. It's interesting that אברם Abram, our spirit, symbolically speaking, was ninety-nine years old before he was known as אברהם Abraham, when he gave birth to Isaac through the sexual force of שדי אל חי Shaddai El Chai. He was sterile, but we know that this is symbolic, how he and his wife represent us, qualities of our body, of our spirit. Before working in alchemy, we are sterile, infertile, due to fornication. Through scientific chastity, by learning to work with the Hebrew letter ה Hei, our spirit, אברם Abram, becomes אברהם Abraham. Notice that the name אברהם Abraham is spelled when you add ה Hei to אברם Abram, signifying how we give power to our Innermost when we cooperate in sexual alchemy, when we work with the womb, the ה Hei of our Divine Mother Turandot. We need to be fertile so that we can give birth to the soul, Isaac, and in order to enter the Major Mysteries, we must be married. The first initiation of fire relates to one hundred years old. The second initiation of fire, two hundred years old. Likewise, up the Tree of Life; so every time we complete an initiation, we are becoming new or entering into a new year, a new life. So—Rosh Hashanah, Rosh Sushumna—when the fires illuminate your head. It's interesting also that the word, "Hashanah," meaning year, also etymologically sounds like the word, שושנה Shoshana, which means "rose" or "lily. " Hashanah, Shoshana, Sushumna are all related to the rose of the spirit, the igneous rose of the divine. The seven chakras or seven flowers of the soul awaken through the sacred fire, when you raise the kundalini up Sushumna, up to your head, and in that way we learn to develop the sacred fire—because if you look at the Hebrew word, שושנה Shoshana, you find that we have the letter ש Shin, represented twice, which means fire, Christ. We also have the ו Vav. שושנה Shoshana literally means "rose," but it refers to the fires in the spine, which we develop gradually within the couple, because there are two ש Shins—the fire of man and the fire of woman that rise up within your spine through the power of נ Nun, which in Aramaic means "fish," but is also representative of the sperm and the ovum, specifically. We find this beautiful quote from Chapter 2 of the Song of Solomon, Shalomah, the solar man. I am the rose of Sharon and the lily of the valleys. As the lily among thorns so is my love among the daughters. —Song of Songs 2:1-2
Sharon reminds us of השרון Ha-Sharon. ה Hei is an indefinite article in Hebrew meaning "the," but it also means “the breath,” because in order to create something, we use our speech, our language, the Word. And through the breath, through mantras, we work with the fires of our body, to circulate those energies in a dynamic matter. So in that sense, we are working with השרון Ha-Sharon whenever we do runes, prayer, mantras. The ש Shin and the breath, the fire and the wind of Christ, the strength of God which is אוֹן Aun. The word אוֹן "Aun" literally means sexual virility, so שרון Sharon is literally the fiery breath of our sexual power, but also the word שושנה Shoshana, which is where you get names like Susanna, relates to the lily, which is a beautiful flower representing the seven chakras.
And, as the lily among thorns so is my love among the daughters. ―Song of Songs 2:2
You have the Hebrew term הבנות Habanot, meaning “the daughters," which literally can be translated as “the houses," because the word ב Beth relates to the sort of solar values that we create in a marriage. ב Beth we find in famous terms like בית לחם Bethlehem, the House of Bread.
Prince Calaf created his own solar house in Act II by answering the three riddles of Turandot—Solar Astral, Solar Mental, Solar Causal bodies—and in that way he awoke all his Sushumna, by raising not only the serpents of fire, but the serpents of light on the First Mountain. And so, on the First Mountain, the Mountain of Initiation, we must dive in the ego to a certain degree, within a matrimony, and by taking the direct path, we can incarnate Christ. This is symbolized when Calaf renounces marriage with Turandot, when she refuses him because he still has desire alive. She won't marry him at that level, as a hasnamuss, as a being with a split personality—one heavenly, one diabolic. He has reached the Fifth Initiation of Major Mysteries and has a choice to make, to remain in Nirvana on the spiral path, or to renounce heaven and incarnate Christ. So, he chooses to fully eliminate his ego, to renounce marriage at the level of a Nirvani Buddha, and to take the straight path of the bodhisattvas, to which the commoners of the palace said, “You are strong!" He renounced that level, choosing to descend into his own infernos, to die radically to his self, so he can ascend higher. In this way he starts to approach Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. Yom Kippur literally means "Day of Atonement." יום Yom in Hebrew is spelled, י Iod, ו Vav, and ם Final Mem, the letter י Iod we saw previously represents Kether, is a point, the seminal energy of sperm and the ovum which we raise up our spine, the letter ו Vav, through the powers of מ Mem, the waters, our sexual energy. When you achieve initiation, you achieve a day of Genesis. The book of Genesis is not a story of the creation of the physical world, a literal history, but is symbolic of the seven initiations of fire specifically. In the first day, “the earth was formless and void, and darkness was on the face of the deep,” signifying how our psychology is full of darkness. But the Lord said, "Let there be light, and there was light; and God saw that the light was good," and that was the first day, or evening and the day. This relates to the First Initiation of Fire in Malkuth, the physical body. That's the first day of Genesis; the first day of generation. In the second day, “Let the waters separate from the waters above and below.” השמים Ha-Shamayim, the heavens, with מים mayim, below. And this day, there was no blessing from God, that "It was good," which is very profound—specifically because, when working with the sexual energy, the Sephirah Yesod, there is no guarantee that we'll be successful. This is why the Lord does not say, "It was good." Through the waters we can descend, or better say, fall into Kilpoth. The ninth sephirah on the Tree of Life reminds us of surah nine in the Qur’an, where there is no Bismillah at the beginning. Every surah of the Qur’an has “Bismillah ir-Rahmaan ir-Raheem: In the name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful,” but in the ninth surah, it doesn't have that reading, which reminds us of this principle. Through Yesod, the ninth sphere, we may succeed, or we may fail, so, there is the danger of falling. This dynamic is beautifully represented within both the book of Genesis and the Qur’an. In the third day or Third Initiation of Major Mysteries, “Let the dry land appear. Vegetation from the waters, blossoms and fruits. And God said it was good.” In the fourth day, “Let there be light to the expanse of the sky and the firmament of heaven for days and for years.” מְאֹרֹת Meirot, and the word מְאֹרֹת Meirot means “lights.” We have the word אור Aur present. And in the spelling of מְאֹרֹת Meirot there is no ו Vav, indicating that the light must emerge in our spinal column in the mental body. We must create the Solar Mental Body so that we can see the heavens, the stars, of Nut, the Divine Princess Turandot. In the fifth day, “Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures and the great sea monsters, the great whales or אֶת־הַתַּנִּינִם הַגְּדֹלִים At-Ha-Taninim Ha-Gedulim, as well as swarms of every kind. And the Lord said, ‘Be fruitful and increase,’ or ‘Be fruitful and רִבּוּ rabbau.’" The word רב rabba reminds us of Rabbi. Be fruitful and master. This verse doesn't mean, “Be fruitful and fornicate.” It means be fruitful and develop those principles in you through a marriage, through alchemy. On the sixth day, relating to the Sixth Initiation of Fire, “Let the earth bring forth creeping things of the earth, beasts and cattle, and likewise we shall make man into our image, male-female did Jehovah Elohim create them." And this day, of course, was very good. טוב מאוד Tob Meod, which reminds us of the two serpents, Vav and Zayin, or Od and Obd, specifically. טוב מאוד Tob Meod means very good, but also reminds us of Od and Obd, or Ida and Pingala, in Kabbalah. So when those serpents are raised in us and we become a human being with the Solar Astral, Solar Mental, Solar Causal bodies, then we are a man of the Sixth Day of Genesis, which is what Calaf achieved in Act II. He united with his soul, his divine soul, at that level, but in order to become a man of the Seventh Day, he did something very drastic, very profound. The Seventh Day reminds us of the Sabbath, Saturn-day, Saturday, Shabbat. Yom Kippur is referred to as the Sabbath of the Sabbaths, representing how when the ego is fully eliminated through atonement on the Second Mountain, then the soul can resurrect within the Being, within the Divine Mother. The spirit is absorbed—Chesed within Binah—all the qualities of the soul, the bodies themselves, etc., are absorbed within the Holy Spirit, Binah, but the ego must be fully eliminated. Calaf reached that level of true human being in Act II, and then he takes the direct path and raises the serpents of light. But he now faces a very great problem, as represented in this final act of this drama. In order to reach the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur, it’s very logical that one must pass through the night—Lilith and Nahemah, which opens our discussion of Act III. Night has fallen on Peking, and no man shall sleep by decree of the divine Princess Turandot. The name of the unknown prince Calaf, which we don't learn of until the very end, must be discovered before dawn, or else her subjects shall be executed. Therefore, the royal guards proclaim her dread command throughout the city in the night, which is followed by the fear and mournful subjection of the people. As I said, Prince Calaf raised the serpents of fire and light on the First Mountain, but while one can achieve mastery at that level, it's a very different thing to achieve perfection in mastery, to fully die to the ego. Only after the ego is fully annihilated can the soul then can unite with Binah, and Binah with the lower seven sephiroth, specifically. The Second Mountain is the path of descent into the infernal planes within each inverted sephirah: the Lunar hells, the Mercurial hells, the Venusian hells, the Solar hells, the Martian hells, the Jupiterian hells, the Saturnian hells, the Uranian hells and Neptunian hells. Nine inverted sephiroth all relate to the nine heavens on the Tree of Life. You first must descend into hell and face all your evilness, to die radically, in each sephirah below, in order to ascend, to resurrect within a respective heaven. By annihilating the egos relating to the Lunar hell, you rise up to the Lunar heaven, the Mercurial hell to the Mercurial heaven, and likewise until reaching the very end, Kether. That is the level of Chaioth Ha-Kadosh, a holy living creature with no ego. So, in the prayer to Solomon, the Invocation of Solomon, we state, "Chaioth Ha-Kadosh! Cry! Speak! Roar! Bellow! Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh!" This means, "Holy Creatures! Holy, Holy, Holy!" A Chaioth Ha-Kadosh is an initiate who has no ego, who has the four elements radically purified, and who is now preparing to enter Binah to a higher degree, to resurrect. This was the case of Samael Aun Weor near the end of his life, in which he fully eliminated the ego and was preparing to physically die, because in order to resurrect in the Being, the physical corpse, the flesh of fornication, must leave, to die through a sickness, through karma. The initiate pays all their karma at the end completely, which usually occurs in the form of some type of disease, some type of illness which is incurable and produces a lot of suffering. So, Calaf is preparing for that precise moment in the opera, where he has to face all the people of Peking who want to know his name, who want to know his secret—who he is—because the riddle that he gave to Turandot was, "If you don't want to marry me, you have to find out my name." It's a very beautiful symbol, because the name in Hebrew is השם Hashem. The Jews always state ברוך השם אדני Baruch Hashem Adonai, or "Blessed be the Name of the Lord. " השם Hashem is the Name, a sacred appellation for יהוה Iod-Chavah, Jehovah, Christ. So, he tells her, "Guess my name, and before dawn, if you find it out, I will gladly die in the morning hours." 
Of course, there's two ways to die: either in heaven or in hell. Through resurrection or through failure in the second death. On the night of the Second Mountain, we have to face all of our evilness within the ego and the three brains: intellectual brain, emotional brain, motor-instinctive-sexual brain, which are represented by the elements of the cross as we can see in this image. We have the twenty-two Hebrew letters, the twenty-two archetypes, laws of the Torah, the Tarot, the law, surrounding the שושנה Shoshannah, the rose of spirituality, blossoming. א Aleph, ש Shin, מ Mem reminds us of the figure eight, which again are repeated in this act and all throughout the opera, but in greater hierarchies, greater octaves. א Aleph relates to the intellectual brain. ש Shin relates to the emotional brain and מ Mem relates to the motor-instinctual-sexual brain. It is through these three centers that we are tempted in the physical plane, and in the internal planes by the demons of the black lodge. More importantly, we are tempted by our own ego that doesn't want us to enter the work, or finish the work, if we reach that point.
The very terrible ordeals one must face, which you've seen in this act, specifically and only applies by rising up through the ten sephiroth, the ten days of Yom Kippur. Only by atoning for all our egos through meditation and death do we have the right to resurrect, to achieve the Day of Atonement—once the sun rises—symbolizing the resurrection of Christ in us. 
The Tree of Life, the ten sephiroth, represent the different characters of this drama. We've spoken extensively about Timur, Liu, Calaf, as well as the Emperor Altoum, the latter representing Kether, the Solar Logos. The Divine Mother Turandot is Binah, the Holy Spirit. Iod-Chavah, Jehovah, relates to Chokmah, Christ, יהוה Iod-Hei-Vav-Hei. We say, "Hashem," out of respect for Jehovah, but really the name is יהוה Iod-Chavah. י Iod, the head, הוה Chavah, sex. That is the mystery of Calaf's name.
They constantly ask him, "What is your name? Give us your secret." His secret is: he raises the power of הוה Havah to י Iod. This is the secret of chastity. But the opposite path, that of fornication, is followed by a demon named Chavajoth. He's a backwards being whose הוה Chavah, sex, is governing his י Iod, his head, through lust. The name יהוה Iod-Chavah represents how you raise the powers of sex to the brain as an angel, as a master. So all the servants of Kali, the inverted serpent, represented by the negative or severe side of Turandot’s character, seek to find out the secret of the initiate on the Second Mountain. This includes all the people of Peking, and also the main counselors, Ping, Pang and Pong, the forces of diablo, the devil, who seek to pull us from the path, or pull those masters at that level into the abyss. 
Samson, Delilah, and the Three Mother Letters of Kabbalah
This drama has been beautifully depicted in the story of שמשון Samson. Samson allowed himself to be put asleep by דלילה Delilah. לילה Lilah means "night" in Hebrew and ד Daleth is the doorway into the infernal worlds, the night. Samson gave away his secret, his chastity, by unveiling how, by cutting his hair, he could be conquered. He loses his strength by admitting his secret, whereby, in his weakness, he was seized by the Philistines, all his egos. When they cut his hair, the Philistines blinded him, meaning that if we fail to maintain chastity at that level, but give into the ego and fornication, then one is spiritually blinded. You must remember that Samson was a giant, a great warrior, a master of Tiphereth, but who fell, who chose to fornicate after reaching that point. שמשון Samson reminds us of שמש Shemesh, which in Hebrew means sun, S-U-N, and אוֹן Aun, sexual strength. So, the power of the sun was castrated in him, a symbol of how any initiate who does not know how to keep his secret, his purity, ends up being swallowed by the moon, לילה Lilah, the night.
Likewise, the Princess Turandot represents both the solar and the lunar serpents, or in other words, the serpent is represented dualistically. Her servants are trying to find out Calaf’s name, so that they can kill him. This is precisely the great drama of this act. Will he in the end marry Turandot, or will he enter devolution? So, as we discussed in Act I and II of this opera, the three mother letters of kabbalah run thematically throughout this work. א Aleph, ש Shin, מ Mem are hinted at, even represented by the name שמשון Shamshon, Samson. ש Shin and מ Mem, but also אוֹן Aun, with a silent א Aleph, are hidden in this name. The occult significance of this biblical character shows that if we don't use the three brains correctly: א Aleph in the head, ש Shin in the heart, מ Mem in the sex, we're going to fail. So, it takes great equilibrium and balance at that degree, especially to not be tempted by the forces of darkness, since they fight very diligently to pull the initiate. You see this not only in this opera, but also in stories like The Pistis Sophia, in which Sophia seeks to return to the source of pleroma, but is constantly afflicted. She wants to return to the light, but can't. She is denied every step of her path, but of course, it is that path of denial, in overcoming those temptations, that one succeeds. In the story of Samson, we find that many initiates fail, but in this opera we have a very different story. The Two Pillars of Kabbalah and the Secret of Calaf’s Name in the Zohar
We're going to look at the name Calaf in relation to the Zohar, a very profound esoteric book that is the spirit of the doctrine, and explains categorically, distinctly, all the elements of the books of Genesis in detail, through commentary. So, the name Calaf, literally is spelled in Hebrew, כלף Kaf-Lamed-Final Peh, and we find a reference to the name כל Kol, Kaf-Lamed, in the Zohar, which partially constitutes the name of the prince which everyone seeks to know.
"Let there be light," namely, אל גדול El Gadol, great God… (Gedulah is the spirit in Hebrew, Chesed, Mercy). The mystery emerging from the primordial aura. ויהי Vayhi, "And there was"―mystery of darkness called אלוהים Elohim. "Light"—left merging in right. Then from the mystery of אל El came to be אלוהים Elohim, right merging left, left and right. —Zohar
In order to understand this better, we're going to refer to the Tree of Life, specifically the left and right pillars we've been discussing extensively.
In the left pillar, we have all the forces of Binah that descend into the infernal planes. That is why Turandot is dualistic. In heaven she is Kundalini, but when she's channeled through our ego, she becomes Kundabuffer, the tail of demons, the Lucifers, the black magicians. The right pillar on the Tree of Life relates to mercy, the left is severity. The force of Chokmah, Christ, descends from the right pillar down to Yesod, and that is why the Christic energies are linked to our sexual force, our sexual drive, or why the secret of השם Hashem is founded within Yesod. So, on the left pillar of the Tree of Life, we have three sephiroth that relate to certain names in Hebrew in the world of Atziluth, the world of archetypes, because every sephirah on the Tree of Life relates to a sacred name. The name for Binah in Kabbalah is יהוה אלוהים Jehovah Elohim. The name for Geburah in Kabbalah is אלוהים גיבור Elohim Gibur, the strength of God, or the strength of the Gods and Goddesses. And then, Hod relates to אלוהים צבאות Elohim Sabaoth. So, we find Elohim represented in the left pillar.
In the right pillar, we're referring to אל El because the right is masculine while the feminine left pillar relates to all the forces of the divine life that specifically descends in us, but also to hell. When the serpentine sexual energy descends, it becomes the tail of demons. Ida is the fallen serpent in us that we must raise, and it is through a marriage, in which that left serpent unites with the right serpent, back up the head. Because in most people, clairvoyantly, they have that Kundabuffer tail very strong, but in the body of an alchemist that energy is ascending to the head through Ida and Pingala. Therefore, let there be light means how our own spirit works within the darkness of our psyche. In the Kabbalah, רוח אלוהים Ruach Elohim, the spirit of God, Chesed, works with the waters of genesis in order to conquer the left pillar. By combining the two pillars, male, female, by working in a marriage, אל El becomes אלוהים Elohim because אלוה Eloah means goddess. אל El is God, masculine. Unite them in a marriage, you have אלוהים Elohim. So ים Iod-Mem is masculine plural. And here אלוהים Elohim literally means ‘gods and goddesses,’ because when a husband and wife are united sexually, they have the power to create life. They are a god and a goddess at that moment. But the problem is temptation, the serpent of Eden, the fallen serpent pushes the couple to engage in the forbidden fruit, the orgasm. That is how they lose everything. Light, left emerging right, and then from the mystery of El came to be Elohim. Right merging in left, left and right. There's also a quote, I believe, in the Song of Songs, as we stated previously, in which Solomon describes this dynamic. From chapter 2 verses 3-6: As the apple tree among the trees of the wood so is my beloved among the songs. I sat down under his shadow with great light and his fruit was sweet to my taste. ―Song of Songs 2:3
If you read Igneous Rose, we know that the apple tree represents the Glorian, Christ, which is related to the Ain Soph, the Absolute.
He brought me to the banqueting house and his banner over me was love... (meaning, chastity; the banquet of the Lamb).
This indicates the alchemist is so in love with divinity that one is even considered ill by this society, just as everyone condemned Prince Calaf for wanting to enter the funereal trials of Devi Kundalini in Act I. "Stay me with flagons" means to stay with the wine of transmutation no matter what, to be faithful to and enjoy the delights of sexual alchemy. And then…
His left hand is under my head and his right hand doth embrace me. —Song of Songs 2:6
The left pillar is what sustains the initiates. They must control the left foot, psychologically speaking, because the Master Samael Aun Weor mentions in The Pistis Sophia that the bodhisattva must learn to walk on two feet, symbolically. On the right are the gnostics, the sheep. On the left are the demons, the goats. Sheep and goats. Right and left, but a bodhisattva is neither a saint nor a demon; he or she goes beyond good and evil, to return to the Absolute as a master of the Day.
That term is used by Blavatsky in The Voice of the Silence, but also by Samael Aun Weor. The term day, in Hebrew, is יום Yom, those who attain יום כיפור Yom Kippur, perfection in initiation and mastery. So, the left pillar sustains, which is why Liù, Geburah, the Divine Soul in the beginning of Act I, is the one who says to the multitudes, "How my master is fallen! Will someone raise him for me?" Which is why Calaf jumps in and sings, "Padre mio padre," "My father… my father… I found you again!" The power of Geburah, Justice, is how we raise ourselves up through the Martian strength of Christ, back to the source. The right hand is what caresses, because the right pillar is mercy, while the left hand or left pillar supports the master. This dynamic of mercy and justice reaches equilibrium within Tiphereth, within the soul, Calaf. As we state in the Invocation of Solomon the Wise, "Mercy and justice, be ye the equilibrium and splendor of my life!" One of the many translations or meanings of the word Tiphereth is splendor. God saw that the light was good (Genesis 1:4)—the central pillar. Good illumining above and below and all directions, through the mystery of Jehovah, the name embracing all sides. ―Zohar
So why is it that the center pillar is the light of radiance that sustains the whole tree of life? It's because the word תִפאֶרֶת Tiphereth literally sounds like Tiph-Aur-reth. אור Aur is the light in the central pillar and the very middle of this diagram, where we find the Prince Calaf, the human soul, our Christified will. That is the very one who is responsible for balancing all the forces of the Tree of Life. The light of Christ, Jehovah, or Chokmah, and the powers of Chesed, reach balance in Tiphereth, Tiph-Aur-Reth. Likewise, Aima and Abba Elohim, the Divine Mother or the Holy Spirit in Binah, find their equilibrium or center of gravity here within the heart. The secret name of Tiphereth in Hebrew is אלוה ודעת יהוה Eloah Va Daath Iod-Hei-Vau-Hei. We find אלוה ודעת Eloah Va Daath, Goddess of Knowledge, the Divine Mother and השם Hashem, the appellation of יהוה Iod-Chavah.
Christ and the Divine Mother are balanced in Tiphereth. The Prince Calaf represents this because in the very opening of Act III, he says, "No one shall ever know my name. My secret. השם Hashem. My light." And, he seeks to fully eradicate desire so that he can return through דעת Daath, sexual alchemy, through marriage with Binah. Therefore, Puccini is showing us how the central pillar of the Tree of Life orients everything. This whole opera is fixated on the Prince Calaf because he is Christ-will. Christ-will is how we achieve resurrection through death of the ego. God separated the light from the darkness, dissipating discord, so that all would be perfect. —Zohar
This is a symbol how in the inferno, we extract the light from each ego, in order to be fully, radically dead.
God called the light day. What does "called" mean? He called forth and summoned this perfect light, standing in the center, to emit a radiance—foundation of the world, upon which worlds are established. From that perfect light, the central pillar, extended יְסוֹדא Yesoda, Foundation. Vitality of the Worlds. "Day," from the right side. ―Zohar
As I said, Yesod receives all the forces from Chokmah, Chesed, Netzach, down the Tree of Life. That light must be extracted from the darkness within our own inner infernos, within our own Lunar, Mercurial, Venusian, Solar, etc., infernos. Likewise, all the way down until the Neptunian house—the inverted sephiroth, called the Tree of Death or Tree of Zaqqum in the Qur’an.
And the darkness He called night. He called forth something that generated from the side of darkness a female, the moon ruling by night, called Night, mystery of אדני Adonai, אדון Adon, Lord of all the earth (Joshua 3:11). —Zohar
The word for Malkuth in Kabbalah, the sacred name of Malkuth in the world of Atziluth is אדני הארץ Adonai Ha’aretz. Adonai reminds us of the Lord. When you say ברוך השם אדני Baruch Hashem Adonai, you're saying ‘Blessed is the Name of the Lord.’ Adonai should better be read as Adonia, meaning ‘Lady,’ or the beautiful Greek child Adonis. Adonia is the Kundalini in Malkuth, since the earth or physical vehicle receives all the forces from above, so that through the Lord of the Earth, by conquering this body and fornication, we can achieve resurrection.
Adonai also relates to the Lunar forces, which influence Malkuth, since Yesod is the second to the bottom Sephirah on the Tree of Life. It is also already well documented how our physical moon influences many aspects of life on earth, such as tides, menstruation in women, vegetation, animal life, etc. In the Conjuration of the Seven, we pray, “In the name of Gabriel (the regent of the moon or lunar ray), may Adonai command thee and drive thee hence Bael!” Adonai and Bael both mean “Lord,” the former is heavenly, the other is demonic. Or, Kundalini above, Kundabuffer below. Adonai is the mystery of the moon ruling by night, since by working with the lunar forces of Yesod, we become a Lord of the Night, in the positive sense. We conquer the night in ourselves by annihilating the ego on the Second Mountain, the darkness of Act III. You notice that in the opera, Prince Calaf is singing to the stars. He is in Malkuth preparing to go into his own infernos, because all the temptations of this society, in this world, in Malkuth or within the inverted sephiroth of hell, is where we face great battles, great ordeals. The opposite of אדני הארץ Adonai Ha’aretz, the Kundalini, is the Kundabuffer, which is why the Prince Calaf worships the Lord or Adonia, his Divine Mother, in this great aria Nessun Dorma, which we're going to be examining. Adonia is precisely the name of the Kundalini, the goddess of the earth, who can take Calaf out of hell and into paradise. The right entered that perfect pillar in the center, embracing the mystery of the left, and ascended to the primordial point, grasping there, the power of three points: חולם cholem, שורק shuruq, חירק chireq, seed of holiness, for without this mystery no seed is sown. —Zohar
We just spoke about how the power of Yesod is the foundation of our temple. It is the motor-instinct-sexual brain, the Temple of Peter, the Gnostic Church, which the enemies of God try to prevent us from entering. There are three diacritical marks in Hebrew known as חולם cholem, שורק shuruq, and חירק chireq. These are points that you put on the original Hebrew in order to pronounce vowels. You have three vowels, literally "Eh" with חירק chireq, "Uu" with שורק shuruq and "Oh" with חולם cholem. These vowels are below, middle and above, respectively. This reminds us of the three brains through which our cosmic alphabet is developed. The Hebrew letters represent forces, principles that we can work with, so when we grasp the power of the three points: intellectual brain, emotional brain, motor-instinctive-sexual brain, we work with the seed of holiness, the power of Yesod. For without this mystery, no seed is sown.
And, we find in this opera three temptations, ordeals, that the prince must face in Act III. All is united in the central pillar, generating the foundation of the world, who is therefore called Kol כל (Kaf-Lamed, which translates as All, or we could also say totality) for He embraces all in the radiance of desire. —Zohar
What is this radiance of desire? The Ark. The name of Calaf resides in דַעַת Da’ath, the center of the Tree of Life, in Tiphereth, balanced by Yesod, the foundation, which is the secret, his chastity. He had the letter "F" or פ Peh in Hebrew. It refers to speech, the mouth. When you're working with a matrimony and you're pronouncing sacred mantras in the sexual act, you're working with the power of ‘All’ through the word, through דַעַת Da’ath...
And why is it that Kol, כל Kaf-Lamed, reminds us of All, totality? As Samael Aun Weor stated in his books, the act of sexual magic is the key to all empires, the key to all kingdoms. Every universe is formed through moving with the sexual energy, the power of Lucifer. When we work with פ Peh, כל Kol becomes כלף Calaf, since the energies of sex are sublimated to the heart through mantras. That divine energy also only rises in accordance with the merits of the heart, as Samael Aun Weor stated in The Perfect Matrimony. You cannot work with the serpent Kundalini and raise it up the spine without earning it in your emotional center through ordeals, through the development of virtues. And so, this where כל Kol, All, embraces all in the radiance of desire. And the word desire typically refers to the ego, but in this case, in a poetic way, we could say desire refers to divine longing. Tiphereth embraces all the sephiroth of the Tree of Life because it is through our human will, our spiritual inquietudes, in which we learn to find integration of the soul with the Being. The left blazed potently, inhaling, inhaling fragrance of all those rungs. Out of that blazing flame, he generated the female, the moon. That blaze was dark, deriving from darkness. These two sides generated these two rungs: one male and one female. —Zohar
In the sexual act, the left pillar becomes the flame. The power of darkness becomes active, and it is by conquering the ego in a marriage, in those precise moments of temptation, in which we learn to inhale the fragrance of aroma of the Tree of Knowledge, but without eating its fruit. This is symbolic of renouncing and eliminating the orgasm. Out of that blazing flame of the sexual furnace the moon is generated, because as Samael Aun Weor mentions, the moon represents the ego. When you're inflamed in a marriage, in the sexual act, we must face the moon, our own darkness, our own mind.
Foundation was linked to the central pillar by the increase of light within it, for as the central pillar was consummated, pacifying all sides, its radiance was increased from above, from all sides in all-encompassing joy. Out of that increased joy, emerged the foundations of the world called Increase. –Zohar
The word increase in Hebrew is מוסף Musaf, which reminds us of Josef, Joseph, Yesod. Joseph represents the power of Yesod, primarily because he was thrown into well by his brothers, the well of Yesod, the sexual energies, the waters, and he had to escape and face imprisonment in Egypt and certain sexual temptations in order to be rewarded by God, his Being.
The term Egypt is never used in the Bible, since the original Hebrew word is מצרים Mitzrahim, literally translating as “the place between the waters.” This is a symbol not only of the whole planet earth, but our physicality, which enslaves the soul through lust, desire, fornication. Ordeals usually take place in the physical plane, whereby we must define ourselves through how we use our sexual waters, our energies. From here emerges all forces below and holy spirits and souls from the mystery of יהוה צבאות Iod-Chavah Sabaoth, Lord of Hosts. אל אלהי הרוחות El Elohei Ha-Ruchot, God, God of spirits. —Zohar 
Leviathan: The Lost Word
The name Calaf in Sufi terms is the lost word. The lost word is mentioned by Samael Aun Weor in certain books such as Igneous Rose. It is the Christ energy that has been lost in humanity and lost to our soul, because we failed to perform the work.
The lost word reminds us also of the fifth day of Genesis. The term לוויתן Levitanim is translated as the great whales or the great sea monsters, which bears profound esoteric significance. These are the serpents of fire, which we raise in the perfect matrimony. תַּנִּין Tannyn is a word that refers to whales, specifically. If you add the word לוי Levi in front of it, you make לוויתן Levi-Tannyn. You spell leviathan. A Leviathan is a great master of the fifth initiation of Major Mysteries, one who has been purified in the tribe of Levi, the path of the apostles and initiates. When you incarnate Christ, you receive the lost word, but to reach that point you must be swallowed by the serpent up to at least Tiphereth, the human soul. And so, the lost word is found in any master who incarnates Chokmah, which we saw in Act II. In the words of Samael Aun Weor in Igneous Rose: God created everything in the lost word. The masters that live in Asia have this word very well guarded. A great philosopher once said, "Search for it in China and maybe you'll find it in the great Tartar." The lost word is like a gigantic fish (לוויתן Leviathan); half blue, half green emerging from the depth of the ocean." —Samael Aun Weor, Igneous Rose
So, what does that mean to be a gigantic fish? It is to be a master of Tiphereth, the Middle East.
Whosoever knows the Word gives power to. No one has uttered it. No one will utter it, except the one who has it incarnated (the Word, the Christ). ―Huiracocha
This is the saying from Master Huiracocha, who was the teacher of Samael Aun Weor.
The word Asia, you can say, is the word Assiah in Kabbalah. The great masters of the Middle East have this word very well guarded. The term Asia is used, but really Asia should be Assiah, since the world of Assiah is Malkuth, the world of matter and action. We can say that Yetzirah, the world of formation relates to the lower trinity of the Tree of Life. The world of Briah relates to the middle trinity of the Tree of Life and Atziluth relates to the top trinity, the three primary forces. Assiah, the world of matter and action is where we must face temptation, in which we must guard our secret, our chastity.
The Gnostic Bible: The Pistis Sophia Unveiled also mentions that one must incarnate the mysteries of the light, to follow the mysteries of our inner name, our inner God. Every one of us has our own inner spirit and our spirit has his own divine name, spiritual name. And, personally I know the name of my Being, but I won't tell anyone, because it's no one's business. I seek to be humble, because in all of us, the Being is great, is holy, divine—but we are not. It is ironic that certain people in this movement commonly and frequently proclaim themselves to be the master so and so. "I am the master X. Follow me!" And, many people get caught up in politics within groups, identifying with certain people who say they are the master so-and-so. It may be true that the Being is a master, but this does not mean that the human soul is. Even if you reach Tiphereth, the Fifth Initiation of Fire, one is a master at that level, but… spiritually, the Being is the master, not us! So, it's ironic that people get caught up in pronouncing eloquent names and spiritual names of God, giving away their secret to humanity. Calaf, or better said, Puccini, and many others knew that the way to resurrect is by not talking so much about one's development—but keeping that a secret. Many so-called Gnostics get caught up in this. Many people follow such individuals who say they are the master so-and-so and then get stuck in groups, politics, debates. But the real way to enter initiation is to keep this secret, the lost word, guarded in Assiah, the physical plane. And, in The Pistis Sophia we must face all the temptations in Assiah and the repentance of Sophia in Klipoth. In Kabbalah, God creates through Briah; the forces of the top trinity of the Tree of Life create through alchemy, through Da’ath, in order to create the spirit, the divine soul, and the human soul. And, the human soul must give form to a solar mind, solar astral body, solar vital body, and transform the physical body into a solar being, a Christic Being. It is by entering the Second Mountain in which we ascend these nine sephiroth, the heavens, and prepare for resurrection. 
The Lost Word of the Sufis
We have a beautiful teaching of the Sufis, which explain this very cryptic teaching of the Middle East: how one must find the lost word. ‘Search for it in China and maybe you'll find it even in the great Tartar.’ Idries Shah explains some very beautiful things about the mysteries of the lost word that we're going to elaborate upon and explain in relation to the opera we are studying:
“Seek knowledge, even as far as China,” the phrase which is on all Sufi lips, has more than a literal or even a figurative sense. This meaning is unlocked by analyzing the use of the word “China,” interpreted through the secret language… —Idries Shah, The Sufis: “The Coalmen.”
…which we say is Kabbalah. In Arabic it is the Abjad system. It's the same as the Hebraic Kabbalah. The numbers of certain letters representing different principles.
Prince Calaf is in China and everyone is trying to find out his name, the lost word. “Seek for knowledge even in China and maybe you'll find it in the great Tartar.” Remember that Calaf is the exiled prince of Tartary. “China” is a code word for mind concentration, one of the Sufi practices, an essential prerequisite to Sufic development. The phrase is important partly because it provides an example of the coincidence in interpretation possible in either the Arabic or Persian languages. Neither has any real connection with the other. The fact that the word for “China” in both, though spelled and pronounced differently, decodes to substantially the same concept, invests this phrase with a special significance for the Sufi.
Prince Calaf is in China. He is in his own infernos, his own Tartarus, his hells, in which he must discriminate amongst all the people of Peking, all of his defects, to catch them in action, to understand them, so that by comprehending, he may eliminate through the Divine Mother. In order to achieve knowledge, one must work in Da’ath, in alchemy. One must work diligently in the full death of desire.
CHINA. In Persian CHYN (letters Che, Ya, Nun). Equivalent numbers: 3, 10, 50. Before translating into numbers, the Persian letter Che (CH) is first exchanged for its nearest equivalent in the Abjad scheme, which is J. The three sums totaled: 3 + 10 + 50 = 63. Separated into tens and units: 60 + 3. These numbers retranslated into letters: 60 = SIN; 3 = JIM. The word we now have to determine is a combination of S and J. SJ (pronounced SaJJ) means “to plaster or coat, as with clay.” Reverse the order of the letters (a permissible change, one of very few allowed by the rules) and we have the word JS. The word is pronounced JaSS. This means “to inquire after a thing; to scrutinize (hidden things); to ascertain (news).” This is the root of the word for “espionage,” and hence the Sufi is called the Spy of the Heart. To the Sufi the scrutinization for the purpose of ascertaining hidden things is an equivalent, poetically speaking, with the motive for concentrating the mind. —Idries Shah, The Sufis: “The Coalmen.”
You see in this opera how Prince Calaf is scrutinizing his foes, who all want to find out his name, his secret. He is literally in China, Syn, which reminds us of Sijjeen, the lowest hell in the Qur’an, specifically referenced in Surah 83, Al-Mutaffifin, "The Defrauding." We find a profound teaching about the word "Sijjeen," wherein resides the book of the lost ones. The opposite is the realm of Illiyun, the highest heaven, wherein resides the book of the pious.
The record of the wicked is indeed in Sijjeen (Sin, Sina. China). And, what can make you know what is in Sijjeen? it is a written record. Woe to the deniers on that day who deny the Day of Retribution (or better said, the Day of Atonement, Resurrection). And none denies it, except for every sinful transgressor. —Al-Mutaffifin, "The Defrauding" 83:7-12
Illiyyun can refer to a mountain top, the heights of the Empyrean, the Tree of Life. Sijjeen refers to the lowest hells, so "Seek knowledge even in China, Sijjeen, and maybe you'll find it in the great Tartarus…" because by learning to go through your own hells, with discrimination, is how you develop the spirit, how you will resurrect. The only way to climb the Mountain of Resurrection is by precisely facing all our defects. Every ascent is preceded by a terrible a frightful descent, humiliation.
Even the word ‘sin’ in English comes from this etymology. Sin is an archery term in which, when you're firing towards a center target, you veer off to the left. To sin, Kabbalistically, is to fall through the left pillar, to go down the Tree of Life into Klipoth. That's how you enter devolution, what it means to sin. In this work, we must learn to descend into China, Sijjeen, hell, but without sinning, without sin, to not identify with those realms. A descent is much different than a fall. To descend is to face all our own evilness with responsibility, to comprehend and annihilate the ego. To fall is to fornicate, to abuse the energies of the left pillar of the Tree of Life, and therefore remain in Klipoth without light. We said that China is the heavenly kingdom, but in us our heaven is trapped in hell, as indicated in the Arabic Kabbalah. All our parts of our soul are trapped in the ego, and if we wish to achieve the Resurrection mentioned in the Qur’an, we need to atone for our defects through the Second Mountain, Purgatory, the ten days of Yom Kippur. Therefore, John Milton stated in Paradise Lost, "The mind is its own place. It can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven." So, "The inferno is the womb of heaven," says Samael Aun Weor extensively, because it is only by descending into our own darkness, like Calaf does in Act III, by which he develops heaven in himself, by guarding the lost word, his secret. Search for it in China, with discrimination, and maybe you'll find the truth, the lost word, in the great Tartarus, the inferno, which is what Calaf is doing. He's facing all the temptations of his mind and is rejecting Klipoth. When in hell, we must discriminate what we see with meditation; to not be confused by our own mind or the black magicians. Therefore Tiphereth, Prince Calaf, gets confronted by Ping, Pang, and Pong, IAO, the force of diablo, the devil. We mentioned that Tiphereth, Prince Calaf, already achieved mastery. In terms of Freemasonry, he was an Adeptus Minor, but now he is preparing for perfection in mastery, to perform the Biblical Exodus, שמות Shemoth in Hebrew. In order to perform the Exodus, which is the return of all the parts of Israel, the soul, with the divine, we must reach Tiphereth first. Only by working with השם Hashem, א Aleph, ש Shin, מ Mem, by creating the solar bodies, especially the solar causal body, our own Inner Moses, can we incarnate Christ, the lost word, השם Hashem. Remember that the three mother letters of Kabbalah represent השם Hashem, and that השם Hashem spelled backwards is משה Moshe, Moses. Only by entering the direct path, by descending into Klipoth, can we truly incarnate Christ. That is the work of Moses, of the Exodus. We must return to Israel, the Absolute, because we are in exile, but now the Prince Calaf will enter the Exodus through the revolution of the consciousness, by freeing all the parts of his soul from hell. It’s very interesting that the Book of Exodus is really שמות Shemot, the Book of Names, since the word Shem means ‘Name’ in Hebrew. ו Vav ת Tav is feminine plural. The way that we return to the Promised Land and marry the Divine Princess Turandot, Shekinah, is by guarding our name in the abyss, by freeing the Israelites or parts of the soul that are trapped in sin, Sijjeen, China. 
Nessun Dorma: "No Man Shall Sleep"
In the story of Samson and Delilah, Prince Calaf must renounce all the offerings of the darkness, which is why Eliphas Levi has stated:
Woe to the Sampson of the Kabbalah if he allows himself to be put to sleep by the sinful Delilah. ―Eliphas Levi
Therefore, in the opera, Prince Calaf says, "No man shall sleep." He will not enter the doorway of the night.
When Calaf sings this most famous aria to the stars, we are reminded of the Qur'an and the teachings of the Middle Eastern Sufis. Calaf sings, "No man shall sleep." He's singing to the stars of Urania, the Divine Mother Nut, the cosmic space. As stated in Al-Anam, "The Cattle," Surah 69:7: It is he who place for you the stars that you may be guided by them through the darkness of the land and sea. We have detailed the signs for people who know. ―Al-Anam, "The Cattle" 69:7
The following verses are from Surah 37 verses 4-6:
Indeed, your God is One, Lord of the heavens and the earth and that between them and Lord of the sunrises. Indeed, we have adorned the nearest heaven with an adornment of stars. —Qur’an 37:4-6
In this recitation, this Qur’an, Prince Calaf is praying to the sky, the heavens during the hour of temptation: Lucifer-Venus, which is occurs between 3 and 4 in the morning. This is when the forces of the black lodge are active in the astral atmosphere, which is why, if you wake up in the astral dimension at those hours and are very weak with lust, it gets very dangerous, because the demons will come after you. If we're diligent and working in chastity, being very strong in our practice, we can’t be harmed.
As you have seen in this opera, Prince Calaf is in ecstasy. He's performing a recitation, the Qur’an, in Arabic terms. He performs night vigil to speak, to pray, to communicate, to ask of his inner God for help during the hour of Lucifer-Venus. Therefore the Qur’an, Surat Al-Isra, "The Night Journey," verses 78-79, states: Establish prayer at the decline of the sun from its meridian until the darkness of the night and also the Qur’an of dawn. Indeed, the recitation of dawn is ever witnessed. And from part of the night pray with it as additional worship for you. It is expected that the Lord will resurrect you to a praised station. —Surat Al-Isra, "The Night Journey," verses 78-79
It's good to get into the habit of waking up very early, around 3 or 4 in the morning. If you get up naturally, that's even better, to do mantras, perform prayers. Then, go back to sleep, awaken in the astral plane; you can experience very strong samadhis, because you're channeling and conquering the energies of Lucifer—you're controlling your energies and the temptations of your mind. You can awaken a lot of consciousness that way. In that state you can have certain blissful ecstasies in which you communicate with your inner Divine Mother. This is the occult significance of Prophet Muhammad’s teaching on the night vigil, to be resurrected to a praised station.
The following is from Al-Buraj, the Constellations, Surah 85, verses 1-9: By the sky containing great stars and by the Promised Day (or the Day of Resurrection, marriage with Devi Kundalini, Turandot) and by the witness and what is witnessed, cursed were the companions of the trench, containing a fire full of fuel, When they [the fornicating people of Peking] were sitting near it and they, to what they were doing against the believers [like Prince Calaf], were witnesses. And they resented them not except they believed in Allah, Exalted in Might, the Praiseworthy, to whom belongs the dominions of the heavens and the earth, and Allah over all things, is Witness. —Al-Buraj, 85:1-9
If you see stars in the astral plane, the mental plane, it means ascension—where the Divine Mother is showing you that your mind is clear and you're reflecting God inside. You see that firmament. As the Qur’an teaches, "We give signs for those who have certainty" in the astral plane, where you see certain astrological features, like the moon, which means suffering, ego, pain, ordeals. A cloudy sky means too much ego interfering with the intellect, too much rationalization, a cloudy mind, but a clear sky of stars is essential, in which we're radically raising our level being.
Prince Calaf is in samadhi, singing to his Divine Mother in preparation for the Second Mountain. We find such ecstasy reflected in the practice of the mantras, "O AO KAKOF NA KHONSA,” with which we began this meeting today. Let me remind you of the prayer we performed so we can connect it to this beautiful aria Nessun Dorma: Be thou, oh, Hadit, my secret, the Gnostic mystery of my Being, the central point of my connection, my heart itself, and bloom (like Shoshanna, the rose or igneous flower of our spirituality) on my fertile lips made Word!
Hadit is a representation of Binah, the Holy Spirit, the husband of the Divine Mother. We seek to unite with Devi Kundalini, to be so pure that we become one with the Holy Spirit. This can only occur through death the ego, when we, as Tiphereth, become united in Binah through resurrection. Binah is both masculine and feminine: Aima Elohim, the Divine Mother, and Abba Elohim, the Divine Father.
The winged sphere and the blue of the sky are mine! ―Egyptian Gnostic Prayer O AO KAKOF NA KHONSA! —Egyptian Gnostic Prayer
It's on the night of the Second Mountain where the Prince Calaf’s heart is rich, inebriated with the hope of victory, when he says the following holy, ineffable words:
None shall sleep. None shall sleep… (For I have awakened to one of the mysteries of Daath). Even you, oh princess Kundalini, in your chaste bedroom, (referring to the purified soul and the marriage room of alchemy, the bedroom), watch the stars (the firmament of Kether), that tremble with love and with hope…
We spoke essentially about the meeting of השם Hashem, previously. Hashem contains breath, א Aleph, ש Shin, מ Mem: air, fire, water respectively. And, when we work with the three brains, the three forces in us, we're working with Hashem: I.A.O., Christ, Ignis, Agua, Origo: Fire. Water. Spirit.
So, he's praying to the night, his Divine Mother, to prepare him for the death of the ego and resurrection. Of course, this aria is very well recited today, but people don't know the meaning of what it represents. Little do people see how Puccini beautifully synthesized Kabbalah, alchemy, Sufism, and the Hebrew letters. So, as you can see, in order to understand this doctrine or this opera, we must know kabbalah very well, very deeply. So, in this aria, Calaf continues: And, my kiss will dissolve the silence that makes you mine. ―Calaf
Or his kiss upon the lips of the Divine Mother Death, because through Da’ath, the lips, is how one dies to ego, through comprehending in meditation and then asking for annihilation, or in the sexual act through mantra, through prayer, through devotion.
The chorus sings afterward, "No one will know his name. None shall discover the secret of his strength. And we (referring to the psychological aggregates we have inside) will have to die… to die."
People want to know Calaf's name. The word Calaf reminds us of caliph, a master of Middle East, Tiphereth, since this Sephirah is the east, but also the middle of the Tree of Life. The sun rises in Tiphereth, astrologically speaking, since it relates kabbalistically to the sun. It also relates to Venus as well, the science of love, the Venustic Initiations we spoke about previously.
So the prince is a master of the Middle East, and people want to know his secret. He is facing a similar situation to that of Odysseus in The Odyssey, when the Greek hero is questioned by Polyphemus, the cyclops, in a barren island cave, "What is your name?" Odysseus says, "I am nobody." One must not identify with the ego; one must cease to be what one is so as to become what one is not—to become the Being—dying moment by moment through meditation, self-remembering, comprehension, prayer, and vigilance. When Polyphemus is blinded by Odysseus, the Greek hero escapes with his life and his crew, but he makes the mistake of taunting the giant, the animal ego. The cyclops was a very clairvoyant ego, with one giant eye, the third eye—a very big demon with powers in hell. Odysseus was taunting him, saying, "I am Odysseus." But, of course, whenever he would speak, Polyphemus would throw a giant rock and nearly crush his ship, since the giant could still hear. So the danger of the initiate at that level is hubris, mystical pride, vanity, the assumption or futile belief that "I'm a master at that level. I am the master so-and-so, follow me!" This becomes very dangerous for advanced practitioners, to be very arrogant in a spiritual way, to be proud of one’s height. Samael Aun Weor mentioned how, in Igneous Rose, initiates must not get hypnotized by the vertigo of the heights, to assume that one is a great initiate, because only divinity is great. In the beginning, Odysseus blinds the giant and escapes, whereby Polyphemus screams, "Nobody has blinded me!" The funny part is that the other giants on the island say, "Okay… So, what? Nobody blinded you!" It's a pun on words, but at the same it's a psychological truth. Cease to be what you are; be content with having no other identity but that of the Being; if you reach that point, that level. If you become fascinated by your own pride, you will tumble into the abyss and risk getting killed… since the cyclops, while blinded, can still hear you… The Temptations of the Second Mountain
The servants of Kali, the darkness, the Divine Mother Death of the inferno are led by Ping, Pang, and Pong: I-A-O. Literally the vowels of their names are the vowels of diablo, the devil.
First thing they tell him is, "Divert your gaze from the stars and look down here." This is very interesting. We find in Surah 6 of the Qur’an, verses 3-4: And He is Allah, the only deity in the heavens and the earth. He knows your secret and what you make public and He knows that which you earn (so, your actions, your virtues, your defects). And no sign comes to them from the signs of the Lord, except they turn away therefrom. ―Al-Anam 3-4
Meaning: they turn away from the Divine Mother, the sacred cow of Kabbalah. “La Vaca” in Spanish, the cow, spells kabbalah backwards, the Mother of the Tarot, the second arcanum [The High Priestess].
There's also another verse relating to this dynamic, where they tell him look down from the sky. They want Calaf to turn away from the signs of God and look down at what's going on in Klipoth, through temptation. The Qur’an, in Surat Al-Hajj, verse 66, states: And, He is the one who gave you life and causes you to die and then will again give you life. Indeed, mankind is ever ungrateful. —Al-Hajj 22:66
This verse deserves kabbalistic analysis, since many people interpret things literally. The Being gives life through the Mountain of Initiation, through Rosh Hashanah or the serpents of fire and light, and then He causes you to die on the Second Mountain through Yom Kippur. Then He will again raise you through Resurrection. But… mankind is always ungrateful, because even masters of that level still have defects to work upon.
This verse reminds me of an experience I had many years ago, so if I'm relating this to you about the stars, it’s because I've had many experiences where my Divine Mother was showing me my own heavens, heavenly being, or ascension. I remember one occasion, waking up at 4 AM to meditate, and then falling asleep again, I saw the stars in the sky—beautiful glittering stars… very divine, but then my ego was pulling me from the superior astral plane down to the inferior astral plane. I entered Limbo, Klipoth, the lunar sphere, when my ego invoked a big demon, whose name I will not relate here. This monster, this giant demon, was like Polyphemus, a cyclopean beast. He was trying to convert me, but I fought my way out of his grasp as he was trying to tempt me, to drag me further down into the hell realms. Fortunately, I received divine aid and was able to escape. So, I remember that phrase from the Qur’an, very much, with a lot of pain. "Surely we give signs unto you as a sign of certainty, but many are they who are ungrateful." I realize that my ego makes me very ungrateful. We must work hard on our ego so that we don't enter temptation, so that we cannot be misled in the internal worlds. I-A-O, diablo. Ping, Pang, Pong, present before the initiate three more ordeals—three temptations relating once again to our three brains. In preparation for our resurrection, Lucifer provides the most intense and difficult ordeals. To understand this part of the opera, you have to remember the Book of Job: how Jehovah spoke to Satan and said, "Truly, my servant Job is the most humble, the best, the greatest." And of course, Satan says, "Yeah. Yeah. He praises you, but if you give me the opportunity to make him suffer, he will curse You to Your face." And Jehovah said, "So be it. Tempt him, but do not let him die." And of course, the book of Job is very short, but very beautifully depicts the end of the path, through the process of resurrection, in which the initiate must face criticism and doubt, pain and sickness and disease and suffering and pay all his or her karma at the very end—to the point that even Job's wife and family were against him, telling him, "Why don't you curse God?" And he says, "Naked I was born, and naked do I return into the womb of the earth." God is just, and the initiate pays all his karma successfully if done with acceptance and humility. There are eight years of trial and tribulation after Job annihilates the ego. Afterward, one must face certain ordeals, certain sicknesses and illnesses that result in death, physically speaking. Of course, the initiate also faces other ordeals relating to the three brains. We find that riches, money, materialism, and jewels are presented to the initiate Calaf, which relate to Mammon, the mind. They use these jewels and say, "Take all this treasure and go on a journey anywhere you want. Do whatever you want. Take these fragments of stars." They say, "And the jewels." Of course, it's a very profound symbol in the Qur’an, because stars are from above, but in hell those energies channeled become fragments, broken. So they're telling him, "Don't look up there at Christ. Come down with us in Klipoth." In the experience I had where I got sucked down into the infernal planes, I had to fight very hard to get out, but I did, because at that moment I was praying a lot and I felt a lot of remorse. There was a certain demon, whose name I won't mention, who took me and awoke me in hell, because I have that ego inside, very strong. But I prayed to my Divine Mother, my Divine Father, "Help me get out!" I woke up in my body and I felt terrible. I remember falling asleep again and being in my bedroom in the astral plane reading the Qur’an, but instead of seeing literal verses, I saw symbols, images. And my physical father, my Divine Father in the form of my physical father, came up to me in the astral plane, just smiled, and walked away, because I was studying with a lot of love and devotion. I also remember seeing the images of that demon who pulled me down to Klipoth. He was a giant Gollum, bigger than this ceiling, like fifteen feet tall, a big rock giant, and in the Qur’an, I saw that symbol of the infidels, الكافرين al-Kafirin in Arabic. Remember we said early in our previous lecture on the Tarot, כ Kaf is the intellect, the cave in which the demons dwell, down in the hell realms. There is even a surah in the Qur'an called الكهف Al-Kahf, "The Cave," which indicates how the Hebrew כ Kaf or Arabic ک / ك Kahf have the same kabbalistic meaning. It's funny, because my physical father has a complete aversion to Islam, very fearful of that religion, but in my dream, my Divine Father was showing me in the form of my physical father: read the Qur’an when you are tempted. The Prince Calaf opposes the golden calf, money, materialism, hell. The golden calf literally sounds like Calaf. That's the opposite of the prince, so they offer him gold and money, but he refuses. They offer him women, travels, eroticism, lust, sexual perversity and passion related to the motor-instinctive-sexual brain. The first ordeal related to money is the intellect, because the mind is always wanting money to sustain itself, but the temptations of the body are related to the motor-instinctive-sexual brain. Women of fascinating fatal beauty, hidden beneath their veils, tempt the initiate in the physical and internal worlds. The counselors say ‘take their veils off,’ but of course these are the veils of hell, Klipoth, in which one only finds more and more suffering until one is disintegrated in that region. This is opposite to the veil of Isis, in which one tears it through resurrection to go to the source, the Absolute. So Calaf denies them too. Ping, Pang, Pong beg the prince that Turandot is sleepless and unrelenting. This shows us how the black lodge accuses us of being cruel, of being evil, because they think that prince should die and not them. And of course, this reminds us of the story of from The Pistis Sophia in which Hitler met a superman. Hitler was an awakened sorcerer, a black magician at that point, and he declared that he was filled with terror before a superman filled with a lot of light. The demons think that masters of the straight path are very evil, because they don't follow the devolving forces. However, neither are the saints followers of the straight path, and therefore the saints don't understand them either. They follow the path of the right. One must follow the path of the middle to achieve self-realization of Turandot. But of course, when we follow the revolutionary path, we are accused of being cruel, demonic, by both the sheep and the goats. Lucifer is always providing those temptations: mentally, emotionally, physically. And Samael Aun Weor wrote that the worst ordeals are not just brain against sex, sex against brain. Fighting against your lust in the sexual act is hard, but the worst ordeals involve heart against heart, the emotional brain, the emotional center. There are certain traumas or betrayals which are very painful, very difficult, which is why at this point in the opera, Turandot's guards bring out his father, Timur and the servant Liu, threatening their lives if they don't provide Calaf’s name. So, Calaf says he doesn't know them—which, as a simple plot point, makes sense. He's trying to protect his father and the servant, but at a deeper esoteric level, he's saying "I don't know them." He's saying, "I don't know my Being completely yet." As Samael Aun Weor wrote in The Perfect Matrimony, he knew a resurrected friend of his who said that only those who have swallowed soil, achieved resurrection, know anything. Before that, one is only a fool. At that level, you know, the master has a lot of light and is developing more and more wisdom. However, they basically still don't know the Being yet, until resurrection, so a lot of trial, temptation and pain is involved. But he says, "I don't know them." And, while on one level, this is showing that he's protecting his family and his father and his servant, it also shows us the virtue that we need at this point in the path… which is silence. Silence doesn't just refer to just how we relate to people in the external plane. It’s not about not talking to people. It means that psychologically, we're silent. No mind. No disturbance. With serenity and insight, we cut through illusion, like Manjushri's sword into the depths of hell, in order to conquer all that evilness, because if we identify with ourselves and with our mind, we enter Klipoth. So, patience and tenacity are the two virtues needed on the Second Mountain according to Samael Aun Weor. The magician must know how to be silent, know how to abstain, know how to suffer, and know how to die to the ego. It's at this point and time when the servant Liu, Geburah, provides a profound sacrifice, which is personally one of my favorite parts of this whole opera. Liu, the divine soul, tells the audience, "I know his name, but I will not tell it to you. I will keep his secret with me." Of course, this is a symbol of how the divine soul interferes and descends into the initiate on the Second Mountain in order to help. The divine soul, Geburah, relates to Mars and the Sun, since the divine soul is like into the solar logos. She teaches the audience, through her sacrifice, the path of mystical death. She says, "His secret is with me,” because the Sun, the solar logos, the mysteries of השם Hashem, יהוה Iod-Chavah, is within her. The divine soul, according to Samael Aun Weor, absorbs all the principles of Christ in her, through the great work. She absorbs all those forces through the work, the human soul. All the virtues of our Being are within her, which is why the Qur’an says that she is like a "glass of alabaster" in which the light of Al-Nur shines. Allah is the Light of the heavens and the earth.
Allah, the Innermost, is the light. In this verse, He sets forth a parable for his servants, a lamp with a light like a glittering star, contained within a vase of alabaster or glass. Geburah, Liu, is the glass and the light of Allah is Timur, the spirit. So, she is the means of reflecting that divinity in us. She's the divine consciousness who never mixes with the ego, until that initiate has died completely. In the meantime, he can manifest some aspects of the divine soul during the process of the Second Mountain, so that she can help him fight. She does that by sacrificing herself and teaching, through her own death, how to achieve resurrection.
This light is lit through transmutation, the mysteries of alchemy, through the olive tree of knowledge. This tree is neither of the east, Tiphereth, nor of the west, Malkuth, since the light emanates from Da’ath, or Marifah in Arabic. The oil of this tree is the semen, from the Hebrew word for oil, שמן Shemen. It’s interesting that we find even the term שם Shem, Name, in the semen, or sperm and ovum, נ Nun. This is because the power of the initiate’s name is in the brute mercury, the seminal matter. And this is why Calaf guards the secret of his name so much, his sexual purity or scientific chastity. It is the key to all empires. There's a very similar teaching in the Wagnerian Ring cycle regarding the descent and sacrifice of Geburah within the initiate, in the opera Die Walküre. I think we'll watch it eventually, where Brunhilda, in the German myth, the German opera, represents Geburah, who descends to help the initiate Sigmund, and then Siegfried later on. A very similar principle is present in the operatic works of the great masters, which we don't have the time to go into depth here, but it's important to remember that the divine soul absorbs Christ and descends to help Tiphereth fight a spiritual war. Liu, Geburah, is also Martian, the power of Mars, which confuses a lot of people in occultism, because people think of the Martian force as something masculine. The truth is, it’s feminine. You notice that Liu is very sweet? Very serene, very kind, very compassionate, but she's stronger than any of the men in the opera. Primarily because she's responsible for all the pains of the initiate. With her force, her Martian strength, she sacrifices herself. She says, "I know I'll never be able to be with the prince." She loves him, but he loves Turandot. This serves as a simple plot point, a fascinating love triangle, but there’s something very profound here. Puccini is basically showing that, obviously, Tiphereth is in love with Shekinah, Calaf with Turandot. While Calaf doesn’t seem to reciprocate Liu’s romantic love for him, symbolically speaking, the divine soul can only unite with the human soul through death, as we talked about in the play Romeo and Juliet, and one of our lectures on the Eternal Tarot of Alchemy and Kabbalah. In order to unite the divine soul with the human soul, the ego must be completely dead. In that way, the human soul unites with the divine soul and the spirit, and then within Binah, the Holy Spirit, through resurrection. But, of course, this drama must happen first, where Geburah descends into hell to help the initiate, to help him ascend. Liu teaches him that with death, one conquers death, so that one can achieve a perfect marriage with Binah. Therefore, Nietzsche wrote in Thus Spoke Zarathustra: Spirit is the life that itself cuts into life. With its own agony it increases its own knowledge… Did you know that? ―Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra: "The Famous Wise Men"
Geburah is Mars, killing, bloodshed. That's her sacrifice, but not against anyone, not a literal killing, but a psychological one. She teaches us how to kill the ego. She teaches the initiate how to die to desire. Liu is showing us that if we want to marry Turandot and unite all the parts of the being, we must die psychologically. We must keep our secret of chastity. We must fulfill the path of Bushido amongst the Samurai, the way of the warrior. Of course, this was a beautiful teaching that degenerated in Japan, but has Zen, Buddhist roots, in which one must die radically to desire. This is the way of the warrior, valkyria, virya, where we get words like virility and virtue.
She is Mars, strength through suffering, which, while sweet and feminine, is the power of the warrior. She's the strongest character in the whole opera. Calaf is very convincing and very powerful, but he couldn't do it without Liu, without the divine servant. She commits seppuku, which originally symbolized the death of the ego. Of course, people think it's literally a physical story about a servant who sacrifices herself, so that a prince can marry a very murderous princess, but of course those literal meanings are, while entertaining, very superficial and absurd. They don’t really withstand an occult, literary analysis. Liu says that Turandot is girdled with ice, meaning her chastity, severity, which can only be melted by the fire of Calaf’s love. She says, "You will love eventually the Prince Calaf as I love him." Meaning: when the ego is fully dead and the ice of the lunar sphere has melted through chastity, Binah will absorb Tiphereth, and all the lower seven sephiroth through resurrection. So, before the break of day, Liu says, "I shall close my tired eyes never to see him anymore…" except through resurrection. They only see each other through mystical death. This is when Timur, the spirit who is blind in us, is told about his daughter's death. So he grieves. It's a very painful process for the Being, in which Geburah descends into the initiate. That's because the divine soul and the spirit are one within a master, but in order to help Calaf work in himself, she must descend into him and mix with all the impurities to help him fight. But of course, Timur is blind, grieving. He's the exalted Tartarian king, exiled king of the north, the spirit, and Timur, symbolically speaking, is blind in us. The eyes of Ra, the spirit, are no longer active because we fell, but this doesn't mean that the Being is blind. It just means that in us, that potential is not active, because the Being is always omniscient, even when we are not. The spirit sees. As the Qur’an repeatedly teaches, "Allah is the witness over the heavens and the earth. He sees all things." "It is dawn my little Liu," Timur says to her. Meaning: Chokmah, the Sun or solar logos, is in Geburah. He also pronounces with great grief that God should be outraged. This is true. The gods, the buddhas would be angered if her death, which is so noble, is not justified with marriage with Turandot… because to reach that point is very high and difficult, but to not make it to the end is very, very painful. One can fall at that point, very easily. It's a very dangerous path, very straight and narrow, which is why the Qur’an says: Guide us to the straight path,
Every one of us, without exception, has killed our inner God, our inner Being. We assassinated the God Mercury through fornication. We've sinned against the goddess moon and therefore we must pay the price. This is when the multitudes of people say, "Unhappy shade, shameful shade, forgive us!"
And as I said earlier, in the previous lectures, the chorus is dual. It can be heavenly or diabolic, depending upon how the verb is used. So, in heaven it's divine, but in hell it's demonic. Timur says he will follow to rest beside Geburah, Liu, in the night that knows no dawn. It might seem that the Being is doubting at this point. It's very difficult to escape the darkness in order to turn to the light. He will descend into Klipoth looking for His lost soul if the ego is not fully eliminated, if one fails and enters devolution. So, Ping, Pang and Pong at this point say that this is the first time they look upon death without sneering. IAO, diablo, Lucifer, doesn't mock the descent of Geburah into the initiate. It's very serious. They say, "Liu, gentle spirit. Rest in peace." Timur and the crowd then exit, which is actually the point, I believe, at which Puccini didn't finish his opera. The rest of the opera was developed by another composer, Franco Alfano, from Puccini’s notes. He made sure that the esoteric message got through for this final work, which is important. It is at this point and time Tiphereth, Prince Calaf or caliph, the master of the middle east, says to Turandot, "You are princess of death," which is true. In heaven, she is Divine Mother Death, Binah, Saturn, the Sabbath, but down in hell she is Kali who swallows the infidels, al-Kafirin, within the ninth sphere of the inferno. He tells her to come down from her tragic heaven to tear her veil. Only by tearing the veil of Isis through the death of the ego can we achieve resurrection. The veil of Isis, he says, is like ice and water. Again, very symbolic. The ice and water of Yesod must be melted and transmuted in a marriage. All of this, of course, is very symbolic, which is funny when people see this opera. Obviously, audiences are very fascinated with these dramas, but which are interpreted in a very juvenile sense. Why would this prince want to marry this woman who killed his servant and threatened to kill him? Of course, very literally, it's extremely silly, but symbolically he becomes more aroused by her, in love with her. This is a beautiful symbol of how love and death are one. Divine Mother death is love, the terror of love and law as mentioned innumerable times by Samael Aun Weor. She resists him. She first says, "Don't touch me. It's a sacrilege." Meaning, to touch the Divine Mother, to approach the Divine Mother with lust, is demonic, blasphemous, but to really be united with her is to be completely dead, chaste. The kiss of the Divine Mother Death requires absolute death of the ego, to become Hadit, the Divine Father, which is Binah, the masculine aspect of the Holy Spirit. But then he takes her in his arms and kisses her. Very dramatic music thunders, representing the fatality and the supreme negation of the self. He has died to the ego completely. He then calls her the flower of the dawn, referring to Venus, the rose, Shoshannah. Rosh Hashanah, the perfected chastity of the initiate. She says, "How did you conquer?" And then he says, "Do you weep?" She weeps her first tears. Meaning, the eyes of Binah has melted in the fire of alchemy. He answers her with a question. "Do you weep?" Referring to the eyes, since the eyes of Horus which are now open. Eyes in Hebrew is עיניים Ayni'im, which contains the letter ע ayin. ע Ayin is found in the middle of דעת Daath. ד Daleth is the doorway through which we see, ע Ayin, the truth, ת Tav. It is through the fires of alchemy that we melt the ice of Yesod, and when Turandot weeps, her vision within the initiate is cleansed, is clear. The Truth is visible to both princess and prince, since Calaf is now completely dead to the ego. Turandot relates how she despised all the people who tried to marry her before, the initiates who said they loved her, but failed. Yet she feared Calaf, because he was like a Mozart, a Beethoven, a Wagner. Some initiates can conquer the moonlight sonata, the darkness of the soul, and come out in the end with the sun. Many end up like Samson. She says the light springs from him, that she felt the fear of conquering and being conquered. Devi Kundalini fears our failure. She also fears the soul being victorious because the inverted serpent is active there, fighting all the time. So, she still tests Calaf even when he has no ego. She tells him to leave while he has the chance. Even when you're fully dead to an ego, you must achieve resurrection. So, don't think that as soon as you annihilate the ego, (Snaps fingers), you resurrect. It's a long process in which the initiate must be tested, and of course it's a very dangerous work. He must qualify from his initiations. One achieves initiation, but then one must qualify. This refers to how we must pay all our karma with gladness, and not to pronounce anything against God. The kiss to the Divine Mother symbolizes his submission to her and the summation of mystical death at this point. She's swooning because he's now preparing for the end of the path, the height of the Second Mountain, so at this point she unveils her love for him. He then says, "My name is Calaf, son of Timur." At that moment, she says, "I know your name!" And there's that excitement in the audience. They're saying, "Okay. She's probably going to have him killed now, since he gave away his secret!" It seems like she wants to kill him at that point, but the fact that she says, "I know your name" and that "I’ve achieved victory" is dualistic. She has achieved victory in the soul, because he has perfected his submission to God, his Islam, you could say. He said, "My victory is in your embrace, my life is in your kiss!" It is at this point that he says "It is now the hour of trial!" This is the dilemma of “to be or not to be” in which the soul is to be swallowed by Saturn, Kronos, the Holy Spirit. This is the famous Day of Judgment within the Qur’an, whereby the soul is brought before the divine tribunals of the superior worlds to be evaluated by Devi Kundalini-Turandot. The trial and advent of resurrection is the ultimate, defining moment for the initiate, for Calaf. You don't know until the very end what will happen, until when they are presented in the palace, Turandot says, "Father, I know the name of this stranger. His name is love!" In Hebrew, Love is גדולה Gedulah, Chesed, the spirit. Because now, when the ego is fully dead, the soul integrates with Geburah, all the lower bodies. The spirit is absorbed in Binah, the Holy Ghost, through resurrection. And so, at the end, she says it is love. Chesed, the spirit, is united with all the parts of the Being. All the audience hears this beautiful chorus sing of the divine marriage of resurrection. Oh sun, life, eternity, light of this world and love. We rejoice and celebrate this song and this sunshine. Our great happiness, glory to thee!
Therefore we conclude with this following quotation from the book of Revelation, Chapter 2, Verse 10:
Be thou faithful unto [Divine Mother] death, and I will give thee a crown of life. —Revelation 2:10 
The power of sex that guards the prince in his journey is the Rune Laf, the rune of Life. This is the mystery of scientific chastity, of alchemy. The Rune Laf, in the gnostic tradition, is performed on the 27th of each month. 2 + 7=9: the mysteries of Yesod.
Face east in the morning and walk towards the sun with your hands above your genitalia, walking slowly while praying to the Solar Logos to descend into your hands, into your genitalia, and to grant you any particular blessings you need. Remember that the Rune Laf is the rune of sexuality, the rune of life, which can grant us any petition we need when we are sincere and working in transmutation. When you raise the Rune Laf [לפ Lamed-Fei in Hebrew] to your head, by raising your hands and sexual energy up above your כ Kaf, your crown, you form כלפ Calaf. When the hands are above your head, you are forming the Rune Man. Stretch your arms in a completely vertical fashion above your head, and you form the Rune Is. Isis. Turandot, the Divine Mother. Through the rune of life, through transmutation, we achieve the secret of alchemy and transform ourselves into true men and women, through the power of Isis-Turandot.
The mantra for the Rune of Isis is "Iiiiiiiiiiisssssssss Iiiiiiiiiiisssssssss." So Calaf is formed in you when you raise Rune Laf to your head, your Kaf or crown. That's the secret of the Calaf, the master of the middle east.
Questions and Answers
Lecturer: Any questions?
Student: China represents the east and the West. Is that Klipoth or what? Lecturer: Yes. The west is Klipoth because the sun sets in Malkuth and descends into the infernal planes. In the drama of Geburah, Liu, descends into the initiate. It's a symbol of how the sun must descend into the west in order to go into Klipoth, to help us fight all that evilness inside of us, so that you can return to the east with the sun, through resurrection. Student: So in the book of revelations, is that battle between the east and the west that battle between our brain, our mind and our sexual brain? Or is that the left and the right brain? Lecturer: Well, it could relate to the battle between brain and sex. The sun must rise into your head through transmutation, not the other way around, where the soul-energies go out and follow the moon. Student: What precisely are the stars that Calaf praises in Act III? Lecturer: The Absolute. In the Kabbalah, if you look back at the Tree of Life, you have three regions that are above the Tree of Life. You have Ain, Ain Soph, Ain Soph Aur. Ain is the Nothingness, cosmic space; the Cosmic Common Eternal Father. Ain Soph is the light of our Being. As a star, the Absolute shines with omniscience and power. Calaf was praising the stars when singing Nessun Dorma, while looking at his Ain Soph, his inner Glorian, his Christ. He prays that his light aid him in himself, which is the Ain Soph Aur, the limitless light. The light is still unitary in the Unmanifested, but when that light enters the universe, it becomes the trinity: Kether, Chokmah, Binah, the three primary forces that emanate outward and then reconvene as three in order to create. So, the Ain Soph is precisely our true Being, the star of Bethlehem. You can also look at the lecture we gave on Arcanum 2: The High Priestess, where we explained some details about the Ain Soph, Beth-le-hem, the house of bread, that shines with the Nativity of the Being, which we saw in Act II with the three magi, reading the scrolls of the initiate, his answers, and praising the birth of Christ in him when he takes the direct path. Student: Well, does one choose to take the direct path to become an initiate, as opposed to the Nirvanic, spiral path? Does this happen in the astral plane? Lecturer: Those initiations occur internally. There have been rituals done in the past, physically to commemorate and commence the initiate on the path of the bodhisattva. This doesn’t happen frequently because it's a very rare path. Not a lot of people take it, but the nirvanic path is pretty common. Those initiations occur internally through experiences. Your Being will show you if He wants, since his initiations and path belong to Him. Student: Are there people on this earth working and achieving initiations? Lecturer: I know people. I know many. Many of the people in the Gnostic movement are returning to Turandot, the Divine Princess Shekinah. There are many fallen bodhisattvas in this movement that are trying to rise again, like the prince in the beginning of Act I or the beginning of Act II. We hear the stories of Ping, Pang and Pong, who talk about how many princes tried to marry Turandot and how many of them failed. They reached initiation at some degree in the past but fell, and then they try to regain what they lost. It is a very difficult path, especially if such fallen masters are not diligent about working on the ego. Remember that they originally fell because of the mind. Student: Are there any couples having a child through immaculate conception? Lecturer: There are people, but usually those people don't talk about it with other Gnostics. Apparently, because there's a lot of gossiping and back biting in the Gnostic movement. Specifically, it's a big game of who can be more spiritual. It's the same ego adopted for other things, more spiritual things. Student: That's kind of what happens in institutional religion. I grew up Roman Catholic. Very quiet about it, but then something just happened, a deep desire. It was all very natural. Can this happen very naturally? Can you become an initiate without even realizing what's happening on a conscious level? Lecturer: So, good question. Samael Aun Weor mentions that there are many people who are in the minor mysteries, especially in the very beginning of the path, because they're practicing the three factors: sacrifice, birth of the soul through transmutation, and death of the ego. They may not be very awakened, but they have some degree of light, little by little, and some people may not even know that they passed through the minor mysteries yet. Except by having some experiences later on that show them, but there are people too who have been through the Major Mysteries that don't remember certain internal initiations because their Being doesn't want them to see it. This occurs mostly to protect that initiate from being proud, but in another sense, the work of the path itself is very conscious and very specific. To really know where we're at, we must be very awake. So, of course there's levels. We do it by degrees. It takes a lot of effort on our part, to know where we are at, and the work requires a lot of patience too, because sometimes the Being, while He is very powerful, has a lot of light, doesn't give it to you until later, when He wants. We must learn how to obey, and not resent not having light, because that's our fault. If we have no light, it's because the Being doesn't want us to have light, and that's why Calaf in Act III suffers so much, because he wants light. He says, "I wish this night would end and I wish the dawn were here!" Every initiate suffers a lot in the inferno and must go through a lot of pain, but he has to be very humble and to accept his fate. Let the light enter him when the light needs it; when the light doesn't want certain things to be done, He withdraws. God divided the light from the night. You can relate this principle to the First Initiation of Fire, in which you start to generate that light, but God says, "Let Me divide the night from the day, let Me take that light from you, so that you don't make any mistakes," so we don’t harm ourselves. Because, while we may have light, we may act poorly. This work takes a lot of restraint on our part. 
This opera is about the path of the Self-realization of the Being. Puccini unveiled, in his work, the intimate process and development of the soul, how to unify the consciousness with Christ and the Divine Mother. Self-realization is the complete integration of the soul with the Being, to manifest the complete potential of our Tree of Life. We seek to realize the Self, the Divine Mother, and all the parts of our Being, while our divinity, our Being, seeks to realize us.
As stated by Samael Aun Weor in Tarot and Kabbalah: Our own particular Monad (Self, Being) needs us and we need it. Once, while speaking with my Monad, my Monad told me, “I am self-realizing Thee; what I am doing, I am doing for Thee.”
The Divine Mother Kundalini, the divine feminine, the Heavenly Princess Turandot, will only marry a man of noble blood. To possess noble blood is to be an initiate, to successfully complete the necessary trials, ordeals, and rites of purification. This is to be worthy to achieve the goal: Self-realization, the Resurrection of the Being within the soul.
The Minor and Major Mysteries
Act I demonstrated the Minor Mysteries, the probationary path. The Minor Mysteries exist to test the disciple, to see whether one will qualify for entering the Major Mysteries. Any disciple must be tested to see if he or she is serious about the path of initiation. According to Samael Aun Weor, there are nine degrees or initiations of Minor Mysteries that the student must pass before qualifying for the Major Mysteries or Initiations of Fire: the awakening and development of the Kundalini.
The Minor Mysteries involve ordeals and mystical experiences. The disciple, in the astral world, witnesses him or herself entering the interior of the earth. Symbolically, we must face our own psychological impurities, our own filthiness and degeneration. This is not so that we can become morbid people, filled with self-flagellation and shame. The sole intention of introspection, of meditation, is to acquire change. We must make an inner account of ourselves: what defects do we possess in abundance, and what virtues do we lack? If we do not confront ourselves, if we are unwilling to take responsibility and ownership of our mistakes, then we will not enter the Major Mysteries. People who fail in the probationary path eventually leave Gnosis, simply because they see no benefit from the practices. They cannot confront the reality of their mind and the psychological causes of their suffering. The student must be tested and prepared for awakening and raising the Kundalini in a marriage. The serpentine fire rises within the spinal canals of the lower five bodies of the Tree of Life: Malkuth, the physical body; Yesod, the vital body; Hod, the astral body; Netzach, the mental body; and Tiphereth, the causal body. Raising and developing the Kundalini within the spine of each body constitutes one initiation of Major Mysteries. The Major Mysteries, or five Initiations of Fire, are accomplished through the Perfect Matrimony: the union of two pure souls, one who loves more, and the other who loves better. Single and married people can advance through the Minor Mysteries, but only married couples can awaken the sacred fire of Kundalini and enter the Major Mysteries or Mysteries of the Fire. Calaf, the exiled Prince of Tartary, conquered certain trials and temptations in Act I. He was tested in his resolve and pursuit of initiation. Every student who enters Gnosis is on probation. All must walk the probationary path, to complete the Minor Mysteries. Before the law of divinity and karma, we are given the opportunity to prove ourselves in the Minor Mysteries, since all of us, without exception, are delinquents, demons, criminals before God. Anyone who has the ego alive is an infidel, an unbeliever, a stranger to the kingdom of heaven. It doesn't matter what we believe, because if we possess anger, lust, desire, it means we are not perfect, but are demonic beings. The purpose of these studies is to know the heavens of the Tree of Life, to no longer be an outsider, an inhabitant of the Abyss. This can only occur when we remove the garbage of the psyche, our psychological defects. For as Jesus taught us: Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect. —Matthew 5:48
Calaf undergoes the Minor Mysteries in his confrontations with three enigmatic figures: Ping, Pang, and Pong. As I stated, the mystery of their significance is found in the vowels of their names: I, A, O. Ping, Pang, and Pong represent Diablo, the devil, the ego. These three individuals help Turandot to govern the lunar multitudes. Who are the lunar multitudes? The people of Peking who worship the moon, mechanicity and the Second Death. Similarly, the commoners also clamored and confronted the Prince, seeking to dissuade him from ringing the fatal gong three times to awaken the Divine Princess Turandot.
Ringing the gong three times symbolizes the work in a matrimony. Remember that the Kundalini is coiled three and a half times, asleep, within the Chakra Muladhara, until the couple awakens the serpent of fire through sexual magic. The number three also reminds us of the three primary forces: Holy Affirmation (man), Holy Negation (woman), and Holy Conciliation (sexual union). Once that serpent is awakened, it begins its journey up the thirty-three vertebrate of the spinal column, the thirty-three canyons or degrees of Freemasonry. The work of raising the Kundalini up each vertebra is the path of the Major Mysteries, which are symbolized by Turandot's three riddles. These three riddles synthesize and contain within themselves the mysteries of the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, Kabbalah and Alchemy, which we will explain in detail today. The Mysteries of Diablo, IAO, Lucifer
The counselors of the palace—Ping, Pang, and Pong—announce the call of the city’s fatal gong. The palace and the streets are stirred, in uproar, because a new disciple has awakened the serpentine fire Kundalini, the Divine Princess Turandot, within his spinal column. The Prince Calaf has entered the Major Mysteries... a rare and dangerous occurrence! Many are those who challenge love (Binah, the Holy Spirit) but fail to eliminate the ego. The trials of the thirteenth arcanum—the work against the disintegration of the animal "I"—is tremendously difficult, precisely due to the nature of the mind and temptation.
In relation to this topic, Ping, Pang, and Pong represent Diablo, IAO, the power of Lucifer. This name scandalizes the religious fanatics who do not understand esoterism, who have been educated poorly. Yet when we comprehend some etymology and have direct experiences from meditation, the beauty of Lucifer’s role in the cosmic drama becomes clear. Lucifer is not just some person outside of us, but something internal and personal for each one of us. Each one of us has his own Lucifer, who is part of our Being. Lucifer comes from the Latin term lucis: “light”; and fer, fero: “to bear, carry, support, lift, hold, take up”; these terms literally join to form “bearer of light.” But what is that light? The Christic energy. Lucifer in heaven is divine, is Christ. Lucifer is the power that gives sexual impulse or longing, which is natural, divine. Without sexual power, without the creative fire, we cannot experience divine love, the beauty of the soul, or the perfect matrimony. The energies of Lucifer are beyond good and evil, but are channeled and conditioned based on our level of being. The problem is not the light, but when it is channeled through the ego. When the light becomes corrupted due to our own desires, defects, and impurities, that light constitutes Diablo, the devil. Lucifer is our own light that we have polluted within our psyche due to our mistaken actions. Because we created the ego, we transformed Lucifer into a devil, into diablo. Lucifer is properly named Christus-Lucifer, the light of Christ, because this light is part of our Being, but who is mixed with desire, with egotism, due to our own mistakes. Lucifer is the part of our Being who provides tests and temptations in this physical world and in dreams. But why? Why would part of our Being do this? His purpose in the path of Self-realization is to provide us with necessary training and experiences. Without temptation, we could not develop wisdom. Does an inexperienced soldier, who trains inconsistently, equal a seasoned warrior who trains his hardest every day? The same principle applies to meditation and the development of the soul. People who never face great adversities, painful tragedies, can never really know their true character and develop qualities like heroism, veracity, and strength. Temptation is fire. Triumph over temptation is light. Lucifer gives us the fires and pressure of adversity so that we can perceive our own defects. Without terrible ordeals, we cannot see our most secret faults. Without temptation, we cannot confront ourselves and change. Therefore, Lucifer, portrayed through Ping, Pang, and Pong, Diablo, IAO, plays an essential function in this opera. At the beginning of Act II, Ping, Pang and Pong are organizing preparations for either a wedding or a funeral. This indicates to us that Lucifer is very active in the probationary path, as well as the trials of the thirteenth arcanum, the Major Mysteries. They are preparing for the outcome of the funereal trials, the three riddles that Calaf must answer before Turandot and the palace. Everyone is agitated because no one knows what the result will be: will Calaf become a Master of Major Mysteries, or will he fail and enter devolution within the abyss? Such a struggle is beautifully depicted in Friedrich Nietzsche’s book, Thus Spoke Zarathustra. The following excerpt comes from “On the Tree of the Mountainside,” or the Tree of Life that stands upon the mountain of initiation. Zarathustra here gives some advice to a young boy who longs for the heights, who wants to enter the Major Mysteries. You are not yet free, you still search for freedom. You are worn from your search and overawake. You aspire to the free heights, your soul thirsts for the stars (for Urania, the Divine Mother Nut, the cosmic space in the Egyptian mysteries). But your wicked instincts, too, thirst for freedom. Your wild dogs want freedom; they bark with joy in their cellar when your spirit plans to open all prisons. —Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra
This indicates that when you’re raising the Kundalini up the mountain of your spine, within your individual tree of life, the forces of good and evil enter conflict, battle. This is demonstrated by the writings of Samael Aun Weor. He indicates that we must wage very terrible battles against the ego as we raise the Kundalini in each of the thirty-three vertebrae of the spine. The following is from Igneous Rose:
Within the sexual matrass of our organic laboratory, the explosions of passionate fire combine certain ethereal, astral, mental, volitive, conscious, and divine arcana. This occurs to elaborate certain igneous elements, whose substantial principles belong to the Innermost, with the ardent fire of the erotic thirst.
The mysteries of Lucifer, Arcanum 15: Passion, is the work of eliminating the ego within the sexual act. By removing the impurities of the mind, we whiten the darkness of the devil and create light. Temptation is fire. Triumph over temptation is light!
It’s interesting that 1 + 5 = 6. Arcanum 6: Indecision, the Lovers. The same kabbalistic addition exists with the 33 vertebrae of the spine: 3 + 3 = 6. In Arcanum 6, the disciple finds himself caught between the Virgin on his right: the Divine Mother Turandot, and the Whore on his left: Santa Maria, the Queen of fornication and the abyss. This struggle exists within the spinal column of any initiate practicing sexual alchemy. The path of the right is a wedding. The path of the left is a funeral. The disciple will either ascend the Tree of Life victoriously, or will shamefully enter the submerged devolution of the infernal worlds. If we fail to eliminate the ego, then hell will do it for us. If the Prince Calaf succeeds in the ordeals, he will die in the ego and be born as a soul, which is why Samael Aun Weor indicated in The Perfect Matrimony: The path of life is formed by the hoof prints of the horse of death. ―Samael Aun Weor, The Perfect Matrimony
Pang prepares for a wedding with red lanterns. Pong prepares for a funeral with white lanterns. This is interesting because colors have a very profound significance within esoterism. The three primary colors: blue, yellow, and red, refer to the three primary forces: Kether, the Father; Chokmah, the Son; and Binah, the Holy Spirit. Holy Affirmation (the Father, blue), Holy Negation (the Son, yellow), and Holy Conciliation (the Holy Spirit, red).
The colors red, white, and black were typically associated with coral incense used by the Aztecs in their offerings to the Holy Spirit, Tlaloc: the God of Rain. The waters relate to Binah, the Divine Princess Shekinah, which is why the Genesiatic waters of transmutation are deeply related to the dramas of this opera. Likewise, the colors red, white, and black depict the purity of the creative, sexual waters within the disciple. We become purified and developed as a consciousness based on the purity of our sexual energy. In the beginning, our sexual energies are black, filthy, darkened to clairvoyant sight. Through the spiritual work and the death of the ego, those energies become white, cleansed, pure, chaste. Afterward, through the awakening of the sacred fire, the energies become red with the serpent Kundalini. These gradations of development occur in relation to the Initiations of Fire upon the Tree of Life. Therefore, Ping, Pang, and Pong prepare for a wedding and a funeral, because the forces of life and death are two aspects of the same thing. Binah amongst the Hindus is Shiva-Shakti, the giver and taker of life: Creator-Destroyer. Shiva-Shakti, the sexual power of the Holy Spirit, can create or take life. When the seminal energy is conserved and transformed, it gives birth to the soul. But when the sexual energy is expelled, we experience spiritual death, the loss of the soul. Binah can give birth to the soul and provide death to the ego. This is the solar path. Or—Binah can give birth to the ego and produce the death of the soul within hell. Such is the devolving, lunar path of the black magicians. These two ways are described in detail in our lecture on Arcanum 8: Justice. Initiation, Princes, and Fallen Bodhisattvas
Ping laments and proclaims the state of China since the terrible reign of Turandot: her kingdom is saturated with the blood of princes. This is interesting because people think of Lucifer as some evil figure. Puccini, however, portrays Lucifer with a lot of wisdom and understanding. The truth is that Lucifer provides ordeals with the express purpose of helping us develop light. Lucifer, therefore, does not work with Turandot so that we can fail, but so that we can succeed. This is evidenced by the great displeasure Ping, Pang, and Pong feel regarding the countless executions in Turandot’s kingdom.
But what is a prince or Meleck in esoterism? A master or warrior of Tiphereth, someone who created the solar bodies in the perfect matrimony. Such a person possesses the Solar Astral, Solar Mental, and Solar Causal Bodies. Such beings are called true human beings, because a true human being possesses these three vehicles and has the fire of Kundalini present within each one of them. Such princes, in the past, once raised the Kundalini within the lower five Sephiroth of the Tree of Life and became what are known as Twice Born. To be born again is a matter of sexual alchemy, of using the creative energies to give birth to the solar bodies. There exist five initiations of fire or Major Mysteries. Through the First Initiation of Fire, such initiates raised the Kundalini within the spine of the physical body. Through the Second Initiation of Fire, they raised the Kundalini within the spine of the vital body. Through the Third Initiation of Fire, they raised the Kundalini within their lunar astral phantom and created the Solar Astral Body. Through the Fourth Initiation of Fire, they raised the Kundalini within the spine of their lunar mental specter and created a Solar Mental Body. And through the Fifth Initiation of Fire, they raised the Kundalini within the spine of the Essence and gave birth to the Solar Causal Body. Many princes or masters were trying to answer Turandot’s three riddles, a symbol of working in the Initiations of Fire. To successfully answer the three riddles indicates that one creates the three solar bodies of gnosticism: Christ Astral, Christ Mind, and Christ Will. It’s interesting, therefore, that Ping announces how many princes, or Malachim, were trying to marry Turandot by answering the three riddles. Why would a prince, who has solar bodies, try to enter the Major Mysteries again? This indicates that such Malachim were fallen, fallen initiates, or fallen Bodhisattvas. How does one fall? Through sex, through being tempted by the sexual energy—Lucifer—by engaging in fornication after having achieved initiation. This is very serious—very grave—because these initiates betrayed the light. What is a Bodhisattva? A master of Tiphereth who incarnates Christ. Bodhi literally means “wisdom, light,” and sattva signifies, “essence or incarnation of.” A Bodhisattva is an incarnation of wisdom, Chokmah in Kabbalah, Christ. Just because a person incarnates Christ and completes the work, doesn’t mean that one is safe from falling, from making mistakes. Many Bodhisattvas, many Malachim or masters, fell because they engaged in the sexual act when it was forbidden to them, and since they could not control Lucifer, the sexual impulse. This is what happened with Count Zanoni… When Bodhisattvas fall, they lose the light. Christ withdraws from them. According to Samael Aun Weor, such beings are truly worse than demons. But why? They had great responsibility and betrayed their commitment to Christ. Demons are at least consistent, but a fallen Bodhisattva betrayed the Lord. Therefore, who can trust them? It’s important to note that we should not make the effort to find such people in the Gnostic Movement. Many students become fascinated with this subject and want to find and follow fallen Bodhisattvas. This is very mistaken, because, as we said, fallen Bodhisattvas are worse than demons. Why should we take advice from someone who betrayed Christ? We should only be concerned with the teachings and with our own practice—that is all! It’s true that there are many fallen initiates within the Gnostic Movement who are trying to rise again. This is commendable. However, such people, when discovering their past, should not divulge their history to the public. It’s quite horrendous and ironic to admit that one is a fallen prince, a fallen Meleck. There’s nothing glorious about it, nothing to be proud about. To be proud for having fallen is to be proud of having murdered one's God. As you can see, it's quite atrocious, monstrous, to feel proud of such a fact... We have a very special Sanskrit term to describe such not-so-special beings. We call fallen Bodhisattvas and initiates by the term hasnamussen. A hasnamuss (singular for hasnamussen) signifies a being who may have solar bodies and development in heaven, but also has development in the ego. Such a being has a double center of gravity: one that is divine, within the spirit, but another that is diabolic, within the ego. Hasnamussen are beings with a split personality. Therefore, they are very dangerous, because in any moment, their diabolic center of gravity may manifest. If we look at some etymology of the original Sanskrit, we can unpack many interesting levels of meaning:
A hasnamuss is a “thief, mouse, who voraciously devours or consumes a stone with sorrow, with pain.” What is that stone? Yesod, the sexual energy. In heaven, the sexual stone provides bliss, the foundation of our spiritual temple, but in hell, provides damnation and suffering. In hell, one is crushed by the destructive powers of Yesod, by the stone, through the lunar path of devolution. A mouse is a symbol of the ego; this can also refer to a thief, because the ego steals the energies of God, uses it for corruption; to voraciously and passionately consume, indulge in, or spend the sexual energy for lustful purposes, produces pain. Therefore, it happens in this opera that many princes, men of noble blood, fallen human beings, hasnamussen, wanted to return to Turandot, the Divine Mother, again. They seek to recapitulate initiation, to raise the sacred fire of Kundalini once again within their solar bodies. Through fornication, those sexual fires were extinguished, and must be rekindled once again. Therefore, Ping announces that many fallen princes, hasnamussen, have been killed during the terrible reign of Turandot. In other words, the Divine Mother has slain many initiates through the Second Death. Why do people fail in these studies? People do not comprehend and eliminate their own ego. Or, even worse, disciples decide not to rise once finding the path of initiation again. Therefore, as evidenced by the executed princes in this opera, they failed the ordeals of the thirteenth arcanum and entered devolution. 
The Four Cardinal Points and the Tree of Life
We also spoke about the four directions. The North is Chesed, the right pillar of the Tree of Life. The south relates to the left pillar of the Tree of Life. The West is Malkuth, where the sun sets and vanishes into the darkness of Klipoth, the hell realms. The sun rises in Tiphereth, the Middle East, because Tiphereth is the middle of the Tree of Life and is astrologically associated with the Solar Logos, with Christ. It’s easy to see that Tiphereth is the center of the pillar of equilibrium and receives the forces of the top trinity, the Logoic Triangle above, the latter allegorizing the Far East: the heavenly city of China.
The sun rises in Tiphereth and sets in Malkuth. The forces of Christ, the top Trinity, enter Tiphereth, the heart, and descend into hell, with the purpose of illuminating the abyss of the subconsciousness, the unconsciousness, and the infraconsciousness. When the ego, the abyss, has been purified, when the disciple fulfills the Buddhist Annihilation, the soul can rise again with the Christic force. This is the dawn of Resurrection, perfection, within the Far East. The four directions bear profound Kabbalistic principles. In the North, we have colder regions, which represent for us how the forces of the spirit relate to the mountains of initiation, to the cold, a symbol of chastity. Therefore, Friedrich Nietzsche often spoke about the mountains, snow, and purity of the spirit in relation to the North. The North is Tartary, the northern tract of central Asia, which is mentioned often in this opera. Then we have the South relating to the left pillar of the Tree of Life, which is significant, because the southern regions of our globe are hotter, obviously. We go south of the equator, we find more tropical regions. The southern region therefore relates to heat, to fire, which is profound. The left pillar originates passion, sexual power, creative impulse, sexual craving. It’s also the reason why the left pillar can take one to Binah, Turandot, the Divine Mother, or into the infernal worlds. The left pillar is the left serpent, Ida, awakened in us through sexual heat, through a matrimony. The equator relates to the middle pillar of the Tree of Life. Just as the equator is the center of balance for the planet, likewise the pillar of equilibrium balances Mercy and Justice, the pillar of the right and the pillar of the left, in the Kabbalah. Tiphereth, the Prince Calaf, has the duty of balancing all the forces of the Tree of Life within himself, because he is the center of the pillar of equilibrium. Human willpower or human soul is responsible for balancing everything in the spiritual work. We find in this opera that the Prince makes the entire city of Peking revolve around him, or as Friedrich Nietzsche stated in Thus Spoke Zarathustra: “Can you compel the very stars to revolve around you?” Through our willpower, we learn to raise the forces of the sun, s-u-n, as well as the Son, s-o-n, the Christ, up our spine, to reach the Far East. 
The Tarot and the Tree of Life
According to Ping, China once slept with the peace of 70,000 centuries. But again, what is China and the Far East according to Kabbalah? The City of Peace is known as Jerusalem, Jeru-Shalom in Hebrew, Daru-Salaam in Arabic. That heavenly city is the top trinity of the Tree of Life: Kether, Chokmah, Binah; the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. China, the heavenly city, the Far East, the Logoic Triangle, was once at peace for 70,000 centuries, which is not a literal number, but a symbol. To interpret these mysteries, we must refer to the Eternal Tarot of Alchemy and Kabbalah, since numbers play a symbolic function within opera. Turandot is otherwise known as Shekinah, the feminine aspect of Binah, the Holy Spirit. She is the Mother of our Innermost Spirit. She is the Mother of the Tarot, the Mother of the Book cited in the Qur’an (as we mentioned in Arcanum 2: The High Priestess). It’s also interesting that the name Turandot sounds like Tarot, the Torah, the law. Samael Aun Weor even mentions that the Divine Mother is "the terror of love and law." Therefore, to comprehend the mysteries of the spirit, we must utilize the sacred arcana. 
Arcanum 7 is the seventh card of the tarot: Triumph. The conquering spirit, Chesed, drives the chariot of war: the solar bodies, in this card. He is our Innermost God who conquers the lower seven sephiroth of the Tree of Life. Arcanum 7 indicates how the spirit achieves wars and victories in His battles against the ego, so that peace may reign within the heavenly kingdom.
He accomplishes this war through his human soul: Tiphereth. The kabbalists often refer to the Sephirah Tiphereth as Israel, which is an acrostic: Isis-Ra-El. Isis is the Divine Mother, Ra is the Solar Logos, the Christ, and El is the Spirit, Chesed. Israel is the esoteric name related to the fifth Sephirah from the bottom to the middle of the Tree of Life. Tiphereth is the Prince Calaf. Remember that in Kabbalah, Israel is in love with Shekinah, the Holy Spirit. Prince Calaf wants to marry Turandot. The same meaning is here. This opera symbolizes how the human soul wants to die to the ego and achieve Self-realization. By raising the sacred fire up the lower seven bodies or Sephiroth of the Tree of Life, the initiate achieves Triumph, Arcanum 7. Once the ego is annihilated, the human soul can prepare for the process of Resurrection, to be married to or absorbed within the eighth Sephirah of the Tree of Life: Binah. This process is beautifully depicted in Act III of this opera. It’s interesting that Ping, Pang, and Pong announce that six men were slain in the Year of the Mouse, eight in the Year of the Dog, and thirteen in the terrible Year of the Tiger, according to Chinese astrology. All of this deserves a profound kabbalistic analysis.
Arcanum 6 is Indecision, the work of the human soul to fight against the Whore of the mind. The whore is egotistical desire within the intellect, heart, and sex of the disciple. When you place the number 6 within each of the three brains, you form the diabolic number 666: the ego. 6 + 6 + 6 = 18, Arcanum 18: Twilight. Twilight is the card associated with the terrible struggle between the forces of light and darkness, which especially occurs before the dawn of Resurrection in Act III. With Arcanum 6, the disciple must observe, meditate, and comprehend desire within the intellectual, emotional, and motor-instinctive-sexual brains. Remember that six princes died in the Year of the Mouse. The word hasnamuss contains the word muss, or mouse, in Sanskrit. Muss can also mean “thief.” So six initiates died in the Year of the Thief, since the ego is a thief; it squanders and abuses the energies of God. While the ego is a thief, we likewise must become thieves of the spirit: stealing the energies of sex for the purposes of divinity. Such is the mystery of Baphomet, Arcanum 15: Passion. Kabbalistically, 1 + 5 = 6, again, since we steal fire from the devil through the Arcanum of the Lovers. Also of note is the fact that the king of Tartary was also slain; he had a bow six cubits long, another reference to Arcanum 6. He was tempted in the Arcanum of the Lovers. This reminds us of how Timur, the former king of Tartary, Prince Calaf’s father, has lost everything due to the downfall of the human soul, Tiphereth, the Sixth Sephirah from the top to the middle of the Tree of Life. Remember that Timur, in the opera, is blind. The powers of the spirit are blind in us, the eyes of Ra are incapacitated. Our spiritual sight is lost through breaking the sixth commandment: chastity. Samson also lost his sight by giving away his secret, his hair, chastity, to דְלִילָה Delilah, to ד Daleth: the doorway into Lilith. Lilith is the whore of Arcanum Six: the night of the infernal worlds, the Abyss. It’s not a coincidence that the number six even sounds like “sex,” a reference to the rites of chastity. Through breaking the sixth commandment, the law of sex, we become demons. When the powers of the Spirit, Chesed, the North, are in command of our spinal column, then we become kings of Tartary, the Emperor of the Tarot. But when we allow the forces of the Spirit to crumble, to fall, through lust and the left pillar of the Tree of Life, we become kings of hell, the Tartarus. We are spiritually blind, ignorant, lost within hell, Peking. However, by working against the ego, we achieve Arcanum 8: Justice. This card relates to the Caduceus of Mercury, as we explained earlier, or how we balance the scale of the infinite within our spinal medulla. This is accomplished through psychological equilibrium within our mind, heart, and body. 
In Arcanum 8, we see a woman kneeling in prayer upon three steps, symbolic of the three elements of alchemy: salt, sulfur, and mercury. In her left hand is a sword and above her right hand, a scale levitates. She is the Divine Mother, or any female initiate who is achieving equilibrium in her psyche. When we work with the left serpent of the Tree of Life, the force of Ida, we are working with the left pillar of the Tree of Life. This also signifies the work with ז Zayin, the Kundalini within the spine.
The left pillar of the Tree of life is governed by Binah: Intelligence, but also Geburah: Justice. Remember that the kabbalists teach how the soul and spirit are elevated through the work of the left pillar, by controlling the lunar energies of the left serpent: Ida. The lunar serpent can either raise one towards redemption or lead the soul into damnation, depending on how it is used. Also remember that Liu, the servant of Timur, proclaims at the beginning of Act I, “How my master is fallen! Will someone raise him for me?” Geburah, the Divine Soul, Liu, asks for help to raise the spirit. This is when Prince Calaf emerges. Through our human willpower, Tiphereth, is how we can raise our spiritual forces. We achieve liberation with the help of Geburah and the left pillar of the Tree of Life. When the left, lunar serpent, Ida, obeys the commands the spirit, the right, solar serpentine energies of Pingala, we achieve Justice, equilibrium within the soul. So eight men were slain in the Year of the Dog. The dog is a symbol of sexual instinct, sexual desire, Lucifer. In the Greek myths, Cerberus is the dog who guards the entrance into the infernal worlds. Heracles, the Cosmic Christ, had to rescue him and take him out of the Abyss in one of the twelve labors. This dog is pleasant towards those who enter the hell realms, but is vicious and violent towards those who want to leave. This symbolizes how hell is easy to enter and difficult to escape: fornication is tempting and easy, but chastity and initiation is difficult. The lusts of the mind, our desires, fight against us when we try to steal the sexual fire from the devil. Since eight princes died in the Year of the Dog, we can conclude that the disciple will enter devolution when failing to work with the left and right pillars of the Tree of Life, with chastity.
Thirteen princes were slain in the terrible Year of the Tiger. The tiger is a beautiful symbol of the sexual energy as well, Christ. We remember the Tiger Knights, the Jaguar Knights from the Aztec pantheon, who, according to Samael Aun Weor, were masters of the thirteenth arcanum: mystical death. They worked in the full elimination of their desires, their ego. Therefore, they are great warriors, great masters. They achieved perfection.
But in the case of Peking, we find that thirteen initiates were slain in the Year of the Tiger. This means that these initiates were slain in hell, through the Second Death, because they failed to rise in the solar path. The dualism of Arcanum 13 is allegorized in the writings of Friedrich Nietzsche. He writes the following in his chapter “On Chastity,” or “Abstinence”: I love the forest. It is bad to live in cities: there, too many are in heat (because most people take the heat and sexual fire of the left pillar of the Tree of Life and use it for fornication, for desire).
So what is mud? It is ego. What does it mean to have mud and spirit mixed? It means to be a fallen Bodhisattva, a hasnamuss with a double center of gravity. There is nothing worse than being a hasnamuss with a double polarity. A fallen Bodhisattva has a lot of power in hell, through enmeshing his or her spirit within the filthiness of the ego.
Friedrich Nietzsche continues: Would that ye were perfect—at least as animals! But to animals belongs innocence.
Why are animals innocent, even though they fornicate? They don’t have the intellect yet. They are still evolving within the mechanical forces of nature. They simply obey their instincts, without question or rationalization. They don’t have the capacity to discern good from evil, purity from impurity. They are innocent elementals. Once those souls enter the humanoid kingdom, they receive the intellect and become intellectual animals.
Those souls are then given the commandments to not engage in sexuality as animals, to enter a higher kingdom, the sexuality of true human beings. The sexuality of Malachim, of angels, is chaste. Since we have the intellect and can rationalize, we are more accountable for our actions: we are no longer innocent. It is at this point in our evolution whereby we can become true human beings: princes or Malachim with solar bodies. Animals cannot achieve that until becoming intellectual humanoids, because an animal does not have the intellect yet, cannot reason, or discern good from evil. Also, we don’t need to reject sex as something filthy, but comprehend and use it in a pure way. Chastity or alchemy is purity of sex, not rejection of it. This is why Nietzsche counsels you “to innocence in your instincts.” In the East, the Tiger refers to Christ. It also refers to the creative energies one must conquer in oneself. The Western equivalent, within the Judeo-Christian-Muslim tradition, is the Lion of Judah. Going further with numerology, the sum of all deaths under Turandot is: 6 + 8 + 13 = 27 = 2 + 7 = 9: The Hermit. 27 is a very interesting number in gnostic esoterism because the 27th is the most Christic day of the month. The forces of the Solar Logos are most active at this time. We even have special holidays related to the 27th of each month, which we celebrate within our Gnostic Churches. We also have the Advent of Samael on October 27th, 1954. We always celebrate certain Gnostic rituals on the 27th of the month in remembrance of divinity, and on October 27th we celebrate the incarnation of the Martian Christ within His Bodhisattva Samael Aun Weor. 27 also relates to the heart beat of any planet. Every planet has a specific term or lifespan, which is measured by the palpitations of the planet’s vitality or heart. Just as we all have a set number of heart beats for our own life, likewise every planet has its own heartbeat, or cosmic rhythms. These energetic palpitations fluctuate in accordance with the harmony of the worlds. Each heart beat in any planet spans 27,000 years. There also exist 2,700,000,000 heartbeats or palpitations within a planet’s life before it must become a cadaver, a corpse, a moon. 
2 + 7 = 9, the Ninth Arcanum: The Hermit. The ninth sephirah of the Tree of Life, from the top to the bottom, is Yesod: the Foundation Stone. This is the Great Arcanum, the mysteries of sexual alchemy. Prince Calaf is precisely the Hermit who walks the path of initiation. Symbolically, he carries the staff of the patriarchs, the spinal column, and the lamp of Hermes, the wisdom of the mercurial science, the secret of chastity.
The Role of Lucifer in the Divine Trials
Given our understanding of what Ping, Pang, and Pong represent, it’s interesting that they lament the state of disorder in which Peking resides. Ping, Pang, and Pong feel great aversion for what they are doing. They despise sending men to death. When people think of Diablo, the devil, Lucifer, they think of some being that is external and entirely evil. They don’t understand that Lucifer is inside of us; in our internal heavens he was divine, but when mixed with ego, desire, he is Diablo.
Contrary to popular belief, Lucifer, the light of the Being, our psychological trainer, does not like when the soul fails. The reason why Lucifer gives ordeals is so that we can conquer them. He wants us to obtain Self-realization. He tempts us so that we can become victorious. However, in the vast majority of cases, many disciples are failing in the work of the elimination of the ego. Lucifer’s regal obligation is to assist Turandot, signified by the all the funerals Ping, Pang, and Pong prepare. And so they are greatly dissatisfied. You notice that they are not happy with so many dead princes. All they want is to return to the peace of their ancestral homes. Ping wants to go back to his house in Honan, Pang with the forests of Tsiang, and Pong with a garden new Kiu. This is why Nietzsche stated, “I love the forest. In the cities, too many are in heat.” The counselors’ ancestral homes bear profound significance. They represent the original, pristine quality of the soul before the fall into degeneration. The house of Honan, the forests of Tsiang, and the Garden of Kiu, all represent the Garden of Eden, Yesod. We must return to Eden through the secret gate: Lucifer, the sexual instinct. The peace of one's ancestral home represents the happiness of the soul, since Eden in Hebrew means “bliss, voluptuousness.” Such bliss and peace are experienced in the perfect matrimony, between man and woman. The light of Christus-Lucifer was pure before it became degenerated through fornication. Lucifer was heavenly above, but fell from grace when we indulged in desire. The only way to return home is through the door we exited—Eden, sexuality. Lucifer suffers within the ego. He provides us with fire and temptation so that we can transform the devil into an angel. The myth of Prometheus teaches us this doctrine. Remember that Prometheus was punished by the Gods, because he gave fire to man. This is a symbol for how, as intellectual animals, we squandered the fire of the sexual energy and imprisoned Lucifer to the rock of suffering, to Yesod. In the myth, Prometheus was tortured daily by a vulture, a symbol of our ego. The ego eats the liver of Lucifer everyday, leaves at night as his wound heals, and returns to repeat the same situation. This represents how we continuously waste our energy through desire, the vulture, and make Lucifer, the Christic light, suffer. Our sexual behaviors determine if we have light or not. If we are impure, IAO suffers in the soul as Diablo. But if you annihilate the ego, IAO is liberated. Recall the Wizard of Oz, whether the film or the book. The flying monkeys, known as the Winkies, were servants of the Wicked Witch of the West. Those flying monkeys are the powers of IAO, but trapped in hell, devolution, degeneration. In the story, the Winkies chant, “O IO, IAO.” That is because the power of Lucifer, IAO, is channeled through the ego. This changes when Dorothy, the Essence, throws water on the Wicked Witch of the West. It's quite a memorable moment in the film when the witch melts, representative of how through transmutation and alchemy, the waters of sexual magic, we can disintegrate the ego. Afterward, the Winkies are freed from the witch’s influence and thank Dorothy, because now the powers of Lucifer are freed from the Abyss. The four cardinal points of the compass relate to the four elements, as we discussed in Arcanum 4: The Emperor. Each direction of the compass has its mantra and element, as signified by:
In The Wizard of Oz, the North is associated with the Good Witch Glinda, RAM-IO, the Divine Feminine. The East relates to the wind, since the Prana, the breath of the Sun, rises in the East, in Tiphereth, through the mysteries of Da’ath: sexual knowledge. The West relates to water, which we use to work against the darkness of the mind in Klipoth, the hell realms. And the South relates to the powers of the left pillar, the lunar fires of the serpent Ida, which we must purify and raise through alchemy. This is why the author of the second part of The Flight of the Feathered Serpent taught: Look for the knowledge, which arrived again from the East (Tiphereth)!
Ever hear of the slang, when "things go South?" Hence you can see that if one fornicates, things really “go South," the soul enters degeneration. To fall into the West, into Klipoth, is certainly not pleasant either.
So why would a figure like Lucifer be evil if Ping, Pang, and Pong are not pleased with the failure of many souls? Why does the tempter not want the soul to go South and West, but rather than North and East, kabbalistically speaking? What Lucifer wants most of all is to return home to the Absolute. When we eliminate the ego, unifying the soul with the purified Lucifer, we become terribly divine Archangels, knowing the Tree of Life. We become Wizards of Oz, Otz Ha Da’ath Tob Vey Ra עץ הדעת טוב ורע, Wizards of the Tree of Knowledge, knowing good and evil completely. But if we have ego, we cannot go anywhere. Lucifer wants Resurrection. Ping, Pang, and Pong want a Prince to achieve the divine marriage with Turandot, the Holy Spirit. Binah, the Holy Spirit, must absorb the lower seven sephiroth of the Tree of Life through the process of Resurrection. Yet this can only happen with the radical death of desire. Lucifer cares for Self-realization, evidenced by Ping, Pang, and Pong singing of the death of princes while the chorus shouts, “Gira la cote… grind the wheel, sharpen the executioners ax… blood and death!”—the song of the abyss. The counselors sing, “Addio, amore! Addio, razza! Addio, stirpe divina! E finisce la Cina!” This translates as, “Farewell to love! Farewell to our race! Farewell, divine lineage! And China comes to an end!” An esoteric translation could include, “Farewell to the solar initiates! Farewell to the Aryan Root Race! Farewell to the solar dynasties, the masters of initiation, the heavenly kingdom of China, Jerusalem!” The race of the gods has ended; the reign of China, the top, Logoic triangle, is no more, since we are in the Kali Yuga, the Age of Darkness, an era populated by demons, hasnamussen, black magicians. The Aztecs also stated in their codices that in the era of the Fifth Sun, the gods would die. There will be no solar men in our Aryan Root Race. Therefore, Friedrich Nietzsche famously postulated, “God is dead.” But in the future era of the Sixth Sun, the Koradi Root Race, “the gods will be reborn.” Ping, Pang, and Pong also sing how, if Calaf succeeds in the riddles, they will lead him to the bridal chamber with a lantern. Remember that Lucifer is the sexual impulse, the mysteries of the bridal chamber, of Da’ath: alchemical knowledge. The lantern reminds us of hermetic wisdom, the lamp of Hermes within the Ninth Arcanum: the Hermit. That lamp, that energy, guides the initiate in meditation and daily life. When you have light, you know how to walk the spiritual path. Ping, Pang, and Pong also proclaim that they will sing of love till daybreak. Through marriage with Binah, through Resurrection, one is permanently established within the dawn of the Solar Logos, the Christ. The counselors also sing, ecstatically, of “the unclad body initiated into the mystery.” Through the perfect matrimony, husband and wife work in sexual cooperation, transmuting the sexual energy and annihilating desire. The couple uses the left pillar of the Tree of Life, raising ז Zayin, the Kundalini sword of the Divine Mother, to achieve liberation. But for that, the couple must conquer temptation, Lucifer, the serpent of Eden. Our inner Klipoth must be cleaned, completely. The nine infernal spheres of the Tree of Zaqqum, the tree of hell, must be purified. Yet for that to happen, the Prince Calaf, Tiphereth, must first answer the three riddles of Turandot. These three riddles synthesize the three mother letters of Kabbalah, the four elements, the four cardinal points, the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. The Palace of Peking
When we begin the path, the solar dynasties, the angels, the Buddhas, welcome us with internal experiences. A palace in esoterism bears profound significance, since in the internal planes, seeing or entering a palace indicates ascension and entrance into the mysteries. Entering a temple or palace signifies divine favor and acceptance of the gods.
Any palace dedicated to the solar dynasties is made of gold, symbolic of the solar principles of the Christ. The Temple of Solomon, Sholomah, the Solar-Man, was made of gold. Samael Aun Weor mentions how the Church of Laodicea, in the internal planes, is made completely of gold, a representation of how this Church, the Chakra Sahasrara, the Lotus of a Thousand Petals, connects us with the heights of divinity. The funereal trials take place in the palace, showing us that they are not meant to punish the soul. People often think of ordeals as something blind, given from a mistaken and blind sense of divine retribution. The truth is that ordeals are given to the Essence, the consciousness, from divinity, represented by the fact that Prince Calaf must stand before the nobles of China, the aristocracy, the divine beings, to answer Turandot’s riddles. The reason why the buddhas, the Elohim, the divine beings, provide the initiate tests, is to see them qualify. The divine beings want us to enter the superior worlds with victory, with consciousness, with development. They don’t want the initiates to fail, but to conquer, but the only way for them to enter heaven is to be purified, for as stated in the book of Matthew, Chapter 11, verse 12: The kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force. ―Matthew 11:12
We must be violent to our own ego by working with our Divine Mother Death. We must learn to fall into the arms of Devi Kundalini, according to Nietzsche. To do so is to face great adversity. As shown in the opera, we must overcome such challenges with sincerity, serenity, patience, and zeal. While divinity provides the ordeals to help the initiates, they do not ignore that such ordeals are very dangerous. How we respond to these tests will determine our fate.
The Negative Confessions and the Egyptian Book of the Dead
In this next image, we see the Temple of Maat, Goddess of Truth and Justice. Puccini was well aware of the Egyptian Book of the Dead of Ani, which is the basis for his opera. Just as Prince Calaf must prove his psychological worth before the nobles of China and the Princess Turandot, likewise Ani and his wife Tutu must present themselves in the Temple of Maat to have Ani’s heart weighed.
Anubis is the supreme lord of Karma in our solar system, who weighs the hearts of the Egyptian initiates to register the purity of their soul. The heart is balanced with a feather, symbolizing how the mind must be balanced with the heart. The feather represents the air, the qualities of the intellectual brain, while the heart symbolizes the fires of the emotional brain. Notice also that a monkey sits on top of the scale, representing desire in the motor-instinctive-sexual brain. Ani must balance his three brains through the elimination of the ego, meaning: he must achieve psychological equilibrium and balance. To receive divine favor and join the solar dynasties, he must be pure. If he fails, the monster Ammut, with the face of a crocodile, will devour him, a symbol of the forces of devolution that will swallow the initiate. 
Arcanum 21: Transmutation, is the Fool of the Tarot. Those who fail to transmute and eliminate desire end up as fools, bohemians, imbeciles. The crocodile of the card threatens to swallow the initiate standing over it and the waters of sexuality. If the disciple fails to defeat his own lust, then the abyss and the Second Death, represented by the crocodile or the monster Ammut, will devour him.
It’s also important to understand that the Goddess Maat is the Divine Mother Death, since מוות Mutt in Hebrew means “death.” It is only through death of the ego that one can obtain truth, justice, and the entrance into the temples of the divine mysteries. Maat also, in Egyptian mythology, did not exist until Ra, the Solar Logos, rose from the ocean of נ Nun, the sexual energy. נ Nun signifies the sperm or ovum, since נ Nun in Aramaic signifies a “fish.” The sperm or ovum are “fish” that swim in our creative waters, מים Mayim in Hebrew. From the sperm and ovum emerge all life. Similarly, we generate the Divine Mother Kundalini in our spine enter the kingdom of truth and justice when we transmute our sperm and ovum into energy. Remember also that the Hebrew name מרים Miriam, Mary, signifies, “to raise, to elevate,” since we are spiritually raised by working with the sexual waters of מ Mem. On the right, the god Thoth prepares to document and inscribe the fate of the initiate. There is no middle ground. There will either be victory on the solar path, or failure: entrance into the lunar submerged spheres, the Klipoth. As the Qur’an teaches us in Surah 22, verse 70: Do you not know that Allah knows whatever there is in the sky (the nine heavens or sephiroth of the Tree of Life) and the earth (with its nine submerged spheres)? That is indeed in a Book. That is indeed easy for Allah. —Al-Ḥajj, The Pilgrimage 70
On top of the image of the Temple of Maat are judges, including Hu, Sia, Hathor, Horus (or Aur-us, Oros, the gold or light of the divine spirit), Isis (the Divine Mother), Nepthys, Nut, Geb, and others.
There exist 42 Judges of Karma who evaluate the souls of the dead. These judges determine where the defunct will be placed in the cosmos based on their psychological qualities and actions. This is represented in the opera by the aristocrats and nobles who watch along with the commoners in the palace. Accompanying this image of the Temple of Maat is a ritual prayer from the Egyptian Book of the Dead: the “Negative Confessions.” In it, the soul proclaims before the Tribunals of Justice that it has never sinned, because it has achieved radical death of the ego. Puccini knew this teaching well and allegorizes how Prince Calaf must overcome such funereal trials within the hall of justice and truth, the Temple of Maat, the heavenly palace of China, the Celestial Jerusalem. Samael Aun Weor speaks extensively about these “Negative Confessions” in his book Cosmic Teachings of a Lama: (From the Papyrus of Nu) Calaf’s Entrance to the Palace
The Divine Emperor greets Prince Calaf. The Emperor’s name is never given in the opera, but it explains the meaning of this character very profoundly. Altoum is Kether, the Father, whom the crowds of nobles and aristocrats, as well as the multitudes of commoners, greet with such reverence, inspiration, and grandiosity. The palace of Peking sings in ecstasy before the throne of Kether, Emperor Altoum, because He is the Father of all lights, the height of heights, the Mercy of Mercies.
It’s significant that the mantra Tum is found in His name, Al-Tum. We explained the meaning of the mantra Tum in Arcanum Nine, which refers to the three primary forces. The consonant T relates to Kether, since the name כֶּתֶר Kether even possesses the same consonant, the Hebrew letter ת Tav, symbol of the seal of truth, divinity. The vowel U represents Chokmah, Christ, wisdom. The mantra M relates to Binah, the Holy Spirit, because מ Mem represents the waters. With the mantra Tum, we invoke the three primary forces within our three brains: Kether, the Father, in the intellectual brain; Chokmah, the Son, in the emotional brain; and Binah, the Holy Spirit, within the motor-instinctive-sexual brain. Samael Aun Weor explains in Tarot and Kabbalah: The Self-realized Monad is powerful. It has power over the fire, air, water, and earth (which can also signify the four cardinal points of the Tree of Life). That is why in the Egyptian Book of the Dead the devotee directs himself towards Horus and says, “I fortify your legs and your arms.” Likewise, the devotee asks Horus to fortify his three brains (intellectual, emotional and motor). This is because Horus needs the devotee to have his three brains strong. —Arcanum 7: Triumph
The mantra Tum is exceptional and is inferenced in this opera, since Prince Calaf is tested in his three brains, through three riddles, to evaluate his worthiness before the divine hierarchies of Altoum, El-Tum, the three primary forces of Tum in conjunction with the Hebrew spirit, אל El, Chesed.
As the ruler of the palace, the Emperor has seen the death of many initiates. Therefore, he questions the stranger, the Prince Calaf, to see whether he is determined and sincere in his efforts. He questions the prince not because he doesn’t want to see Calaf succeed, but because he is conscious of the dangers and the results of those who don’t qualify. The Emperor states, in synthesis, “Please leave, so that I do not have to be responsible for or see your death! I have too much blood on my hands!” Even in the Metropolitan Opera performance we watched—staring Placido Domingo as Calaf—portrays the Emperor wringing his hands with grief. Three times does Prince Calaf state, “Son of Heaven (Kether), I beg you to let me try my fortune!” This indicates how we must be determined to perform the work in each of our three brains, to learn how to fortify Horus within our mind, emotions, and sex; Netzach, the mental body; Hod, the astral body; and Yesod, the vital body. The Emperor finally states, “Stranger in love with death (Binah, the Divine Mother Turandot). So be it!” Every initiate, when completing any spiritual works, always proclaim, “So be it!” This is very well known amongst members of the Gnostic Church. At this point in the opera, the executioner of the law of karma returns to remind Calaf of his solemn duty before the solar hierarchies, to conquer himself through answering the three riddles, or to fail and enter the infernal worlds after being judged unworthy. After the executioner leaves, a chorus of children enter, singing praises to the Divine Princess Turandot. It’s interesting that the children, symbolizing the youthful, vital principles of the moon, follow after the deadly proclamation of fatality and death, Saturn. The moon, astrologically, relates to the forces of Saturn. Through death of the ego, the rites of Saturn, Saturday, the Sabbath or sexual alchemy, is how we are born again as innocent children in the kingdom of heaven. The children proclaim, “Do you not hear the thousand voices calling from the desert to the sea?” These are the virginal sparks or elemental souls of nature evolving from the mineral, plant, and animal kingdoms. The elementals seek the bounty and blessings of Turandot, reminding the Prince Calaf of the glories of Self-realization that await him through the path of mystical death. 
Turandot’s Entrance
Turandot then emerges. She relates how thousands of years ago, Princess Lou-Ling "ruled in silence (of the spirit) and pure (chaste) joy, defying the abhorred tyranny of (fornicating) man with constancy (chastity) and firmness." Thousands of years is symbolic of esoteric ages, Logoic ages, development from initiation, as Samael Aun Weor describes in The Major Mysteries. This indicates how the soul once knew the Logos and the Divine Mother, the Princess Lou-Ling.
In the past, the Divine Mother was pure, untainted, within the soul. Through fornication, the soul fell and lost its perfection, and the energies of the Divine Mother were defiled. Turandot is lamenting that loss, the violation of Lou-Ling's purity. Her chastity was broken through the failure and degeneration of the soul. People who watch this opera think that Turandot is just a woman who is very vengeful towards men, because the King of Tartary raped her ancestress. The symbology of this drama, however, teaches us to not interpret things so literally. Through fornication, we sin against the Holy Ghost and become strangers from the kingdom of heaven. We took the forces of the spirit, of Tartary, of the North, and threw them into hell, the Tartarus, the West. Therefore, due to our lust, Turandot is enraged with us because we fell. In synthesis, all of us have sinned against the Goddess Moon. She rejects Calaf because he is impure, with ego. She even proclaims, “No man shall possess me!” or better said, “No fornicator shall have me!” It is only through the complete death of the ego that we can Self-realize, marry, or resurrect within Binah, the Divine Mother. The commoners, the crowds in the palace, relate how Lou-Ling was raped when the King of Tartary unfurled his seven standards. Seven once again reminds us of the Seventh Arcanum: battles, struggles, wars and pain. This is very interesting given that Calaf and Timur once ruled the Kingdom of Tartary: now Calaf, having been expelled from his kingdom, seeks to regain the divine through his marriage with Turandot. He, as the Bodhisattva, seeks to reconcile the conflicting forces of the Tartars (the soul trapped in the abominable ego) with the heavenly China (the Celestial Jerusalem, the Far East). Tartary refers to the spiritual forces of the north that are now channeled in hell, the Tartarus, and must be redeemed. Prince Calaf is therefore a hasnamuss, since he is trapped in Klipoth, and yet he wants to recapitulate his past initiations through the trials. Turandot also relates how Lou-Ling was dragged away by a stranger like Calaf. She emphasizes this detail very much, “You are a stranger. You are a foreigner. You do not belong here!” But what does her insistence on his "strangeness" mean? When wisdom entereth into thine heart, and knowledge is pleasant unto thy soul;
Any fornicator is a stranger to God, for the ways of fornication are strange and unnatural to the divine. Therefore, it is appropriate that at the beginning of this path, we are referred to as a “straniero, strangers.” In Jewish terms, we are gentiles, goyim, non-Jews. In strict esoteric language, a Jew is a master who has incarnated Yew, IAO, Christ. If we do not have Christ developed inside, then we are goyim, people with ego, since even the term goyim, backwards, can sound like “ego.”
However, divinity does not withhold favor from the fallen soul, because the Emperor and others show concern for Calaf and want him to be victorious in the trials. Or as stated in Deuteronomy 10:19: “Love the ger, stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” Egypt, in the Bible, represents Malkuth, the physical body. We are strangers in Malkuth, this physical world, because we long, as the Essence, to return to the heavens, the stars, the Far East. Turandot reprimands Calaf, that he is too unclean to marry Her. This doesn’t mean that she doesn’t want him to succeed. It only indicates that the Divine Mother is the terror of love and law. She is very demanding towards the soul. Absolute perfection is needed for resurrection. Therefore, she challenges him: "No (fornicating) man shall possess me." And: "The riddles are three, death one!" To which Calaf replies: "The riddles are three, life is one!" Both repeat their proclamations together in this beautiful aria. Truly, as we mentioned earlier, life and death are one. Love and death share same roots. As stated in Beethoven’s ninth symphony, or the poem by Schiller upon which the ninth symphony was based: “Both sinners and saints follow Her path of roses.” Through Shakti, the Divine Feminine, we are destroyed and reborn, or as it is taught by the Christian mantra INRI: "In Necis Renascor Integer" ("In death I am reborn intact and pure"). The Three Riddles and the Three Mother Letters of Kabbalah
To help explain the significance of the three ordeals, it is necessary to refer to the three mother letters of Hebraic Kabbalah. These letters are:
The three riddles or questions synthesize the entire work of the First Mountain: the path of Initiation. These riddles represent the air, water, and fire; the three brains; the three solar bodies we must create through the perfect matrimony; and the three elements of alchemy. These three ordeals symbolize the work with water (Ens Seminis), Fire (Kundalini) and Air (Prana) of sexual alchemy. They also represent the brute semen (מ Mem, water), the metallic soul of the sperm (Mercury, Air, א Aleph), and the sulfur fecundating the sexual energy (the Kundalini Fire, ש Shin). Samael Aun Weor explains the synthesis of these three alchemical elements in The Aquarian Message: The philosophical fire must be searched for within the ens seminis. In the beginning, this fire is nothing more than a dry and terrestrial exhalation incorporated into seminal steam.
Samael Aun Weor also explains the following in The Gnostic Bible: The Pistis Sophia Unveiled:
Three Witnesses in heaven exist: the Father, the Logos, and the Holy Spirit. Three Witnesses on Earth exist: the Breath (א Aleph), the Blood (ש Shin), and the Water (מ Mem). —Samael Aun Weor
Kether, Chokmah, and Binah are those Logoic energies that produce the awakening of the consciousness. They animate our three brains or psychological centers: Kether, the Father, in the intellectual brain; Chokmah, the Logos, in the emotional brain; and Binah, the Holy Spirit, within the motor-instinctive-sexual brain.
The three witnesses on earth represent psycho-spiritual and physiological elements, forces that, when utilized and transformed in sexual alchemy, produce the creation of the soul, the solar bodies. These three witnesses on earth also represent the three mother letters of Kabbalah. They also relate to the three brains, א Aleph, the air, in the intellectual brain; ש Shin, the fire, in the emotional brain; and מ Mem, the waters, in the motor-instinctive-sexual brain. The true human being is formed by the creation of three solar bodies: the Christ Astral (symbolized by blood, the wine of the Lord in the solar eucharist), the Christ Mind (the Breath of God); and Christ Will (the waters of the spirit). There is some interesting Hebrew etymology related to the assimilation of oxygen into the bloodstream. When א Aleph, the breath, the prana, is inhaled through our lungs and assimilated into our bloodstream in a conscious way, we begin to initiate spiritual forces. The Hebrew word דם Dam means “blood,” so Aleph-Dam forms אדם Adam, the perfect human being. Contained within Adam are the three witnesses: the blood, the breath, and the waters of the spirit, the seminal matter that is transmuted into fire and light. The Three Principles of Alchemy within the Zohar
The three riddles also correspond to teachings given within the Zohar. Puccini, as a master of Freemasonry, Kabbalah, and Alchemy, incorporated Jewish mysticism into his dramas, specifically with the three questions Turandot poses to Calaf. These riddles synthesize the work with creating solar bodies in the perfect matrimony. The Zohar can also elucidate how Puccini depicts three dynamics of the same thing: the principles of alchemy.
Rabbi Shim’on resolved the conflict [between the left and right pillars of the Tree of Life, as we discussed in Arcanum 8: Justice], opening with a verse: “It is written, Next to the enclosure are the rings to be, as housings for the poles (Exodus 25:27). Who is that enclosure? A closed site, opened only by a single narrow path, intimated secretly." —Zohar
What does a ring symbolize in the internal worlds? Marriage, Yesod, alchemy. To see seven rings in the internal worlds indicates the perfect matrimony, the union of two souls within all seven planes of cosmic consciousness, the lower seven Sephiroth of the Tree of Life and beyond.
A ring also represents woman, the uterus, while the poles are phallic in nature, the masculine sexual organ. But what is the enclosure? A symbol of woman as well, the feminine sexual organs, or “single narrow path, intimated secretly." The woman is the intimate, secret gate to Eden, which has only been allegorized in the scriptures and never taught explicitly until the 1950's. Thereby it is filled, and traces gates to kindle lamps. Because it is a site hidden and concealed, it is called enclosure; this is the world that is coming (Binah). —Zohar
Why would the sexual act, the perfect matrimony, alchemy, be the way or gate to “kindle lamps”? Arcanum Nine shows us the Hermit of the tarot, who carries in his left hand the lamp of Hermes, Mercury, alchemical wisdom. We generate light through working with sexual transmutation, so that we can perceive where we are in our work. We also have seven lamps related to our spinal medulla, the seven chakras that must be awakened and enlivened through fire.
The sexual act is the world that will emerge, manifest, because Binah, the Holy Spirit, is the generator and supreme regenerator of the perfect human being. Are the rings [of the perfect matrimony] to be—supernal rings linked to one another [since the supernal triangle, the top trinity of the Tree of Life, also relates to the three mother letters of Kabalah], (מ Mem) water from air (א Aleph), air from fire (ש Shin), fire from water (מ Mem), all linked to each other, emerging from one another, like rings. They all gaze at that enclosure, into which merges the supernal river [of Da’ath, the Akashic fiery waters of השמים Ha-Shamayim, the heavens that Elohim created in the opening of Genesis] to water them, and they merge in it. —Zohar
The rings of the perfect matrimony symbolize the solar bodies: Christ Astral, Christ Mind, and Christ Will, which merge with and are created by the fiery waters of Da’ath, השמים Ha-Shamayim. As stated in Genesis 1:1:
בראשית ברא אלהים את השמים ואת הארץ
ש Shin is fire, and מים Mayim is water, for when we work in a marriage, the waters of Yesod become inflamed with the fires, the ש Shin, of Christ, to create the heavens within us, the Christified soul: the solar bodies. This is Genesis, generation, which Prince Calaf must achieve if he wishes to enter the congregation of Israel, the kingdom of China, the Far East. Those without wedding garments, solar bodies, who fail to create them through the three ordeals of the Divine Princess Shekinah, will be cast out to outer darkness, where only the weeping and gnashing of teeth will be heard.
Housings for the poles—these supernal rings are housings designated for the poles, the chariots below, for one derives from the side of fire, one from the side of water, one from the side of air, and so with them all, constituting a chariot for the ark. —Zohar
What is a chariot? A solar body. Remember that the spirit in Arcanum 7 drives the chariot of war. Chesed, our inner God, must conquer the lower sephiroth of the Tree of Life to obtain Triumph.
One solar body corresponds to the side of fire (Hod, the Solar Astral Body), one from the side of air (Netzach, the Solar Mental Body), and another from the side of water (Tiphereth, the Solar Causal Body). All of these constitute a chariot for the ark, the Great Arcanum, the Ark of the Covenant of Sexual Alchemy between God and man. So whoever approaches should approach these poles, not what lies within. As we say to the Nazarite, "Go around, around! Do not come near the vineyard!" Except for those worthy of serving within, privileged to enter and draw near. Of this is written: An outsider who comes near shall be put to death (Numbers 1:51). —Zohar
Who are the Nazarenes? H.P. Blavatsky stated that they are:
The same as the St. John Christians; called the Mendaeans or Sabeans. They designate Christ ‘a false Messiah’ and only recognize John the Baptist, whom they call the "great Nazar." ―H.P. Blavatsky
A Nazarene, in this case, refers to any person who studies esoterism but does not accept Christ, Iod-Chavah, Chokmah, wisdom. They are told to not draw near to the vineyard, the Garden of a marriage, because only those who were worthy and prepared would receive instructions regarding the Great Arcanum.
Why must outsiders not draw near? Because they are fornicators. Therefore, notice how Turandot ostracizes Calaf by calling him a stranger, an outsider. To approach Turandot, one must be perfectly chaste in thought, word, and deed. One must respond consciously to the three ordeals through meditating on and annihilating the ego. The first ordeal states: In the dark night flies a many-hued phantom. It soars and spreads its wings above the gloomy human crowd. The whole world calls to it, the whole world implores it. At dawn the phantom vanishes, to be reborn in every heart. And every night 'tis born anew, and every day it dies. ―Turandot
Calaf provides the correct answer: "Hope!" (א Aleph). Hope, as an aerial quality or characteristic of the psyche, refers to the Spirit, Ruach Elohim or wind of God. א Aleph is Prana, the force of life that animates every atom of our physical and spiritual being.
When conquering this ordeal, the negative aspect of the serpent criticizes Calaf, when Turandot says, “Hope that leaves one disillusioned,” meaning, “you will fall no matter what.” Why would Turandot say this? It’s because, as we mentioned in our first lecture, the serpent is dual: in heaven she is Kundalini. In hell she is Kundabuffer. Both aspects are represented in the trials. Turandot continues: It kindles like a flame, but it is not flame. At times it is a frenzy; it is fever, force, passion! Inertia makes it flag. If you lose heart or die it grows cold, but dream of conquest and it flares up. Its voice you heed in trepidation; it glows like the setting sun! ―Turandot
Calaf panics, as any initiate does before the terrifying ordeals of the Thirteenth Arcanum. All of us need to radically die to the ego. Therefore, divinity helps us by showing us a sunset in the internal planes, which indicates how the Solar Logos needs us to die to desire.
Liù, who is watching with Timur in the crowd, pronounces: "It is for love!" The heart. Thereafter, Calaf provides the correct answer again: "Blood!" (ש Shin). This shows us how the Divine Soul, Buddhi, Geburah, Liù, always aids Tiphereth, the human soul, in battle against the ego, against the Second Death. Blood, as a quality of passion, is the flame or fire of Christ. ש Shin is the fire that Moshe (Moses) saw on Mount Horeb, the immaculate Lord who appeared as the burning bush. It is interesting that Christ is love, and in the ordeal relating to ש Shin, Liù proclaims that Calaf is fighting for love. There are also many interesting astrological correspondences in this scene. Chokmah, the Solar Christ, manifests in Geburah because Geburah is not only governed by Mars, but the Sun. Mars relates to blood and bloodshed, while the Sun relates to splendor, radiance, Christ. Both planets relate to Geburah, since blood “glows like the setting sun” when “in trepidation.” The solar logos, the Christ, ש Shin, must inflame our blood through alchemy. When conquering this ordeal, the Chorus replies, “Hold on, persist, you answerer of riddles!” Turandot has them hit by the guards, representing how, during the ordeals, the negative serpent fights for dominance within the initiates. As we discussed in Arcanum 9, the serpent of Moses fights the serpents of the Egyptians (the black magicians of Malkuth and Klipoth). The third and final ordeal sums up the mystery of Initiation: Ice which gives you fire, and which your fire freezes still more! Lily-white and dark, if it allows you your freedom it makes you a slave. If it accepts you as a slave it makes you a King! ―Turandot
After doubt, consternation and fear, Calaf triumphs in the ordeals and answers: "Victory is mine! My fire will melt your ice: Turandot!"
Turandot, as ice that burns and fire that freezes, refers to the waters of sexuality, the Mayim (מים) of Yesod. Mayim relates to Miriam, the Virgin Mary, Stella Maris, the Virgin of the Sea. Let us remember the Ninth Sphere of Dante's Inferno, where the lost souls, embedded in the ice of Cocytus, burn with the cold until their complete disintegration through the Second Death. Such is the path of death through the waters in hell. מ Mem, however, as the final ordeal, also contains the mystery of Initiation, for it is through the sexual waters that one dies and is reborn on the solar path, through initiation. The sexual energies are “lily white” through chastity, as any clairvoyant can see the light of a person’s kidneys, wherein is registered within the internal bodies the level of chastity or lust of an individual. Darkness or animal passion is the blackness of the ego, which darkens the astral and mental bodies of demons, the Lucifers. Also, if you freely give into fornication, Kali makes you a slave of hell. Become a slave of chastity and the Divine Mother, and you will become free, a Meleck, a twice born, a king of Tiphereth. Let us also remember that מ Mem is the thirteenth letter of Hebraic Kabbalah and refers to the Thirteenth Arcanum, which contains the very essence this opera. Notice that the three riddles got progressively harder, from air: the mind, to fire: the heart, to water: our sexuality. This indicates how the aerial nature of our thoughts, א Aleph, is easiest to control. Thoughts are the slowest aspect of our three-brained machine. The fires of the emotional brain, ש Shin, are much more difficult, dangerous, because the emotional center is much faster than the intellect. Emotions are very difficult to control, especially when they are strong. However, self-restraint is needed in ordeals and initiation, which is our own life intensely lived with rectitude and love. The greatest ordeal involves facing our own lust in the motor-instinctive-sexual brain, מ Mem, the most volatile, dangerous, and consequential of the three centers, as portrayed by Calaf’s near defeat and silence during the final riddle. Since the brain of action is quickest, it is the most difficult to control. In synthesis, these three mother letters of Kabbalah contain the entire work we must perform. These letters also relate once again to IAO:
Lucifer works through א Aleph in the head, ש Shin in the heart, and מ Mem in sex. These letters refer specifically to the three primary forces within the three brains: Kether (א Aleph), Chokmah (ש Shin) and Binah (מ Mem). This is how the Initiate is tested by the Divine Mother, to prove his worthiness through the rites of purification. The ego must die in all three brains. Of important note are the three wise men at the funereal trials. These are the three magi of Christ’s Nativity. They witness the ordeals and await the moment when Christ will be born within the heart of the initiate, within the Prince Calaf. They represent the black, white, and gold kings: the gradations of mastery amongst the Bodhisattvas. Black kings possess ego, yet they have Christ inside, which makes them solar kings at the beginning level. White kings possess no ego, while gold kings have achieved resurrection within the Sephirah Binah. The three magi unveil the scrolls, the answers to Turandot’s riddles after Calaf has answered them, because they represent the three magi who approach the birth of Christ within the soul. This occurs at towards the end of this Act. 
Moshe, Moses, and Hashem: the Name of God
After answering the three riddles successfully, Calaf has become a twice born, a master of Tiphereth, whereby the crowd congratulates him ecstatically. He has formed the solar bodies in himself and has achieved the Second Birth. Anyone who reaches the Fifth Initiation of Fire is a twice born with the Christ Astral, Christ Mind, and Christ Will.
While Calaf’s victory is rather quick in the opera, the ordeals in actual life take many years of patient work and sufferings. It is said Madame Blavatsky created her solar bodies in ten years with Colonel Olcott, since she worked hard at first as an individual yogini. People with less training beforehand take even longer. After conquering the ordeals, Turandot is upset. She cries that despite her defeat, she will not marry any man. But why? This indicates to us that Calaf, while becoming victorious in his ordeals to a certain degree, still has ego, and cannot yet attain complete union with the divine. While Calaf succeeds, Turandot refuses to marry him because he is still impure; he still has ego. People often think that Turandot is stubborn, sexually prudent to deny Calaf, but Kabbalists understand how the Princess Shekinah won’t resurrect within a soul that still has ego. In terms of Masonry, he is an Adeptus Minor in Tiphereth, not Adeptus Major in Geburah or Adeptus Exemptus in Chesed. To rise higher on the Tree of Life, one needs perfection in mastery on the Second Mountain, the complete death of desire so as to achieve the goal: resurrection. The Emperor Altoum says that Turandot’s vow to marry is sacred. She still refuses. Her marriage vow is the pact of alchemy, which the Nirvani Buddhas follow at their level. The problem at this point in the opera is that Turandot, Binah, still wants further development, but a choice must be made by the human soul. Calaf, Tiphereth, either will remain in Nirvana and force Turandot to suffer because he is a hasnamuss with the ego very alive, or he will renounce Nirvana and win the love of Turandot by seeking absolute perfection through the complete death of the ego. Calaf is presented with a choice after completing the riddles. He says he will not force Turandot into his arms unwillingly but sings that he will have her afire with love, once his own impurities are completely dead. Remember that Venus is love, which astrologically relates to Tiphereth. When Prince Calaf renounces heaven, marriage, he obtains the Venustic Initiation, which is the incarnation of Christ, the Solar Logos, within Tiphereth, since this Sephirah is also governed by the sun. Only masters who renounce Nirvana to return to Malkuth to help suffering humanity, those who have Bodhichitta: the compassionate mind of unsurpassed enlightenment, who strive to eliminate the ego in its entirety, can become Bodhisattvas, incarnations of Chokmah, wisdom, Christ. This is what Samael Aun Weor referred to as the Direct Path, the path of the Bodhisattvas who eliminate the ego in one life, rather than over the span of countless aeons on the Spiral, Nirvanic Path. Bodhisattvas work to completely destroy the ego in one life and to achieve resurrection, marriage with Binah: the Holy Spirit, once all impurities are removed from the soul. Calaf, therefore, renounces Nirvana, marriage with Turandot at his level, and accepts that Turandot denies him now because his ego is still very alive. However, he says he will have her love him and will not force her to do what she does not want. This is why the crowd says, “You are strong!" because he is taking the Direct Path. Only the strong take this path, which involves tremendous sufferings and hardship, since to fully annihilate the ego is a work of perfection in mastery. Most initiates, once reaching Nirvana, end up taking the easier, Spiral Path, and since such Nirvanis do not eliminate the ego immediately, nor sacrifice themselves out of love for others who suffer in Malkuth, they do not incarnate Christ. When the crowd says, “You are strong,” they are indicating that Calaf is now Thrice-honored, blessed by the three primary forces that have descended to help him. The three rays of the Sun in Arcanum Nine have descended to aid the Prince, the Hermit of the great mysteries, specifically the incarnation of Chokmah within his heart. These mysteries are well described in Kabbalah through the symbolism of Moses. Moses in the Bible is a symbol for a psychological principle we must develop, and which is portrayed in this opera. Only a Moshe, a Moses, can take the Direct Path. Moses or משה Moshe literally means “born of water and fire.” He represents our Christic willpower that has the solar bodies created through initiation. The letter א Aleph can relate to ה Hei, the breath or womb through which one is born, the “hhhhh…” sound. א Aleph or ה Hei is the Solar Mental Body, ש Shin the Solar Astral Body, and מ Mem the Solar Causal Body created in alchemy, which Calaf achieved by answering the riddles. Combine ה Hei, ש Shin, and מ Mem, and you spell השם Hashem: the Name. This is the sacred appellation of God, יהוה Iod-Chavah, Jehovah, Christ, within Judaism. The Jews pray to Jehovah as follows: “Baruch Hashem Adonai!” or “Blessed be the Name of the Lord!” Instead of pronouncing the Unutterable Name, Jehovah, they use השם Hashem to reference יהוה Iod-Chavah, Jehovah, which is the sacred name of God in the Sephirah Chokmah: Christ. Spell השם Hashem backwards, and you make משה Moshe, Moses. Only by forming Moses in ourselves, the solar bodies, can we incarnate Hashem: Christ. See how everything is beautifully hidden in Kabbalah? This is well described in Chapter 3 of the Book of John, whereby Jesus describes this process of the Second Birth. 3 Jesus answered and said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
The crowd becomes silent after Calaf’s determination and decision to take the Straight Path of the Bodhisattvas. Surprisingly, this is the moment when the Prince presents Turandot with one riddle that she must answer. If she fails to answer it, she must marry him at dawn. But if she discovers the answer, he will gladly die in the morning hours.
He asks her if she can guess his name. How do you say “the Name” in Hebrew? השם Hashem. Calaf asks Turandot to guess his name, or the Name: השם Hashem, indicating that he has Christ within him, the Solar Logos. He tells her to guess his secret, his mystery, which is the alchemical genesis of the Son of Man. For just as Calaf raised the serpent of Moses up his spine within the wilderness, he has incarnated Christ in himself, and now the Son of Man, Christ, the Serpents of Light, must be lifted up in his spine through the second half of the First Mountain. According to Samael Aun Weor, Christ is the Lost Word, lost to humanity, but found and realized by the solar initiates upon the path of alchemy. Calaf is now in possession of the Lost Word, Chokmah, Christ, in his heart. If Turandot, in this case, the negative serpent or Kundabuffer organ, can tempt him, find out his name, his secret, make him fall through fornication, he will die at dawn. Dawn is a symbol of resurrection, for anyone who incarnates Christ now raises the Serpents of Light and afterward enters the Second Mountain: the work of the complete annihilation of the ego before the dawn of Resurrection. Prince Calaf was in exile from his kingdom. He was lost, lost the sacred word, his kingdom, his prince hood. But he gains it again when he answers the three riddles in court, he incarnates Christ and becomes the Son of Man. He then asks Turandot to guess his name, the Lost Word, because he is in possession of it. Before, Prince Calaf told his father Timur not to say his name, because they were in danger. Now that the Prince incarnated the Lost Word, he continues to challenge love (Binah) through possessing Hashem, Iod-Chavah, the Name. The sacred name of Tiphereth in the world of Atziluth is "Eloha va Daath Iod Hei Vau Hei." This translates as "Goddess of Knowledge," stressing the great relationship between the Human Soul and Binah and Chokmah (Iod-Chavah). The significance of Calaf's name (in Da'ath, the mysteries of Alchemy) will be treated upon in the final Act. Emperor Altoum, El-Tum, the Being, is Osiris, Jupiter, Father of the Gods, Emperor of the heavenly kingdom of China, Lord of Mount Olympus, the mountain of initiation. With adulation for Calaf, Altoum states, "I hope that with the dawn, I will be able to call you my son." What Son? The Christ, the Son of Man who will rise from the dead and conquer death. As the Prince and Turandot disperse, the chorus sings of the Emperor's divine glories. The fact that we end this Act with a chorus emphasizes the Verb, the Logos, the Word. Christ has not only entered within Calaf, but the Lord is going to raise the serpents of light within lower seven Sephiroth, represented by the multitudes of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas who sing with the sacred Verb to celebrate the divine Emperor. The opera will now move ahead to the works of Heracles, a symbol of Chokmah, the Solar Logos. As described by Samael Aun Weor in The Three Mountains, Heracles performed twelve labors upon the Mountain of Resurrection, which we will see represented within Act III. 
As evidenced by this great work of art, we will discover how Puccini, as a great master of Freemasonry, was an initiate of the straight path, the direct path of the Bodhisattva: those who incarnate Christ in order to help humanity, to sacrifice for humanity.
His particular focus in his last work of art that he composed is to talk about the Divine Mother, as evidenced by the name Turandot, which reminds us of the Nordic runes. As we began this lecture, we practiced the Rune Ur, the mantra Ram-IO. Ur we find in TUR-andot, and the mantra Ram-IO is found with Ra and O, the vowels and syllables of this name.
Ur is light, the divine, which in heaven is known as Kundalini. But when that energy is channeled within the ego, it is Kundabuffer. This opera teaches us this precise duality of the nature of that divine force, which, once it is purified, liberates the soul. But when it is fed through desire, through fornication, it becomes the tempting serpent of Eden, which is something we find symbolized in the great dramas of this opera, particularly Act One, of which we are going to focus on today. Even the name Turandot, syllabically reminds us of תִּפְאֶרֶת Tiphereth, the human soul. Ur or אוֹר Aur is light in Hebrew: תִּפְ-אֶוֹרֶ-ת Tiph-aur-ret. That name begins with the Hebrew letter ת Tav and ends in ת Tav: the Seal of God, the covenant, the pact of sexual magic which unites the brave heroes, the great warriors who are willing to answer three riddles, in order to marry the divine Princess Turandot, the Hebrew Shekinah of the Kabbalists. So the human soul must incarnate the light, אוֹר Aur, or as we find in the Rune Ur, we pray, "Oh Divine Mother of mine, oh Isis of mine. You have the child Horus, my true Being within your arms." And what is that true being Horus? It is a symbol of Christ because the Divine Mother is the mother of Christ. We find in this opera by Puccini the Path of the Bodhisattva, of the incarnation of Christ, the path of sacrifice, in which the great heroes overcome trials and temptations in order to marry, to be purified within the Divine Mother. As we find in that prayer, “You carry my true Being within your arms. I need to die within my defects so that my Essence may be lost in Him, in Him, in Him.” Three times, three riddles, three forces, which we find in the Christian trinity, which is a number in the tarot that we find repeated often in this opera, not only in its structure of three acts, but also three questions that the hero must answer in order to be liberated, to marry or self-realize the divine. We will be talking about the tarot in depth in this explanation of the opera Turandot. 
Death and Immortality
This Arcanum 13 we discussed previously. Immortality is the profound core of this opera, because we find in the first act of Turandot that anyone who wishes to marry Shekinah, the Divine Mother, must answer three riddles. If he fails in any one of them, he must die, which is a symbol of how one loses one's soul if one fails in the ordeals of the 13th Arcanum, because the work against the elimination of the ego is very difficult, very painful, very challenging.
But if we are faithful to our Divine Mother Death, She will give us a crown of life, immortality, perfection, because in order to marry or self-realize the Divine Mother, Binah in Kabbalah, the Holy Spirit or אם אלהים Aima Elohim, the feminine aspect of the Holy Ghost, we as a soul must be dead to the ego. The ego must not exist. In order to reach that point, we have to answer three riddles, which are symbols that we will be covering in Act Two. But Arcanum 13 is a profound teaching that Puccini knew very well and depicted so beautifully in his work. Samael Aun Weor mentions in The Aquarian Message that many operas existed in relation to the mysteries of the tarot, as well as the 13th Arcanum, which is why he explains how in the 13 Arcanum, one faces what are known as the funereal ordeals, and that opera has been used to depict that path of the death of desire. The funeral ordeals of the thirteenth arcanum developed as a profound opera within the great archaic mysteries. The austere hierophants of the great mysteries rose from within the old sepulchers of ancient times. ―Samael Aun Weor, The Aquarian Message
Because who are those austere hierophants? Austere meaning “severe,” masters of the left pillar of the Tree of Life, reminding us of severity, justice. And on the right pillar we find mercy. These two pillars of Kabbalah of the Tree of Life resonate within the dramas and symbols of this opera. But these hierophants are those who master, precisely, the left pillar of the Tree of Life, the serpent Ida.
Remember that we have two serpents in our spine: the solar and the lunar serpents. Pingala and Ida, Adam-Eve, male-female, ו Vav and ז Zayin. That left serpent in most people has fallen because it has descended, down the Chakra Muladhara through the coccyx, to form what is known as the tail of demons within the astral body. That is the tempting serpent that any initiate must overcome through the death of desire. The old operas of the thirteenth arcanum resounded with their ineffable melodies in the terrifying night of the centuries within the subterranean caverns of the Earth. ―Samael Aun Weor, The Aquarian Message
Some people read this statement very literally, not understanding that Samael Aun Weor spoke in a very kabbalistic way, because these operas of the 13th Arcanum, they resound within this Kali Yuga, this age of darkness we live in, in order to teach those souls who are demonic, the path of the light―the straight path. We find that these operas resound within the subterranean caverns of the Earth.
And what are these caverns the Earth? People like to think that the Master Samael literally meant underground somewhere, where some operas are being portrayed, but the meaning is much more symbolic. We are in מלכות Malkuth, but we also know from our studies that our sephirah Malkuth is submerged within the inferior laws of Klipoth, within negative infra-dimensions, which is why in certain cities like Chicago, New York, L.A., we find tremendous degeneration.
We are within the caverns of the Earth, because we are in the abyss, even when physically active. Because we find that those inferior qualities, laws of the infernal dimensions have surfaced, but symbolically, we are in the caves. We are in the darkness. And so, Turandot is an opera that resounds, with its symbolism of the 13th Arcanum, within the caverns of the Earth, which are the opera houses. When we recognize the ineffable melodies that portray the teachings of Christ, we become filled with awe, inspiration, remembrance, so that we become inspired to work. And precisely, this opera is a tool for initiates, to remind them and to teach them what they must do if they want to succeed. It is through the mysteries of this opera of the 13th Arcanum, is how we rise from the sepulchers, like the austere hierophants of ancient ages, because through the teachings of this opera, we learn to overcome death. Not only psychologically, or better said, spiritually, but also physically through the path of resurrection, of reunion, of return to the divine. 
In order to talk about this opera, we have to repeatedly refer to the Tree of Life, because there are many characters in places that are symbolized by the teachings of the Tree of Life. Each character is a different sephirah, a different aspect of the soul. And likewise, the multi-dimensionality of the Tree of Life teaches us how to interpret where we are in the opera, where the soul is and what it must do.
The Opening of Act I
So the opera begins with tremendous clamor, tumult, amongst the people of Peking, as an executioner of the law, the tribunal of divine justice, pronounces the following prophetic and deadly words:
Any man of noble blood who desires to wed Turandot must first answer her three riddles. If he fails, he will be beheaded.
If we want to marry the Divine Mother Turandot, we must become an initiate, a man born of noble blood. What does it mean to be a human being? It means to reach mastery on the Tree of Life.
We talk about five initiations of fire that lead to the creation of the human being by raising the Kundalini serpent from the body of Malkuth within its spine, from the Chakra Muladhara to the brain―likewise with the vital body, יְסוֹד Yesod; the astral body, הוד Hod; the mental body, נצח Netzach; and תִּפְאֶרֶת Tiphereth, the causal body. At that point one can say he has become a true human being, a man of noble blood.
But that is not enough, because one could reach mastery, reach that level Tiphereth, the center of the Tree of Life, and yet, it is another thing to reach perfection in mastery through the straight path of the Bodhisattvas. In order to reach that point, one must achieve what is called the Buddhist annihilation, the death of the ego, in a complete sense. Right now, we are in Malkuth, and to use the terms of Freemasonry, of which Puccini was very familiar, we are imitatus, souls that imitate the works and lives of the great masters, the adeptus, the adepts. To become an adept, which is a master of the Fifth Initiation of Major Mysteries, we could say an adeptus minor, Tiphereth, we have to answer three riddles, which of course relate to how we work with the three brains, the three mother letters of Kabbalah: א Aleph, ש Shin, and מ Mem, which spell השם Hashem: the Name, which if we take the letter א Aleph and pronounce it as a letter ה Hei, השם Hashem, we spell the sacred name of God or the sacred appellation from the Name: יהוה Iod-Havah, Jehovah. So in the beginning of this opera, we have an executioner who provides some context for why Peking is in chaos. It is also important to note that within the writings of Samael Aun Weor, he explains that in the tribunal of justice within the superior worlds, there are executioners. 
What is that tribunal of justice represented in this opera? We find by the holy city of China, the divine, which if you look on the Tree of Life, we find that there are different places mapped out here. China, the kingdom of Turandot, represents the Far East, the top trinity of the Tree of Life. It is important to recognize that when we look at the directions of this vertical glyph, we can transpose the four directions of any compass onto this glyph.
We know that Tiphereth is where the sun rises, which is the solar logos. Tiphereth is governed by Venus and the Sun. The Sun rises in the East in Tiphereth. Therefore it is the East. To go further is to reach the Far East, which is China: כֶּתֶר Kether, חָכְמָה Chokmah, בִּינָה Binah. We know that Binah or the feminine aspect of Binah is known as אם אלהים Aima Elohim, as I said, the Divine Mother Kundalini. The West is where the Sun sets towards Malkuth, but also towards the infra-dimensions where the darkness of the mind exists. The West is towards what is known as the Tartarus, which is the opening of our opera. We could also say is the city of Peking, because in the opening of this great drama, we see there is tremendous chaos. There are crowds pushing against each other, screaming out in agony, suffering incredibly. That is hell. We begin this opera within the abyss. As you remember from the opening of this lecture, we talked about how the ineffable melodies of the 13th Arcanum resound as an opera within the abyss. Just as we find that statement from Samael Aun Weor, we find that a great executioner of the law, a divine being, speaks to those multitudes of demons, that “If you wish to escape your fate within the infra-dimensions, you must answer three riddles. You must be of noble blood, an initiate. By answering those riddles, you will marry Turandot.” You will leave the West, which is the abyss, and enter towards China, the Far East, to marry the divine princess. But of course, very few take that path. Very few aspire to unite with Christ, which is why in the beginning of the opera, you find that there is only one person who is willing to do so amongst the majority of people, of which we will be talking about in brief. He is the prince whose name is not given until the very end of the opera in Act Three. But it is important to remember that in order to escape Peking, Tartarus, the abyss, we must become initiates. We must answer the riddles and ascend the Tree of Life. The initiate who does not die to the ego, who fails in those three ordeals―relating to how we work against the ego in the three brains: the intellectual brain, the emotional brain, and the motor-instinctive-sexual brain―if we fail in those trials and ordeals in the struggle against the elimination of our defects, it means that we cannot marry [self-realize] the Divine Mother. We fail like the Prince of Persia, who failed the ordeals and is executed in this act. Kundalini above, Kundabuffer below. We notice that from the chorus of people in the opera, there are people who praise Turandot, but also fear her. This is why Samael Aun Weor said that “The Divine Mother is the terror of love and law.” Above she is heavenly, but down in the abyss, she is the tempting serpent that leads the lost souls, the demons, into the path of devolution. The three principal characters we are introduced to in the beginning of this opera, his name is never given. His name is Timur. He is the father of the prince, who is the Prince Calaf. Timur is the exiled king of Tartary, and we find that he is with his faithful servant, Liu, before they reunite with their Prince Calaf, who is the son of Timur. Timur is related to Tartary. He is exiled from his kingdom and now he is in Peking. He is with his servant Liu, who is the only person who supported him after losing his kingdom―a terrifying symbol of how our Spirit, our Innermost God, Timur, has been exiled. Our inner God, the 4th Arcanum of the Tarot: the Emperor, has lost his empire. And now he is lost seeking his son who has been separated from him. That is a symbol of any person who, because of having created the ego, loses all development, and loses all innocence. Therefore, Timur, the Spirit, חֶסֶד Chesed in Kabbalah, as well as גְּבוּרָה Geburah, the divine soul, represented by Liu, the servant, are abandoned. They are separated from the soul, which is Tiphereth. Tiphereth, the prince, is lost in Peking, but they reunite together within the city, indicating how any person who enters Gnosis and experiences their inner God, has that reunion, which is very beautifully depicted in this opera where the prince says, “Padre, mio padre,” “I have waited for you so long! I have lost you but now we are united!” because through meditation, through initial exercises in this tradition, we become reunited with our inner God. 
We will state that Tartary was a great tract of Northern and Central Asia stretching from the Caspian Sea in the Ural Mountains to the Pacific Ocean. Tartary relates to the North, the regions of the cold of Asia. In Kabbalah, we say that Chesed is the North, because if you take the four directions―East is the vertical part of the Tree of Life towards China, the top Trinity of the Tree of Life, the West is Malkuth―the North is towards the right, Chesed; and the South relates to the left pillar of the Tree of Life, because we know that the further South you go on the globe, the hotter it gets, typically beneath the equator. Towards the northern regions, it gets colder, which is why certain authors like Friedrich Nietzsche depicted how initiates live within the North, and why many German authors and composers like Wagner always depicted the great heroes coming from the North, from the land of Boreas, Hyperboreas, Hyperborea, “the northern wind,” a symbol of an ancient humanity, but also representative of how spiritual forces dwell within the higher regions of the globe like the mountains―the mountain of initiation, the North.
Geburah, the South, relates to the left pillar of the Tree of Life because through the powers of the left pillar is how one can return to Binah, the Holy Ghost, or by abusing the powers of the left pillar, as we discussed in Arcanum 8: Justice, that force can descend down through Malkuth into the infernal planes. This is why the very beginning of the opera, when Timur falls, the king falls, his servant Liu says, “My master has fallen! Will someone raise him for me?” It is a powerful symbol: how in us our master is no longer active. Our inner master has fallen, meaning: our development has been nullified. Why does Geburah, Liu, the servant, the divine soul, state, “My master has fallen. Will someone raise him?” This is because she is the power of the left pillar of the Tree of Life, which can raise the initiate, but she needs her help, and that is where the prince comes in, Prince Calaf, played by Placido Domingo in this version we have been watching. That is when they are reunited. The prince, Tiphereth, emerges because only through the sephirah Tiphereth, our human willpower, can we conquer Netzach, the mind; Hod, the emotions; Yesod, our vitality, and Malkuth, our physicality, but also enter into the inferior worlds, the infra-dimensions, in order to work against the mind. The Fall of Tyr
This path of initiation and this recognition of one's psychological state has been depicted in the Bible. When Liu says, How my master is fallen,” we find this represented in the Book of Isaiah, Chapter 23, with the fall of the city of Tyre.
1 Wail, you ships of Tarshish! 
The city of Tyre was a representation of the city of the soul that was perfected. If you are familiar with the Rune Tyr amongst the Nordics, in our tradition, we do the mantra Tyr with our hands raised above our head, when we descend our hands down in the form of an arrow pointing up with our head as an apex. We do the mantra Tyr:
That is the power of Christ that descends through our mind, the Chakra Sahasrara, or China, the Far East in our head, because the solar logos enters our mind, our head, in order to descend down towards the Middle East, which is Tiphereth, our heart. Because Tiphereth is the East, but since it is in the middle of the Tree of Life, we call it the Middle East, which is why the character named the Prince of Persia in this opera was a master of the Middle East, the heart, but who failed the ordeals of the 13th Arcanum.
When that energy descends down into your body, it reaches what is called the West, which is your feet, Malkuth. The North is the right hand, South is the left hand. Chesed-Geburah. So when we work with that mantra Tyr, we are invoking those energies down to our body, and then we do the Rune Bar with our left hand on our left hip, our left heel against our right, our right hand against our side.
Bar is fire because we take the enemies of Christ down through our organism our Tree of Life, our spine, and then charge our body with the Rune Bar. Bar in Aramaic means “son.” It also means “fire,” and it is the root word of words like “barbarian,” “bar-bar-Aryan,” Ares, the power of Samael.
Another interesting etymology is that the power of Tyr, Timur, the power of light of the Spirit of the Rune Tyr, also relates to the acrostic Artyr―Arthur. King Arthur is the Spirit, the Innermost. We find that the Rune Ar, with our left hand on our left side, our right foot out, our right hand on our right side. We do the mantra Ario:
This is in order to prepare for the awakening of the sacred fire of the Kundalini.
The Rune Tyr, again, is when Christ descends into us. So, Arthur in the Britannic myths relate to the Spirit, the power of Tartary, the North, because we know that Britain and many of the Nordic lands were relating to the northern regions. So that energy from the heavenly worlds has been abused, has been lost, represented by the fall of Tyre in the Bible. That energy of Christ entered us, but because of our mistakes, the city has been punished. Our soul has been lost. So “On the great waters came the grain of the Shihor;” when one of those great waters of alchemy, our energies, which is where the grain, the seed, of Shihor― שין האוֹר Shin Ha’Aur: the fire and light of our potential is carried through the waters. “That was the revenue of Tyr,” meeting that our spiritual city, our soul, in the past, might have had development, and yet we have lost it, evidenced by the fact that we are ignorant. We are in Peking. We are in the darkness of the mind, lost like in the beginning of this opera. 4 Be ashamed, Sidon, and you fortress of the sea,
And why mention that the sea has spoken? That sea is the Divine Mother, the ocean of the uncreated light: the Ain, the Ain Soph, the Ain Soph Aur―represented by the very top of the Tree of Life, the Absolute. That is the great ocean, the cosmic space, Turandot, whom we seek to reunite with.
So “I have never been in labor nor given birth. I have neither reared sons nor brought up daughters,” because that ocean of the great light has not created true men in many cases. Most of humanity does not want to be a child of God, an initiate. Therefore, the ocean of the light says, “I have not reared children, initiates, in this planet Earth, because it is a failure.” Where are the bodhisattvas, the masters?” As Liu says, “My master has fallen.” So our planet is precisely a mess. It is the city of Tyre that has been destroyed, and will be destroyed like Babylon in the Book of Revelations. 5 When word comes to Egypt,
And what is this Egypt? מִצְרָיִם Mitzraim in Hebrew, meaning “the place between the waters.” In this case, when news of the fall of Tyre has been made manifest, those initiates from the Egyptian pantheon in the internal worlds look at us with a great sorrow.
6 Cross over to Tarshish;
So Tyr, again, is the bestower of crowns, because in the Rune Tyr, you are invoking Christ into your crown of your head, your chakra. So even though those forces have entered into us, because we have been degenerate, we have expelled that light. We have destroyed the city of our Inner Being.
9 The Lord Almighty planned it,
Why mention the sea so much and the ships of Tarshish? In the internal planes, if you are driving a boat or riding in a boat, it is a symbol of working in alchemy, or it is a symbol also of working with the waters of sexuality, because the boat of the great arcanum, the great ark, the path of the arch-angels, hovers over the faces of the waters, of Genesis, of alchemy, of transmutation. Those ships have no harbor, meaning they have nowhere to go, because we have betrayed the great arcanum, the teachings of chastity.
11 The Lord has stretched out his hand over the sea
Like the exiled king of Tartary, Timur. It is interesting that the word Tartary sounds like Tyr-tyry―Tyr, the powers of Tyr from above, the heavenly worlds that have been crushed, lost. And Timur, Liu, and the Prince Calaf have no place to rest, because they are in exile. They are being hunted, persecuted, because our soul is being persecuted by the ego, being hunted.
13 Look at the land of the Babylonians, 
Arcanum 7 reminds us of war, battles, against the ego: Triumph. Because “Tyre will be forgotten for 70 years, the span of a king's life.” If you reach and raise the seven serpents of fire within the lower sephiroth of the Tree of Life, you become a king. You reunite with Timur, your Spirit, the light.
15 But at the end of these seventy years, it will happen to Tyre as in the song of the prostitute:
Why mention prostitution or prostitutes who sing their songs in remembrance of their past glories? Because right now, our soul is prostituted. It is lost. It is filthy. We may remember past days in our own meditations, our own experiences, in which we were once initiates. If you meditate and enter the internal worlds, you can find out from your inner God, what is your development? Because in most cases, for most people who are in the Gnostic movement, it is because we were here before, as a law of return a recurrence of all life. Many people who are in the Gnostic movement were once in other movements related to Gnosis in the past, but because they made mistakes, they left, and now they are returning again because Timur, the Spirit, is pushing for reunion.
But we are like that prostituted soul that sings about past glories. We may remember in our own meditations how perhaps we were up there, but now we are here. We are in suffering. So that is something you can verify and that is something very personal, because when you learn about your inner God and your development, perhaps in the past you were in initiate, but the point is that now we are here and we are not initiates. We have to regain what we lost. We have to regain what we remember. 17 At the end of seventy years, the Lord will deal with Tyre. She will return to her lucrative prostitution and will ply her trade with all the kingdoms on the face of the earth. 18 Yet her profit and her earnings will be set apart for the Lord; they will not be stored up or hoarded. Her profits will go to those who live before the Lord, for abundant food and fine clothes. ―Isaiah 23
Because when you work with Arcanum 7, you develop many treasures and virtues of the soul. If you remember, we talked about how by overcoming the ego, we acquire great triumphs, blessings from divinity, glories from our inner God. “And we will return to trade,” meaning, working with the ocean, the sea, the ships―working in transmutation once again, so that those goods which are stored up, those virtues of the soul, will be like fine clothes, meaning: solar bodies, which are inflamed with fire and life.
Spiritual Reunion
So, in this opera, Chesed, Geburah, and Tiphereth: Timur, Liu, and Prince Calaf, are reunited. Meaning, the human soul has, by meditation, have experiences with the Spirit and the divine soul because the human soul, we have to remember, is where we get the Essence.
Right now, we are the Essence, which is 3% free and 97% conditioned by ego. But when we reunite with the divine, we feel a great joy, but also great sorrow, because any initiate who once finds the path again after having lost it is filled with a lot of lamentation and sweet melancholy. Really, to be without God is to be in the greatest suffering, which indicates why Calaf in this Opera, the prince, is filled with such remorse, because he is a fallen bodhisattva. He suffers a lot. He is a man of noble blood, meaning: he once entered initiation in the past and now he is returning to the path, because he wants to return to the Divine Mother Turandot. Also in the opera, Calaf hesitates to pronounce his father's name. In the beginning of this opera, he says to his father, “I won't say your name here because we are being persecuted.” It is interesting because Samael Aun Weor mentions that the Spirit, Chesed, has a sacred name. All of us, our inner Spirit, has a divine name. Samael Aun Weor is a sacred name of the Angel Samael. Every person, every Being, every Innermost, has a sacred name. As we circulate through existence from existence adopting new personalities, new terrestrial names, either of the male or female sex, those things are temporary. In truth, we maintain and always continue on in our profound depths of our consciousness with the divine name, the name that belongs to our inner God, our Being. So the prince Calaf says to his father, "I won't say your name here because we are being hunted." He knows his inner name, who his true identity is, but he fears to pronounce it because of what might happen to him, also because they do not want to evoke the wrath of the secret enemy stated by Moriy in his Dayspring of Youth: the ego, desire, the animal “I.” Liu is the only person out of the whole kingdom that was faithful to King Timur when everything fell apart, because the divine soul, which is known as Buddhi in Sanskrit, is part of the Innermost. The Spirit, Chesed, is known as Atman amongst the Hindus. Atman-Buddhi. And when you unite the human soul in that trinity, you form Atman-Buddhi-Manas: Spirit―divine soul―human soul. The divine soul is feminine, receptive, but she is also the power of Mars: strength, spirituality. She remains faithful to Timur because, again, she is part of him. Atman-Buddhi is one unit when one enters initiation, and so the human soul must unite with that inner trinity. Another term for Liu is Beatrice: Dante's divine soul in his comedy, his Divine Comedy. It is Beatrice who always serves God, is divine. So she helps Tiphereth, and when the Prince Calaf asks her, “Why did you serve my father so much?” She says, “It is because you smiled at me once”―a reference to how the divine soul loves the human soul. Liu is in love with the Prince Calaf, and so serves him selflessly. Of course, Tiphereth wants to marry Binah, the Holy Spirit, simply because in the Tree of Life, Binah is the higher sephirah that we must attain above Geburah. But all parts of the soul must be integrated, must be united and must work together, as we will see in this opera. 
Devolution and the Second Death
Perhaps one of the most terrifying scenes in this opera is the very opening, where we find the phrase or the song “Gira la cote,” and they are singing about blood and death and destruction―violence, hell. Gira la cote means “spin the wheel,” sharpen the executioner's axe. This is the song of the demons of the abyss, in Peking or in the infernal worlds. It is the wheel of cyclical existence (Bhavachakra) that spins upon the axis of ignorance, craving, and aversion.
It is important to note that in the Bible we find the following phrase, "Nephesh, nephesh, blood is paid for blood." נפש Nephesh we explain is the animal soul, which we find in our blood, in our instinct. When the energies of sex are expelled, we form the tail of Satan as I mentioned, Kundabuffer. That is a nephesh, animal soul. That is the energy that takes those fornicators down into the worlds of Klipoth in order to devolve, to be disintegrated, which is why all the people of Peking in the beginning are crying out and singing to hell. They are singing about the second death, because they want those fallen souls, for the initiates to join them within the abyss, within Tartarus, the infernal planes. It is also interesting that in that part of the opera, they are waiting for the executioner to come. Pu-Tin-Pao is his name, which reminds us of I-A-O, but in hell, because the power of Tyr, the heavenly world, has been lost in the infernal dimensions. Christ has been inverted and the energies of Christ above, when they are taken and used through fornication, become the forces of the hell realms―the power of nephesh, the animal soul. So all of these people are clamoring out in intoxication from desire. All those black initiates of the infernal planes don't want people to marry Turandot, and so they fight against them and sing against them, saying, “Let him try to answer the riddles, but he will fail and join us in death.” So the initiates of the Black Lodge, as we explained in Arcanum 8: Justice, identify and fortify the forces of devolution, so that through many aeons, they are disintegrated within the interior of the earth, within the astral and mental planes or the inferior astral and mental planes, the Klipoth. 
It always fills me with great horror whenever I watch that part of the opera, because I have had experiences related to it. I remember many years ago, I was in the astral plane and a group of black magicians came after me. They were very angry with me, because I am working in this path. So they took me and brought me into the interior of the earth, and forced me to watch a ceremony, which is similar to what we see in the opening of Turandot, which if you are familiar with the Metropolitan Opera version, you see that they are dancing with a dragon, a serpent. Where in the astral plane, I saw a ritual they were performing, showing how the devolving serpent is taking them down into the infernal planes. It was a kind of like a parade or ceremony.
But of course, at that time I didn't feel any fear or discomfort. I was simply happy to be awake, conscious. But I looked at them very sorrowful, and of course that made them angry because they weren't convincing me about what they were doing. But I remember being in that Black Lodge and they were trying to tempt me, and teach me about the inverted serpent, but I already know enough about that, and I have confronted them many times in my work, where they try to tempt you to enter the devolving path. 
This is the same multitudes, the lunar multitudes who worship Luna. When they are waiting for the executioner to arrive, to kill the Prince of Persia, the master who failed in the ordeals of the 13th Arcanum, we find that they bow down and worship the moon. It is a symbol of how black magicians worship the ego, because the moon as we explained in Arcanum 8 is the ego, desire, mechanicity, repetition, suffering. They even refer to the moon as “a lopped off head, a severed head.” It is a symbol of how those black magicians worship egotism, נפש nephesh, animality. And so, when they worship the moon, it is a symbol of how they are descending from Malkuth to the nine spheres of hell. The first sphere of hell relates to the moon, according to Dante in The Divine Comedy. And that is the entrance into the infernal worlds.
Question: But doesn’t the moon also relate to Yesod? Instructor: Yes, because Yesod is the vital energy. In heaven it is pure, but through fornication, it is limbo, the first sphere of hell. The chorus says a couple lines such as how they love “the bloodless one.” They are lovers of the dead, meaning: they are worshiping and loving hell because down there, there is no spirit. If you remember what Nietzsche is saying from Thus Spoke Zarathustra, he says that “Write with blood and you will discover that blood is spirit.” So the bloodless ones have no Spirit. They have no development, and because they are in hell, they are in Klipoth, the world of shells. They have no substance, no life, no reality, and they suffer for many eternities down there. But at the end of that choir calling for Pu-Tin-Pao―the power of I-A-O, diablo, the infernal powers that originally came from Christ, but have been filtered, conditioned, shelled, with animality, after the end of that song to Pu-Tin-Pao, the executioner―we hear a chorus of children singing a melody related to Turandot. It is very beautiful and innocent, very pure. It is a symbol of how after the soul devolves through the infernal worlds and after the ego is fully eliminated, then the consciousness can be extracted and returns as a child, an elemental, back within the paradises of the mineral kingdom, and then through evolution it can enter the plant kingdom, and then the animal kingdom, and then finally the humanoid kingdom again. Those children are those souls that, after having entered and passed through the second death, the death of the ego within Klipoth, they return through transmigration back up the cycles of evolution. They are singing in their song about Turandot. They say “thousands of voices from the deserts of the sea call upon Turandot,” because those innocent children now have another opportunity in order to return to the Divine Mother. But of course, they failed, but they are going to restart the whole journey, again through many millions and millions and aeons of time. Of course, that is the great problem when initiates decide to fall: they lose everything and have to start over again, which of course is a very painful process. When Masters Fall
At this point in the opera, the Prince of Persia is being led to his death. The Prince of Persia had answered or tried to answer three riddles, but failed them. And therefore, he is going to be executed. Persia is in the Middle East, which is why Puccini depicted how Tiphereth is in the Middle East of the glyph. Again, the Sun rises in Tiphereth, and since Tiphereth is in the middle of the Tree of Life, it has been depicted in certain religious scriptures as the Middle East. So the Prince of Persia is a master. He is a malik, a king, a warrior, Tiphereth, emphasized by the name Persia, or Pharisee, Farsi, which means “worshiper of fire,” INRI, Christ.
Question: But that’s the enlightened version of a Pharisee? Instructor: Yes, so this character, he is a bodhisattva. But he failed the ordeals. He didn't eliminate the ego, and therefore he is going to be decapitated by the executioner, meaning: he is going to enter devolution because he failed. He couldn't eliminate his desires. They are too powerful. At this point, the chorus shifts gears. It is interesting that the chorus sometimes praises the initiates but then sometimes praises hell. It is because in us, our kingdom is mixed. We are mixed with other virtues and vices, but everyone cries out to Turandot for mercy for the Prince of Persia, because they see how beautiful he is. Because any master who has light is beautiful, is Tiphereth, because Tiphereth in Hebrew means “beauty.” They want mercy for him. They don't want him to be executed. But of course, the Divine Mother is very severe, because if you want to marry her, you have to have no ego. That is why She is very demanding and why She is sometimes depicted in this opera as being very cruel: cold as jade, cold as a sword, because she is ז Zayin, the letter of Kabbalah relating to the spine, the Kundalini, the 7th Arcanum. We will state that he was a prince of the Middle East who wanted to marry the Divine Mother in the Far East, China, and through the help of the Spirit and the divine soul. And so, it is a tragedy that this Prince of Persia failed, and it is very common. Many bodhisattvas fail in the work because they need to work more diligently in the death of the ego. And as we say, the chorus laments his death or his impending death because, coming from the Greek traditions, the word, the chorus, can either be congratulatory or condemning. It plays a dual function, referring to how the Word, the Christ, can be channeled in heaven or in hell. Sometimes the crowd praises Christ saying, “Hosanna, hosanna in the highest! Glory to God in the highest!” And then next, “Crucifixia! Crucifixia!” So you find the duality in the chorus even from the Greek traditions, but also in this opera. When Calaf sees the prince, sees the Prince of Persia going to his death, he says "Turandot, you are cruel. Let me see your face so I can curse you!” Because anyone in the beginning of these studies, when hearing about the severity of the Divine Mother, obviously feels fear or the ego feels fear and says, “Let me look at that divinity so I can curse her!” But this is the moment when he sees her for the first time and is overwhelmed and overcome by her beauty. When he sees her in this version of the opera, the stage rises along with the glorious theme or motif for the Divine Mother: kind of a mixture of Italian with Chinese music. It is a very beautiful alchemical synthesis of styles. When he sees her for the first time, he is overwhelmed with love because anyone who experiences the Divine Mother in Her true form, wants to marry Her, to be reunited with Her, because She is perfection in an absolute sense. 
And Calaf, in this version of the opera, I don't know of what other versions may have this, but he has his hands outstretched raised, like this, in the form of the Rune Man, because he wants to receive the power of the Divine Mother within him, the light.
At this point in time, the crowds disperse. Turandot vanishes and the chorus states "Koung tzè, please take the soul of the dying Prince of Persia up to heaven." It is interesting that this word “Kung” is mentioned by Samael Aun Weor in his book Christ's Will, which reminds us of a gong, a keynote in nature. He explains in that book how all of nature has it sounds, its key notes within the spiritual realms as well as the physical. So he says that, I believe the line he uses in his book is, how “Christ resounds like the Chinese Kung,” and you find in this opera, ”Koung-tzè, please take this soul of this dying man up to heaven.” Because any sound, like a gong or a bell, is a symbol of the divine, of Christ. You say in the astral plane, looking to the sky, “In the name of Christ, by the power of Christ, for the glory of Christ!”―you will see from the sky a bell and hear a tremendous gong. 
You know those church bells that resound in the tops of cathedrals? They originated from that, because when you invoke Christ in the astral plane, you hear a gong, a bell, which also reminds us of ringing the bell three times when the Prince Calaf decides to take upon himself the ordeals of the 13th Arcanum by ringing the gong three times to awaken Turandot, a symbol of how we awaken the Kundalini within the Chakra Muladhara, which is coiled three-and-a-half times within the coccyx.
But before that point, Calaf has to face many trials. He becomes inebriated by her perfume, which is a symbol of chastity, because pure smells reminds us of incense, of transmutation, of the aroma of the sexual energy, which we inhale through the breath, the prana, and we circulate it throughout our body. When he cries out her name, “Turandot!” three times, the crowd becomes silent and then you hear the Prince of Persia yell, “Turandot!” and then he is executed. And of course, Timur and Liu in this part of the opera become very concerned. They don't want their child, the human soul to enter that path [of devolution]. But the fact that the crowds cry out in fear and terror when the Prince of Persia is executed also represents how in the internal planes, if you call out the name of the Virgin Mary, Miriam, the demons scream in terror. They despise chastity, which is something that Samael Aun Weor stated in his books. But of course, King Timur and Liu, they are concerned with Calaf. They don't want him to enter that fate, and it seems contradictory that if Timur is the Spirit and Liu is the divine soul, why would they try to dissuade Calaf from the path? It is also something very subtle and symbolic, something very beautiful. They warn him about the consequences of failure, but they don't dissuade him from the path. They only tell him that if you fail, you will suffer more than had you never started. Because, when you work with energy, you build up power and force, and if that becomes diverted back down into hell again, one falls lower than one began. They emphasize that the work of the ego is very dangerous, very difficult. If you fail, you will lose more than if you had never started. But this type of dynamic in the relationship refers to a scripture in the Book of Mark, chapter 10 verses 29 to 30, when Jesus refers to how one's family, one's friends will go against oneself, which is represented by this symbol, because when we enter the path of initiation, people go against us. They dislike the fact that we are working against the ego. And Jesus answered and said, Verily I say unto you, There is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my sake, and the gospel's, Diablo, Lucifer, and the Three Traitors
At this point in time we meet three very enigmatic characters. Their names are Ping, Pang, and Pong. They come into the scene in order to stop the prince from following his destiny. They are coming into the scene order to tempt the prince, and their names aren't given at this point of the opera, but their names are Ping, Pang, and Pong. If you look at the vowels of their name, you find the meaning of their symbol: I-A-O. Igneous, Aqua, Origo.
Question: A sacred symbol? That is a sacred name! Instructor: Yes, because this force of I-A-O, when it is in heaven is pure, but within the ego, is the tempter. This is where we get the word diablo (DI-A-BLO). So this is Lucifer, which represents part of our Being. He is our psychological trainer. The light of Lucifer reminds us of luci feros, the light of Christ. Up in heaven, Lucifer was divine, but because we fell, we took Lucifer, the creative sexual energy, and destroyed it, conditioned it through desire, through ego. That light became the devil, the ego, desire. So that energy is partly trapped in the ego. It needs to be liberated, which is why Samael Aun Weor stated that Lucifer is our psychological trainer who is mixed with desire. He is the part of our Being that gives us trials and ordeals and temptations so that we can face ourselves, face the mind, in order to see our problems, because without facing those psychological conflicts, those trials, those ordeals, we can't find and work on the ego. We can't see our defects. He is the light of I-A-O, but in hell, he is diablo, the tempter. This is why in the Buddhist myth, Mara has three daughters who tempt Buddha when he is meditating beneath the Bodhi Tree. Likewise, Jesus is betrayed by three traitors: Judas, Pilate, and Caiphas. Calaf wants to climb the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, to work with a marriage. Of course, he is tempted in his three brains: his intellect, his emotions, and his sex, through desire, because the ego manifests in the three brains: I-A-O. “I” reminds us of the intellectual brain because the mantra “I,” pronounced “ee,” vibrates in the head. The mantra O vibrates in the heart. The vowel A reminds us of the waters, also the breath, because we work with the breath and the creative sexual energy through our lungs to work upon the waters of Genesis. I-A-O: intellectual brain related with Netzach, emotional brain relating to Hod, and the motor-instinctive-sexual brain relating to Yesod, our waters. For Calaf to be more determined in his path, he has to be tempted, and so his own mind goes against him, raging and conflicting with him by saying, “Turandot doesn't even exist. Why do you want to enter this path? Who are you? What do you want?” And that is a question that we ask ourselves and we are asked in our Gnostic studies. Who are we? What are we living for? Where we going? Why are we living? Any student who enters Gnosis for the first time faces that conflict. When beginning to learn meditation, they find that the mind is fighting, is agitated, is addicted to sensations, to desires. I believe there is even one line that Ping, Pang, and Pong say, “Why do you want to marry Turandot so much? Why do you want the Divine Mother? You can have many women here in this physical plane.” And so that is lust and temptation in the motor-instinctive-sexual brain. Calaf becomes very angry, very agitated. He says, “Leave me be! Let me follow my path.” But of course, the ego is always going after him. Lucifer is always tempting, trying to show him his own faults so that he can marry Turandot. That is the great mystery of diablo. If there is no temptation, there is no light. Temptation is fire. Triumph over temptation is light. If you want to enter the Far East as a soul emanating from the Middle East, you have to descend to the West, the abyss, the Tartarus, where the power of Tyr, Tyrtarus, Tyr―the energies are inverted. You have to go down into your own hell realms through Arcanum 1: The Magician, through descending into the infernal worlds in order to reascend with power. That is the mystery of Lucifer. We find that these three characters Ping, Pang, and Pong are represented in this work many times throughout the opera, in Acts Two and Three;, more importantly within Act One, but also in Act Three. Act Two is a little bit more subtle. But it is important to note that if we want mastery, we have to be tempted. 
Love of Divinity: The Sufi Trope of the Initiatic Madman
Samael Aun Weor explains in his book The Mystery of the Golden Flower that there are many Spirits, many masters, or monads, inner Beings―because the word Monad means unity―that don't want mastery. Therefore, they don't push their soul with spiritual inquietudes or longings to want to enter into initiation. But those who are really pushed by the Being, who want to obtain self-realization, feel great disturbances, great longings, great sufferings, because they know that, intuitively, if they continue as they are, they will be taken by the forces of devolution in order to be destroyed in hell. If any one of us are in these studies and classrooms is because we know from experience, deep down, that we don't want to enter that path.
So many people think that those who enter initiation are crazy, insane, which is why Calaf is accused of being a lunatic in this opera, or in this act. They think he is mad because he wants to unite with Turandot and of course, you can look at the size of our classrooms, of people who are interested in marrying or self-realizing the Divine Mother Turandot. Most people, they run away. They are not interested in working on ego, because to marry Turandot is very demanding. To marry the Divine Princess Shekinah is very arduous, which is why Kahlil Gibran, who wrote many Sufi, Christian poems like The Prophet, describes this path very beautifully in relation to this opera. I am not saying that he saw this opera and commented on it, but there are certain allegories here in his writings, in The Madman, that relate to what Prince Calaf and what any person entering into initiation experiences. You ask me how I became a madman. It happened thus: One day, long before many gods were born, I woke from a deep sleep and found all my masks were stolen,―the seven masks I have fashioned and worn in seven lives, ―ran maskless through the crowded streets shouting, "Thieves, thieves, the cursed thieves."
So what is that sun? It is Christ. We have to tear the veil of Isis in the seven bodies, “the seven masks we have worn in seven lives,” by raising the fire of Kundalini up the bodies of Malkuth, Yesod, Netzach, Tiphereth, Geburah, Chesed. We are tearing the seven masks off from our face so that Christ, the Sun, the Solar Logos, can inflame us with purity, so that we can become united with Christ.
People who enter this path are obviously accused of being lunatics. These types of topics don't please people. They don't please academics. They don't please the scholars, the religious fanatics, the fornicators. This type of knowledge is very distinct, which is why the mysteries of the 13th Arcanum resound within the darkness of the caverns of the Earth, where there are very few people who want to take advantage of it. Temptations on the Path
As Calaf and Ping, Pang, and Pong, Lucifer in the three brains―because Lucifer tempts us in our intellect, our emotions, and our sex―as they are arguing, certain mistresses to the Princess Turandot reprimand them that she is sleeping and that they shouldn't awaken her. It is a symbol of how our Kundalini is sleeping in the Chakra Muladhara and is awaiting for the moment of divine awakening within sexual alchemy, through I-A-O, which we know is the sacred mantra in The Perfect Matrimony, the supreme mantra for sexual alchemy.
Ping, Pang, and Pong tell him, “Shun the riddles of Turandot. It's like shunning the mountains.” It is one word they use, meaning: “Don't enter initiation. Don't climb the mountain of the Tree of Life, but stay down here.” They tell him “Why do you want Turandot so much? She doesn't even exist. She is not real”―which is what the ego says, the mind says. Personally, I remember one retreat in which I was having a conversation with certain Buddhists―black magicians. They are awake and they were trying to convince me again that my love for my Divine Mother is illusory, that I should enter down in the infernal worlds, because they think, in a backward sense, that going into the interior of the earth is entering to development, because they are identified with those forces, with the Divine Mother in hell. So they offer many arguments and philosophical debates and theories and beliefs telling you why fornication is good and why the Divine Mother is bad. So these are very common conflicts that one faces. 
The Call of the Dead
It is here at this point in the opera that we hear the ghosts of the dead worshipping Devi Kundalini. Those are the disembodied souls who have entered into Klipoth, who fell into the abyss because they failed the ordeals of the 13th Arcanum. So even in their suffering when they are devolving, they are singing out. If you remember in the opera, they are showing the heads of the decapitated on spikes, and you hear their ghostly call from the infernal worlds calling up saying, "We still love Turandot." Because even when they are devolving and being disintegrated, they love the divine force of the Divine Mother, but of course, in heaven She is divine, but in hell, She devours Her own children. That is because that force is utilized depending on our level of being, our qualities of being.
It is also important to know that the Divine Mother never abandons Her child, because those souls who are filled with ego, who don't want to rise up to the light, they have to be disintegrated out of compassion. So the Divine Mother accompanies them down into the infernal worlds to be destroyed. But at this point in time, the prince hears those ghosts calling out from the dead, from the abyss, and he says, "No, only I love Turandot!” Only a prince of the Middle East can love Turandot perfectly, be reflected within her and her within him. It is also interesting to note that the sacred mantra for the sephirah Tiphereth is אלוה ודעת יהוה Eloah Va Daath Iod Hei Vau Hei, meaning “goddess of knowledge,” יהוה Iod-Havah, Jehovah, as described within the region of Atziluth within the world of Tiphereth, the sacred name of God in that sephirah. 
Signore Ascolta: “Listen My Lord”
Liu sings for Calaf not to leave because she does not want him to fail. She says, "Your name has always been on my lips” as we have wandered within these infernal world seeking your remembrance. So the word for God is השם Hashem, the Name: “Your name has been on my lips,” and the lips refers to דעת Da’ath, meaning: “We have always remembered you, the soul,” but “we are separated from you as we are in exile,” because we are the Essence, which emanated from Tiphereth, but we are in Malkuth and we seek to be reunited with the Spirit and the divine soul.
So this is when she sings Signore, ascolta: “Listen my Lord.” This is a direct reference to: Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord:
In Kabbalah, Tiphereth is ישראל Israel, the son of Isis, the Divine Mother; Ra, the Solar Logos; and אל El, the Spirit, Timur. Prince Calaf is Israel, the willpower of the initiate, symbolized by Moses, who must liberate the different parts of the soul trapped in suffering, by the different egos, the people of Peking. Remember that they are enslaved to the devolving forces or inverted serpentine powers of the Kundabuffer, Kali: the negative aspect of the Divine Mother Death. To achieve liberation, we must love divinity within our three brains, with all our soul, heart, and strength. The three brains will be constantly referenced in the next two acts as well.
Signore ascolta also means, esoterically: don't fail in your work, because if you fail in the work, the thread that unites the soul with the Being will be cut. That is known as the Antahkarana thread, and in fallen souls, demons, who have no hope for redemption, that connection is severed. And so she sings in lamentation. “If you fail in this work, you will be cut off from us and you'll be devolving and suffering tremendously.” Renunciation
At this point Calaf still remains resolved. He says (metaphorically), “I won't renounce my effort, my will, because I want to marry and self-realize my Divine Mother.” That is the type of willpower we need, the aspiration we need, when we practice. Calaf says he suffered too much. He no longer smiles. That is because any fallen bodhisattva has lost God, and so he says, “I once smiled in the past, but now I am unhappy. I will only be happy when I return to Devi Kundalini, my divine princess.” Really, every aspirant who finds the path does so because they want to cease suffering, but even more so for fallen masters. A fallen master suffers tremendously because they had the light and they lost it. Now they want to return back to their origins.
Question: The Divine Mother, is that also the princess? Are they synonymous? Instructor: Yes, because the Divine Mother is Turandot. She is RAM-IO. Question: Ok, well the mother and the princess, they are a little different... Instructor: Right. So the concept of the Divine Mother may sound a little strange. Why is the Prince Calaf trying to marry the Divine Mother? It is because She is the mother of the soul. When our soul has perfected itself fully, it unites with Aima Elohim and Abba Elohim as a perfect unity. So you have Osiris-Ra and Horus. Osiris is the Divine Father. Isis is the Divine Mother and Horus is the Son. Through self realization, that trinity becomes perfected, unified. But of course in order to get to that point, Calaf, the prince, has to suffer a lot, because it is through suffering in which one becomes inspired to change. So, fallen bodhisattvas, obviously, suffer more than other people, because they had a higher knowledge of the law, and because they broke the law, they are more accountable and have more responsibility. This is known as the lion of the law, Katancia: karma of the initiates and the gods, as we discussed in Arcanum 5: The Hierarch. The people around them say life is beautiful. Why do you want to abandon life? Why do you want to abandon this physical world? Why do you want to go up there and challenge love, to be united with Her and risk everything? But Calaf says, “I ask for pity from you, because I love Her so much that I am willing to do anything in my power.” He says, “No power on Earth can hold me back. I follow my destiny!” And the crowd is singing, “We are digging your grave for you, ready for you,” for those who challenge love, because the ordeals over the death of the ego are very challenging as we said. Friedrich Nietzsche depicts this struggle in his book Thus Spoke Zarathustra, of which we will relate in brief. This is from “On the Way of the Creator,” and I have added some commentary and explanations into some of the language he uses because it is very deep: Is it your wish, my brother (or fellow initiate) to go into solitude (meditation)? Is it your wish to seek the way to yourself? (your Divine Mother or your Ain Soph? Because remember when we do the Rune Ur, we say, “I need to die within my defects so that my Essence may be lost in Him, in Him, in Him.’ That Him is our Ain Soph, our inner Being as we discussed in Arcanum 2: The High Priestess of the Eternal Tarot). Is it your wish to seek the way to yourself? Then linger a moment and listen to me.
This is what Calaf does. The whole world was against him, saying, “You can't do this. You can't rise. You want to go to the very heights of the Absolute, go beyond the universe, and yet you are down here. You think you can do this?” And so this is how the mind and the black magicians tempt you, fighting against you and railing and trying to tempt you in the astral plane and physically, trying to plant doubts to make you fail or to convince you that you can't do it.
This is a process that is beautifully described in the writings of Rudolf Steiner and also Samael Aun Weor where he talks about the Guardian of the Threshold. For those of you who are not familiar with the Guardian of the Threshold, Samael Aun Weor explains that this is part of our Being, which, in the beginning of this path, we have to face a certain ordeal in which we confront a figure of or manifestation of all of our defects. This can happen in the internal planes through internal experiences, in which you see a great monster, gigantic, a full reflection of what you are. And so you have to fight that monster and defeat it, in the Name of Christ, by the power of Christ, for the glory of Christ. This is partly alluded to in this opera in which he wants to ring the gong three times to awaken Devi Kundalini, because before we can awaken the Kundalini, we have to face the Guardian of the Threshold in which we are tempted by our own defects. We have to face that beast. Personally, I remember fighting my own monster, my Guardian, and it was a very bloody battle, but fortunately, I succeeded, and I remember in that experience a group of black magicians were looking at me and they were horrified. I remember the light of Christ inspired me to speak and say “It can be done. You have to want it.” And they stood there amazed. Comment: Just to add to what you said about the Dweller, the Guardian of the Threshold―a number of metaphysicians, one, he died not too long ago. His name was Stuart Wilde. Anyway, he was talking about the Guardian. He said that it was truly terrifying. He then knew what Carl Jung was up against when he described the Guardian. Carl Jung experienced it. Steiner said it too. It’s pretty heavy! Well, you experienced it. You see, it’s scary! Instructor: But you see that reflected in the opera, in which you have all the voices of hell raised against him. He says, “Turandot!” and of course the people in the crowd say “muerte!” “Turandot!” “Muerte!” and then “Turandot!” again, muerte meaning “death.” Everytime he says her name, they say death, because that death will either occur through initiation, through victory, or in failure. There are two ways to die: willingly or unwillingly. So after he overcomes their temptations, the struggle against the crowd, he strikes the gong three times in order to awaken the Divine Mother. So this is when the Kundalini awakens from the Chakra Muladhara, to rise up in the 33 vertebrae of the spine, and 33 reminds us of 3 plus 3, which is 6, Arcanum 6: Indecision, which is what we find reflected in this struggle, in this opera. It also refers to the commandment, “Thou shalt not fornicate.” This how he begins to initiate his journey back up the Tree of Life from Malkuth to Tiphereth, the Middle East. Conclusion: A Spiritual Experience
In conclusion, I will relate to you another experience that relates to this topic. Many years ago I was meditating and had the experience of leaving my body, and then I found myself in the astral plane flying, being taken by my Divine Mother to a travel agency.
I knew I wanted a specific destination in the travel agency. I went up to the counter. I said to the lady at the desk, "I want to go to the Middle East. How much do I have to pay?” The woman said, “355 dollars." 5 + 5 is 10, + 3 is 13. So they were telling me, “You want to go to the Middle East, Tiphereth? Achieve Arcanum 13. Die in your ego.” I remember at that moment, I heard someone laughing at me, and I knew intuitively it was an executioner of the law, because in the opera, not necessarily in this version, but in other versions too, when he strikes the gong three times, Calaf, you hear the executioner laughs. And so I remember that experience. They were telling me that the executioner was laughing because there is going to be death either way, victoriously, or as a failure. It depends on our work. Questions and Answers
Do you have any questions?
Question: This has something to do with the ego. Is the best way to eliminate an ego would not be the dwell on it, if you did something good today at work or something, but to forget about it, and when you go home, to remember it for a split second and then just meditate on it and comprehend it? Instructor: Yeah, so it's one thing to reflect on an ego, and another thing to be identified with it. I know that when we face certain uglinesses in the mind, relating to our faults, it gets very painful. But the thing we have to remember is that we have to observe what we witnessed, what we saw in that moment. Look at concrete facts, concrete details. So if we discovered in a moment of conflict with a co-worker, an element of anger and pride, and also resentment, and we feel that we acted wrong, we feel that intuitive discernment and remorse, the thing is to remember that and to again feel that longing, but also don't dwell on it. Don't beat oneself up over the fault, but to feel remorse is another thing, primarily because remorse is a conscious quality, but shame is something else. Shame is not useful. It doesn't help. But if we feel remorse and say to ourselves, “I really made a terrible mistake here,” personally when I have had that at work, certain conflicts, I tell myself, “Okay. Let me continue observing. Let me be mindful. Remember my God.” I continue to pray until when I get home, I go and I reflect on that mistake and pray for understanding. Imagine that scene as it happened, concentrate on my inner God, my Divine Mother. Ask Her, “Show me with insight, how did I make a mistake here? What did I do wrong?” You’ll find with profundity of depth in the practice, without forgetting what we are concentrating on, what we are meditating on, the insight will come to you. In that way, you can pray for elimination. That is how we travel to the Middle East, go up the Tree of Life―not flagellating ourselves and saying, “I am a bad person. I am negative.” Because even though we are demons, there is no need to adopt a morbid attitude. It doesn't help anyone. People who are morbid end up leaving Gnosis because they don't see any benefit from the practices. But people who comprehend and feel remorse is something else, because they feel inspired. When you feel remorse, you recognize, you say, “I made a big mistake,” and that remorse in the heart is what is inspiring us from divinity to change. Because without that inspiration, without that remorse, we would be lost, which is why Calaf in the beginning of the opera, or better said at the end of the first Act, says “I have suffered too much. I am in so much pain. I feel so much remorse. I am no longer happy.” That recognition of the causes of suffering is what pushes one to want to enter the path of love, to challenge love. Question: This is opera about the thirteenth arcanum? Instructor: Yes, about death, death of the ego. Question: Turandot then is the Shekinah? Instructor: The Divine Mother. Comment: You mentioned how you could hurt somebody or realized that you hurt them. You look at their heart, somehow. I think you mentioned how it is corrosive to the divine force, your negative feelings, even if you feel justified. It is not good. If you could sort of feel the pain and realize that you are wounding another body, and you are trying to justify it in your mind, it is still no good. It is a corrosive force that will hold you back on the path. But you really have feelings, and you tell yourself that―words are one thing―“Oh yeah, I was wrong,” But unless you feel it in your heart… It brings out a sense of empathy towards others. Instructor: Right. And that sense develops the more you meditate, because you find that in your interactions with people, whether at work or with family or friends, you become more intuitive, more insightful. You see how even your thoughts affect people. Even your emotions affect others invisibly, which, you know, we like to think that we are separated from people in a very physical sense, like there is a barrier, “I can think whatever I want and feel whatever I want and that it is not going to affect anyone.” But the truth is that our mind influences people, and if you become very intuitive and clairvoyant and develop that faculty very well, you start to sense more and more, and recognize how wrong, negative, psychological states produce suffering. Question: In The Revolution of the Dialectic, so Samael says that basically the mind is pretty much purely Satanic. Are we only supposed to use that for comprehension, whereas opinions are not really good to have? Obviously sarcasm is not good to have. But to use the mind, “I got to fix this. I have to work on this problem”? Instructor: The solution is observe. Obviously, it is good not to talk about what one doesn't know. I know in my employment, my job, when people ask me things that I am not capable of or don't know, I say, “I don't know. I can give you an educated guess, but I think you should talk to so-and-so,” because it is important not to try to go about thinking that one knows things that one doesn't, which is something I apply very strictly to my lectures here―to teach things only that I know or to refer to the Master Samael for things I don't know. Comment: Or repeating... Instructor: Or repeating what other people said and that I don't really have an experience, because it doesn't help anybody. You have a lot of people in the Gnostic movement who are like that. They parrot. They talk about things they haven't experienced. So it is always good to speak from our own knowledge, from experience, and to observe and just observe, what is our psychological sate, and to be mindful throughout the day. Observe in each moment, and that is how you get data about your defects, because as we say in this teaching, there is no golden maxim, that “I can follow this, this, this, and this and I am going to go up to the Middle East and the Far East and marry Turandot and I'll be done.” It is very difficult, as you'll see in Act Two. It is very difficult, very dangerous, because you find that when you have to answer those riddles in yourself, when you answer those ordeals, when you reach conflicts in your daily life, how you choose to respond determines your fate and where you go. So the way to understand proper psychological states is to observe, and then intuitively you'll know in any circumstance of life what to do. Question: Would you say that it is wrong to point that out to other people?... Instructor: If they need it and if you know that they are going to listen. But at the same time, there are certain people that, we respect their will. We say, if you don't want to change, that is your business. Personally, I work with certain clients that are very difficult. They test me all the time―try to find loopholes in my thinking, the way that I work with them. But they like me a lot because I don't judge them. It still doesn't mean that I don't instill punitive measures when I have to, but at the same time we have to help people based on our capacity, our abilities, but without forcing our will on others as we relate it with Arcanum 11: Persuasion. Question: When you talk about the black magicians, witches... but then you say they are awake. What does that mean? They just have this knowledge... Instructor: What I meant was that they are awakened in evil. To be awake doesn't necessarily mean they are awake in a good way. A black magician is being, a real full-fledged black magician, is a being who is aware that they are awake. They have powers in the ego. They can astral project. They can do jinn science. They can read people's minds. They can talk telepathically. So when I was talking about those specific cases, I should have been more clear, that they are awakened in evil. They are demons, and they are trying to pull me from my path, telling me things and trying to have arguments with me. I was trying to be like Prince Calaf, like I remember from the opera, just saying, “No. Just let me be. That is your path. So be it!” Question: So they probably have this knowledge, whether it's this or Rosicrucian or something, and they just go off on the opposite end? Instructor: Some of them do. A lot of them don't. There are many who do know now that Samael Aun Weor's teaching has been more explicit and open. They have been very aware of what he teaches. This is why the ineffable melodies of the 13th Arcanum resound as an opera within the caverns of the Earth, because this teaching is now open to everyone. Samael Aun Weor explained the symbols of these great operas in his teachings. So, they know the knowledge and it is even more painful for them when they reject the knowledge, because as you read the Qur’an, Prophet Muhammad was teaching how he kept giving his doctrine, his light, but the unbelievers wouldn't accept it. Or as the Bible says, “The people who walketh in darkness have seen a great light” (Isaiah 9:2). They don't understand the light. A lot of them don't want to change. Some do. Comment: So right now, America is being inundated with the seven deadly sins. It is like ridiculous right now and even people are being tricked by pride, with pride parades. Instructor: That is because no one loves death of the ego. They love the ego. This is why all the multitudes of humanity in the chorus (Gira la cote) are praising blood and death and fornication and evil. That is the multitudes who worship the moon, which is why the opera begins in that setting and they all are worshiping and bowing to the executioner who is going to kill, the second death. That is what humanity loves. Question: Is this happening because we have to get this out of our system or is this whole negative thing that is going on? Instructor: It is happening because the ego has been building up so much in our humanity that finally, there is only a maximum that it can reach before this humanity needs to be annihilated, as we explained in the first lecture in this course, the Introduction to the Secret Teachings of Opera available on chicagognosis.org. Humanity has reached its end. This Aryan Root Race will be pulverized, will be annihilated. But before that point, the teachings of the 13th Arcanum are made available in the opera houses to teach the demons who want to change. And those who don't, so be it. Let them be. Question: A lot of people they go to see Turandot, they want to hear the music... not all, since some parts are not the most melodious. But as far as the metaphysical aspects... Maybe one in a hundred like… What do you think? You never hear them talk about it! They’re like, “Oh, Puccini!” Nothing metaphysical! Instructor: Not even. I have looked on the internet to see if anyone in our tradition has commented on Turandot and I didn't find anyone yet. I mean, I know people who I have worked with in this tradition who know about it. They know the opera well, but I haven't found anyone who has explained it. So, personally this is an opera that has influenced me greatly so I felt it important for me to explain for people who don't know. Question: The Guardian of the Threshold, is that a book by Samael? Instructor: There are references to the Guardian of the Threshold in The Perfect Matrimony, specifically. This is where he introduces that, but also he talks about the Guardian of the Threshold in The Gnostic Bible: The Pistis Sophia Unveiled. Question: What is the Guardian of the Threshold? What is the definition? Instructor: The Guardian of the Threshold is an ordeal that the disciple faces at the beginning of the path to determine whether or not they are going to be qualified for what are known as the Major Mysteries. So in the beginning of the path, before we can awaken Devi Kundalini, we have to be tested. This is known as the probationary path or the Minor Mysteries. Any person who is single or even married has to pass through the minor initiations relating to nine degrees, which also relates to entering the interior of the earth and its nine strata, its nine infernal regions. It is a symbol of how we have to face ourselves to a certain degree, in which we recognize our egotism, our suffering and that we need to change. Comment: That is interesting. There are many books by metaphysicians on the Kundalini… how to raise it. Nothing about the Guardian of the Threshold. Instructor: It is because the black magicians fortify that element in themselves. They don't want to work against it, but in the probationary path, you have to face the Guardian. You face an ordeal in the internal worlds, internally, in which you have to confront your own self. So the Guardian of the Threshold, Samael says, is your Being, but it reflects in you all of your garbage, all your evilness that you have accumulated over many millennia. You have to face it in a very great battle. You have to fight hand-to-hand, psychologically, against this beast and conjure it. If you don't defeat it, people who don't defeat it eventually leave Gnosis. They abandon the teaching, but people who have conquered, they stay, because they conquered the ordeal. And so you find that subtle reference in the opera where you have all these people going against them, all the voices clamoring, saying “Have pity on us! Don’t do this work! What do you think you are doing? You can't reach Turandot!” Ping, Pang, and Pong, Diablo, is part of that. It is related to the Guardian the Threshold because he is the tempter. Question: But those are the three brains also right? Instructor: Right, because Ping, Pang, and Pong, I-A-O, “I” vibrates in the head, the intellectual brain. “O” relates to the heart. “A,” the breath, can also relate to your seminal energies―three brains. Question: Since we live in a dualistic world, isn't it better to not think positive thoughts?... Instructor: We have to learn how to use the mind intuitively. That is a very subtle skill we acquire through meditation, because even for a job, we need the intellect to help us, but it doesn't mean that the intellect has to be used all the time. Question: I am saying when you are walking down the street, you are in a car. Isn't it better to just keep it blank? You get a lot of self-help books that say “Think positive thoughts” with this and that. It is automatically going to weave, and some negative thoughts is going to come up. Instructor: The highest form of thought is no thought. But to reach that point as Samael Aun Weor states in his book Igneous Rose, thought must flow serenely and sweetly like a river without obstruction. Typically, our thinking tends to be very heavy, identified, and disturbing. But thought should be something serene and subtle, to the point that you are not thinking anymore. You are only receiving life. And I remember there is a lecture that Samael Aun Weor gave in which he gave to his students, “A lot of you struggle with your mind. Your mind is bossing you around. You are identified too much with it. Personally, my mind is perfectly under control. You know, there are moments in which I have to teach, and therefore, I use my mental body. But when I don't need to use it, I don't use it.” Comment: The ability to rest the mind is of the greatest value. Because then when you need answers, they come out of nowhere like in the morning or during the day. It's amazing. Instructor: So in the opera you find that that teaching of serenity very beautifully exemplified by the fact that, as strong as the Prince Calaf is, it may seem that he is very disturbed. Obviously, someone who is singing in an opera is very passionate, but we have to remember that equanimity, silence of the mind, serenity, is a quality distinctly related to Tiphereth, because the human soul, human willpower, pure concentration, is a state of serenity, of calmness, in which there is no agitation in the mind. We talked about this extensively in our lectures on Gnostic Meditation, about the nine stages of meditative concentration [or Calm Abiding: The Stages of Serenity] in which one ascends from a completely distracted mind to a fully serene and concentrated mind. So meditative equipoise is equanimity, is Tiphereth, because when we reach the ninth degree of concentration in which we are fully relaxed, serene, calm. We have reached Tiphereth, psychologically speaking, in terms of the part of our soul that is most active. Question: When you astral travel, are you sitting in your chair like this or are you laying down? Instructor: Sometimes when I have meditated, I have fallen asleep in my chair, my meditation chair. Other times, I have lain down to go to bed, doing a mantra in my mind, falling asleep, and having that experience. Question: What about when you are sleeping? Are you astral traveling or are you lucid dreaming? Instructor: Well, with astral travel, what happens is, every person projects into the astral plane at night every time one goes to sleep. The problem is that we do so unconsciously. We tend to do so without any awareness. But if we train ourselves, we can take something that is mechanical and make it conscious. So lucid dreaming can happen often when we are working in mindfulness, working with what is known as the key of SOL: Subject, Object, Location. Be aware that you are in your body. You are the subject. You are observing the objects around you and you question it and interpret: what is your location? Where are you situated? You train your mind like that when you are living physically, living life physically. You learn to do that in the astral plane because we go many places unconsciously without awareness, without any understanding about where we are at and where we are going. But we may have a moment in which we gain insight. We suddenly see ourselves in some place. We question, “Where am I? How did I get here?” You involve yourself in a type of questioning. Question: But in what conscious state or dream state? Instructor: And you ask that question and to test yourself. You can either jump in the air to see if you will float or pull your finger. Pull your finger to see if it will stretch. You pull your finger so that it stretches out. You will realize that you are in your lunar astral body and that you are in the dream state. Comment: They say there are techniques I am trying to do, but sometimes it is not that easy. You can wake up in a dream and you need to give yourself a prompt before you go to sleep, but when that happens you are like "Oh, I am in a dream!” I have had that experience once. Its very unique to say that you know “I am here in the street.” Of course it’s in a dream. You see everything is similar as you see around here. But then you say to yourself, “Oh my God, but I am on my bed at the same time as I am watching this scene.” But to be able to will it, night after night, to repeat that… Instructor: So what this opera teaches us in relation to that practice is that we need to be very defined. We need to be very passionate in the conscious sense, following the Passion of Christ. We have to be inspired, and the way that we can do that, like we began this lecture, with was with the runes. You know, get yourself good energy. Do the Runes Man, Fa, Ario, Isis, Ur, with the mantra Ram-IO, and work with practices every day so that we feel charged, because if you see in the opera, Calaf, what makes him such a memorable character, so loved by many audiences, is that he is determined to the point that he is not going to let anything stop him. That is the type of willpower we need in our practices, whether it be of astral projection, dream yoga, meditation. Question: Building up the energy that you spoke about through certain actions, runes, getting solar energy, will that help you in the night time to access these planes, such as energy built up from meditations during the day time? Instructor: Yes, because when there is no energy, there is no fire; there is no light. If you don't save your energy, if we waste it through negative emotions, we can't awaken in the astral plane, the world of emotions. If we waste our mental energy, we can't awaken in the mental plane because we have no fuel there. And likewise, the sexual energy too, which is the basis of all three, of all three brains, because the sexual energy circulates from Yesod to Tiphereth to Kether in your body―speaking of your body as a Tree of Life. So we need energy. We need to enthusiasm, which is why I really love Prince Calaf so much as an initiate in this opera, and Puccini, who was reflecting what he went through, because no artist can reflect that if they haven't experienced it themselves. You can't teach something like that unless you have lived it. So he had a lot of passion, meaning he loved his Being so much that he was willing to do anything to work for Her. And so when we have that longing in our heart, when we are very determined, we don't let obstacles get in our way. Instead, we triumph through them and are willing to suffer no matter what the cost will be, because we love divinity so much and that has to come from inside, from experience. When you personally converse with your Divine Mother and see how beautiful she is, you can't help but melt. You enter ecstasy. She will come to you in symbols and dreams and different forms to teach you psychological truths about yourself. You know, as I gave the example of going into the travel agency. She was showing me, She was at the counter saying, “You want to go to the Middle East? Well, you want to return to me? Pay 355 dollars.” Money in the symbolic language has to do with dharma or karma. Paying money means you have to earn certain experiences. You have to work for them. And that is why I teach this doctrine, because I have been pushed by my Being to do what He and She wants, which is self-realization. I know that a lot of people don't want it. Question: Why not? Instructor: Because some people realize how difficult it is and they run away. They had to face the Guardian of the Threshold and then they can't face that. Question: They can't, but what about people wondering they are going to die someday and they are wondering about the day after life? You would think that would be an inducement. Instructor: So, many people like to follow the moon, like in the opera, but those who want to succeed in initiation are few. But if you are filled with inspiration and longing, we have to feed it daily so that we don't retrogress. |
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