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The Human Machine

1/5/2019

In this course, we have been discussing how to achieve a psychological transformation of one’s mind, of one’s heart, of one’s body, so that by learning to overcome our own internal obstacles, we can learn to experience divinity in a very concrete, direct, and practical manner. That knowledge of experience, of God, of the Being, is known in Greek as gnosis, self-knowledge. We do not like to use the term God so much, but we use it as a type of reference point. Instead, we like to refer to Being, presence, a type of consciousness that is inside, not external. And we have been discussing the fact that if we wish to know divinity, the Being, our own inner spirit, we have to learn to see in ourselves all that which afflicts us, so that by comprehending our own errors, our own conditions of mind, we can experience the truth. We can free ourselves from suffering.

So this is the fifth lecture in the course Beginning Self-Transformation. In our first lecture, we mentioned a true human being, a true spiritually enlightened one, is a Jesus, is a Buddha, is a Krishna, is a Moses, beings that exemplified the highest ideals of humanity, the highest truths possible for anyone to attain. And if we look at the word hum-man, we can see something very profound etymologically.

Hum in Sanskrit means spirit, and the spirit is divinity, the Being, the truth that never mixes with impurity. It is totally free. It is omniscient. It is universal. And that intelligence is inside, within ourselves, within our true nature, and man, like the Rune Man, with the Nordic letters, symbolizes us in potentiality. We can receive that energy in us if we learn to cease being machines.

It is an unpleasant fact to recognize in our daily experience that we tend to be very mechanical, habitual creatures, mechanical beings, constantly reacting to the influences of life, but never really comprehending the sources of our sorrows. We tend to like to externalize, to blame the government, to blame one’s spouse, one’s friends, one’s boss, one’s job for all of our sorrows that we experience. But if we fail to comprehend how we contribute to our own suffering, how our own states of anger, of pride, of fear, of vanity, really traps our true potential of who we are and what we can become.

So a human machine is like anyone of us. Our body is a means of transferring energy within the universe, within the cosmos, within our psyche, and as we began this lecture with a series of runic postures, the runic yoga, we are learning to circulate divine energy within our human machine, because the body is a machine.

It is very easy to see that we process certain elements in our body in order to achieve homeostasis, a type of equilibrium, a type of balance, physically-speaking, but in a spiritual sense, it is also possible to use our body in order to transmit divine energy, divine force, so that our physical body is a temple that can incarnate the Being, the truth, the divine, can fully manifest those qualities like compassion, divine love, patience, virtue, in which beings like Moses, Buddha, Krishna, Jesus, fully embodied themselves.

They were true human beings who had Hum, the spirit, the Being, fully present in them. And this is why, in instances of great trial, in which they were sacrificed, crucified, victimized, they only responded with love towards their enemies. That is a type of compassion that is very profound, that is very universal, in which we can access in ourselves if we transform who we are, so that light can permeate throughout our spinal column, seven chakras, our mind, our heart, our body.

And in that way as we learn to work with that force which the Gnostics, the Greeks called Christos, Christ, we cease suffering, because the conditions of mind, like fear, laziness, pride, hatred, gluttony, that which we call ego, is fully dead, so that only the resurrected soul is present in our very thoughts, our very words, our very deeds.

So to be a mechanical being is like anyone of us, going through life, reacting towards our circumstances, perhaps some days better than others. But the fact that we continue to react in the same manner towards the same circumstances indicates that we are habitual creatures. When we are criticized, we return with resentment, with anger, with pride. Those circumstances can help us if we engage in this type of self-transformation, this type of work that we have been studying in this course.

We spoke previously about the need to observe ourselves, observe our psychological states, our ways of thinking, our ways of feeling, and our ways of acting, so that we can comprehend those negative qualities which afflict us and unfortunately make us harm others, psychologically-speaking, because anger is an emotion that only knows how to destroy. Fear is debilitating. Pride, instead of exalting itself, only brings about the suffering of others. So that is ego egotism, defects, vices, desire. These types of mechanical reactions make us mechanical beings, because when slandered, we slander in return. We are never free. We are always victims of circumstances, but that can change, by learning to observe who we are, psychologically-speaking, because genuine spirituality is knowing how to cease reacting mechanically to “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,” to quote Hamlet, Shakespeare. But by “taking arms against a sea of troubles,” psychologically-speaking, learning to work on our own faults, we can “oppose and end” all sorrow.

Real spirituality is learning to circulate divine force, divine energy, so that we can empower our consciousness. So we cease being puppets of life, where we are cursed, we return with curses. We are laughed at, ridiculed, but we can respond with genuine serenity and peace, remembrance of our own divinity.

So in this lecture, we will talk about what does it mean to be a machine, but also what does it mean to be a genuine human being, a real spiritual illuminated one. We will talk about the physical and internal constitution of the intellectual humanoid.

We spoke previously that because of our egotistical conditioning of mind, we do not know the spirit from experience, from meditation, from internal visions, such as when physically we go to sleep, and we enter the dream world, because in that state, we can learn to awaken consciousness, to perceive divinity directly, just as we are speaking face to face, through types of visions, prophetic experiences, which any enlightened one can access in themselves if they cease being machines. But learning to work with exercises like runes, charging energy in our temple, our mind, our heart, our body, so that the consciousness is awake, even when the physical body is asleep, we therefore can learn to access the internal dimensions and have that face to face contact and receive wisdom from our own inner divinity, our own inner Being.

The Heavenly Human Being

So we will talk about this image in the Kabbalist tradition; it is Adam Kadmon, the heavenly man, the heavenly, spiritual, enlightened being, a symbol of our own inner divinity. And he has around his chest and genitalia the solar system and the zodiac, representing that our true identity is universal, is cosmic, and that our terrestrial identity only constitutes a very small portion of who we genuinely are, of what we are. This image is the Being, and that perfect Being, that perfect archetype, is divine love, is selflessness, is compassion. And he knows how to govern all the forces of the universe, in himself, for others.

We all have that potential, to create something so divine that it can govern worlds, planets, suns, galaxies, but in order to reach that point, we have to learn what in us is mechanical, is habitual, is negative, is demonic. So this symbol represents, with one foot on the earth and one foot in the waters, a being that has conquered himself or herself, where the physical body is the earth, is in full control by the Being, by divinity. Likewise, the waters are the energies of the body; the mind, the heart fully circulate, perfectly, purely, divinely. And then likewise the fire and light of creation, the powers of the heart and the air of the mind, are in full subservience to that divine truth, representing how our mind, our heart, our feeling, our thinking, our ways of acting, are in full reflection of our own inner God, the Being, the truth. So the human being, the human machine, can channel all the divine energy of the cosmos in order to help others, out of selflessness, out of compassion.

So the following quote is from a book called The Narrow Way by Samael Aun Weor, where he explains how the heavenly human being is inside of us, and that he reflects all of the divine principles of the cosmos.

“If we vividly imagine in a clear and precise manner the resplendent and elongated body of the Solar System, we will see all of its beautiful coverings and intertwined threads that were formed by the marvelous traces of the planets. Then, from such a receptive state, the living image of the human organism (with its skeletal, lymphatic, arterial, nervous, etc., systems) will come into our minds. Without a doubt the constitution of the human organism is also constituted and reunited in a similar manner.

“In space, when looking upon the solar system of Ors from afar (which is the solar system in which we live, move, and have our existence) it looks like a human being who walks throughout the inalterable infinite.

“The microcosmic human being is, in his turn, a solar system in miniature, a marvelous machine with various distributed nets of energy that are in distinct degrees of tension.” —Samael Aun Weor, The Narrow Way

So we learn through meditation, runes, yoga, how to work with energy, how to work with that force known as Christ, so as to liberate the soul from its conditions, from its suffering. And in that way, it reflects the universe, as the Gnostics reiterate the statement from the oracle of the temple of Delphi, “Man know thyself, and you will know the universe and the Gods.”

We have to know ourselves, know our limitations, and transform them. So these energies of the cosmos are within the human machine, all the energies of the galaxies, the stars, the planets, circulate through us. But typically, we do not have any awareness of it. And so by learning to accustom our body to mantras, sacred sounds, prayer, meditation, we can learn to channel that directly and become conscious of that force—we transform our life, our daily experience.

We cease going to work for jobs we hate, suffering the afflictions of life, by learning to face the greatest adversities and circumstances with patience, with serenity and with love for others, without fear or uncertainty, without egotism, without pain.

The Three Brains

But to reach that point, we must work with these distinct forms of energy in us, in which we find are presented in what we call (in Gnostic psychology) as the three brains.

So typically, we know from science that we have a physical brain in the cranium, a very superficial understanding. Esoterically-speaking, a brain is a machine that processes energies within the physical brain itself, but also within our nervous systems, such as our heart. Our brain is a form of intelligence, a form of knowing, or a means by which we can process cosmic, intelligent forces that permeate space.

The physical brain is the physical manifestation of the psychic apparatus known as the intellectual brain. It’s a machine. The physical brain processes thought, but it is not the originator of thought, because mind, thought, exists in other dimensions, which are internal, which we can verify by learning to awaken our consciousness. Such as in dreams, as I stated, where physically, your body is asleep, but you are thinking and doing other things outside the body, in the astral dimension, the mental dimension, or in other planes of experience, which are not vague or amorphous states, but concrete realities.

So the brain is merely a machine. It processes thought. It expresses thought, that which is internal, into the physical plane.

But we also have an emotional brain, because the emotions are a profound form of intelligence, which is not necessarily material.

We live in our world of emotions more than anything, typically, although we cannot necessarily point physically anywhere except for the heart. We feel something emotional, profound, strong, whether it be love or anger, or our pride is hurt. We say, “I am hurt,” and we point towards our chest, because that is the physical location of where we experience emotion. But that emotion is not limited to physical matter. We find it in the internal dimensions, where in the dream state, the astral plane is the world of emotions. We learn to perceive in those worlds with cognizance, lucidity, with direct perception, but the emotional brain processes profound energies relating to the heart, which can express the most divine sentiments, the most pure love, the most profound understanding.

The last brain is known as the motor-instinctive-sexual brain. It is a combination of movement, instinct, and sexual drive, which, those elements in us tend to be very mechanical, habitual, egotistical, and that brain itself is located throughout our spine.

The motor brain or the aspect of movement relates to the top of our spine. We also have the sexual glands, which is where we process sexual desire, which in us tends to be very lustful and conditioned, but even that energy can be used for divinity, if done with purity and love, cognizance. And then instinct, relating to the base of the spine, our most instinctual nature, that is where we find instinct, such as reactions.

A boxer who is in a ring, who gets into a fight, he is moving instinctually. He is using the motor brain, and he is using instincts to react or to respond to the opponent. So if we put our hand on a hot stove and we get burned, we place our hand off the stove, and then we think later how the pain of that experience emerged. First came instinct. It was quick, spontaneous, and thought came after the emotional pain of saying, “I was hurt.” But these different brains have different forms of energy and speed by which those forces manifest and act in us.

The Three Nervous Systems and Cosmic Laws

We also find that these three brains with their nervous systems help to process what we call the law of seven and the law of three within our interior. We spoke briefly about the law of seven, which is how the universe is organized in creation: seven planets within alchemy, alchemical traditions; seven archangels; seven virtues; seven defects or vices; the seven capital sins. It is a way of organizing and understanding nature. And we find that law of seven manifest in us through the seven chakras of our spine.

The law of three relates to creation. How does one create not only physically, but spiritually, and vise versa? The law of three is simply the law of affirmation, the law of negation, the law of reconciliation, which we find within our three brains. We have affirmation relating to thought. We have negation relating to the heart. We have reconciliation relating to our motor-instinctive-sexual qualities. And these three brains are our spiritual temple, which, if we learn to use this machine well, we can manifest God the Being in us.

Affirmation negation, reconciliation is also referenced and referred to by the teachings of Tantra in the east, in Buddhism. And in Buddhism they talk about how husband and wife, man and woman, can work together to transform the sexual energy, the motor-instinctive-sexual brain, and that energy itself, in order to awaken all the full powers of divinity in us through the awakening Kundalini, which we do in sparks, gradually, by working on the vowel S.

We did the seven runes, the seven vowels, which for those listening online, you can access on gnosticteachings.org a video instructing students how to perform these seven vowels, these seven runes. But again man is affirmation, woman is negation, and when they reunite sexually, spiritually-speaking, they reconcile each other in order for that energy to awaken in them.

And so that power is very profound, very liberatory, but if it is not harnessed well, it can also lead to one’s damnation.

So these three brains channel all the forces of the cosmos and relate to the law of three and the law of seven, because by working with our three brains, with mantra, with prayer, with meditation, we work with the seven chakras of our spine and awaken everything in us that is divine.

So this quote is from The Narrow Way by Samael Aun Weor, where he explains about the role of these physical brains themselves:

“The human organism possesses seven superior glands and three nervous systems. The Law of Seven and the Law of Three intensely work within the human machine.

“The cerebrospinal nervous system produces those very seldom conscious functions that occasionally manifest themselves through the intellectual animal.” —Samael Aun Weor, The Narrow Way

In our first lecture, we talked about how we are souls with intellect. The word animal comes from the Latin anima, soul, “to animate.” And it is very easy to see that in our life, we may have elements relating to the animal kingdom: pride, anger, vanity, fear, laziness, gluttony, etc., so, therefore, we are animal souls with intellect, with the capacity to rationalize, judge. But there is a higher kingdom available to the spiritual practitioner or meditator, known as a true human being, which is developed in oneself gradually, by learning to work with the three brains.

“The cerebral spinal nervous system produces very seldom conscious functions,” meaning: we may think and rationalize that we are awake, but if we are driving our car, thinking of our fiancé, our friend, our neighbor, and we get into an accident, it means that we are asleep, spiritual-speaking, consciously-speaking. We are not very aware of our body or ourselves throughout any given day, but that brain can learn to help us stay spiritually awake if we charge it with good energy.

“The sympathetic nervous system marvelously stimulates the unconscious and instinctual functions.

“The parasympathetic or vagus restrains the instinctual functions and acts as a complement of the latter.” —Samael Aun Weor, The Narrow Way

So again, this parasympathetic nervous system relates to the motor-instinctual-sexual brain, the cerebral spinal nervous system with the intellectual brain, and the sympathetic nervous system with the emotional brain.

So the parasympathetic or vagus system helps to reconcile all the forces of the other brains, because by learning to work with creative energies, of life, the sexual energy in oneself, we have the greatest potential for change, for transformation, because that energy can awaken or create a physical child, a human being, a person. So that power which can create can also be used for divinity, if we know how to use it well and with purity.

“Thus, we are totally accurate when affirming (without fear of being mistaken) that these three nervous systems represent the Law of Three, the Three Primary Forces within the human machine. Likewise, the seven endocrine glands and their secretions represent the Law of Seven with all of their musical scales.” —Samael Aun Weor, The Narrow Way

The Tree of Life

So we know in numerology that there are seven notes, seven musical scales in relation to this law of organization, and the law of three relates to the three primary forces of any universe, which we find represented by this image known as the Tree of Life.

This image is not the soul patrimony of Judaism, but it does relate to every religious and spiritual tradition. It is a map of consciousness, from the very heights of the divine to the most material; from the most energetic and subtle to the most manifest. We see the top trinity above represents three forces in nature known as, in Christianity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; or if we want to use the Nordic mythology: Oden, Baldur, Thor; amongst the Egyptians: Osiris, Horus, Isis, that energy descends throughout creation into more manifest levels of expression, which we find represented in these seven levels of energy, but also matter.

We find at the very bottom this physical world, which relates to mechanical energy, simply the energy of being able to move. Above that, we have vital energy, relating to the vital body, which is a form of matter and energy that is not physical, but etheric. Sometimes, if waking up in the morning, we may have more or less energy through our day, which relates to how vital we are, our vital forces, which saturate and permeate throughout the physical body, internally, to give us life. If there were no vital body, there would be no life physically. If you are familiar with the Kirlion camera, you can find images of hands or butterflies or stones that have an aura. That is the vital body or the vital depth of our physical expression.

But above that, we have more subtle forms of energy. We have emotional energy relating to the astral dimension, the heart. Likewise, we have mental energy relating to the mind, which is the mental plane, the mental world. Above that, we volitional energy relating to willpower, which is very subtle.

We say some people have a certain will to exist and to succeed in life and some who do not. It is easy to see physical energy or physicality, to sense our vital forces, and to be aware more or less of our emotions and our mental states, but it is very difficult and more profound to examine willpower, volition, which is above mind, above thinking, above emotions.

Above that, we have conscious energy relating to our soul, and then beyond that, we have spiritual energy relating to our Being, our inner God, our spirit: Hum.

So this map shows the universe, but also inside of us, because the human being, the human machine, is a microcosmos, a miniature universe that reflects the macrocosmos, the universe at large. But above that, we have the three primary forces, which is much more subtle and profound and very difficult for people to even conceive of.

We can see that if we sit to meditate, usually people do not even get past the physical body, because the body tends to be fidgeting or agitated, ill at ease. If one maintains one’s posture, one’s asana, the practitioner may become more aware of the energies in the body, the vital forces, and as the body and mind settle, we start to sense emotion, mind. But beyond that there is willpower, which is our human potential, our human soul, which if we learn to develop through exercises like runes, prayer, meditation, that willpower becomes fortified, strong, so that it can conquer the afflictions of mind and heart and obey the higher forms of the Tree of Life, the consciousness above, and the spirit.

Our will tends to be very egotistical, selfish, inverted, and egotism, ego the “I,” “my anger, my pride, my fear, my laziness, my hatred, my blasphemy, my vengeance, my resentment,” that is selfish will. But we can develop conscious will in our spiritual discipline, to cease being machines, and can learn to obey divinity above, which is symbolized in the Passion of Jesus where he says, “Father, if this is possible, take this cup of bitterness from me, but not my will, but thine be done.” That is a type of willpower known as Christic will, Christ will, which is selfless of egotism, but knows how to act in every circumstance of life for the benefit of others.

The Law of Seven and the Musical Scale

We also find the law of seven represented in the musical scale. These notes: Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Ti, relate to the dimensions of the Tree of Life and the creation of the full human being, a spiritually enlightened one, a master.

The lower three notes: Do, Re, Mi, relate to our three brains. We have the instinctual center, the emotional center, and the intellectual center. This represents mechanical humanity, because people tend to engage in life, mechanically-speaking. Usually, some people are more intellectual, and some people are more emotional. Some people are more instinctual; they are always acting; they are always moving; they never sit still.

Instinctual types of people never understand the emotional or intellectual types, because they always need to move to do something. The emotional types never understand the intellectual or the instinctual types of people because they always want to feel through the heart. But the intellectuals never understand the emotional or instinctual types of people because they are always rationalizing everything. So these lower three types of people constitute, in the Bible, the tower of Babel, babble, gibberish, and represents our psychological predisposition to act in life mechanically.

These three brains, these three notes, are represented in Alice in Wonderland by the Mad Hatter, the Queen of Hearts, and the White Rabbit. Those are symbols of psychological truths.

The Mad Hatter is crazy, is in love with his theories; intellectually-speaking, he always tries to solve things with the intellect, but spiritually-speaking, it is empty of any meaning; it is gibberish; it is insane.

The Queen of Hearts is always angry, saying “Off with her head!” because the emotional type of person is always very violent in the emotional center; the emotional brain is always very negative.

And the instinctual type of person, the White Rabbit, is always saying, “I am late, I am late, for a very important date!” and is always running around doing things without any type of cognizance, and that is mostly us.

We all have these qualities inside, but we tend to lean towards one brain or the other in a malfunctioning way. And the way that we learn to see that these three brains are imbalanced in us is by learning self-observation and working with energy.

But above these lower three notes, we have superior types of beings relating to the notes Fa, Sol, La, Ti.

We have the fourth type of human being, a real human being, a balanced person who knows how to use the intellect, the emotions, and the instinctual qualities of the body, for the spirit.

It is interesting that the note Fa relates to the awakening of consciousness, because there is another rune which we did not perform, in which we face the east. Our left hand above our right, we imagine the energies of the Solar Logos, the solar light, the Christ entering the chakras of our palms, down through our arms in the form of the letter F amongst the Nordics. The first letter of the Nordic alphabet is F, from Futhark, and with that we learn to receive the divine, and we say a prayer:

“Marvelous forces of love, revive my sacred fire, so that my consciousness will awaken!” You do the notes Fa, Fe, Fi, Fo, Fu; you pronounce those prolonged. And we learn to work with the note Fa, the rune of the Fa-ther, in order to cease being machines, so we can transmute that energy consciously and be aware spiritually-speaking.

The note Sol, the sun, relates to a heart or emotional state that is spiritual, that is divine, which we say is solar, is Christic, is eternal.

We also have a type of mind that is solar relating to the note La, and a type of willpower, a type of causality relating to the human consciousness, relating to the note Ti—Fa, Sol, La, Ti.

Willpower, Conscious Shocks, and Deviation

And notice that there are two shocks relating to the awakening of consciousness, where we cease being mechanical beings, that are intellectual, emotional, or instinctual, but through working with runes and energy, we spark the consciousness and acquire balance of these three brains.

But even there is more work to achieve, in which after attaining equilibrium, psychologically-speaking, through self-observation, through meditation, we learn to create what are known as solar vehicles, relating to the internal dimensions. Some people talk about astral bodies, mental bodies, causal bodies in philosophical literature. These bodies need to be created in oneself. They are never given to us by nature, mechanical forces; they are given to us when we create them in what is known as the perfect matrimony, through a marriage, of which we will be explaining in this course later on.

I just want to synthesize that these notes tend to deviate in us; there is a type of willpower needed in order to attain a conscious shock, a spiritual shock, in which we realize that, consciously-speaking, we are not very attentive awake, aware. So we work with the runes, the Rune Fa, the seven vowels, in order to spark consciousness, because if we examine our mind, we find that we tend to be distracted, as I said.

These seven notes play a very important part in spiritual development because if there were no type of organization in the cosmos or the seven notes themselves, it means that any type of project we engage in would automatically fulfill itself without our imposition, without our agency, without our will, but instead, because energy is needed, willpower is needed to act in life, to attain any type of goal. We find that things tend to never be completed.

I would like to relate to you a quote from P. D. Ouspensky from the Fourth Way, which explains how this law of seven governs everything and why it is important that in these type of spiritual studies, we work with energy to awaken consciousness, because we will never be able to experience divinity mechanically, by hoping for it, by wanting it. There has to be a type of action, spiritual discipline, and practice in ourselves if we wish to have that experience, because if this law of seven did not exist, things would result mechanically naturally. That is why in any spiritual tradition, they always taught that if one wants to know the Being, the truth, they have to practice certain rituals and prayers and exercises so that they have energy to do so, to awaken, otherwise things would just happen through evolution.

And we do not accept that people will attain self-realization through evolution, through mechanical hopes. They occur in us through a type of concerted effort inside.

“The reason why it is necessary to understand the Law of Seven is that it plays a very important part in all events. If there were no Law of Seven everything in the world would go to its final conclusion, but because of this law everything deviates…

“…We can observe in human activity how people start to do one thing and after some time do quite a different thing, still calling it by the first name without noticing that things have completely changed. But in personal work, particularly in work connected to this system, we must learn how to keep these octaves from deviating, how to keep a straight line. Otherwise we shall not find anything.” –P.D. Ouspensky, The Fourth Way

So what does it mean that things deviate? We may have the willpower to finish a project related to work, but then we get distracted, we do something else, or we think that we are doing the same thing, but really are thinking of other things. And that all relates to the lower three qualities of the soul: the intellectual, the emotional, and the instinctual types of people who only engage in projects, but always never finish, or think they are doing something else, but really, in reality, the mind changes, thoughts change, emotions change; they are always fluctuating, and nothing is ever completed.

But by learning to work with this musical scale, by working with the seven chakras, the seven notes of the spinal column, we create a shock in ourselves and learn to remember divinity in every moment of our life.

The Laconic Action of the Being

So that type of development relates to what we call the laconic action of the Being. We included an image of the galaxy in order to refer to our true nature, the spirit, the Being.

The Being, the divine, is pure action without conditions, without limitations, and is the force that governs all of the cosmos in us, because of our egotism, our egos, our mistaken sense of self, again, we tend to react mechanically to life, mistakenly, unconsciously, asleep. And therefore, this is why we state that in strict esoteric language, because of the ego, we are mechanical beings.

We do not know how to do things; life simply happens to us. Circumstances are difficult. We react. We do not respond with consciousness, with intentionality. We tend to respond with anger, fear, violence, resentment, etc., the whole conglomeration of defects we possess. But if we learn to remember divinity, to self-observe ourselves, and to awaken our consciousness, then we can learn to have the Being expressed through us, perfectly, so that He transforms any situation for the benefit of everyone.

Personally, I work in a job that is very difficult. I work with clients who are very challenging, who are very troubled, who suffer a lot and make other people suffer. And personally, I have had to work with this law of the scale, working with runes to charge my temple with energy, so that consciously-speaking, I could learn to respond to my enemies, who are my own clients, with love. And in that way, learn to change and transform the situation so that they are no longer responding to me with resentment, or pride, or anger, or even violence, but in that way develop their compassion, their harmony, their religion, because the word religion means “to reunite,” to reunite people.

It is not easy to help other people who are very afflicted with negativity when we ourselves are so burdened by so much garbage, but if we transform that within ourselves, we can learn to respond with kindness, with perfection, in which the Being, our inner truth speaks through us and guides those people who are afflicted. It could be any job, whatever our circumstances may be, and in that way, we become a vehicle that can express the perfect, laconic action of the divine.

And what does it mean to be laconic? Meaning, to be relaxed; there is no effort involved in expressing divinity. We have to do our part, to work with willpower, to settle the mind, to settle the body, settle the heart, the three brains, so that divinity can express within our centers themselves. So what is this laconic action of the Being?

“The Laconic Action of the Being is the concise manifestation, the brief action, which in synthesis the Real Being of each one of us executes. This action is mathematical and exact, like a Pythagorean Table.

“I want you to reflect very well upon the Laconic Action of the Being. Remember that above, within the infinite starry space, every action is the result of an equation and of an exact formula. Likewise, as a logical deduction, we must emphatically affirm that our true image, the Inner Kosmic Human, is beyond false values. He is perfect.

“Unquestionably, each action of the Being is the result of an equation and of an exact formula.” —Samael Aun Weor, The Revolution of the Dialectic

Those qualities are more manifest in us as we learn to comprehend the ego and eliminate it, and get rid of pride, fear, vanity, laziness, lust, desire, anger, frustration, resentment, which religion has called demons, and which we all possess, but by learning to eliminate those qualities, divinity can express through us with perfection, with love, and in that way the Being manifests and organizes our three brains, functions and manifests those energies in us, because without that energy, we cannot express divinity perfectly.

Pinocchio: The Human Machine

Otherwise, we will be a marionette, a puppet, which we find reflected in this story of Pinocchio, which is a beautiful esoteric teaching masked as a children’s story. In order to escape persecution, Carlo Collodi, who wrote that text, wrote a children’s fable in order to convey very profound esoteric truths, because all of us are like Pinocchio, a puppet.

We are influenced by cosmic radiation or influences, and more importantly, our own egotistical drives, our ego, the self, that which is: “I am, I want, I crave, I need, I desire; me, myself, and I,” which is a pluralization of self.

It is not unitary, but is multiple. Every fear, every thought, every transgression, every resentment, every sentiment, every element of fear and pride, all constitute a conglomeration of errors, defects, “I’s,” a multiplicity. And it is easy to see this in ourselves if we are observing, because in one moment, we may want to wash our dishes and then we change our mind, “I am going to go drive my car, and go to the store.” And then, “No, I think I am going to go read a book.” There is always this constant fluctuation and change of thinking, feeling and acting, which is never unitary, never the same. And people like to attribute all this to one sense of self, but through the sense of psychological self-observation, we begin to see that we are not unitary; we are multiple.

That is a very disturbing fact to realize. Pinocchio in the story recognizes this fact, and he gets very upset. He wants to become a real boy, a real man made into the flesh and blood of divinity, a true human being, a God. And the way he does it is explained very beautifully in that myth. I mean, even the Disney depiction, the film, did a decent job. It is a very long, profound tale, which we could give a whole lecture on, but I just want to mention that we are like puppets.

People can say what they want, think what they want, do what they want, and we will usually react mechanically. We are never free of slander, circumstances. Things happen to us: the weather can be bad; we wake up grumpy, our mood is altered; we feel negative. We tend to be very afflicted and victimized by circumstances. So Samael Aun Weor in The Narrow Way explains that:

“The human machine (as any other machine) moves under the impulses of the subtle forces of Nature. The secret agents that move the human machines are first the cosmic radiations and second the pluralized ‘I.’” —Samael Aun Weor, The Narrow Way

So it is very painful to realize in oneself, but there is the possibility for change. Pinocchio literally in Tuscan means “pine seed.” It is the seed that can become a Tree of Life, perfected, a fully illuminated Christmas tree, a master of meditation, a profound Being, but as we are now, we tend to be very mechanical.

“The intellectual animal is a wretched marionette, a loud speaker with memory and vitality, a living puppet entranced with the silly illusion that it can do, when indeed it cannot do anything…” —Samael Aun Weor, Fundamentals of Gnostic Education

How do we recognize this fact in ourselves? It is by observing, watching. Do not assume that we know ourselves, because every religion teaches that. If we wish to know divinity, we have to conquer ourselves, according to the origins of those traditions, not as they are taught today—by learning to observe ourselves and seeing our own contradictions that we constantly engage with day by day.

It is a terrible reality of our existence and a painful one. But you got to remember that, “With patience, ye possess your souls,” said Jesus of Nazareth. So only the Being can do, can act, can manifest perfectly in any circumstance of life, to transform it.

“…The human machine does not have any individuality; he does not have the Being. Only the true Being has the power to do.” —Samael Aun Weor, Fundamentals of Gnostic Education

So learning to differentiate between the ego and the essence, the ego and the soul, is what leads us to understanding and helps us to cease being mechanical creatures, suffering beings.

To Be or Not to Be: The Esoterism of Hamlet

So even Hamlet, in the play of his name, depicts this struggle and dilemma of “to be or not to be,” to be a human being or to be a machine. William Shakespeare, with the pen name of a certain master, explained this problem.

In the play, you find that Hamlet is seeking to avenge the death of his father, the King who was slain by his brother Claudius. It is a symbol of how our own ego had killed our inner God, meaning in us, because of our mistakes and conditions of mind. We destroyed the potential divinity in us, and as a ghost, that being comes to us haunting in the night, with inquietudes, longings, uncertainties, and the desire to study this type of spirituality, so that we can change.

But in the play, Hamlet discovers that his uncle Claudius killed his father. If you are familiar with the myths of freemasonry, Hiram Abiff was killed by three traitors. Osiris was killed by Seth in the Egyptian myth, and Horus needs to avenge him. So it is a very profound drama represented in many mythologies, many cosmogonies, many traditions.

And I will read for you and explain some of these quotes from his famous soliloquy:

“To be, or not to be? That is the question―
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And, by opposing, end them?”

So to be a being a true human being or to be a machine, that is the question. Either we can face our circumstances consciously, with hope, with diligence, with faith and our inner divinity, or we can suffer through life mechanically, and degenerate and suffer.

“To die, to sleep―
No more—and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to—’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished!”

So people always contemplate death, so much suffering. Suffering is a machine, but there is also a form of esoteric death, death of the ego, death of pride, death of fear. And people always wonder: if I annihilate my ego, what will I be? Who will I be? What am I? Who am I? What is my identity? And the reality is that the true identity is the Being, the cosmic human, the Christ.

“To die, to sleep.
To sleep, perchance to dream—ay, there’s the rub,
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. There’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.”

People are always afraid of the afterlife, of some conception, of some other world, in which they will go to if they lead a good life or a bad life. It is a very superficial understanding. It is true that in nature, we gravitate to places based on our level of being. If we are negative, we will return or will result in negative experiences, entering into states of suffering, whether it may be another body, in relation to transmigration or devolution, destruction within negative states, negative dimensions known as hell hell realms.

People always contemplate death, but do not really know what will happen when they die, where they will go, what they will be, and likewise, people fear the death of desire, the mind, the ego. They fear, “What will I be if I do not exist, my name, my language, my culture, my race, my beliefs, my religion?” But people who identify with the mind, the ego, feed it, strengthen it.

“For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
Th' oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th' unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin?”

So what is the point, he is asking, of going through this life as an animal, as a machine, as a puppet, if one does not strive to become the Being, to manifest the Being in oneself, perfectly, otherwise it is vanity.

“Who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered country from whose bourn
No traveler returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?”

So again, the afterlife scares people: they do not know where they will be, where they will go, what they will become, but if people awaken their consciousness, they will know. We can know. We can experience it.

“Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.”
—Hamlet 3.1.57-92

So this is a reference to the law of the scale, the law of the seven, of organization, and how actions deviate when there is no consistency, consciousness, or awakening. So we must learn to cease being mechanical beings, and that means by learning to transform our psychological states, here and now, who we are, moment by moment.

Internal States and External Events

“Those who know how to consciously combine the external event with the appropriate interior state are very rare,” says Samael Aun Weor in his book Treatise of Revolutionary Psychology.

“…When one wants to separate external events from the internal states of consciousness, one demonstrates concretely his incapacity of existing in a dignified manner.

“Those who learn how to consciously combine external events with internal states march on the path of success… …The best weapon that a human being can use in life is a correct psychological state…” —Samael Aun Weor, Treatise of Revolutionary Psychology

…to act with the essence, the consciousness, the soul, and not with the ego. The best weapon is a correct state because, with that, we can transform difficult circumstances.

We are being criticized, being gossiped about, and lied to; we do not respond with anger, but with kindness, by knowing how to establish boundaries with people, firmly, for the benefit of them and ourselves. And we cease being victims of life.

“It is possible to transform mechanical reactions through logical confrontation and the intimate Auto-reflection of the Being.” —Samael Aun Weor, Treatise of Revolutionary Psychology

The self-reflection of the Being—with meditation, confronting ourselves logically, and examining our daily states, reflecting on them seeing them, understanding them. So that through understanding, we can eliminate that which is impure, in order to let the Being shine in us.

So the Sufis also talk about this teaching very beautifully. They are the mystics of Islam. I found a beautiful quote from a scripture called Principles of Sufism by Al-Qushayri, where he explains how the gnostic, the true spiritual human being, is a person who knows how to adapt to life, instant by instant, moment by moment.

“When al-Junayd was asked about the gnostic, he replied, ‘The color of the water is the color of its container.’ That is, the nature of the gnostic is always determined by the nature of his state at a given moment.” ―Al-Risalah: Principles of Sufism by Al-Qushayri

So psychologically-speaking, we are always changing. Thoughts change, emotions change, moods change, the body changes, everything is in fluctuation; nothing is static; nothing is in repose. And by learning to observe ourselves, consciously-speaking, as an essence, as a soul, we learn to comprehend how to annihilate desire, the ego.

As we see in this image of Mary Magdalene praying before a candle in a mirror. That light is the soul in which she contemplates the elimination of her own desires, her defects, her vices, a beautiful symbol of transformation.

The Five Centers of the Human Machine

So we talk about the three brains. We could also break down these three brains as five centers: the intellectual, the emotional, and the motor-instinctive-sexual, the latter three constituting one brain: the brain of action, as compared to the brain of thought and the brain of feeling.

So the ego, the “I,” the self, manifests in our thoughts, our emotions, our movements, our instincts, and our sexuality. From The Perfect Matrimony by Samael Aun Weor, he explains what this work entails, this work of self-transformation.

“The ‘I’ exercises control over the five inferior centers of the human machine. [...] Whosoever wants to dissolve the ‘I’ must study its functionalism within the five inferior centers. We must not condemn the defects; we must not justify them either. What is important is to comprehend them. It is urgent to comprehend the actions and reactions of the human machine. Each one of these five inferior centers has a whole set of extremely complicated actions and reactions. The ‘I’ works with each one of these five inferior centers. Therefore, by deeply comprehending the whole mechanism of each one of these centers, we are on our way to dissolving the ‘I.’” —Samael Aun Weor, The Perfect Matrimony

So these centers operate in different speeds, I mentioned briefly. Some people like to think that the intellect is a very fast machine, that thought is the definition of what one is, but the intellect is a very slow mechanism compared to some of the other centers of our constitution. So the intellect, which always processes thesis and antithesis, idea / argument or idea / counter idea, it is the slowest of the human machine.

It is easy to see that if we are driving our car, and we think too much about what we are doing, we can lose control or not drive well. Or we put our hand on a hot stove, and we react instinctually, move our hand, and then we think later of the pain of that experience, because the intellect is slower and instinct is quick. It is very fast, as fast as movement.

So we state in esoterism that movement and instinct are thirty thousand times faster than the intellect, but even more difficult to control is our emotions, especially when they are very profound and negative, or afflicted with anger or resentment. It is very difficult to overcome that emotion, because that center is very quick.

It is more difficult to control emotion than it is the intellect, but even more so, our sexual center is the most profound, the quickest. It moves one hundred twenty thousand times faster than the intellect, as compared to the emotions which is sixty thousand times faster.

In movement, we find to do or not to do, our habits. With thoughts, we find thesis and antithesis. With emotion, we find like / dislike; with instinct, we find pleasurable or unpleasurable sensations. And then with sexuality, we find attraction or repulsion.

The sexual center is the quickest, because in a moment, a man and a woman can immediately register, just by seeing each other for a fraction of a second, whether they are sexually compatible, which is why certain people feel that immediate attraction upon meeting someone of the opposite sex, feeling that desire, because the sexual center is so quick.

It also is the center that could offer us the most power for liberation, because the energy that could create a physical child, if it is conserved and transformed, can give birth to a spiritual human being, a divine being.

So the ego manifests within our thoughts, our movements, our instincts, our emotions, and our sexual drives. Each ego possesses its own way of thinking, moving, acting, feeling, doing.

The Two Worlds of the Human Machine

So this path is about studying oneself in meditation, and by observing these faults, moment by moment, by learning to meditate and comprehend those errors in ourselves, we can destroy them; divinity can destroy them in us, and thereafter we enter the higher dimensions, represented by our higher states, of being represented by this Tree of Life, this last graphic.

This Tree of Lfe is the interior worlds, liberated consciousness, which is selfless love. Pure chastity, or sexual purity, does not mean abstention from sex; it means purity in sex, purity of that energy, purity of the divine, sincere humility, selfless diligence, selfless generosity, conscious temperance, genuine happiness for others.

But there are also inverted qualities of the soul known as the ego, which are the inverted spheres of this Tree of Life. This is known as Klipoth in Hebrew, which means the world of shells; this is the hell realms mentioned in every single tradition and religion, which is not necessarily just a place in nature. More importantly, it represents for us our qualities of being, who we are psychologically, because what we are psychologically attracts our life, whether for good or for ill. So that conditioned consciousness, the ego, is constituted by the many “I’s,” greed, laziness, lust, anger, pride, gluttony, envy, self-esteem, etc.

We talked previously about the personality, the ego, and the essence. The personality we find here represented in the exterior world, that is our language, our custom, our religion, our traditions, our personality: who we are physically, how we interact with life, with people.

A person with a personality from the Roman Empire would not be able to fit in because that type of energetic interface is from a different culture, a different time. So the personality is born with time, dies in time, is not eternal. It goes to the grave whenever we die in the path and process of transmigration of souls.

The human machine, therefore, is our intellect, our emotions, our movements, our instincts, and our sexuality, which by learning to understand these qualities in our self, by seeing them in action through self-observation, we can cease being puppets, cease acting on negative qualities of mind, so that we can act for the benefit of others with compassion.

Do you have any questions?

Questions and Answers

Audience: What are the same systems related to a woman?

Instructor: So, in terms of the five centers, man and woman both have intellect, emotion, movement, instinct, and sexuality. The difference is in terms of the sexual center, which is polarized either as masculine or feminine. And as we were explaining in brief, for husband and wife, or man and woman as a couple, can learn to take the energies of the sexual center and transform themselves through specific procedures—not engaging in the sexual act as everybody knows, but in a different way.

This is the meaning of Jesus saying, “you must be born again of water and spirit. That which is born of the flesh” through physical act of sexuality “is flesh, but that which is born of spirit,” the same sexual act, harnessed by husband and wife, with love, with purity, with divine compassion, that can create spirit.

So the sexual act can either liberate or destroy, but those centers are the same for either husband or wife, but the sexual energy is obviously going to be polarized differently. And that energy, when it is combined intelligently, in a good match, and also with love, more importantly, that helps to accelerate one’s transformation, which we teach in certain lectures on tantrism, or what we call the perfect matrimony, which you can visit on our website Chicagognosis.org, but also we have books online that you can read or books here that teach that process.

Audience: What about the association of the affirmative versus the negation?

Instructor: Sure, so affirmation is masculine, as the man projects, puts forward, does, acts, wills. Woman receives. We find this physically, and we find this even in some temperaments, not always, but in some temperaments. Negation is woman because she receives from the man, you know physically-speaking, but also in a spiritual sense too.

Reconciliation is when husband and wife are united together. They reconcile each other. They complement each other. Those energies complement and build and create spiritual force inside the couple, specifically.

We also find affirmation is whenever we affirm a certain idea. We want to do something, but then negation is when we face resistance, and that happens in any aspect of life, like at work, at one’s job—any circumstance. And that relates to the law of the musical scale in the human machine, because whenever we want to begin this type of spiritual work, to be in practices, to be inspired, to want to change, we have that enthusiasm in the beginning, very strong, but then there is a resistance of the mind, the ego, the self, the negative qualities of pride and vanity and laziness and all of our defects, which present that type of resistance.

And then the way that one overcomes that resistance of the mind is learning to meditate, learning to work with the force of comprehension, observing oneself moment by moment, day by day, so that whenever we face a problem in life or a certain quality in ourselves that we do not like, we learn to see it for what it is and not act on it. But then later we go home and reflect, imagine that scene, visualize it, and then in that way we learn to try to comprehend that condition of self that creates our problems, our sufferings.

In that way we learn to destroy, little by little, anger, pride, vanity, all of that. It is eliminated, and then the soul that was trapped in those defects, the virtues of the soul, are extracted like the genie from Aladdin’s lamp, so that the genie, the spirit-soul, can make miracles in our life. So not necessarily miracles like walking on water, but changing circumstances to the point that we no longer react mechanically to situations, with problems, or suffer so much. We have difficulties, but we would not identify so much, or waste energy being invested in what other people think or say or do, but being a law to ourselves for the benefit of others.

Audience: Then, negation receives?

Instructor: Well, negation is just a law of nature. We have those three forces. We may affirm something and then we face the resistance, and usually people tend to go between these two binaries in life, whether in politics, two political parties fighting one another, people believing a religion or being atheist, and always conflicting with each other—never understanding one another. This is mechanical, machines. This is what puppets do: get identified with the mind, which is thesis and antithesis, good / bad, yes / no.

But somebody that is very comprehensive and spiritual can look at those perspectives and say, “Well, both of you are right and both of you are wrong, because there is something more profound here which you can analyze.”

There is always a pendulum that people swing between. It puts people to sleep. Consciously-speaking, you find it in political movements; you find it in religions; you find it in schools; you find it in the home, in the bedroom. You find it everywhere—duality. But the way that you overcome the afflictions of the mechanicity of life is learning to comprehend our own conditions of mind, seeing them first. Observe the ego. As the soul, observe the mind, the body, the heart, instinct, movement, everything. Be vigilant. Be awake. Be aware and study yourself, and little by little, you gain comprehension and learn to change things in life that were once very tragic and terrible into something divine. That is the meaning of transformation.

Audience: What is the best way to not be reactionary?

Instructor: So there is a lot of things you can do. Personally when I am at work, my clients come at me very angry. I deal with very absurd people, but I thank them, because they help me see my own absurdities, because I cannot judge them. I cannot judge my clients.

People are very afflicted, with a lot of problems, socially, economically, culturally, physically. They are just in a very bad place. I am there helping them. I was put there by my inner divinity, lead to that situation, that job, so that I could learn to develop things in myself for their benefit, because I have had my clients throw things at me and assault me and try to harm me. Very difficult, but in those moments, I have learned to reflect and I have been successful every time by patiently examining myself: what in me is so offended by what this person is saying to me? Why should I identify with what this person is saying? And then in the moment, I have gained comprehension by reflecting in a very Buddhist way, Mahayana way, the Mahayana tradition of Buddhism of which the Dalai Lama teaches, is that these people are suffering so much. They are trapped in hell. They are burning with passion, afflicted by their own mind, their ego. Why get mad at fire for being hot? They cannot help it. No one has ever taught them how to be human beings.

Audience: Do not hate the sinner. Hate the sin.

Instructor: Yeah, point out the sin and say, well, you know you could be compassionate to the person. I do this all the time, and I say “Look, I do not judge you. I like who you are, but you cannot be doing this here.” I just point out that I am there to help build themselves, their identity, not reject them and be very firm.

You can be firm spiritually, but not overbearing, or not be kind and be a doormat. But the way you learn to transform those situations is by reflecting in yourself and saying, “Well, these people do not know any better.” Like the Qur’an teaches: these are people who do not know. They have no understanding, so why get mad at someone who does not know? They are afflicted, and they cannot help it. They are puppets driven by forces that they have no comprehension of, and therefore I look at myself and say “Well, I have been a puppet most of my life. How could I judge someone and think I am better? In fact, I think I am worse, because I have this knowledge and its difficult to live up to that type of teaching, but it can be done.”

It just takes a lot of willpower, working with a lot of energy: runes, exercises, prayer, mantras. And then when you face those situations in yourself that are very challenging, whether people are really testing you, you got to remember that when you are working with yourself, divinity will put you in situations that are hard. Not to punish, but to help train. So that we can train ourselves, and then when those people are very negative, I just try to remember, “Well, I try to comprehend the person, put myself in their shoes,” which is why Samael Aun Weor says in Revolutionary Psychology, “Cruelty will always continue to exist on this earth as long as we refuse to put ourselves into the shoes of others.” Because people have their reasons for why they are mad. I tell my clients, “Yeah, you have a right to be mad.”

Audience: It's the extent that there's a physical danger. I guess it could be psychological. How close do you get to that fire, or you get used to it by getting closer every time?

Instructor: Well, the ordeals will always manifest in levels and levels and levels of training. They get more intense the further we go along in this type of work, but divinity, like in the Bible says, will only give us challenges that we can handle, so we can change.

If everything was too hard and we got everything we deserved in one moment, we would be annihilated. But divinity is very merciful. The Being is very merciful, but little by little, we learn to how to go into the fire without being burned. That is the myth of Nebuchadnezzar and the three figures, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, where they were put into a fire by king Nebuchadnezzar because they did not obey him and they were untouched by the fire. It is a symbol of how you go through ordeals in life that are very traumatizing, but come out clean. It is a matter of patience.

Audience: I think about it as a spiritual fire, but I guess my question is that the actual physical aspect of someone wants to fight you or kill you.

Instructor: Well, you know you can train yourself to defend yourself. Being kind does not mean being a doormat as I said. I have had people try to come at me before. You know I train in martial arts.

Audience: You like a psychiatric aid?

Instructor: No, but I will not say over the radio what I do. I do not want people to find me. No, I mean, I work with people who are very difficult, very negative, but I love my job. They are helping me, and when my clients see that I really care for them, that I do not judge them, they flock to me, because they are so used to being judged and condemned. You know we have to learn to understand people.

Audience: Even if you could suspend for a short month, stay there a bit longer.

Instructor: Well, life is a process, and jobs are temporary, so it is always good to learn to face one’s circumstances with a sense of moral responsibility, meaning: not act on ego, but act from the soul. Any other questions? Thank you for coming.

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Self-Observation

1/4/2019

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We have been discussing the nature of consciousness. What does it mean to perceive, to understand, to know?—the mysteries of life and death, in a very direct, cognizant manner based on facts, based on direct experiential wisdom born from precise methods.

We spoke abundantly in our last lecture about different states of consciousness, different qualities, and how, in our daily experience, we witness and suffer in many egotistical qualities, many defects which have been categorized in religion as sin or as demonic qualities. So those mythical figures in red with horns and a pitchfork and a long tail are symbols of psychological states, like anger, like resentment, like fear.

But also, just as we have negative states, we also have positive states, divine qualities born from the consciousness, known as serenity, compassion, peace.

We denominated those divine, unconditioned qualities as the essence, as the pure soul which needs to work in order to overcome the conditions of the mind, which make us suffer. And if anyone approaches any type of spirituality, it is because they feel in their heart the need and the longing to know divinity. But also, more importantly, to cease suffering, to cease being in pain.

It is an illusion of the senses to want to blame the external world, our politics, our governments, our schools, our institutions. And it is ironic that we like to fluctuate from job to job, from career to career, marriage to marriage, expecting that we will find some type of happiness by accumulating materialism, goods, bank accounts. But sadly, we fail to acknowledge how we ourselves are carrying the psychological disease of suffering with us wherever we go. And so, while we like to change things externally, it is rare for someone to want to introspect and examine our own negative states to see where is the source of suffering within our mind, within our heart, within our body.

The Sufi poet Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī taught that “It is not your duty to seek love but merely to find the obstacles we place in the way in front of it.” That love, that pure divinity, is our own inner Being, which religion has called God, but we use the term Being to be more specific, as a psychological state, a quality of consciousness. That divinity is inside within our heart, if we know how to access through meditation, through awareness. But unfortunately, due to the hypnosis of the senses, we tend to go through life in a very unconscious manner, not knowing what that divinity is.

Again we like to externalize, and religious institutions have indoctrinated millions to believe that by following a system, by believing in some external God, one will find a way out of suffering. But the facts have arrived to acknowledge that this is not the case. We carry suffering within us, and if we wish to know those divine qualities, we have to learn to see what in us makes us suffer, to examine our psychological states with consciousness, with perception.

That consciousness, that essence, that soul, is the most noble, charitable qualities we carry within, which is a reflection of divinity, but in us that quality tends to be weak. It is not strengthened enough; it is not developed. And so this path of transformation is about learning to understand and to see our own defects, our faults. So by confronting them in a very direct manner, we learn to liberate the soul and develop our full potential, because as I stated in our last lecture, our consciousness is trapped in each defect that we carry within—within anger, within fear, within pride, within arrogance, within blasphemy. Qualities that we like to ignore in ourselves, but which we learn to see as we are practicing the science of meditation.

We begin to see when we sit to practice that the mind is thinking of other things. We may be surging with anxieties, emotions, passions. Our body may be agitated. We are filled with conflict and with complexity. We rarely have a sense of simplicity and beauty, but the more we learn to practice this type of science, we develop the soul. Or as Jesus of Nazareth taught, “With patience possess ye your souls.” So it comes about by work, by transforming our own states of suffering into divine qualities.

This has been known as alchemy, to transform the impure lead of the soul into the gold of the spirit. It is not a literal teaching of medieval alchemists trying to transform physical lead into gold, but it is something psychological and divine. How we transform, in meditation, anger into love, fear into security, doubt into direct knowledge, and faith, because real faith is when we see the truth for ourselves. We don’t rationalize. We don’t speculate. We don’t fear, we don’t doubt, but we know what divinity is and that light learns to guide us in our most difficult circumstances of life when we are faced with problems, with conflicts, with ordeals. So divinity helps those who help themselves. And the method of learning to develop that potential is learning to observe oneself.

Essence, Ego, and Personality

So we talked about the essence, the soul, the consciousness. We talked about the ego, which is our defects, that multiplicity of errors and conflicting elements that surge within any moment of our experience—resentment, pride, hatred, fear, gluttony, laziness, lust. Then we also talked about the personality: how we interact in our society; our language, our name, our race, our culture, our habits. So as I stated previously, the personality is like a mask, from the Latin persona meaning “mask,” how we relate to humanity as an interface, through which we experience all the comedies, dramas, and tragedies of life, because our defects tend to pull us in many directions.

As I stated also, that we tend to be complex people with many contradictions, many errors, but there is a way to transform all that, to transform suffering, to transform wrong psychological states which produce conflict and discord. In order to achieve this transformation, to gain self-knowledge, to know how to experience the divine is a matter of learning to awaken our full potential: our consciousness, the soul, because there is the illusion that somehow we are awake.

It is true that we have a state of consciousness in which we are perceiving life, but the question remains: how do we perceive life in its full totality within our experience? It is easy to understand that there are different states of consciousness, and when that boxer is knocked unconscious in a ring, he loses consciousness. So that is a very basic level of perception. But there are different qualities of perception, different states, different levels of being, some divine and some very diabolic; love, virtue, happiness, philanthropy, and patience. And then the inversion, which is selfishness, criminality, and desire.

If we want to learn to ascend to a higher level of being, it is important to learn what in ourselves is producing all the conflicts we experience. Of course, this introspection is very difficult because there is a lot of resistance in the mind to not want to see one’s faults. And this is why the great mythologies always depicted the great heroes like Perseus fighting Medusa, fighting a monster, and that monster is not outside, but inside, because when we are arguing with our loved ones and filled with rage, we are like Medusa with a head of serpents. And each serpent represents a different error, a different fault, and all its conglomeration of errors. And to look directly into the eyes of Medusa is to be turned to stone—not a literal meaning, but a symbol of how when we identify with anger, fear, and resentment, we become shelled; we become stone; we become that quality. And then when we cease to learn how to change, we become habitual.

We go through life mechanically on the same tracks, repeating the same mistakes, and seemingly never learning from our errors. But there is a way to break that, like Perseus; he used a shield and the reflection within in order to perceive the image of Medusa from behind him—a symbol of how we learn how to use consciousness in meditation. We observe ourselves looking through the mirror of perception in order to see our own errors. And then with the sword of insight, of meditation, of comprehension, we decapitate the animal, the beast. And then, in that way, Perseus acquires great honors; he is honored by the Gods, because he has conquered himself.

So that path of self-reflection is the path of awakening consciousness, of learning to perceive in a new way. And humanity, as it is as we are now, is asleep. We don’t know our full potential yet.

We may have had glimpses, such as in dreams and certain life experiences and in certain traumas or tragedies, in which we gained a certain insight that shaped who we are and has silently guided us through this maze of existence. The consciousness needs to be awakened. Psyche in the Greek myth was awakened by Eros, divine love, the Being. And the Bible speaks abundantly that we must awake, we must be perceptive. We must be cognizant of ourselves. We must know ourselves.

As it says in the Book of Judges (5:12), “Awake, awake, Deborah! Arise, O Barak and take thy captivity captive, O son of Abinoam.” Awake, awake! Deborah is a symbol of the soul that awakens our inner judgment. How we judge ourselves, how we change ourselves, our qualities, and escape suffering. And likewise, we learn to take captivity captive. We cease being mechanical people, by living life with more cognizance, with happiness even in the most difficult ordeals and situations.

Instead of identifying with life, we use life as a gymnasium, a training ground to gain knowledge and to know divinity. For as the Sufis teach, “He who knows himself or herself knows his Lord.” So we do not know ourselves yet in a full fundamental sense, specifically because if we knew ourselves fully, we would be present with divinity inside of us. We would be a Buddha. The word Buddha in Sanskrit means “awakened one,” to know oneself completely. And in that way, one is no longer suffering, but is in ecstasy of that pure Being which is inside—in which we gain insight little by little. But of course, in order to reach that point, we must learn to confront our inner psychological obstacles so that we can develop consciousness.

Definitions of Consciousness

So there are some very basic definitions of consciousness that serve as a platform for this lecture, for this discussion. People typically define consciousness as “the state of being aware; knowledge of one’s own existence, condition, sensations, mental operations, acts, etc.”

The question is, are we really conscious? Are we really aware of how our own negative qualities condition our states? Or do we really know the purpose of our existence in this life, the reason for being? The reason why we get up in the morning, to do what we do? Is it because we are driven by necessity, or is it because we are driven from a state of compassion for humanity, by engaging with our job, our career, for the benefit of others, with selflessness, with altruism, or are we filled with affliction going through the motions of life and hoping that we can reject or not experience pain?

That tends to be the more conditioning element in our life. We are conditioned by many things, conditioned by states of consciousness, conditioned by these negative qualities, by ego. And so the ego, the self in Latin meaning “I,” is that identity we tend to cling to which, as we stated previously, conditions the full consciousness within ourselves, our true potential.

So we may believe in a religion that we have some type of purpose in life, because Catholicism or Judaism or Buddhism or even Gnosticism says so. The reality is we find meaning in our existence by learning to connect with the Being, with divine, with the true self, who is happiness, who knows how to resolve problems without thinking, without rationalizing, without conceptualizing, but acting from a state of pure attention that is unconditioned, that is unfiltered, in which is the full presence and manifestation of divinity, the pure expression of God, the Being, the Self, or whatever name we want to give to that.

The labels do not really matter. What matters is our level of being, our qualities, who we are and how we relate to others, especially when we are faced with challenges, when we are criticized, we are gossiped about, we are lied to.

Do we retaliate? Do we seek retribution? Do we seek justice? But the question is, what is that sense of justice that we want? Who in us wants that outcome, that wants revenge, that wants payback? Most people never question this sense of self; “what I am; what I desire; what I want; what my language is, my name, my culture, my race, my customs, the food that I eat,” because we like to think that identification with these qualities makes us conscious beings.

But the reality is if we are conscious of what we are, in our fundamental depth of divinity, then we don’t make mistakes when we are awake. We are vigilant. We are attentive. We know how to respond to any conflict with equanimity, with patience, with love.

When Jesus was crucified, he only said, “Father forgive them, they know not what they do.” He didn’t want revenge. He didn’t curse or slander or gossip or complain. He was an example of a very high being who taught us a lot about the nature of psychology. That when we are confronted with great ordeals, to learn how to respond with serenity and love.

That is the state of being conscious, because our true nature, our consciousness, is selfless, is love, does not want retribution, revenge, but only wants the happiness of others, the peace of others, even onto one’s worse enemies.

So being conscious is being aware and having knowledge of one’s own existence, one’s conditions, one’s sensations, one’s mental operations. But the question remains, are we really aware of what conditions us, what limits us, what makes us weak? And in that way we learn to remove the obstacles, to change what we are, to become something divine.

So in another level, we may know that we are in a bad mood, but does that mean that we really comprehend the root of that mood, the root of that state? We may know that we are angry. We may be saturated with pain on an emotional and mental scale. But it doesn’t mean that we really understand the root of that.

If we comprehend those qualities, we no longer become the victim of those qualities. We learn to see them and separate as a consciousness, and to study the intimate process, the faults, the feelings, the volitions of each defect, each ego, each “I.” Which, as a multiplicity, traps us and conditions us.

Knowing is not the same as comprehending. We may know that alcohol and drugs will harm us. And an alcoholic or drug addict may know that their habit is wrong, and yet they continue to engage in that addiction. They suffer in that vice, they make themselves suffer, and they make others suffer. But they don’t really comprehend how that habit is destroying them.

Now that is a very extreme example. But that analogy applies to us very well. We have many habits, many states of consciousness, which are negative, and yet we are addicted to those states, to those fears, to those worries, to those angers. And so in that way, we are conditioned, we are trapped.

But comprehension is much more dynamic. Comprehension is when we know something is wrong, and we do not do it. And in that way, we develop our soul, our full potential.

It is also “the immediate knowledge or perception of the presence of any object, state, or sensation.” And the truth is, are we really aware of our surroundings, where we are, where we go? If we are driving our car and thinking of our friend, our fiancé, our job, it means that we are not attentive. We are not aware of what we are doing. It means that we are asleep as a consciousness. This is why people get into accidents. It is because they are thinking of one thing while they are driving. They are not paying attention to where they are at or what they are doing.

If we are honest, we can see that we are constantly daydreaming. We may be at work speaking with someone or listening to a lecture, and yet we are thinking of other things or comparing our ideas with what we hear and rationalizing, and debating and criticizing or something. So if we are thinking of other things but not aware of what is going on, it means that we are asleep. We are distracted.

So this is a very different definition of consciousness that is commonly believed in in these times. But if you are washing your dishes and not paying attention to what you are doing or cutting food, we can slice our finger open because we are distracted. We are not paying attention.

Likewise, “consciousness is an alert, cognizant state in which you are aware of yourself and your situation.”

How often do we go throughout our day, not even aware of our body, our breath, our physical state, not mindful of tension that we carry within? And if we sit to practice meditation, we may suddenly see that we carry all sorts of friction in ourselves, in our bodies. Which is, of course, mediated and helped by learning to relax throughout the day, breathing deep, profoundly letting go of tension, observing oneself, observing the mind, observing our heart, observing our body.

The consciousness must learn to observe, as I said in our practice, like a director of a film seeing the actor of the mind, the actor of the heart, the actor of our body, separating from those demonic qualities we were talking about, those defects, in order to develop the beauty of the soul. So this path of consciousness, of observation, is one in which we look, but without judging, without debating, where we listen to someone speak or listen to our neighbor, our friend, without wanting to say the next thing or wanting to compare or to insert our comments into the conversation, by learning to be receptive as a mind, as a consciousness.

That is an alert cognizant state symbolized in Buddhism by the Buddha meditating with a bowl facing up in order to receive impressions of life, to receive insight of new things, to not go through one’s day mechanically, repeating and daydreaming and being stuck in memories, by learning to see the new even in the most mundane circumstance, so that we receive impressions. We learn to see ourselves as we are, not as we assume to be. So this is an alert cognizant state.

The question is, are we always aware of our surroundings? This is one of the values of martial arts such as Aikido and other practices where they teach the Buddhist concept of attention and awareness, vigilance, so that if we are in danger, we can escape it, but if we are asleep thinking of other things or our friend, we could walk into an alley or be accosted, or go to a bad neighborhood. We are not paying attention to where we are, getting off on the wrong train stop, making mistakes.

People who do not pay attention, as I said, can end up dead on the road. The same principle applies spiritually, knowing what spiritual states are beneficial and those that are not, so that we can choose the right action from moment to moment.

The Powers of Consciousness

There are different powers of consciousness, of attention. Some people confuse mindfulness with attention and other dynamics of the soul. When people talk about awareness, they talk about being aware of one’s surroundings. This is a broad spatial perception in which consciousness expands. We see our surroundings. We are attentive of the color of the streets, the bricks, the moving cars, the wind, the colors of our environment. We see things with clarity, with crispness, with depth. Our consciousness is heightened and expanded. It is a light that is diffused, that fills the atmosphere, that sees all things surrounding oneself.

Attention is a little different. With awareness, when you have consciousness that is spatialized, attention is more concentrated, focused on one thing. So compare the light of a light bulb that expands out and fills the room to a flashlight. When you direct your attention to one thing, you are working with that power of consciousness, such as with concentration exercises.

Mindfulness is being attentive, being aware of oneself moment by moment, and day by day. It is the continuity of perception. So as we are learning to observe ourselves, observe our surroundings, mindfulness is when you are attentive of each state, in each moment, progressively, instant by instant, moment by moment, so that we learn to gather data about ourselves, our own faults, our own conditions of mind.

If someone is practicing this science and is driving the car, they may be attentive on the road, mindful since they got up in the morning and got in the car to go to work, and yet in a moment start thinking of another thing, thinking of a friend, and lose one’s mindfulness of what one is doing, being engaged in that thought, that daydream, that fantasy. That is what it means to lose one’s mindfulness, to lose the continuity of attention of awareness.

Visualization is a much more different quality of consciousness. It’s the ability to perceive images that are not physical. So if I tell you to imagine an apple, you can see it, you can visualize it. That’s a type of consciousness that is, in most people, undeveloped. But we do have the capacity to imagine, to perceive images that are not physical, but are psychic. That is a term used by certain French authors, called clairvoyance.

Clairvoyance is simply “clear vision.” It’s a fancy term people invented to make people confused, to feel that one does not possess a quality that one already has. Because we all have the capacity to imagine, to see images mentally, and we have exercises in this tradition where you can take a candle or a religious object, observe it, focus your concentration on it, your attention, and then in that way you close your eyes, and then you try to imagine all the details. That develops the depth and clarity of the consciousness, so that when we practice meditation, we can see what we are doing, seeing into the depths of the mind like Perseus using the shield of his imagination in order to see the image of Medusa and to confront it.

These are different qualities of consciousness, which the practitioner of meditation develops in order to gain self-knowledge.

The Technique of Self-Observation

The term observation, as you see in this image, relates to “the action or process of observing something or someone carefully to gain information.” So we see a woman staring at a mirror and seeing a hidden figure that should be visible to us in the background, but is only seen in the image in the mirror. That is a symbol of the work of self-observation, because we cannot see the self with physical senses.

Many people do like to think that they are the body. They are the brain, they are the physicality, and yet it is more true that our thoughts and our feelings have greater reality than physical objects. We invest more of our attention in ourselves in who we think we are, what we feel, what we think. So thoughts and feelings and will have a type of dimensionality that is very profound, which acts through the physical body, which we study in our courses about kabbalah, the tree of life, and the interrelationship of all the different aspects of the soul and of divinity.

But we learn to gather data about ourselves, by learning to observe ourselves, by having the courage to examine what we are, not to assume that we are a certain way, not to believe anything, but to learn to look, to simply see, not to judge.

It is the ego that says, “I am compassionate. I am merciful. I am a good person,” but have we ever really questioned what that self is, what that “I” is, that sense of “me, what I want, what I crave”? It is by learning to question that self that we get to the bottom of why we suffer.

Such as in certain conflicts at work. Someone says something negative to us, and then we feel hurt. Our heart is in pain. So if we are examining ourselves in that moment, we can learn to see that that sense of self that is hurt really has no value, has no importance. This relates to the Buddhist concept of emptiness, of selflessness. That selflessness of the consciousness is divine. It is peace; it is love. It is empty of desire, of condition. But we must learn to see that state and to taste what that state is, where we are looking at ourselves when someone says something negative, and we want to react with slander or negative words, defending our sense of self, our sense of honor that is hurt.

We should learn to see and to examine. Why should we feel victim of what other people say? Why be a victim of life? People can think and feel whatever they want. Each world is a world of its own, a mind of its own. Why do we want to change other people so much? It is better if we change our own negative states, our own faults, so that we are not victims of life.

So no matter how negative people can be, we do not necessarily have to invest our energy into that identification, by learning to examine, to scrutinize, to see, to gain information about why do we suffer in relation to those events.

What in us is in conflict? This is a path of self-observation, observing the self, observing the mind, the heart, the body. It is a path of monitoring oneself, "watching, scrutiny, examination, inspection; to "survey, surveillance, consideration, study, or review."

All religions teach that we must awaken. We must examine ourselves and to not judge, either way, assuming that we are good people, because while we have good qualities, we also have many faults, imperfections. But the path of love, of experiencing the divine, is precisely as Rumi said, “Seeing in oneself all that which conditions.” That is an obstacle, and by learning to see that in ourselves is very uncomfortable, a very painful process to realize that the self is not singular, but multiple, as we talked about on our lecture on Essence, Ego, and Personality (Discover Your True Self).

We are very conflicted. In one moment we may want to wash the dishes or in the next moment ride a bike. We change our mind, or our mind changes and says no, we want to go eat something; no, we want to go read. We want to do something else. We are constantly moving in multiple directions. We are changing course every moment, but we do not really examine why that is.

Why is it that we are always gravitating towards different things, that there is no continuity of purpose? This is why people begin projects and end them. They do not finish; they do not have continuity of soul. For as Jesus taught, “With patience possess ye your soul.” The soul has to be developed. It has to become singular, with one purpose, to remember the divine, so to end that multiplicity of defects, of “I’s,” of selves, which is so uncomfortable to see, is only achievable by looking into the mirror of ourselves, to see and to look, to study and to ask the question, “what is my state of being? What is my level of being? What is conditioning me right now? Why do I suffer? Why am I in pain?” But of course, there is a resistance that occurs, and it is always a very difficult topic because the mind resists, does not want to cease its errors, its faults.

The Observer and the Observed

And in this path, we learn to develop a separation of consciousness. In this image, we have Saint Michael slaying the dragon, which is a religious allegory of this dynamic. Saint Michael is from the Hebrew מיכאל, which translated means “He who is like God,” that is the soul when it is united with Christ, the divine, Allah, Buddha, whatever name you want to give to your divinity.

So he’s a great warrior, a great angel whom you can meet in the internal worlds, by awakening from dreams, to speak face to face in that state when your consciousness, your awareness is expanded, and you are remembering your self. You can invoke or call upon those divinities and speak face to face with the Buddhas with the angels, the Gods. That is a science known as dream yoga.

But my purpose in showing this image is not to talk about that specifically, but to point out that Michael represents our soul that is a great warrior, that knows how to fight for what is just, in an objective, spiritual sense, to combat anger, hatred, doubt. In this image, he is conquering the devil, the demon, the adversary, which is not a person outside, but inside of all our defects. And so this image is very inspiring, as many forms of religious art show that the consciousness has the potential to wage a very difficult war, and to succeed.

The consciousness must learn to observe, and the question is: to observe what? Saint Michael is the consciousness that is observing the lower qualities of the soul and is stepping in its mouth, to show that the soul is dominating the ego. The soul must learn to separate as an observer, to look at the observed, to look at the self, to look at the “I”—“what I am, what I think, what I feel, what I desire,” moment by moment.

The consciousness that is unconditioned is the essence, as we were saying. It is the observer. It is the director of a film that is watching an actor, that is watching the self, watching the mind. And the actor is the conditioned consciousness, which is fragmented, shelled within many elements, which we call ego, selves, desires defects.

So in the myth of Jesus exorcising a possessed man is a symbol of how the soul, the divine, learns to heal the consciousness, to liberate it, to free it from its state of suffering. And when Jesus asks the possessed man, “What is your name?” He said, “We are legion, because we are many.” That is the uncomfortable truth of the mind, the belief that we are one self.

Again, our contradictions show the facts. We are always conflicted, sent in different directions by one’s selves, one’s desires. So the question is, are we aware of ourselves aware, of our full potential? Are we observing? Are we watchful? Are we looking to see what is in us, without expectation, without anticipation, but just questioning those states, those qualities of suffering?

I would like to read for you an excerpt from a book called Revolutionary Psychology by the writer Samael Aun Weor, who is the founder of the modern Gnostic tradition, where he explains some concepts relating to this dynamic where the soul has to observe the ego, so that by comprehending the ego, the ego can be eliminated. Fear can be eradicated. Suffering can be ceased.

“Internal Self-observation is a practical means to achieve a radical transformation.

“To know and to observe are different. Many confuse the observation of oneself with knowing. For example, even though we know that we are seated in a living room, this, however, does not signify that we are observing the chair.

“We know that at a given moment we are in a negative state, perhaps with a problem, worried about this or that matter, or in a state of distress or uncertainty, etc. This, however, does not mean that we are observing the negative state.

“Do you feel antipathy towards someone? Do you dislike a certain person? Why? You may say that you know that person... Please observe that person; to know is not the same as to observe! Do not confuse knowing with observing...

“The observation of oneself, which is one hundred percent active, is a way to change oneself. However, knowing, which is passive, is not a way to change oneself.

“Indeed, knowing is not an act of attention. Yet, the attention directed into oneself, towards what is happening in our interior, is something positive, active...

“For instance, we may feel antipathy towards a person, just because we feel like it and many times for no particular reason. If we observe ourselves in such a moment we will notice the multitude of thoughts that accumulate in our mind. We will also notice the group of voices that speak and scream in a disorderly manner and that say many things within our mind, as well as the unpleasant emotions that surge in our interior and the unpleasant taste that all this leaves in our psyche, etc.

“Obviously, in such a state we also realize that internally we are badly mistreating the person towards whom we feel antipathy.

“But, unquestionably, in order to see all of this, we need attention intentionally directed towards the interior of our own selves. This is not a passive attention.

“Indeed, dynamic attention proceeds from the side of the observer, while thoughts and emotions belong to the side which is observed.

“All of this causes us to comprehend that “knowing” is something completely passive and mechanical, in evident contrast with the observation of the self, which is a conscious act.

“Nevertheless, we are not affirming that mechanical Self-observation does not exist; it does, but such a kind of observation has nothing to do with the psychological Self-observation to which we are referring.

“To think and to observe are also very different. Any person can give himself the luxury of thinking about himself all he wants, yet this does not signify that he is truly observing himself.

“We need to see the different ‘I’s’ in action, to discover them in our psyche, to comprehend that a percentage of our own Consciousness exists within each one of them, to repent of having created them, etc.

“Then we shall exclaim, ‘But what is this ‘I’ doing?’ ‘What is it saying?’ ‘What does it want?’ ‘Why does it torment me with its lust, with its anger?’ etc.

“Then we will see within ourselves the entire train of thoughts, emotions, desires, passions, private comedies, personal dramas, elaborated lies, discourses, excuses, morbidities, beds of pleasure, scenes of lasciviousness, etc.

“Many times before falling asleep, at the precise instant of transition between vigil and sleep, we feel within our own mind different voices that talk to each other. Those are the different ‘I’s’ that must in such moments break all connection with the different centers of our organic machine, so as to then submerge themselves in the molecular world, within the ‘Fifth Dimension.’” —Samael Aun Weor, Treatise of Revolutionary Psychology

Which is commonly known as the astral plane in certain writings. So some people may have that experience of falling asleep, being attentive and seeing dream images and hearing sounds and voices of all types while one is transitioning into the internal worlds, as a consciousness, as one is projecting into that world.

The Two Worlds

But of course, to develop that quality, we develop what is known as knowledge of the two worlds. So we included an image here of a man hidden by a mirror or reflecting a mirror opposite to him, which is our position looking within. We must learn to become aware of the internal world, but also in relation to the external.

This is symbolized in The Odyssey, of Odysseus, the poem by Homer, in which the great hero Odysseus kills his enemies who are trying to marry his wife Penelope, after he was exiled from Troy after a voyage of 20 years, to return home to Ithaca, in which he finds his home has been ransacked by certain people who want to marry his wife and take his property. So he is disguised as a beggar until Athena takes him into the throne room in order to kill the suitors.

It is a beautiful symbol of the path of the soul, how we as Odysseus must go into our mind and to confront all the selves: lust, anger, fear, pride, resentment, etc. And so he kills all the suitors in the poem. He does it with a bow and an arrow. He extends his attention outward towards his enemies, but also pulls the string so that he can release each arrow as he is destroying his enemies, which is a symbol of the battle of the soul against the mind. And so the one who helps him is Athena, a symbol of the divine feminine, the Divine Mother in Christianity, the Divine Mother Tara in Buddhism, the Divine Goddess Kali amongst the Hindus.

So we have to observe our psychological state, but always in relation to the external event, understanding the relationship, because we never exist in a bubble where things happen outside, where there is no relationship between our mental states and what happens outside. There is the illusion that somehow we can think and feel and do whatever we want mentally in relation to the other person, and they will not know. But if we are observant, you see that even thoughts influence people.

This is the capacity of clairvoyance and telepathy, to see one’s thoughts and how they relate to people and the exchange of energies, of thinking, of emotion. Nothing fantastic about it. It is a simple state of being, which we can compare to an example of walking down the street, where we may suddenly feel that we are being looked at. We turn, and we see someone across the street looking at us. It is a psychological sense that is atrophied in most people, but which you can develop with meditation.

So our internal world relates to the external world. There’s an interconnection. The self is not isolated but always is contingent upon the impressions of life that enter in our mind, our heart, our mental states, constantly and continuously. And this is where we get the Buddhist doctrine of dependent origination, that there is no intrinsically existing self or ego. There are always situations that provoke anger, pride, resentment, etc. And so we are to examine what impressions enter our mind, what is happening in life that makes us react and usually in a mechanical way. Samael Aun Weor explains the difference in his chapter in Revolutionary Psychology.

“To observe and to Self-observe oneself are two completely different things; however, both demand attention.

“When we observe through the windows of the senses, our attention then is directed outwardly towards the external world.

“Yet, in Self-observation, the senses of external perception are worthless, because attention is directed inward. Consequently, this is the factual reason why the Self-observation of inner psychological processes is difficult for the neophyte.

“The point of departure of official science in its practical side is the observable. The point of departure for the work on oneself is Self-observation, the Self-observable.

“Unquestionably, these two points of departure take us in two completely different directions.

“Someone could grow old engrossed within the intransigent dogmas of official science, studying external phenomena, observing cells, atoms, molecules, suns, stars, comets, etc., without experiencing any radical change within himself.

“The type of knowledge that transforms someone internally can never be achieved through external observation.

“The true knowledge that can really originate a fundamental, internal change in us has as its basis direct Self-observation of oneself.

“…We find ourselves then before two worlds, the external and the internal.

“The first, the external, is perceived by the senses of external perception. The second, the internal, can only be perceived through the sense of internal Self-observation.

“Thoughts, ideas, emotions, longings, hopes, disappointments, etc., are internal, invisible to the ordinary, common and current senses. Yet, they are more real to us than the dining table or the living room couch.

“Indeed, we live in our internal world more than in our external world. This is irrefutable, indisputable.

“In our internal worlds, in our secret world, we love, desire, suspect, bless, curse, yearn, suffer, enjoy, we are disappointed, rewarded, etc.

“Unquestionably, the two worlds, internal and external, are experimentally verifiable. The external world is the observable. The internal world is in itself and inside oneself the self-observable, here and now.” —Samael Aun Weor, Treatise of Revolutionary Psychology

So it is like a mirror. We have to learn to work with both, but typically our senses and our mind is more gravitated to the external, but if we want to acquire psychological insight, balance, understanding, we have to learn to observe the external, but also direct our attention inward, so that with the bow of the mind, our attention, we learn to see all things, develop our meditation practice.

The Flavor of Life and the Spiritual Work

All of us know what the flavor of life is. We are distracted on our cell phones, driving our car, listening to music, listening to the radio, thinking about other things. We tend to be, as I said, fragmented, distracted by multiple engagements at once. We like to think in America that we are a culture of multitasking, but this type of behavior tends to distract oneself more and more.

We like to emphasize that there are three states that constitute the flavor of life, which this path is working against, the path of meditation. Identification has to do with thinking that one is thinking, feeling that one is feeling, and doing that one is doing, but without awareness directed attention inward. When we say that we are identified, it means that our identity is enmeshed in that moment, in relation to a sense of self. It could be anything we mentioned previously.

And like in the myth of Medusa, if we are filled with anger and we identify with that anger, we invest it with our energy. We become trapped in stone, habituated. This is why so many relationships fail, because people are conditioned and they are feeding their anger, their lust, their pride. They become trapped in stone. They are identified, and they are worshiping idols.

So people think that in old religious cultures, they were worshiping idols, worshiping statues. It is a symbol of worshiping negative states or qualities. People in these times worship anger. They think it is a good thing. Or pride in our music, our entertainment, our industries, our movies, our books. We even have a show, American Idol, people worshiping vanity, selfishness, competition.

So when we are identified, it means that we are thinking that we are thinking and feeling that we are feeling. We are not really observing that self, like being in a helicopter very high up or on a mountain looking down, where you can see very beautifully everything in a conscious sense, seeing the full potential the soul.

Identification means to invest ourselves into what we are doing, or to be distracted. When we are fascinated, it means that we are experiencing the pleasant or unpleasant sensations of desire, the ego, enjoying what we are enjoying, but unconsciously not really aware, not really looking at what we are experiencing.

And sleep is to be fully inattentive. We like to think that sleep is only when we go to bed for eight hours, and we wake up in the morning. But as I said, we are asleep when we are driving our car and thinking of other things, consciously speaking. We are not attentive of where we are at or what we are doing. So we may be on a road driving, and we are thinking of a problem at work and then suddenly we realize we missed our turn, because we are so identified with that memory, fascinated by our own fantasies of what we were thinking and feeling and what we wanted to do in response, that we are asleep. We don’t know where we are at. We get lost. We lose direction.

That is a very basic understanding of this dynamic. But of course, this applies to every moment of life in which we are not observing. There is a very different flavor of life which we can experience in moments of great serenity, of insight, of peace.

So we included an image of the mountains and a lake reflecting the beautiful landscape. Again another symbol of imagination. We’re reflecting the mountain of initiation, of the Being, of the spiritual path that leads from the valley of suffering up to the heights, which many authors have allegorized in their writings, like Fredrick Nietzsche climbing the mountain in his book Thus Spoke Zarathustra. He is a philosopher who knew this teaching at one point. So the flavor of the work is a different psychological state that we develop as we are practicing meditation. We may experience intensified awareness, greater spatial perception of our surroundings, where we see things in a new way, in a bright way, with great lucidity.

We also may have clarified attention where we begin to see how certain habits in life make us conditioned. We see where fear comes from and why, why it exists, and then we are no longer influenced by that quality. We are transformed. We have strength, because when you learn to separate from the ego, you gain strength.

So it is not like some people think, that one is vulnerable. But of course, in the beginning, it is challenging to separate from that self and to observe and experience divine qualities like contentment, serenity, patience. And so that is developed as we practice the science of meditation. We clarify our attention. We see things with greater clarity.

We also have a heightened perception of ourselves. We see ourselves in a way that is totally new. And anyone who approaches these type of studies has obviously had that experience. They see things that in such a heightened way, they question their life, their existence, why they are where they are at. When we were children, we tasted this quality more commonly before we were more habituated in our culture or conditioned by society as were growing up.

Self-observation is understanding of the cognizance of facts of where our problems originate and why they sustain. How do we make things more complicated and create suffering for ourselves?

Self-observation develops like going to the gym and exercising one’s muscles. It gets stronger with practice. And one sign that one is learning Self-observation is when maybe in a moment at work, we are having a conversation with someone, and they say something negative, and we feel the reaction of wanting to retaliate, as I have been saying, to be sarcastic even, even in a level that is joking. But which, if you examine deep down, you may see that there is some anger there, an edge, a bite. But you learn to separate and to see that self, and you say to yourself consciously, “I do not need to identify with that quality, because to identify with it is to perpetuate suffering, conflict.” And then, comprehension or insight, the understanding of the causes of suffering, is deepened and heightened, where we begin to separate more and more from negative states, to experience higher states of being, higher levels of consciousness.

Of course, the difference between the two is distinct, but we gain more knowledge the more we practice Self-observation, and in that way, we become more awakened, more enlightened, day by day, moment by moment, as we are learning to transform ourselves.

Questions and Answers

Audience: Why do you say that desire is something negative?

Instructor: Because in strict etymology, the word desire is the craving, or saying, “I want. I need. I must have.” While many poets like Rumi use that word desire to refer to something spiritual, he is using it more in an elevated sense. Semantically speaking, we could say that the desire to know God, the divine, is good. And we could say, to be more precise in our language, that this is longing, the yearning to know divinity, and that aspiration, that desire, is holy, is sacred.

But also we have desires that are negative, lower, animalistic, which we are all familiar with and which shape our states of being and make us suffer.

In strict language, we could say to use precision of language, according to Socrates, desire is ego, because the ego says “I must have. I must fulfill. That person insulted me. I need to get revenge. They slighted me. They hurt me. They betrayed me.” That is a desire.

Desire always says, “I want, I need,” and projects itself into the external world and wants to get those impressions of praise or acceptance. But also you have desire in a poetic sense, like the Sufis talk abundantly about. We have a course on our website called The Sufi Path of Self-knowledge, in which we talk a lot about that nature, of that language, about how the Sufis desired God, the Being. They longed for divinity in a way that is so profound, that it is erotic, in relation to the science of tantra, alchemy, as we explained in those courses.

We could say longing, but in most cases, in our mind-stream, desire is mostly egotistical, because we are so conditioned by our states. We talked about this in the previous lecture how we possess, statistically, according to Samael Aun Weor, ninety-seven percent ego and three percent consciousness. That is a very daunting statistic, but easy to see in our life if we are learning to observe.

We tend to be more egotistical. And very rarely do moments of spontaneity and longing of desire for God manifest unless we are practicing to develop that more, instant by instant, moment by moment.

But of course, that is desire in a spiritual sense. Spiritual desire is different. But then there is a muddling, too, where we may be in a spiritual teaching, and yet we are filled with ambition as well. We want to be great saints. We want people to worship us, that we are holy, that we are great masters of spirituality, and that type of desire infects many groups. It infects anyone who is trying to teach other people, because we have ego, and the more one works on that ego, the more subtle it becomes until finally it is eliminated. But of course, it is a lot of work.

The Sufis use that word desire to refer to longing for divinity. But in us, we are typically very conditioned, which is why, in most cases, when we talk about self-improvement or desire, is ego. And in relation to that topic of the three percent consciousness, the consciousness is like a child. In the story of David and Goliath, David was a boy when he fought this great warrior, symbol of our soul, that three percent, that can—with a lot of faith, desire for God, longing—with a stone and a sling , kill his enemy, by being helped by divinity.

It is a symbol in the Old Testament of how one is working in Self-observation in order to eliminate desire, the ego, in a more strict sense. That child became king of Israel. Beautiful symbol. It is a symbol of our potential. We can become kings and queens of spirituality if we conquer ourselves, but of course, it is a very difficult battle, but very achievable. If we don’t have any more questions, we will conclude with a practice.

Audience: From the moment I’m aware of an ego, what would be the most effective way of eliminating that ego?

Instructor: Sure. So it’s a wonderful question, because a lot of people, when they begin to see the ego, they want to run away, because it is very painful to see that we are filled with all sorts of abnormality, desire and defects.

The best thing you can do in those moments, if you feel that you are being tempted by a certain condition or being influenced by anger, you feel like you are about to blow up, so to speak, by being so impassioned, some solutions could be just to step back from a situation. I know when I have had conflicts at work, I would just excuse myself, “Excuse me. I need to take five minutes.” I would go to my office and do a breathing exercise, but in the moment, you need to have the restraint that says, “I am not going to act on this element.” But of course, as the Pater Noster teaches us, “Lead us not into temptation.” Because that condition is very heavy, obviously, it is very easy to give in to the ego.

The best way to begin to annihilating it is do not give it what it wants; do not feed it. And this is what the Muslims call holy war, the word jihad does not mean holy war in a certain sense, but it has become an application in the western culture. It simply means “to strive, to fight against”; it does not mean fighting against someone who is not Muslim or one not in one’s tradition. It means to fight against the ego.

And so you strive against yourself, you do not give your mind, your heart, your negative qualities, what it wants. So the first wonderful step of that battle is do not feed it, and of course, it takes a lot of refinement to know how, to go deeper and deeper and deeper, to restrain oneself in those critical moments. And that’s why in life, when we are doing this kind of work, a lot of problems arise, because those situations will help provoke the worst in us, make us see the most ugly qualities in our psyche, but you gain strength more and more as you are facing those problems and don’t identify with them. You do not invest your energy into them.

Personally, again, when I am having issues or struggles like that in a moment of great crisis, I pray to my Inner Being. I say, “My God help me to not give in to my anger.” It does not have to even be in words; you don’t need a formula for that. It is something dynamic and intuitive. You do not think about it. You just feel it in your heart. “Please do not let me make this mistake and help me to reflect your divine qualities like compassion.” And then the more you separate from the ego, you do not give it what it wants, the more comprehension you develop, because if you are giving that ego what it wants, you are stuck in the flavor of life.

The flavor of life, is again, identification with the ego, fascination; its fantasies and beliefs, and then the sleep of our soul, and we are suffering all the while. So to escape suffering, you have to learn to work with the shield of Perseus, the armor of the great heroes, which is your solar qualities, your spiritual qualities.

Look at it, but do not look directly at it, meaning: do not identify with Medusa. You have to look at it, but not identify with it, and that is the very great struggle we all face, whether we have been meditating for a year or twenty years. It is because it is a very difficult work, but we gain more inspiration. The more we resist the mind, or better said, comprehend the mind—we do not want to resist the mind, “Oh, I do not like what I am seeing; this is very ugly.” And so we like to repress and push that away.

Observation is just looking at it. Do not justify the anger. Do not push it away. And the reason being is, if you push it away from yourself, you are not going to gain an understanding, and in fact, that anger gets stronger when you repress it, which is why psychologists say you should not repress your anger. But they make the mistake of saying that you should just feed it, whatever is going on inside. It’s the other extreme, which is negative. So they are both negative: do not feed it; do not push it away. Just look. Look at it from a state of dispassion, of equanimity, because when you do so in that way, you do not identify, you just look at it.

And it is like Michael putting his foot into the mouth of the dragon. You see how effortless in the image he is doing it? It does not take any effort on his will. He is a very powerful being—a symbol of how, in a state of great equanimity, you have greater strength. If you give in to anger or frustration in a certain ordeal or circumstance, we make things worse. We make our job difficult. We make our clients resist us, whatever it is that we do or people we interact with.

So look at it. Just see it and do not judge it right away. Just do not label it. See it for what it is and follow your intuition, your heart about what is the right action to perform in that moment. That is part of self-observation too.

We learn to observe and see in ourselves what is going on, but in an even more profound level, in our future lectures, we will talk about this is, that we learn to transform the moment, transform the impression. So we have the impression of someone insulting us. We are observing ourselves. We see the reaction emerge and then immediately we say, “Okay, I see my reaction here; it is negative.” I know in a moment, we understand that if we give into that reaction, that mechanical behavior, we are going to create more conflict. So in that moment, we can pray, “My Being, help me!” You so not need formula, or you can use formulas too, like the Our Father, the Hail Mary, or any Hindu prayer. There are many prayers in different religions that all invoke divinity; whatever you have an affinity for that inspires you, and then you pray, “Please help me so I do not give in to that demon, so that I can see it and transform it.”

And then when you do not feed it what it wants, of course, the ego fights back. This is why this is a holy war. The mind resists. So you stop feeding the lion, it gets hungry, which is why many people in the beginning of practicing meditation, they struggle with certain conditions and habits, repeating the same mistakes because, they find that when they are distancing themselves from that anger, in that moment, that desire still wants to feed itself, to be nourished by the impressions of life, by the energies of life. So you learn to start killing the ego by first, observe it. Separate: observer / observed. And then when you go home to meditation, you can reflect and review your day.

Imagine what you experienced. Do not change the facts of what was said, of how you felt, of what you saw, but simply imagine as it was the instant. And then you can go deeper, so that when you are meditating on whatever ego emerged, you can comprehend them. Then that’s the next step is praying for elimination from your Divine Mother, which we will be talking about in our future classes, the process and the depth of it. We have a course on Gnostic Meditation on our website chicagognosis.org. You can look at the lecture at the very end. We culminate it with Retrospection Meditation, which is that process.

Review your day. Examine what you saw. Do not change the facts, because the mind will like to argue and say, “Well, I should have said this, or this is what I really meant.” The mind is always a liar; the ego is a liar. Just as Jesus says to the fanatic Pharisees, “You are the children of the father of lies.” It is a symbol of the ego, worshiping the mind. It does not mean that the Jewish people are evil; it just means he was condemning those spiritual people who think they are holy, but they have a lot of defects. But we talk about that process in that course you can study. We will be revisiting that again and again here.

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Discover Your True Self

1/3/2019

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In this course, we have been discussing self-transformation. But it is important to understand clearly, concisely, and specifically, what the self is.

What is this sense of “me, myself, I?” And what is it that religion, philosophy, mysticism have denominated God? In these studies, we prefer not to use this term, primarily because the word “God” has a lot of baggage. More specifically, we like to use the term Being, because the Being is divinity, who is within us, our own inner presence, our own form of cognizance. This has been documented by the great prophets, with those qualities like virtue, altruism, compassion, as well as equanimity and strength in times of great crises. They are true human beings who developed, through their character, a profound state of union, reunion with divinity.

And so that divinity is within us, which is why the Greeks stated, “Man, know thyself, and you will know the universe and the gods.” So, what is this self? Who is this sense of “me,” “I,” that we carry within our interior, and which most people never question, never seek to examine, to look at, to see.

Most people are content with saying that, “I am this amount of years old. I have this language. I am from this culture. I have this name. I believe in Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed,” or whomever―a political party. Most people are content to stick with this sense of a label or a badge as if “This is who I am.” And yet, despite the fact that we feel we know ourselves intimately, the reality is that we continue to suffer. We continue to experience pain, and the question is: why?

Why do we suffer so much if we feel that we know this sense of self? That we have this identity, this language, this culture, these customs? And yet with all this sense of identification, we tend to suffer. We are afflicted with problems: anger, fear, resentment, pride, vanity. And it is important to note that even though we feel that we have some type of security in this sense of self, we continue to roam about existence, and experience pain.

So in this course we have been explaining and examining, and questioning, why we suffer. And in this lecture, we are going to examine what we can do, profoundly. This is why every religion, every tradition, has taught some type of means and method by which to overcome that type of psychological conflict―whether through meditation, through certain practices, prayer, etc.

We have many golden maxims which we like to follow. I believe there is one by Shakespeare, which is very profound, “This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.” People love these types of maxims, these golden sayings, but do they really comprehend its meaning, profoundly?

What does it mean to be true to ourselves? Is it our desires, our fears, our worries? Or is it the Self that religion refers to? Which really is the Being, the presence, the divine, who is free of conditions, free of affliction. That is a type of consciousness that we can access in ourselves when we learn the precise methods, by learning how to meditate―to have a mind that is serene and calm so that we can experience that Truth for ourselves.

So all religions, especially Hinduism and Buddhism, explore this notion of self. What is the self? What is the sense of “I?” Who are we? Where do we come from? And why are we here? These are some questions that we will be answering together in this lecture.

These are some questions that are asked by the writer named Samael Aun Weor in his book Treatise of Revolutionary Psychology. His book is an explanation of these concepts we are exploring. So, this course is primarily founded on some of the explanations that he gave, which can serve as a platform for discussing the nature of the self.

So, who are we? If we truly knew ourselves, we would not suffer. Because who is the Self? It is divinity, the Being, the divine, the presence, who within us can only be witnessed and experienced when we learn to not identify with the lower negative qualities of the soul, which are known as anger, resentment, hatred, pride, laziness, gluttony.

These are known in religion as demonic qualities. Christianity refers to them as demons, because anger is demonic, is violent, is negative. It produces harm. It produces suffering―not only for oneself, but more importantly for other people―and yet in a moment of great crisis we tend to go with the flow. We feel slighted, hurt, slandered, lied to, gossiped about, and that sense of self, that anger, the thoughts of revenge emerge.

Usually we tend to just invest our energy in that sense of self, that identity, that sense of anger, that passion. And yet the consequences are usually disastrous, because anger produces conflicts, whether in families, in communities, in politics, in schools, in religions, in movements. Pride is also another element that is destructive, and yet we tend to identify with profoundly. Self-esteem, or the sense of self that says, “I am better than this person because of my religion, my political party, my faith, my race, my culture.” Likewise, lust, desire that is never satiated, in which a person indulges in sexual behaviors that end up in many problems, divorce, conflicts, children and families that are broken because of desire.

All religions profoundly teach us that, in truth, the origin of suffering is the self, the self that we tend to identify with most deeply, which is egotism. All religions teach that we have what is known as “ego,” “I,” because an ego in Latin means “I,” self.

But religion also teaches in its most ancient roots that we have a true Self, which is the Being, which is compassion, which is equanimity, serenity, and profundity, awareness, and intelligence―a form of understanding that keeps all of the cosmos in order. Every star, every planet, all those divine principles that we find in the universe are in our heart, if we know how to access that. But typically, we like to go along with ego, which is synonymous with the term desire.

We desire something, we crave something, we want something, and therefore we take measures and actions to get it. But when we feed desire, that desire is never annihilated. It does not end. In fact, what happens is that that desire wants more, which is why the teachings of the Laws of Manu, which is one of the oldest scriptures recorded in our planet, teaches that “Desire is never satiated by feeding it. Like throwing clarified butter into a fire, it only gets stronger,” more intense.

When that desire is not fulfilled, it suffers. We suffer, because our consciousness, our true spiritual nature is trapped in anger, in fear, in pride, in laziness, and all these conglomerations of defects, which constitute our existence.

So who are we? In these studies, we seek to understand who we are, to confront this question of “why do I suffer so much?” But more importantly, “what can I do to change?” And where do we come from? The Being, the divine, the presence, the Truth. What in Hinduism is known as Atman; in Buddhism as Sunyata, the emptiness of egotism, of self-hood.

That type of presence and cognizance is universal. It is in everything, within the atom, and more importantly, within our consciousness. And our soul, or what religions call soul―we can call consciousness―emanates from that principle. So, we are truly linked to our divine potential in us, which in us is a germ, is a seed. It is the potential to become fully developed through specific works.

As we are now, we tend to be in a germinal state, with potential to become something great, something illuminated, something divine. Like you find in the story of Pinocchio, which is an allegory of how our seed, our potential state, can become something more manifest and real. Remember that Pinocchio was a wooden boy. He was a puppet. He was controlled by strings, and that has to do in our case with all of our problems, our distractions, our vanities, our egotism, and also how the exterior influences of the world tend to manipulate us, make us react to life and to deepen our suffering. But we remember from the myth, in the folklore written by Carlos Collodi, that Pinocchio wanted to become a real boy, who wanted to become a human being of flesh and blood. That means that Pinocchio is in a germinal state, that could become something divine and real, perfected.

What does it mean to be a real human being? We explained a little about this in our first lecture on the level of being, which you can access on our website. A true human being is a Jesus, is a Buddha, is a Krishna, is a Moses―beings that fully manifested the light of their inner divinity in a full and perfect way, so that in moments of great trial, they were only able to express the highest ideals of humanity without any falter, without any flaw.

So, we are like Pinocchio. The word Pinocchio in Tuscan means “pine seed.” It is a seed that can become a tree of life, a fully perfected and developed master of meditation.

So where are we going? We explained in our previous lecture that due, to our habits, our conditions, our sufferings, we tend to enter into conflict with other people, with humanity. Whether it be at work, with friends, with family, with our spouse, with our community members, with whomever. Because of our egotism, we tend to create conflict that we are typically ignorant of. We usually ignore the causes of why we make other people suffer.

We tend to be very hypnotized by the notion that, somehow, we are saintly, and that the other person is wrong. Even though a person may be guilty, someone may have harmed us, the tendency of wanting to blame others is a distraction from our real work, which is taking ownership of our own mental states, and why we inflict harm unconsciously, without knowing it.

We may say something in the wrong place or the wrong time to the wrong person, and that has effects. There are consequences. This is simply a law of nature, of cause and effect. For every action there is a response, but in the states of psychological matters, we usually ignore how our own mind and mental actions create conflict―our words, our speech, our habits.

Conflict, suffering, is related to religion as hell. People think hell is a literal place underneath the ground where people burn in sulfur and fire, but those are symbols of psychological states, more importantly for us. When we are engulfed in anger, we are burning in hell, literally. We are inflamed with passion, with fear, with uncertainty. However, if we learn to extract that which is true and divine within us from those negative states, we can develop heaven inside.

Heaven is a state of being, a way of being, a level of consciousness which is free of conditions, which the Buddhists call Nirvana. In Sanskrit, Nirvana means cessation, to cease suffering, to cease being in pain, and so our actions determine where in life we will gravitate, as a law of causality, cause and effect.

If we indulge in negative behaviors, we will suffer, and other people will suffer, and therefore we deepen our internal conflicts and we spiral down into negative and more negative states of being. However if we learn to renounce anger, fear, hatred, desire, we can ascend towards higher states of consciousness which is liberated, unconditioned, free of fault, compassion that is unbounded, but also a type of responsibility that knows how to set one’s foot down even when circumstances are difficult, to know how to set boundaries with people.

Some people think compassion has to do with being a doormat, with letting people walk upon oneself. But compassion can be like that of a warrior who knows how to defend what is just in any circumstance. So, what we are psychologically determines where in nature we will move, where we will go. And there is a saying by Sufi mystics, who are the mystics of Islam, they have a very beautiful saying which relates to the topic of this lecture. They state that, “Wherever the delusion of yourself is, that is hell. Wherever you are not, that is heaven.”

Does that mean that we can experience the Truth? Not with our egotism, with our baggage, with all the luggage that we carry on our back, of all our memories and yesterdays, which impede us from accessing and experiencing the present moment, here and now.

The Being is presence, is light, is equanimity, is understanding, is found in us in this present moment, if we learn to pay attention.

So, what are we living for? Is it to feed desire? To indulge in pleasure? Or is our purpose to develop a type of work, to renounce negativity, to renounce suffering, to renounce pain, to be in service to others in a way that is founded upon our own idiosyncrasy, our own skills? Because all of us have certain skills that are needed in this society, which emanate from the divine, the Being.

What are we living for? Is it for egotism, for desire, or is it to help humanity? To provide means of alleviating the suffering of all beings? And why are we living? Is it for our next paycheck? Is it to feed desire? Or is it to be a means and a vehicle for divinity to express, who is our own true nature, our divine potential?

The Human Machine

So the human being, as I stated, or was implying, is a type of machine. Pinocchio was a puppet. He was influenced by internal and external forces, seemingly beyond his control. Likewise, our body, our mind, our heart, is a machine that can process different energies, different forces in nature, which, mostly in our case, tend to be unconscious. We are not typically aware of how certain elements in nature influence us.

It is obvious to see that on full moons though, there tend to be more incidences of crime. Likewise, women are influenced by the forces of the moon, of nature, through menstruation, through cycles, through reproduction. There is evidence for us that we tend to be influenced by nature without being aware of it. It is enough to wake up on a morning with a lot of rain to feel exhausted and tired, to have one’s mood altered, to feel morbid or negative.

So we are machines. However, we are machines that can learn to be driven, controlled, and utilized for spiritual purposes. This machine, psychologically speaking, is broken down into three categories of which we are going to explain today.

The Essence, the Ego, and the Personality

We have what is known as the essence. We have the ego, which we have been explaining already, and we have the personality.

So what is this essence? It is our true spiritual nature, our consciousness, which emanated from the Being, and which must return to the Being, to the divine.

Our ego, which in Latin means “I,” is constituted by all our defects, our faults, our errors, and sadly, the ego is a shell. It traps energy. It conditions consciousness. So, in a state of resentment, or pride, or fear, we are vibrating with a type of energy that is low, very negative, and which produces pain and sorrow and suffering.

What we do not understand from experience, typically, is that part of our soul is trapped in those elements, in those desires. Really our consciousness, our essence, which is the most pure and virtuous element we possess, in us tends to be very conditioned. The ego shells, traps, encages the consciousness.

And how did the ego come to be? We had consciousness in a very ancient epoch, in an ancient past, which is symbolized in some religions as the Garden of Eden, which was not literal, a literal history, but a symbol of how we disobeyed the commandments of our inner Being and entered into suffering. So, our essence is trapped. The energy of our soul is imprisoned, encaged, within all those negative states.

If we want to fully develop the soul, our true potential, we must learn to confront all that is low and negative in us, so that by confronting it and transforming it, we can change. When you extract the soul from the ego, when you break the shells of the states of anger and pride and of fear, etc., we can release the genie from Aladdin's lamp.

That is a myth as well. It is psychological. The genie is our soul which can perform miracles, divine things, can see and understand and experience the great mysteries of life and death, of our own inner truth. But usually, in most people, we may experience in meditation a moment in which we extract the genie from the lamp. We have a type of insight, a spark, an understanding, an intuition. But then a few moments later we lose the experience. The genie goes back into the lamp. Therefore, if we want full and perfect enlightenment, understanding, we have to break those shells. The ego must be eliminated.

We will also talk today about the personality. Personality is related to language, to customs, to culture, things that are very terrestrial. Personality is temporary. It is not eternal. When we are born into this life, we adopt a new personality, usually between the ages of one and seven, which we will be talking about how that develops in depth today.

The Essence, Soul, or Buddha Nature

First let us explain more about the essence. The essence is light. The consciousness is divine. It is like a mirror that can reflect the purity of divine truth within us. That essence emanated from our inner Being, which relates to all the forces of nature, as we have been explaining.

All the forces of the galaxies, the stars, the heavens, with all their profound intelligence and wisdom, is a reflection of the divine truth, our divine presence. The Bible speaks about the nature of consciousness in the form of light. In Genesis 1:3, “And God said, ‘Let there be light, and there was light’” וַיֹּאמֶר אֱלֹהִים יְהִי אֹור וַֽיְהִי־אֹֽור׃ (Va-yomer Elohim yehi aur va-yehi aur) in Hebrew. The word for “light” in Hebrew is אֹֽור Aur, meaning understanding or intuition.

People think that the Bible is a history, a literal narrative about how the universe and the planets came to be, but more importantly for someone who enters meditation, we understand that this is symbolic. What does it mean, “Let there be light”? It means that through certain practices, whether they be through prayer or working with sacred sounds, like mantras, we generate energy and light so that we have understanding. That light is our own consciousness, which is developed gradually, and that comes from the heavens, from the stars.

That essence, having emanated from the profundities of the great cosmic nature, enters into us in order to give us life, but in an undeveloped state.

“The Essence that each one of us carries within his interior,” says Samael Aun Weor in his book Treatise of Revolutionary Psychology, “comes from above, from heaven, from the stars… Unquestionably, the marvelous Essence emanates from the note La…”

This relates to the musical scale: Do, Re, Mi, Fa, So, La, Si, which has interesting correlations to the way that the universe is ordered and structured in relation with mathematics, which is known as kabbalah. So, the soul emanates from the note La which relates to:

“…(the Milky Way, the galaxy we live in). The precious Essence passes through the note Sol (the Sun) and then passes through the note Fa (the Planetary Zone) then enters this world and penetrates within our own interior.” ―Samael Aun Weor, Treatise of Revolutionary Psychology

And so what is this essence when it first enters a human life? We find that children naturally emanate a profound beauty, and perfection that people adulate. When holding a child, one senses and perceives their profound innocence, their light, their purity. So the essence, our consciousness, when it enters a new life, in the first seven years or so, is untainted, is pure, which is why when we look at an infant we only see happiness purity, love, innocence.

That soul in a child gradually becomes conditioned through experience, through life, in what is developed or known as the personality, or is influenced by the nature of the personality, which we will be talking about.

But the essence is a fraction of what in Hebrew is known as תִּפְאֶרֶת Tiphereth, which is simply a Hebrew term, a mystical term, used to denominate soul, human consciousness, human will. And Tiphereth literally means “beauty, splendor, radiance.” If you look at the Hebrew letters, you find that this word תִּפְאֶרֶת Tiphereth is very similar etymologically with the word אֹֽור Aur, which means “light” (תִּפְ-אֶרֶ-ת Tiph-Aur-et, spelled deficiently without a ו Vav).

The light of pure being is within a child. It has not been conditioned yet, has not been influenced yet. And that soul which we have been stating is only in a germinal state. It needs to be developed, because typically when a child gets older, they lose their innocence. That essence becomes conditioned, whether through life experiences, through education, through family life, through age, and through past influences that enter the soul.

Children have always been depicted as a cherub, or Cherubim amongst Christians, as angels. There is a form of angels known as Cherubim, and an angel is simply a perfect human being, a being that has no defect, no ego, no “I,” but only the full expression and light of the Being, the presence. Those angels are beings we can experience and meet directly, whether in meditation or when the physical body goes to sleep, and the soul enters the world of dreams. That world of dreams is again known as heavens, but we typically enter those internal states without any awareness, without any consciousness. But if we awaken the essence, the light within us through meditation and certain disciplines, we can communicate face to face with those divine beings who often appear in the form of children.

Personally I have had that experience many times where I have been speaking with, in my dream visions, astral experiences, astral projections, whatever you want to call it, and talking with certain beings and getting help with my work. And so, anyone has that potential, that capacity, if the essence is trained, if the consciousness is fully perfected. Amongst children it is germinal as I said, not fully developed. But a master, a prophet, has that state fully perfected.

If you look at the light of a child, in their eyes, their purity, it is like a candle. But amongst the great angels it is like a sun, which is why in the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus of Nazareth emphasized that in order to enter the kingdom of heaven, one must become like a child, innocent, pure. He was referring to the need to develop the essence, the soul. In the Gospel of Thomas, he states:

“A person old in days will not hesitate to ask a little child seven days old about the place of life, and the person will live.” ―Gospel of Thomas

So who is a person old in days? If we take that literally, it means someone who is elderly, decrepit, but psychologically, all of us are old. We are old with memories, with experiences, with suffering, and yet if we learn to meditate and speak face to face with the Elohim, the angels, the gods, we truly can ask them, those children of the ineffable light, about what guidance we need in life, and therefore the person will live, will have spiritual life, insight, understanding.

“For many of the first will be last and become a single one (unity).” ―Gospel of Thomas

So who are those first? Those people who have authority, and think they have understanding, when they do not. They do not have any knowledge of themselves or religion. We find many people in this day and times who have a lot of authorities, beliefs and dogmatism, ideas that really don’t help anyone. In these studies, we like to be independent, individual. We like to experience firsthand the great truths and mysteries of the divine. And therefore, many of the first will be last, meaning: people who are accustomed to theories and debates and argumentation, and yet who may find a type of understanding from experience, beginning to train themselves in this type of work.

The Multiplicity of the Ego

That way they become a single one, a unity, because as we are now, psychologically speaking, we are not unified.

This is an ancient painting by a Dutch painter by the name of Hieronymus Bosch, which is showing a landscape. Many of his art forms illustrate the nature of the psyche, the consciousness, our internal world. Notice in this image we have Anthony, or St. Anthony praying in the very center, and we find that he is surrounded, as he prays, by many deformed and animalistic figures. He is praying in the center of a temple towards the crucified Christ, who is very hidden, secretive, unseen.

Hieronymus Bosch was a great initiate, a great master who painted some divine truth in his art, which relates to this topic.

Those figures that surround St. Anthony are his own defects, his own desires, his own conditioned states of mind. Obviously, this is a very provocative and disturbing image, but it perfectly reflects our psychological state―if we are honest―and if we have the courage to examine who we are.

As I have been explaining, the ego is “I,” in Latin means “I, me, myself.” But that sense of “I,” that sense of self, in truth, is not singular. In fact it is multiple. Resentment, fear, pride, laziness, gluttony, what are known as the seven deadly sins, are really a conglomeration of different defects, different shells, different conditions, which have trapped our soul, trapped our consciousness. And so all those figures that are deformed, that are animalistic, represent all of the multiplicity of selves, of egos, of “I’s.”

We use the term ego to refer to the plurality of self. It is enough to sit and reflect on our own daily experience to see that we tend to be multifaceted. We are not simple. We tend to have a lot of conflict, a lot of contradictions. And of course, acknowledging this and seeing this is very unpleasant, especially when we see in meditation that all the different thoughts, and worries, anxieties, and fears, and sentiments, that typically characterize who we are, are constantly changing and fluctuating. There is no permanence there. It is a churning and a chaos which is represented in this image.

We find this nightmarish landscape of fires and villages burning, of strange figures flying in the air, representing all the defects that we carry inside, relating to our thoughts, our mind which is aerial in nature, represented by some of the figures on the top right. But also, we have monsters, monstrosities, which really characterize our desires, because anger is a monster, fear is a beast, desire is hell.

But notice that St. Anthony is not distraught, because the way that he became a saint was by purifying his consciousness. Here he is kneeling in prayer towards the figure in the center of this temple, which on the outside is dilapidated on destroyed, but in the center is a house of prayer. That symbol of Jesus being crucified is a symbol of the Being, our inner truth.

We do not say that Jesus was the only Christ. We use the term Christ in our studies to refer to a type of energy or consciousness, which is universal, which becomes manifest in any being who has developed themselves.

So, the Being is Christ, is an energy, is a force, and in the temple of St. Anthony here, is being crucified, because it is a painful experience to witness in oneself all of these different “I’s,” selves, defects. In one moment of life, we may have that desire to consume alcohol or to eat something, and yet that impulse changes, and we want to go exercise, and then we change our minds, “No, we want to go read a book.” In a moment we love someone. The next moment we hate them.

We are multifaceted, as I said. We are not unitary. We are not singular. We are usually very complex and very confused, because we have all these elements that are fighting amongst themselves for supremacy, of which we typically do not have any awareness. Of course, it is very unpleasant to realize we are a puppet in most cases. That is why Pinocchio was depicted in the story as a wooden boy pulled by invisible strings. In any moment, in our mind and heart, we may be thinking and feeling one thing and then in the next moment that changes.

We do not usually have awareness of this, because we do not usually observe. We are not mindful. We are not paying attention. So indeed, as Samael Aun Weor in his Treatise of Revolutionary Psychology states:

“Indeed, the humanoid does not have a permanent ‘I,’ but instead he has a multitude of different infra-human and absurd ‘I’s.’ The wretched intellectual animal mistakenly called a human being is similar to a house in disorder where instead of one lord, many servants exist who always want to command and to perform their own whims…” ―Samael Aun Weor, Treatise of Revolutionary Psychology

We explained this term intellectual animal, which obviously is very unpleasant, but the word animal in Latin means anima, soul. We have many desires that are animalistic, like lust, passion, sexual craving, hatred, violence. These are animalistic qualities, and because we have an intellect, we can reason, we can conceptualize, that means that we are animal souls with the capacity to reason.

But a true human being, as I stated, is someone who is perfected. There is no ego in a perfected human being. This landscape within the mind of an angel, is heavenly, but in us, because of our mistakes, we have shelled, and trapped, and caged ourselves in these states of suffering.

“No person is the same in a continuous manner. Indeed, one does not have to be a sage in order to fully realize the innumerable changes and contradictions of each individual...” ―Samael Aun Weor, Treatise of Revolutionary Psychology

All religions refer to devils and demons as these figures that are in red with a long tail and horns on their heads. These are symbols. Those are not literal stories that many people believe in, but represent psychological truths. So Hieronymus Bosch represented these truths in his art.

Christ, Legion, and Psychological Possession

We have an image here of Jesus, or better said, the Being, Christ, manifested within this person, in order to reject a legion of demons. In the Bible, there’s a story of how two men came to Jesus of Nazareth, who were possessed, and obviously some people in these times like to think about something silly and superstitious, and we agree to an extent, in the terms and ways that the Catholic Church has appropriated these symbols.

The truth is that all of us have a type of possession. When we are accused of something we did not do, we feel rage, anger; we become possessed in that moment by that desire. When we look at our bills and find that we might not make our rent, or we have some type of economic problem, we feel the uncertainty and fear arise within us, consume us. That element takes possession of us. We become petrified―trapped. Possession simply refers to a state of psychological identification with the ego, with desire.

So what is the solution? We find a beautiful teaching in this Christian myth, which does not refer to a type of fantasy, but to a folklore or story that is symbolic or allegorical. So, in the myth, Christ rejected these many legions of defects from these two men. It does not refer to a literal history. It refers to how our own inner divinity can reject all that conglomeration of defects that we carry inside to help us to free us from suffering.

This story is related by the following verses from the Book of Matthew:

“And when [Jesus] was come to the other side into the country of the Gergesenes, there met him two possessed with devils (egos), coming out of the tombs, exceeding fierce, so that no man might pass by that way.” ―Matthew 8:28

And really, any one of us is like that. If we are filled with anger or resentment, we are demonic. We are not angels. We are not saintly. So, coming out of the tombs means: referring to a state of spiritual death in which we lack insight or understanding.

“And, behold, they cried out, saying, ‘What have we to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of God? art thou come hither to torment us before the time?’” ―Matthew 8:29

Because the ego has nothing to do with divinity, the Being. There is a type of conflict and war that goes on in the soul between the powers of light and powers of darkness, which is depicted in every religion, culture, and tradition, every myth amongst the Greeks, the Romans, etc.

“‘What have we to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of God? art thou come hither to torment us before the time?’ And there was a good way off from them an herd of many swine feeding. So the devils (egos) besought him, saying, ‘If thou cast us out, suffer us to go away into the herd of swine.’ And he said unto them, ‘Go…’” ―Matthew 8:30-32

…because the presence of our inner being can reject those negative, degenerative influences. What happens is that these devils go into a herd of swine and:

“…behold, the whole herd of swine ran violently down a steep place into the sea, and perished in the waters.” ―Matthew 8:28-32

So this is a symbol too of how in this type of spiritual work, our own inner Being, our own Inner Christ helps us to confront many defects, desires, and takes those elements and takes them out of one’s self, so that they can be destroyed (those cages, those shells) within what is known as the hell realms, which is a state of unconsciousness, of negativity.

It is a symbol of how when those defects are removed. They enter down into negative states until they are disintegrated. They are eliminated. Again, this is symbolic of how the soul must be free from the legions of egos, of defects, of desires.

Of course this is a very beautiful teaching, and what religion has called salvation or redemption is not something about beliefs, ideas, concepts, by thinking that by raising one’s hands and saying, “I believe in Christ or Jesus” and that “I am saved.” It is a matter of psychological work, of training in meditation. And of course, as we learn to have a serene mind, develop serenity of thought, our Inner Being helps us and gives us strength.

Personality

So what is the personality? We cannot express the ego in this physical world if it were not for our personality. The word persona means “mask.” It is developed in the first seven years of life according to three factors.

It is like a mask, as we have included images here from the Greek traditions. It is our language, our heredity, our race, our religion, our habits. These are things that help us to interact with other people in this physical world, in which we develop and need to exist. However, the problem is that this personality tends to be utilized by our ego, our desires.

This personality is developed in accordance with three factors:

Genotype (genetic inheritance)
Phenotype (education)
Paratype (circumstances)

Genotype has to do with our genes, our inheritance from our past actions, which also relates to the Sanskrit term karma, “cause and effect.” We are born into certain families due to causes from our previous experiences, which are not known to us except by awakening consciousness. Some traditions have called this transmigration of souls, past lives, etc. Those are things that we do not believe in, but we learn to experience and to know where we came from.

Our personality is developed by genetics, by cause and effect, by our past actions, because in life or nature, we gravitate in accordance with our deeds, our mental states.

Phenotype has to do with education from our family, from our friends, teachers. Our personality is shaped by the people we interact with growing up. Sometimes people who have very traumatic experiences with family or friends or schools damage their personality. Some people who are very sick, mentally and emotionally, did not develop their personality well. Sometimes there are people who don't know how to interact in this world. The personality is simply a mask we wear in order to interact with humanity, with existence.

Likewise, personality is also developed by any circumstance of life (Paratype), so if something traumatic happens, it can change the course of our existence. Some people breakdown, because the amount of energy invested in that type of trauma was so impactful that they, as I said, may not know how to relate to others, their family, their friends, etc.

Ghosts: Deceased Personalities

To kind of get some context on what the personality is, we can refer to what some cultures and superstitions believe to be ghosts. The personality is a form of energy. It is not the soul, neither is it the ego. The personality is simply a vesture we wear from life to life, existence to existence.

“The personality is time. The personality lives in its own time. It does not reincarnate. After death the personality also goes to the grave. For the personality there is no tomorrow. The personality lives in the cemetery, wanders about the cemetery, or goes down to its grave. It is neither the astral body (which is the dream body, which is a vehicle we use in the world of dreams, in sleep), nor the ethereal double (our vital energies, which give us life here and now). It is not the soul (the essence). It is time. It is energetic and disintegrates very slowly. The personality can never reincarnate. It does not ever reincarnate. There is no tomorrow for the human personality.” ―Samael Aun Weor, The Perfect Matrimony

Some people who claim to be very psychic or sensitive have often seen images of specters or figures in cemeteries. That isn’t the soul, however. It refers to the personality of the individual. Some people have a very strong personality, and in our culture, in these times, we tend to adulate and admire people with very strong personalities, like we see in television shows or movies or popular media. Those personalities that are very strong, that have been invested with a lot of energy, tend to last longer than the souls that have left the body. That is why people in some graveyards have seen some images of specters and figures moving about. It refers not to the soul, as we said, but to the personality.

Image, Values, and Identity: The Necessity of Self-Transformation

In conclusion, we will emphasize the following statement by Samael Aun Weor in his Revolution of the Dialectic about the possibilities of this type of spiritual meditation and work. He emphasizes that there must be a type of revolution in the soul, in the consciousness, in the mind, and the heart, as we explained previously in our lecture “Psychological Rebellion.”

Our self-image, our values and our identity, our sense of self, our sense of “I” has to change, has to be transformed, but that type of work does not initiate on its own, but when we see a necessity for it, when we see that we suffer a lot in life and we want to cease suffering; also, because we feel that perhaps our own image of ourselves can be very low, negative, and we want to transform it to become better.

But we need to identify what image, what values, and what self we must acknowledge―we must develop―because presently, in ourselves, we are mostly dominated by ego, if we are honest. Psychologically speaking, I believe a statistic that Samael Aun Weor gave in his book was that 97% of our consciousness tends to be trapped within the ego, and that we possess 3% consciousness that is free, that can be developed, that can be awakened.

By learning to meditate we learn to awaken our full potential. And this number may seem very daunting, very intimidating, very fearful, but the truth is that if you look at stories like David and Goliath, you find a beautiful teaching there. King David was a child when he killed Goliath. That is a symbol of how the essence, a child, the soul, can conquer the bestiality of the mind, can overcome it, annihilate it, and therefore he becomes king, he becomes king of Israel.

“Image, values and identity must be changed radically. This is Integral Revolution. We need the identity of the Being, the values of the Being, and the image of the Being.” ―Samael Aun Weor, The Revolution of the Dialectic

So we have been discussing what is the identity of the Being, the true Self, and also the values of the Being, which are all the virtues of philanthropy, compassion, love, etc. That image of the Being can be developed by us by learning to confront ourselves.

“If we discover the reserves of intelligence contained in the mind, we can liberate it. The reserves of intelligence are the different parts of the Being that orient us in the work related with the disintegration of the ego and with the liberation of the mind." ―Samael Aun Weor, The Revolution of the Dialectic

So what religions call yoga, coming from the Sanskrit yug, means reunion with the Truth. Likewise, religion comes from the Latin religare. That reunion is accomplished by us by learning to work on our own imperfections, not only for our own benefit, but for the benefit of others.

Questions and Answers

Question: How can we start to work against the ego, to get rid of it?

Instructor: Certainly. The first step is be mindful, observe. Our next lecture (Self-Observation) will be focused on this dynamic specifically. So, we have our essence which is germinal, as I said, 3% free, which can be awakened, developed, utilized.

Most of us we tend to be very unconscious in life, if we are honest. We could be driving our car thinking about other things, multitasking. I know we like to think we are in a culture of modernity, of multitasking, etc., but that type of behavior tends to keep us very unconscious, hypnotized, where we are doing one thing, thinking of another thing. It means that we are not attentive, we are not mindful.

If we are not mindful, if we are not learning to observe ourselves, we are not able to get data about these defects that we do not know about, which we may sense, but we don't really have full awareness of.

The way to develop this type of work is to first observe. This type of observation is a matter of consciousness. To learn to observe means to be mindful, to be aware that we are here and now, aware of our thoughts, our feelings, and our impulses. Mindfulness is learning to take that observation of self and make it continuous. So, it is not enough to just observe in one moment of the day, but to be mindful at all times.

The way that we do that is by engaging in certain concentration exercises as well. One thing that can help the beginning student is to learn to concentrate on a candle, for example. We have this candle that you can use, you situate in front of you on the table. Observe it. In this concentration exercise, your goal is to simply observe the flame. If you find that you are thinking and conceptualizing what you’re doing, simply return your attention back to the candle. Simply look at it.

There is another variation of that exercise, which is more profound, relating to the Mahayana school of Buddhism, in which you learn to take an image and you visualize it. That’s more profound, but in the beginning it is good to just take a candle, observe it, and if you find that you are thinking about other things than what you are doing, it means that we are distracted. So, the solution is bring your attention back.

The more you do that not only with the candle exercise, but the more you do it in daily life, you find that that sense gets much stronger, is more developed, is more powerful.

Self-observation is being aware of what are we thinking, what are we feeling, what are we doing. It is like a director in a film who is watching an actor, and in this case, we are both the director, and we are the actor. Understanding this dynamic in experience is very difficult, especially in the beginning, but the solution is to keep applying that principle.

You may find that in a moment you are becoming very anxious. The solution is to sit down for a minute, close your eyes, like if you are at work and you have a break do a breathing exercise. Inhale profoundly, breathe deeply, and observe your state. Take a snapshot of what you are going through right now. Question: “What am I thinking? What am I feeling? What am I doing?” That is the doorway to mindfulness.

As we began this lecture with an exercise on relaxation, relaxation is essential in order to know ourselves, because if we are not relaxed, if we are tense, it means that we are churning in the mud, so to speak, or we are fighting against quicksand. The more you fight against it, the more you dive deeper into it. Negative emotions are like that. The way that you can see that in yourself is by applying some of these techniques.

Personally, when I am at my job, if I find that I’m beginning identified with a negative state, I simply sit down. I do a breathing exercise, ten minutes, something simple, and therefore, I have a little bit more attention and awareness in what I’m doing. And if you do that daily, periodically, frequently, but in short exercises, you develop stamina.

So, little by little that essence becomes more charged, more powerful. If you remember in the myth of David and Goliath, he used a sling and a stone in order to slay the monster, and that is a symbol of something very profound too relating to the mysteries of freemasonry, the cubic stone of the masons, which is a symbol of using energy applied to action. When you use all your energy for your divinity, you can begin to fight against, with your concentration, your awareness, any problem, and therefore it gets resolved.

Question: Another question. I have been going to this other group and the first step is to get guidance from the Being, from God, and one of these people were asking like how can we know what God wants us to do?

Instructor: Certainly. So the technique for that is to first develop serenity of mind, you have a mind that is calm, where you are not thinking of anything, when your mind is calm from a type of daily discipline, when you don’t feed ego, pride, lust, vanity, etc. The mind begins to settle like a lake. If we identify with problems in life, it is like we are throwing garbage and stones in the lake, and the waters ripple. The rippling affects the center to the periphery, and it becomes agitated. When the waters are churning with passion, with negativity, you can’t necessarily see anything clearly in the reflection.

The beginning step is to first calm the mind, because when the mind becomes calm like a lake, when the waters are still, then those waters can start to reflect images which comes from the stars, which is a symbol of meditation. Meditation begins with serenity, but the next step in order to know messages from divinity is to develop what we call insight.

Serenity is the calm lake. The image reflected in the lake is insight. In Buddhism we refer to that as Shamatha, serenity, and Vipassana or insight. In these studies, we use the term concentration and imagination. And we know what concentration means, but people typically the term imagination means coming up with fantasies, make believe. But it simply refers to the ability to visualize or see images in the mind.

If I tell you to imagine an elephant, we can see it we can picture it. That is imagination, but what happens is we tend to be distracted, and can’t really see with more clarity, with more depth that image. There are certain exercises that we use in this tradition that develop the capacity to develop that perception more clearly. Like to take a candle, observe the image for a few moments, close your eyes and try to picture it in as much detail as you can in your mind, and that sense is fully developed and sharpened when your body is relaxed, when your mind is relaxed, when everything is calm.

When you’re meditating, suddenly you can get an experience like a flash of insight, a dream, a vision, in which you are witnessing things in your own internal world, your own inner experiences. I’m sure all of us have had dreams where we saw things with more clarity and depth than maybe can even relate to in the physical world, because those are certain senses that we may have access to, but are not fully perfected.

When you develop the capacity to calm the mind and to visualize things, you can start to receive understanding, because divinity speaks in the language of parables, in symbols. There are many books in this day and time which talk about dream symbology. Personally, I prefer to use, studying different religious traditions and their symbols, we refer to, in these studies, Kabbalah and Alchemy, Jewish mysticism, which is a symbolic way of understanding and interpreting the messages one can receive from divinity.

First we have to have the capacity to perceive in the first place, but then when you have the experience, you need to develop intuition, which is a quality of the heart, in which you immediately know the meaning of an experience. By reflecting on it and visualizing what you experience in your dreams, you connect it to your daily life, connect it to your physical existence, because your inner Being will give you knowledge and insight relating to your daily experience, what to do, how to live life more profoundly. Those teachings come in the forms of situations in the dream state, parables, symbols.

The way that you can develop your intuition is through exercises like the mantra O or AUM which develops the powers of the heart. So, sitting to pronounce a sacred sound. Mantra simply means mind protection, to guard your mind. You pronounce it prolonged:

Feel the vibration in your heart, your emotional center, let yourself relax, and fall asleep. That energy, provided by that vocalization, can aid you in awakening consciousness, that 3% of the essence that is asleep, and in that way you can learn to generate more insight. When you have those experiences you can interpret based on intuition and understanding symbols, generally what they mean.

So I thank you for coming!

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Psychological Rebellion

1/2/2019

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History is filled with oppression, violence, and revolutions. More so, humanity is obsessed with the ideologies that perpetuate conflict, dissonance, and political enmity. It is enough to raise a flag in the name of freedom to incite the blood of millions of individuals to march to war.

People have many justifications for rebellion: the government is negligent, the taxes too high, the laws too strict, the politicians too incompetent. Sadly, our humanity is exclusively concerned with external changes, with rebellion against ideas, culture, politics, religion, or the state. However, people ignore the internal, psychological causes of affliction and social conflict, and therefore do not know how to rebel against themselves.

Our society celebrates rebels, because they set trends and go against the flow, risking their lives often without seeking popularity. Their strong will and rugged individualism set them apart from the rabble. While such qualities are not condemnatory, the masses tend to admire such persons for the wrong reasons. People like Che Guevara, James Dean, rebels without a cause, William Wallace in the film Braveheart, musicians, and poets—individuals who incite violence and political rebellion—they capture the imagination of the populace due to their strong conviction and beliefs in freedom. While humanity admires the good intentions of these philosophers, warriors, and thinkers, the results of their ideologies have produced all the sufferings and bloodshed of the great wars, which have plunged this planet into complete ignorance and darkness.

Ideology, whether from east or west, propounds freedom. People sing it in the churches, on the tops of minarets, before the altar of the synagogues, and in the meeting halls of Congress and the Senate. Yet it is this very concept of freedom that religion and governments have used to provoke all the wars of history, to defend their missions, agendas, and conquests. The concept of freedom fascinates, captivates, and hypnotizes. It obstructs the discernment of the consciousness and its ability to act for the benefit of all people, regardless of race, culture, religion, sex, or tradition.

People want freedom. Many are even willing to kill or be killed for it. But rather than take such ideals at face value, we, in these studies, like to question things profoundly, to understand the significance of such terms at their roots. Therefore, we sincerely ask: what is freedom?

In North America and in many countries, people have the freedom to chose what to eat, where to travel, where to work, what to believe, and whom to marry. And yet everybody continues to suffer. We work at jobs we hate, fearing our boss, envying our co-workers, being constantly consumed by feelings of dissatisfaction, criticism, backbiting, emptiness, and despair.

Yet despite all our tragedies, people like to externalize. They want to blame the exterior world for all their problems. We want to change everything outside of us to conform with our habits, dispositions, and prejudices. While people constantly fight to better their external situations, we prefer, in these psychological studies, to analyze the source of our discontents, desires, and sufferings, which is within ourselves, within the mind.

Humanity always wants to defend its desires, even at the expense of other people’s lives. But what if we were to do something that has not been done before, at least by most? What if, rather than go against the government, political establishment, or popular culture, we were to question our own wants, desires, and cravings? What if we were to rebel against ourselves and our own psychological conditions that we have put in the way of our own personal and spiritual development?

Bloodshed and violence will always recur so long as people do not look within themselves to comprehend the psychological impetus, the impulse, the will, that pushes them to act in mistaken ways. Therefore, rather than rebel against the external world, we ask: “What if we were to rebel against our own desires?”

This question, of course, dissatisfies the majority, because humanity is fascinated and enslaved to desire, yet for the few who want to comprehend and develop their full conscious potential, such an inquiry becomes the foundation and focal point of initiation into a higher state of consciousness, a superior Level of Being.

Radical Change Goes Against Time

To enter, experience, and develop our full potential, the individual must make a very defined and concerted effort within him or herself. Such an effort goes against the concept of time, evolution, and progress. Such an effort requires that we examine our own psychological states of suffering in the present moment, to discover where our pain originates, how it sustains, and how it may be pacified.

People believe that with time, situations will improve. Yet no great luminary, prophet, buddha, angel, etc., ever taught that things improve with time. What the great messengers of humanity emphasized is that true psychological and spiritual development is the outcome of tremendous internal revolutions.

“…the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force. —Matthew 11:12

Wars will continue to exist on our planet because people expect external circumstances must change, not their interior life. Rioting, violence, despair, and destruction will perpetuate and condemn humanity to a vicious circle so long as people have delusions about “tomorrow,” that eventually, if we wait long enough, “things will get better.”

This is why Samael Aun Weor, the founder of the modern Gnostic tradition, stated in his book Treatise of Revolutionary Psychology:

“The mechanical hope of people serves no purpose. They think that with time things will get better. Our grandfather and great grandfathers thought that way; however, facts have arrived to precisely demonstrate the opposite of this.” —Samael Aun Weor, Treatise of Revolutionary Psychology

Waiting around does not produce changes. People always look for political revolutions to transform the state of suffering they are in, ignoring that through regime change or usurpations, one oppressive form of government is replaced by another.

It would be better to rebel against our own states of mind than the external world. Such a spiritual revolution occurs when we go against our own habits, wants, desires, conditions. As we are now, we tend to be slaves of circumstances.

How is this the case? When we are insulted by an aggressor, we return with insults. We are betrayed, then we want to get revenge. When we are patted on the back, we smile.

People have the power to influence us as they wish, and in fact it takes very little effort to make us follow along with someone else’s program. Therefore, the question is: “Are we truly free?” And if not, “How do we become free?”

Examine your daily life. Do people influence you? Are you free from the desire for retaliation? When someone treats you with disrespect, are you able to respond with genuine kindness and concern, with selflessness, compassion? Do you act of your own volition, free of the prejudices, hatreds, and negativity of others? Or are you impelled by your own states of suffering: anger, resentment, anguish, fear, and pride, whenever someone rubs you the wrong way?

Our psychological states repeat in relation to the circumstances that provoke them. Trying to manipulate external circumstances will not produce radical change so long as our mind is egotistical, filled with conditions and suffering. If we truly want the external world to change, we must enact a transformation in our own psyche. Life will continue to roll on beyond our control if we do not know how to consciously manage our own psychological states, replacing the afflictions of mind and heart with the virtues of the soul.

Be sincere. Analyze the facts of your life. People who wait for change never experience it, because the world will continue as it is so long as we do not contribute to it in meaningful and conscious ways.

Spiritual and Psychological Revolutions

The path of the spiritual revolutionary, of the psychologist, is one of internalization: to look within the consciousness to discover the conditions that shape one’s existence. Therefore, rather than rebel against the government, which could be replaced by another far worse, it would be better to rebel against our own negative states of mind.

To be clear, when we use the term psychology, we do not refer to recent studies of the intellect, the brain, and its nervous systems. Instead, our studies focus on psyche, the soul, the consciousness, and its relationship to logos, the divine; psyche-logos, psycho-logy.

A true psychologist understands and manifests his own inner Being, her inner divinity, and because of this, experiences true freedom, bliss, free of external circumstances, afflictions, or conditions.

A spiritual rebel is someone like Jesus, Buddha, Moses, Krishna, Beethoven: individuals who fully manifested their spirit, true human beings in the most complete sense of the word. These masters unlocked their creative power and were able to influence millions, since by awakening the full potential of their consciousness, they rose to a higher level of Being so as to express that divinity to humanity.

Another example of such a revolutionary is William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. His own kingdom goes against him, yet he thinks for himself, feigning madness in order to gather information about his enemies. Who are those enemies? His own negativities, defects, desires. His uncle, mother, and old acquaintances, friends, try to provoke him to discover the source of his act, yet he always knows how to handle his foes with intelligence. This is a perfect allegory for how to live in life: observant, watchful, and wise, never reacting with suffering to circumstances, but knowing how to respond with equanimity and understanding.

Hamlet uses the analogy of the individual as a musical instrument, which people can play upon to produce any melody they wish. When people do not train themselves in meditation, they are like a flute that any stranger can manipulate for the desired song, the longed-for effect, the anticipated reaction, frustration, hatred, etc. Yet Hamlet demonstrates, in this remarkable play, how one can rebel against “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,” and by “taking arms against a sea of troubles” through meditating on the causes of suffering, can “oppose and end them.” This refers to no longer letting the external world dictate one’s response to life. As Hamlet berates his former friend Guildenstern:

Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me! You would play upon me. You would seem to know my stops. You would pluck out the heart of my mystery. You would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my compass. And there is much music, excellent voice, in this little organ, yet cannot you make it speak? 'Sblood, do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe? Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, yet you cannot play upon me. —Hamlet, Act III.ii

When we no longer react mechanically to life, when we chose how to respond with wisdom to difficult situations, to emotional crises, we can truly rebel against that which perpetuates affliction, chaos, and sorrow.

The Marvelous Ladder

Therefore, true change is demonstrated through psychological rebellion, through going against our own mechanical reactions to life, and not by trying to force the external world to conform with our ideas.

When we comprehend our own states of being, our own ways of thinking, feeling, and acting, and when we no longer go along with whatever negative response emerges within our interior, we are in truth enacting psychological rebellion.

The liberated consciousness knows how to respond to any situation with equanimity, serenity, and insight. When we act upon our genuine spiritual nature, and no longer follow the imperfections of our own character, we are in truth waging a spiritual war, here and now.

This is the war of the spirit against internal afflictions, against conditions of mind. This type of war has nothing to do with the fanaticism of certain religions or cultures that think that by forcing people to believe in a specific tradition, that one is performing good works, that one is a martyr, an apostle.

This spiritual war is type of conscious work enacted for the redemption of the soul, for its liberation and unification with divinity. Psychological rebellion exists when we rise towards a superior level of being.

Remember that we stated how consciousness can expand to infinite degrees. Divinity, the innermost Being, resides within the most profound regions of our own consciousness. We can learn to experience the Being and rise to higher levels of consciousness when we rebel against our own conditioned selves in this present moment.

…it is not irrelevant if we imagine the numerous rungs of a ladder which extends itself upwards, vertically.

Unquestionably, we find ourselves on any one of these rungs. On the lower rungs will be people worse than us, and on the higher rungs persons better than us will be found.

On this extraordinary Vertical, on this “Marvelous Ladder,” it is clear that we can find all the Levels of Being.

Each person is different; this is something that no one can dispute.

Undoubtedly, we are not talking about pretty or ugly faces, nor is it a question of age. There are young and old people, old persons about to die as well as newborns.

The subject matter of time and of years, that matter of being born, of maturing, developing, marrying, reproducing and aging is exclusively of the Horizontal.

On the “Marvelous Ladder,” on the Vertical, the concept of time does not fit in. On the rungs of such a scale we can only find Levels of Being. —Samael Aun Weor, Treatise of Revolutionary Psychology

The horizontal path relates to time and everything related to the world, with temporality, personality, birth, life, and death. On the horizontal line of life, we are born to this world, grow up, mature, become old, and pass out of physical existence.

It is easy to see that this horizontal path is traveled by everyone. People who live and never question their existence, who suffer all the outrages of life without ever really knowing why, adhere to the horizontal path of life in the most unconscious and severe manner. These people, the public, the masses, simply go with the flow of existence without looking into their own minds to discover the secret causes of affliction.

But what about the vertical path?

The vertical path relates to how one reacts or responds to life based on one’s quality of mind. The horizontal path will always exist, since it refers to the progression of events and experiences along the trajectory of physical life that emerge and repeat mechanically. Yet the vertical path has to do with whether we, as a consciousness, will learn to respond to life with rectitude and love, or react with animosity against the “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.”

To live in the Being, to remember the presence of divinity in oneself, to be psychologically alert, is to be aware only of the present moment in which we are. The vertical path is constituted by levels of being, ascending towards superior states or descend towards inferior states, based on how we use our consciousness here and now.

What we are psychologically determines how we will respond to the horizontal line, to the facts of life.

When a person simply reacts to external circumstances with anger, frustration, negativity, suffering, and affliction, it is a sure indication that one is attached to the horizontal path. Yet by responding to situations with wisdom, understanding, and conscious love, we are in truth going against the flow of our own habits, dispositions, and desires, indicating that we are ascending to higher levels of being.

The Bible allegorizes the vertical path through Jacob’s ladder:

"And [Jacob] dreamed, and behold a ladder [of the Vertical Path] set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it." —Genesis 28:12

Heavenly states of being exist in the superior part of the vertical path. Diabolic states of consciousness exist in the inferior part of the vertical path, beneath the horizontal.

Heaven and hell are places in the multidimensionality of nature, yet more importantly refer to states of consciousness, as we explained in the previous lecture on “The Level of Being.”

Our level of being is determined by how we use our consciousness in the present moment, whether for good or for ill. We either ascend upon the vertical path based on spiritual works or descend through identifying with all the sorrows of life.

The Present Moment

To ascend to a higher level of being, we must awaken as a consciousness, here and now. We usually do not pay attention to the present moment but think only of the future or the past. Most people never contemplate the present instance in which they are, in its totality, richness, and novelty. This fundamental ignorance of what exists inside and outside of us, here and now, indicates that our consciousness is very asleep, that it is dreaming.

Since we have energy, some level of awareness that we are in our physical body, we tend to believe that we are awake. The reality, however, is different.

Humanity believes that dreams only relate to the sleep of the physical body. Yet people ignore that their consciousness is asleep even while the physical body is active. People who are unconscious in the dream state are also unconscious in their physical bodies. People whose consciousness is trained and awake through meditation in the physical body are also awake as a consciousness during the normal hours of physical sleep. They experience what are known as heavens in religion, different dimensions related to the Tree of Life that we spoke about previously. They leave behind the body and enter the dream world with full consciousness; they are no longer dreaming. They experience the realities of those internal worlds beyond the physical body with full awareness through what are known as out of body experiences and astral projections.

So besides this, how do we truly know humanity is not conscious?

People tend to live their entire lives in complete distraction. By this I do not just mean watching television or reality shows, by using Facebook or the iPhone, by going to Six Flags: Great America and roller coasters, by not being responsible members of society. While these are obvious examples of distraction, there exists a deeper application to this principle.

Why do people get into car accidents? Why do accidents happen? It’s because people are not paying attention. They are dreaming.

If it’s true that people get killed in accidents because they don’t pay attention, the same principle applies to spiritual life. Our spirituality is dead if our mind is constantly wandering with thoughts and anxieties, if we are always distracted in life and never paying attention to where we are at or where we are going.

You cannot experience divinity if you are thinking of your friends when washing the dishes, or when driving your car remembering your fiancée. You cannot know the Being if you are constantly distracted by memories, daydreams, preoccupations, and fantasies, instead of being attentive with whatever task engages you in the present moment.

To access higher states of consciousness, we must be present. We must be alert and vigilant as a consciousness. All religions and mystical traditions, in their original forms, taught that watchfulness of the present moment is the beginning of union with divinity. This means that if we are doing something, we don’t think or worry about other things, but only engage our attention and concentration to the task at hand.

While listening to this lecture, how often have you become distracted and lost the thread of my meaning? You might have been listening, but started thinking about other things, until your minds have wandered off completely. Suddenly, you remember, “I’m supposed to be listening!” This type of distracted thinking needs to be controlled by the consciousness. We must always learn to be watchful in all events and situations.

Experience of the truth occurs here and now, within our own perception, when a profound state of attention and remembrance has been established within our interior through conscious works. Yet this can only occur when we no longer allow ourselves to be distracted.

This is why certain traditions practiced vigils, whereby the practitioners would perform rituals without physically going to sleep. The essential meaning is that we, as a consciousness, must never lose our guard, must never cease paying attention to what is going on around and within us in this instant.

It is alert vigilance, watchfulness, that opens the doorway to seeing and understanding why we suffer. When you perceive in yourself your own negative psychological states and no longer invest them with your conscious energy, it is a sure indication that you are ascending to higher levels of being. This is the vertical path that leads towards different experiences of divinity, in gradual steps.

Our level of being, therefore, can only change when we are aware of this moment.

"It is not irrelevant to remind our readers that a mathematical point exists within us. Unquestionably, such a point is never found either in the past or in the future. Whosoever wants to discover that mysterious point must look for it here and now within oneself at this exact moment, not a second earlier, not a second later. The two horizontal and vertical lines of the Holy Cross intersect at this point. Thus, we find ourselves from moment to moment before two paths: the Horizontal and the Vertical. —Samael Aun Weor, Treatise of Revolutionary Psychology

To be is different from existing mechanically in life. As Hamlet stated, “To be or not to be, that is the question.” To remember the presence of the Being by ascending the vertical path, or to be unconscious of the truth by following the horizontal line of life: that is the essential question of Shakespeare’s play. To live mechanically is to live identified with personality, materialism, mechanical thoughts, desires, habits, addictions, preoccupations, anxieties, monetary needs, work problems, struggles in relationships. To think that one is thinking, to be lost in the mind and its conditions, is to be asleep, dreaming.

As we mentioned, when people do no pay attention on the road, they end up crashing their car and killing themselves and others. This is a very common occurrence.

When we allow ourselves to be distracted by our own mind and the difficulties of life, we are traveling the horizontal path. But when we consciously rebel against negative qualities of mind through perceiving the present moment in its fullness, we are in truth ascending the vertical path of being.

The Being is Not of Time

Therefore, eternity is the present moment. People like to think of eternity as some utopia in the clouds, that one will reach after living a pious life of belief and servility to some tradition. These types of illusions, however, constitute the mechanical hopes of people, since beliefs and traditions belong to the horizontal line of life, to time. Such thoughts, beliefs, religions, and ways of thinking are born in time and die in time. It is enough to look at the birth, life, and decay of certain past civilizations to see this dynamic in action.

The Being, however, is eternal. The consciousness, with its multiple levels, exists in different rungs, higher and higher, in the present instance, not in the future, nor the past. Truth is the unknown, discovered within ourselves from moment to moment. We can experience the spiritual flavor of the Being and of the psychological qualities of the consciousness by learning to direct attention and keep it active in all events of life.

The Being is beyond thought, feeling, and will. Our consciousness emanated from the Being, and has nothing to do with thinking, desires, or conditions.

Consciousness is simply the capacity to perceive without thought, feeling, or impulse. To think that we are thinking, to feel that we are feeling, to act without internal self-reflection, indicates that the consciousness is not active, but identified with thought, feeling, and desire. It is mechanical, dreaming.

Therefore, how can we experience and unite with the Being if we are caught up in thinking and reacting to the mechanical circumstances of life, by not paying attention to what is going on?

Whenever we are caught in thinking or daydreaming of other things, we become lost in the horizontal line of life, with temporality, which is a subjective form of experience.

As Samael Aun Weor indicated, everyone has their own ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving. Everyone has diverse levels of being, different dispositions and character. Such dispositions and habits are subjective, not objective. Our own beliefs, ways of thinking, and behaving are unique to us. Yet the Being is different, objective, truthful, beyond the temporal personality.

Most of humanity has no idea what the Being is, because they do not look within themselves for divinity. To experience the Being, we must learn to awaken consciousness, since our soul, our perception, is the only thing that can help us to understand what the truth is, beyond time, thought, feeling, habit, and desire.

As Einstein wisely postulated, “Time is relative.” Only the Being is eternal, is never subjected to time, beliefs, dreams, ideas, or concepts.

People have a lot of theories about God, religion, science, philosophy. But none of it is grounded in actual experience. All these theories and beliefs are relative to the minds and conceptions of people whose consciousness is asleep, is dreaming. All of this has to do with traditions, which belong to time, the horizontal line of life.

Someone who awakens consciousness can experience the Being, the reality. Therefore, such a person possesses true objective knowledge. Such a person knows the truth because he or she has ascended to higher levels of Being upon the vertical path.

Only by rebelling against ourselves, here and now, by fighting against daydreams, fantasies, and wishful thinking, by learning to pay attention, can we experience the Being within us. This rebellion is enacted when we work as a consciousness to overcome the distractions of the mind.

Whenever we are thinking of other things than what we are doing, we are asleep, dreaming. We dream whenever we identify with temporal things, whenever we give all our energy to material existence, to the things that relate to our personality.

Sadly, most people believe that their name, language, culture, customs, religion, and beliefs, constitutes their true nature. These things, however, are born in time and die in time. They have nothing to do with the consciousness, the Being, the eternal.

"The personality develops and unfolds on the Horizontal Line of Life. The personality is born and dies with its linear time; it is mortal. A “tomorrow” does not exist for the personality of the dead person. The personality is not the Being.

“The Levels of Being are not of time. Since the Being himself is not of time, He has nothing to do with the Horizontal Line. He is found within our own selves, now, on the Vertical.” —Samael Aun Weor, Treatise of Revolutionary Psychology

Everyone loves their heritage, their inheritance, their self-concepts, personalities, and beliefs. Yet humanity ignores how these types of materialistic and even so-called “spiritual” things were born in time and die in time. They have nothing to do with conscious experience or objective fact.

People dream about who they are; their name, culture, customs, and education will not continue with them past the grave. Therefore, “To be or not to be!” That is our dilemma.

Therefore, psychological rebellion refers to our internal disassociation with the illusions we carry within ourselves, to experience the true nature of the Being, which is happiness, peace, divine love, patience, altruism, and direct knowledge.

Psychological rebellion is about transforming the mind, to become conscious of that which we typically ignore. We learn to gather information and data about our genuine spiritual nature the more we reflect on the present instance in which we find ourselves.

Internal Revolution and the Vertical Path

Most people follow life mechanically and never question their identity, their language, customs, beliefs, habits, and desires. However, people who are tired of suffering question themselves and inquire into the source of their most intimate problems, which are psychological. Transforming our sufferings in the present moment through superior action indicates progress in the vertical path or levels of Being.

“It is apparent that the Horizontal path is too base; it is traveled by my buddy and everybody, by those who are juvenile and those who are senile. It is evident that the Vertical is different; it is the path of intelligent rebels, of revolutionaries.

"When one remembers oneself and works upon oneself, when one does not become identified with all the problems and sorrows of life, it is a fact that one is traveling along the Vertical path." —Samael Aun Weor, Treatise of Revolutionary Psychology

Therefore, spiritual revolutions occur within the soul when it learns to pay attention and constantly maintain mindfulness. By observing ourselves and not assuming we know anything, to simply look at the facts of our existence, we begin to see and live within the consciousness.

To be identified is to invest our energy, our consciousness, into circumstances, with conditions of mind, with thoughts, feelings, or impulses.

Non-identification occurs when we observe the facts of life without becoming worried, depleted. We do what we need to do with heightened attention and watchfulness, with compassion and equanimity, so that we do not lose energy in negative thinking, negative emotions, and negative actions.

Non-identification and self-reflection is how we can learn to live life with greater serenity, insight, and compassion, to discover and uproot the psychological causes of suffering in a permanent manner. We don’t react mechanically and habitually to external events, but respond with comprehension, intuition, and pure action, devoid of the need to think. Traveling the vertical path, therefore, is making conscious choices, rather than lashing out towards the injustices and circumstances of life.

Psychological Change and Genuine Freedom

True freedom, then, occurs through psychological revolutions, which help us to go against the causes of suffering in ourselves. By discovering our true, divine nature, we enter and follow the ascending, vertical path for profound, radical, and genuine transformation.

This type of work is profound. It is about taking the path of greatest resistance, the resistance of years of habits and conditions in the mind. However, such a path must be distinguished from superficial changes, like adopting or changing one’s habits in a conventional sense.

Renouncing alcohol or smoking—although wonderful—is superficial in the larger scale. People tend to give up habits while engaging in new ones, failing to comprehend and eliminate the desires or conditions of mind that exist in the subconsciousness of a person. While it is an achievement for an alcoholic or drug addict to renounce their destructive habits, the unconscious elements or desires for alcohol and drugs will continue to exist until the consciousness learns to eliminate such conditions through the work of the vertical path.

The more we free ourselves of psychological conditions, the greater our insight into the Being will be.

"It would be absurd, obviously, to look for our own Being outside of ourselves. Therefore, it is not irrelevant to establish the following as a corollary: titles, ranks, promotions, etc. in the external physical world cannot in any way originate authentic exaltation, re-evaluation of the Being, or a move to a higher rung in the Levels of Being.” —Samael Aun Weor, Treatise of Revolutionary Psychology

Discovering the Being has nothing to do with diplomas, with a college education or intellectualism, with becoming a scholar and paragon of knowledge. The exaltation and re-evaluation of the Being occurs within someone who rebels against their own psychological conditions and the sufferings such states produce in the consciousness.

We must learn to ascend the ladder of being towards the light of our true divine nature. The way that a person ascends such a vertical path is through self-reflection, meditation, and humility. Sincerity opens the doorway to real change. When we truly want to cease suffering, we must examine our own selves and not try to run away through vain dreams, speculations, assumptions, and theories. We should ask the question: “What in me provokes all the calamities and afflictions of my existence?” By taking responsibility for our own actions, we in truth can develop our greatest potential, securing our own happiness as well as the happiness of others.

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The Level of Being

1/1/2019

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Humanity is in a very profound state of suffering. It is enough to look at the news to witness firsthand the affliction that our humanity is overwhelmed with, whether it be through violence, school shootings, police officers being murdered, terrorism, war. Our humanity, which boasts so much of its superiority, of its advancements, of its intelligence, has demonstrated through facts, that really compared to the barbarians of the middle ages, we have not changed.

To look at the world and its great chaos should really provoke a very profound question about ourselves. We usually like to externalize and state that the sufferings of humanity, the bloodshed, the destruction, the perversity, is somehow external from me, outside. But those who learn to meditate, to observe oneself, begins to understand from personal experience that those same qualities that we condemn in others, we carry in abundance.

Observation of the facts produces comprehension, understanding, but human beings or humanity does not understand the causes of suffering and what perpetuates such chaos on our planet. The internal is really a reflection of the external, and vise versa. External humanity is a reflection of ourselves, if we are honest; it takes a lot of courage to take responsibility for one’s own mind. To understand that psychologically, because of our negative states of anger, of fear, of pride, resentment, deception, we can not blame the world for what it is.

We should not place so much emphasizes on other people, but look within ourselves to understand, “How do I suffer? Why do I, as a consciousness, have so many problems or pains?”

Immanuel Kant, the great German philosopher, had stated that the exterior is the reflection of the interior. It is enough to observe our daily state, moment by moment, when we go to work, when we are with family or friends, or especially people we do not like. We find that, psychologically, we possess many elements, states which, even on a very conventional level, we could say is harmful and that we understand is negative. We may know this intellectually, but to comprehend the psychological causes of suffering is a very distinct matter.

An alcoholic knows that to consume that substance is to perpetuate suffering, and yet he or she may continue to indulge in those habits, those desires, those qualities.

So we possess in our mind-stream the elements of hatred, resentment, anger, frustration, anxiety, uncertainty, disillusionment, but it is rare for someone to really question this sense of “I,” this questioning of “who I am, where I am going. Who am I as a person and why do I suffer? Who is this sense of self, in the internal experience that we denominate “I”? Because who we are psychologically shapes our existence. What we are mentally and emotionally psychologically determines the fate of our interactions with all other sentient beings.

And as I said, we like to externalize. We do not like to look inside at what psychological states cause friction, anxiety, conflict. It is easy to see in our own experience that we have many problems, difficulties, problems that we face day by day that do not get any better. They do not get resolved. And the struggle of someone who enters meditation is to precisely not accuse the external world itself, or our boss, our friends, our neighbors, the government, humanity, murderers, etc., but to take ownership of our own states.

How do we become impatient? How do we become proud? How do we belittle another person, whether it be through sarcasm, even through a jest?

Our psychological state determines our life. What we are mentally will determine what we become, how we will act, how we will respond to life. And someone who meditates understands and sees that in daily experience.

We all have qualities that we condemn so much in others. It takes a lot of courage to recognize this fact, to be responsible and not to blame so and so, that this planet is a mess. Because how do we contribute to the sufferings of humanity, at our job, with our friends, with our families? How do we produce suffering? That is the question we have to resolve, in which meditation helps to unlock, in order to show us the doorway, the path that leads out of suffering and into the awakening of our full divine potential.

As we see in this image of the stars, the heavens, because the human being, human beings themselves, if they are capable of great evil, are capable of all the glories of the cosmos, the beauty of the heavens, which are states of being, ways of acting, ways of understanding, exemplified by all the great messengers that come to humanity to teach the way that leads out of suffering into the unification of divinity—a state of contentment, a state of being. So we will talk about what the Being is in this lecture.

The Beginning of Self-Knowledge

What is divinity? Who are we, who is our inner divine presence, that we can access in a state of alert attention, and more specifically, by leaving the darkness of our own psychological ignorance, our suffering, in order to enter higher ways of being, of knowing, of contentment?

Samael Aun Weor, the founder of the modern Gnostic tradition of which we study, wrote in Treatise of Revolutionary Psychology some very profound questions in the opening of this text, which are worthy to study and to apply to ourselves.

“Who are we? Where do we come from? Where are we going? What are we living for? Why are we living?” —Samael Aun Weor, Treatise of Revolutionary Psychology

Who are we? We like to think that we feel, and we know ourselves, but if we reflect on our experience, we may find that in certain instances in life, during great crises, we are presented with a problem that is seemingly insurmountable. We do not know what to do, and yet our true character, our psychology emerges, such as anger that speaks harmful words, that causes conflict, whether it be in a matrimony, or with friends, or whomever, and yet after the moment of fire, of hatred, has passed, we retrospect and think to ourselves, “How did I possibly act in that way? How could I have thought or said that?” And then we go to that person and apologize. So we see there is a disconnect in this relationship.

We think we know who we are, our language, our customs, our culture, our name, our job, our diplomas. We think these are constitutive of who we are, what our real identity is. And yet we find that in moments of great trial, our true character is presented, emerges, in which we find that we have to define ourselves for good or for ill. And that we make mistakes, and we feel remorse and sense. “How did I possibly act in this way?” We say, “I feel true remorse for that action,” but if we really knew ourselves in a full consciousness sense, we would know how to act with compassion, with serenity, with insight, in any circumstance.

We would know the psychological causes of suffering, which, if we have studied Buddhism or any religion, state that suffering originates from within oneself. And there are many names and idioms and terminologies people can use, that become very complicated and very fancy, but specifically, a very simple way to look at it is just ego, self, “I,” “what I want, what I crave, what I desire.” We like to feed these desires, whether it be for a cup of coffee in a very superficial sense, or even habits that are destructive.

In the case of an alcoholic, they have a desire to consume that element, even though it will destroy them, and yet that desire is so overpowering, so heavy, so strong, that person simply invests their energy, goes with the flow, with that habit. And so we have to ask ourselves, “Who are we, really, psychologically?”

There are many beautiful sayings within different traditions, such as the Sufis. If you are familiar with the poetry of Rumi, Middle Eastern literature, they talk about that “He who knows himself knows his Lord.” And who is that Lord? Not some old man in the clouds with a beard, who sits on a throne of tyranny dispensing lightning bolts to this anthill of a humanity.

Divinity is not a person, but is a force, a way of being, a state of consciousness, a way of acting that is so selfless and so pure, that it sacrifices itself for the well-being of others without regard for itself, and yet it does not lose anything, because from that giving is an abundance that is divine, that is immortal, that comes from the very heights, metaphorically speaking, of the truth. And we all have that inside.

We have the Being, our own Inner God, to use Western terminology, but in these studies, we like to say Being, because the word God has a lot of baggage. People have a lot of traumas psychologically associated with religion, because they have been taught wrong and have been abused.

And that brings us to the question of “Where do we come from?” Religion and science like to fight and argue about our origins and have many intellectual concepts about having evolved from apes or having been created in seven days—many ideas that really are just contradictory and conflicting amongst themselves. And people follow one belief over another: religion, science. And they are battling each other. But neither of these ideas, these concepts, these beliefs, have resolved any of the problems we face on a day to day basis.

Therefore from the perspective of meditation, those type of arguments are useless. They do not benefit anyone. They do not teach us how to change, how to transform our agony, whether it be at work, we have a job we do not like, and yet we need the money to pay the bills, dealing with people who are negative, and yet believing in evolution or in science, in the Big Bang, does not change the problem of how I am going to react today in relation to my daily interactions with people. Instead, if I am attached to this concept, filled with a lot of arrogance, people in that type of mindset like to violate the minds of others, by arguing, by fighting.

So, where do we come from? These are questions that we answer from experience, from understanding, from spiritual comprehension, from perception. So whether one believes in reincarnation or one has one life in this existence, really, those types of theories are useless in comparison to where do we come from psychologically.

Where did our sense of desire or egotism originate? Where does pain come from? And how do we emerge from that? How do we saturate ourselves in suffering? And how do we continue to indulge in behaviors that produce conflict? That is really what should concern us.

And where are we going? Look at humanity. Where are people going? And also we ask ourselves, where are we going with a life of perhaps materialism, bank accounts marriage papers, drugs, alcohol, anger, violence, resentment? With all these desires that we possess that are contradictory in nature, that conflict, what is our course?

You may believe in, because of religion, some sense of heaven or hell, or some type of afterlife. Even if we want to have that conviction in our mind, it does not mean that we really know where are we going. Instead, knowing where one will go in life is precisely discovered in this moment, introspecting and observing: what is my psychological state? Is it positive, or is it negative?

And if you want to study religion, we study in this tradition many aspects of different teachings. And we understand that in nature there are places where the soul gravitates, but many people think that simply by believing in some doctrine that they are going to go to this higher state of consciousness, ascend to some higher way of being, but beliefs do not change anybody. Action does. So what we are psychologically determines where we go in life, in nature, in the cosmos.

So what are we living for? Do we live for a religion, for a doctrine to believe in, to be firmly convinced in some political party or another, some philosophy or another? What do those beliefs actually produce in us? That is something we have to introspect and ask.

How do my ways of thinking, my ways of feeling, my ideas, shape who I am? Do they really change our behavior?

In some cases that is the case. But someone may adopt a religion, a faith, and may simply go through the motions, not understanding the genuine principles behind that religion, because they simply adopt mannerisms, language, culture, which is related to personality. It is not eternal. It is just habits, which people engage in mechanically and do not really understand. And that type of mechanical, habitual behavior does not lead anyone out of suffering.

Instead, it is questioning what we are living for that does not come from an intellectual concept, but from observation of facts—observing what in me makes me gravitate to, say, these type of words, these type of behaviors, these type of actions to people. How do I interact with others, humanity?

And you find that when one learns to act from a state of consciousness devoid of desire, one does not act for one’s own well-being, but for others, for humanity, out of a state of compassion. But most people, what are they living for is usually money, materialism, fashion, drugs, sensations, because they feel that by accumulating all these things, in the end, one will simply go to the grave.

But that is ignoring the fundamental law of nature: “For every effect there is a cause. Every cause has an effect.”

Your mind is energy. Your heart, your actions, your ways of being, is a form of energy, and when that energy ceases to act in the physical body, it still continues. And this is where the concepts of reincarnation and other theories become very challenging for people, because they do not have consciousness of these things. Instead, it is just an idea, something to either believe in or not believe in. But if you awaken your perception, you will know for yourself that every action produces a consequence. Energy moves, fluctuates, and depending on our level of being, our ways of acting, our virtues, our defects, that determines where we go.

But instead of thinking of the afterlife or some other existence, one should think about or contemplate this present moment, who we are, and that determines what we live for, whether it be for desire, craving for more money or a better job, a better spouse, or whatnot, but instead, resolving this question will aid one in developing the true qualities of consciousness, which is virtue, happiness, contentment, cognizance.

So why are we living is another big question. This is a personal thing we need to ask ourselves. Why are we really living? Is it simply because we have energy, we are born in this life, and we just go with the flow? We want to go along with family, what they believe, what they think, prejudices, biases, whether we agree with or not. The question is, why are we living?

Religion will teach you that you are here because of this, this, and this, or some philosophy will teach you we are living in this world for these reasons. And people have a lot of ideas about why we are living—concepts, but those are just concepts. We have to understand why we are living based on our actions. What produces happiness, not just for ourselves, but for others? For humanity? For from our Being emerges spontaneous harmony with others, with other sentient beings.

So that question is very important to ask ourselves, and usually people who have really hit rock bottom, who have suffered a lot because of certain ordeals or traumas in life, from childhood, from adulthood, they ask this question, because they experience a great state of pain, an abyss in which they do not know how they will get out. Usually, people who reach that state, who hit rock bottom, ask this question and say “Why am I here? Why am I suffering so much?” Because when you resolve to yourself to not suffer anymore, you will desire to look for the answer, to not be in suffering.

The Nature of the True Human Being

And that questioning leads us into discussing the nature of what it means to be a human being. So we use the term human being and humanity for others out of respect, but it is evident by the news and the many trials and afflictions of humanity that people are experiencing the fruits of desire, of anger, of pride, of resentment. A human, Hum-Man being, in Sanskrit, is represented by this mantra: Om Masi Padme Hum, or in the traditional sense, Om Mani Padme Hum. They have the same meaning, but different levels of application and practice according with the different traditions of Buddhism: one secretive, one public. But a human being made into the image of the divine is something very special, something so profound, that we only have a handful of examples in humanity, like Jesus, Buddha Krishna, Moses, the prophets.

They were true men and women. We have Joan of Arc, a great human being, a great master. There are many people who exemplified the highest ideals that are taught in religion and tradition. And religion would like to have people think that we are already human, and out of respect, we use that term, but if we look at our daily life, and we look at the facts and understand, what does it mean to be human, we can resolve this question.

Hum relates to spirit, unity, integration. Om is the sacred mantra of God, of the Being. Om is the presence of our own true potential. It is interesting that the word Hum means spirit, and in these times, people often conflate spirit with self or spirit with soul. We have a fraction or portion of soul that can be developed, but a spirit is the divine, is the Being. So a Hum-Man is a person who has really incarnated and manifested Hum, the spirit, also represented by Om or Aum.

The word Mani, where we get the word man, designates both man and woman, of both sexes. But Man or Mani in Sanskrit means mind, a mind who has fully expressed Hum, the spirit. Mani also means “stone” or “jewel.” So we could say that a human being is like a precious jewel; it reflects the light of the divine.

And so we have examples in our history of beings like Jesus, Moses, Buddha, Krishna, many prophets, angels, masters, whatever names you want to give them, who exemplified and fully manifested the qualities of the spirit inside of them. And so they irradiate virtues like joy, altruism, philanthropy, patience, naturally and spontaneously, without conflict, without artifice. They simply give out of their full conscious potential because they have actualized the very light of their consciousness. And therefore, they have no defect; they do not desire. They do not crave. They do not hate. They do not fear. They simply know the divine within them, and therefore, they are fearless. They are patient in all circumstances, just as in the case with Jesus. He was being crucified, beaten, mocked, humiliated, and he only said, “Father forgive them they know not what they do.”

Buddha likewise faced persecution, poison. Socrates was also given hemlock to drink, another great initiate, a great master, a great prophet.

Humanity does not like these human beings. People like to follow a religion based off these people, but they do not like their teachings, which is why those religions have been castrated, have been sterilized, have been emasculated. Their real teaching has been adulterated. So people now follow religions that really do not emphasize or teach the heart of what these human beings taught.

But it is important to recognize that a real Hum-Man is like a lotus, signified by the word Padme, meaning “flower, wisdom.” And what is a lotus flower? A perfect allegory of us, of our potential. A flower emerges from the mud of a swamp, the impurities of the mind, in order to blossom with perfection, with beauty, with harmony.

That is our potential. We can become like that. We are, right now, like a candle, like a flame, a spark of potentiality, of energy, which can become a great sun—radiant, overpowering, full of virtue, and omniscient to the point that one can make the very stars move around oneself, not out of selfishness, but out of a divine understanding of all things.

So different traditions explain that the human being has to be created, has to be formed. Jesus of Nazareth never said that we have soul, but that we have potential to develop it. “With patience possess ye your souls,” He said.

And we have other stories that allegorize this great struggle in the person to become a genuine Hum-Man, like Pinocchio. Pinocchio was a wooden boy who wanted to become a boy of flesh and blood. And he had many helpers and many ordeals and trials that he experiences. But in the beginning, he is a puppet. He is played with by external forces and internal forces. He is not really human; he is more animal because an animal desires. It wants something it seeks to get it. It fights for its cravings, it’s aversions.

And so without seeking to insult, we state with facts that we are intellectual animals. What is an animal? It comes from the Latin anima, meaning soul, “to animate, to act.” And we have intellect. We have intellect, and we have desire. So we are beings that are impure, like the symbol of the flower that can emerge from the mud of the swamp, which is our own anger, our own resentments, our desires, our hatreds, our fears. Those impurities of the soul have to be removed so that the flower of our genuine consciousness can emerge. And that is how we develop unity, Hum. Spirit is unity.

There are many religions from the Middle East that teach that divinity is one, whether it be Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, even some aspects of Christianity, which teach that divinity is an integrity, a unification of the soul with the spirit to create a new being, a radiant one, a prophet. But we have to ask ourselves: do we possess unity in our life?

If we are honest, we tend to find that we have a lot of conflict, a lot of struggle. We think one way in the morning and then we act another way in the evening. We have a lot of contradictions, and many people point this out to us, which we do not like. We tend to fight for this sense of self whom we identify with, but a human being a spirit, a spiritual one only respects others and is unitary. And so that unity is expressed within many beings which have been known in religion as angels, masters, prophets, buddhas, enlightened ones.

In this image we have a Christian symbol of those illuminated ones ascending towards the height, represented by Christ, by Jesus, and it is important to recognize that divinity has the name Christ. It is not a person, but is an energy, a force which is within all of the cosmos, and Jesus came to represent that highest aspect of divinity within oneself, within the mind, within the heart, within the soul. And so that prophet physically lived a drama with his flesh and bones to teach something that is psychological, of which we will be explaining in these courses.

But this is a perfect beautiful description of states of being, higher ways of being. And we see these great illuminated ones ascending higher and higher and higher towards, really, the infinitude of the divine. There was a Sufi master by the name of Abdul Karim al-Jili, I think. He stated that “The journey to God is short. The journey in God is infinite,” which corroborates with a statement given by the 14th Dalai Lama that we have to “develop the conviction that consciousness has the potential to increase to an infinite degree.”

So a lot of people become concerned that when they work on their negativity, their desires, their faults, they feel that “If I eliminate these things , who will I be? Who am I? What will be left?” And the truth is that when you eliminate, comprehend and remove the impurities of the soul, the conditions of the consciousness, you become the natural, radiant, pristine light of cognizance of the universe, of the divine. And so those levels of being ascend higher and higher and higher to the infinitude. By understanding that the consciousness can develop more and more, we then seek to comprehend the obstacles in this present moment, who we are, what conditions us, why do we suffer.

I am pretty sure many of us can consider and think in our own experience of a moment in life in which we sensed or experienced a greater state of perception. Perhaps we did not think about it. It could be something simple like washing dishes, in which we realized that, as we are fully present in the moment, we become serene, at peace, with a state of alert attention that is supranormal, expansive, profound. Our childhood tends to have many of these moments, which become lost as we condition ourselves, whether it be through the education system or our parents, our friends.

These type of expanded states of consciousness have also been referenced to by the world of dreams. Dreams for most people tend to be very subjective, but there are rare cases in which individuals become awake in the dream state, in which they are aware that they are not in their physical body, but they are in a totally different dimension. And this is represented here. We see that the heavens in the top two-thirds of this graphic represent again those levels of consciousness which are accessed, such as through death. Notice that we have a grave here with flowers, representing the resurrection of Christ, which is also a very beautiful symbol, something also very esoteric and profound: how the soul resurrects when it is dead to desire. And also, in life, we can experience heightened states of perception that are not physical, but in the world of dreams, which we will be teaching in our courses on dream yoga.

But it is important to recognize that consciousness can expand, and as Mr. Leadbeater from an esoteric school from the past stated, “It is the gravest of mistakes to believe that the limit of our perception is the limit of all that there is to perceive.”

The Tree of Life

Which is why we reference the following graphic. This image has been known in Judaism and Christianity, as well as Islam, as the tree of life. It is a symbol. It is not a literal tree that existed in Mesopotamia, in which Adam and Eve and some, better said allegorical, garden could enjoy the fruits thereof. This is a map of consciousness, a map of being, which we will be explaining didactically throughout this course and other courses as well that we have given on our website: chicagognosis.org.

In synthesis, this is a map of who we are, a map of our perception, our levels of being, our ways of being. It may seem very complicated, but in synthesis, it is very simple, and it is something that we explore many times again and again in greater detail as we learn to become meditators, because any experience in meditation can be mapped to this glyph.

This is a map of being and a map of our human consciousness. In synthesis, we can state that, above, we have the highest potential of consciousness. Some traditions call this the trinity, such as in Christianity: Father, Son, Holy Spirit, which are not people, but energies. In Hebrew, we call them Kether, Chokmah, Binah: Crown, Wisdom, Intelligence.

Beneath that, we have Hum, the spirit, our inner God, our Being, better said. This is known as Chesed meaning “Mercy.” So when the Qur’an speaks about “In the name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful,” it is talking about this sphere, this aspect of divinity.

We also have Geburah, meaning “Justice.” This is the divine consciousness, which greatly interests us in these studies.

Below that, we have Tiphereth, meaning “Beauty,” our will, which can fully express the qualities of the divine above or follow the whims of egotistical desire below. So this is really the essence of who we are, Tiphereth, soul that is related to will, action.

Netzach is “Victory” in Hebrew, meaning the mind, the intellect.

We have Hod, meaning “Splendor,” the emotions.

Yesod means “Foundation,” as our vital energies, which give us life to our physical body.

Malkuth means “Kingdom.”

These are not spheres that exist vertically in space, but are qualities of being in ourselves, here and now. This is the nature of the Being, the divine.

So a Hum-Man being is one whose will has controlled the mind, the emotions, the energies and the physical body, to serve the spirit, these higher spheres above and also towards the beyond. And you can see that these three circles above represent the light of the divine, which is where all those angels ascend in that previous image.

So “The Being is the Being,” says Samael Aun Weor in The Revolution of the Dialectic. And the question is: “What is the Being?” Most people do not know, but by working with exercises like that mantra, we worked with “Aum Masi Padme Hum,” that mantra activates the energies of the heart relating to Tiphereth, our will, and develops the beauty of the soul. It can manifest the energies that come from above in this graphic, so that we learn to be, to be present, to be aware, because the divine, divinity, exists in this present moment, here and now. All we need is to learn to become attentive, to comprehend and to access that state.

And what is the reason for the Being to be? Is to be the Being itself. So divinity only longs for one purpose. And going back to our question of why are we here—why do we live? It is because we have an inner divinity within us who wants the soul to reunite and return with understanding, but saying this is only theoretical until you experience it and understand it through your own work, for your own path. So the Being is very significant.

We can speak to the divine in the world of dreams. And I will relate to you an experience I had years ago when I first started these studies, to help provide a concrete example of what this image represents.

So this tree of life is used to explain different traditions, whether Judeo-Christian, but also Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim. And I remember many years ago while practicing meditation, I fell asleep. I let my body relax to the point that I forgot it, let it go, and I went inside my mind into the state known as Hod, the world of emotions. This is the dream world where we experience dreams. And in that state, I was shown an image or a series of images from my Being, my Inner God, to teach me about this image. At the time, I had never studied Kabbalah, which is what this graphic is. Kabbalah, in Hebrew, means “to receive,” kabbel. It is experiences that we receive directly from our inner divinity, our inner Being. And I remember seeing a series of ten images, ten faces, ten portraits, and my own was at the very bottom, the very end. And I remember being very startled. I woke up.

I knew it was from my iner spirit, and I wondered what the meaning was until someone introduced to me what is known as the Kabbalah, with ten spheres—ten faces; ten aspects of the divine, because we are part of divinity. And my face was at the bottom because I am in this physical body. I am at the bottom who wants to go up and experience all the different aspects of the Being.

So this is a very beautiful map that we study and teach, practice and understand didactically, but this is just the synthesis, an introduction.

Life, Transformation, and the Level of Being

So when we ask what is Being, we also discuss what are levels of Being.

In these studies, we like to be practical. We study psychology, the nature of the mind from the practical perspective that we seek to understand the causes of suffering, as I have mentioned.

We see in this image a riot. I do not remember where this image was taken, but these are becoming more common. It is evident by the ways of being of humanity, of individuals, people who are filled with resentment and anger. They obviously gravitate towards other people who possess the same psychological qualities. So what our mind is determines our life. As Buddha taught, “Mind precedes phenomena. We become what we think.”

And likewise, what we are psychologically determines whom we interact with. We like to be with people who are at our level of being, a way of perceiving, a way of knowing. Drunkards are with other drunkards, drug users with other drug users, etc., businessmen with businessmen. People live in society based on their attractions within their psyche, their ways of thinking, feeling, and acting.

And so we have to comprehend and understand: what is our level of being? With what type of people do we associate, and why? Because that determines and explains for us what we have inside. Because if we ignore who we are and the type of people we interact with, we miss out on very profound knowledge about how to ascend to a higher way of a being, to associate with more spiritual people. And when I say this, I do not just mean physically. I mean that when you learn to meditate and ascend up that graphic of the tree of life that we looked at, you learn to naturally speak face to face in those experiences with beings who are more elevated than you are, who are angelic, represented by initiation. In certain traditions like in Egypt, certain masters who are very developed can teach you things and help you go higher and give you more knowledge.

Samael Aun Weor in Treatise of Revolutionary Psychology taught that:

“Nobody can deny the fact that there are different social levels. There are church going people, people in brothels, farmers, businessmen, etc. In a like manner, there are different levels of Being. Whatever we are internally, munificent or mean, generous or miserly, violent or peaceful, chaste or lustful, attracts the various circumstances of life. The lustful person will always attract scenes, dramas, and even lascivious tragedies in which he will become involved. A drunkard will always attract drunkards and will always be seen in bars or taverns; this is obvious…” —Samael Aun Weor, Treatise of Revolutionary Psychology

So if we suffer because of certain circumstances in life, it is because we have something inside that we have to face and comprehend, because certain people in our work or job or in life, we meet as a result of our level of being. So by learning to comprehend where we are at, we can learn to ascend towards a higher level.

“So what is our moral level? Or better said, what is our level of Being?” —Samael Aun Weor, Treatise of Revolutionary Psychology

The word morality also has a lot of baggage. People think morality has to do with codes of conduct, thinking that such and such is a way to live, a concept, a means, a belief system, but really who we are relates to our level of Being, our ways of acting, our ways of thinking, our ways of feeling.

So as we have initiated this lecture, what is our moral level, what is our level of Being? Because:

“The repetition of all our miseries, scenes, misfortunes, and mishaps will last as long as the level of our being does not radically change. All things all circumstances that occur outside ourselves on the stage of this world are exclusively the reflection of what we carry within. With good reason, then we can solemnly declare that the exterior is the reflection of the interior. When someone changes internally, and if that change is radical, then circumstances, life, and the external will also change.” —Samael Aun Weor, Treatise of Revolutionary Psychology

The Line of Life and the Line of Being

When we study the level of Being, we look at this graphic. We study this glyph many times in our studies and teachings. We have two lines, one vertical, one horizontal.

The horizontal line is the line of life. This is the path that everybody follows: birth, childhood, adolescence, adulthood, old age, decrepitude, death, beginning to end, involving all the scenes and tragedies and comedies that we experience usually in a very mechanical way. We tend to just go with the flow. Life occurs to us, and we simply are pushed around like a puppet, like Pinocchio, by the different circumstances of life.

Someone says something negative to us; we think or respond with anger or resentment. We lose our job; we become filled with fear. Our spouse argues with us. We feel humiliated and angry. Therefore, where is the autonomy of the human person that we like to claim that we have? We tend to just be reactionary towards life, towards circumstances, but this is where the vertical path becomes very essential, important for these studies.

When someone begins to question themselves in this present moment, in this point where the present meets with the line of Being, we can learn to access higher ways of Being. So neither in the future or in the past do we discover ourselves, our psychological conditions, but here and now.

The line of Being is a vertical path; it is a path traversed by revolutionaries, but not physical revolutionaries—spiritual ones, psychological, in which we learn to go against all the negativity and reactions we carry within.

And so:

“What is our Level of Being? Have we ever reflected upon this?” —Samael Aun Weor, Treatise of Revolutionary Psychology

Because here and now is where we discover ourselves, as I said. By learning to become mindful of where we are at and what we are doing, what we are saying, what we are thinking, what we are feeling, and learn to act for the benefit of others, out of compassion, we are learning to ascend to higher states, higher ways of knowing.

“It would be impossible to pass into another level if we ignore the level in which we presently are.” ―Samael Aun Weor, Treatise of Revolutionary Psychology

And we will explain in these lectures, in this course, that process. If you are interested in learning more about this topic, you can study two books by Samael Aun Weor, including Treatise of Revolutionary Psychology and The Great Rebellion.

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Conscious Prayer

6/5/2018

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In this course of meditation, we have been exploring what it means to communicate with divinity, with the divine, which as we have been emphasizing is not some anthropomorphic figure of an old man or a dignified lady in the clouds. Those are symbols, and religions teach us something psychological. Something conscious. And we in the science of meditation seek to communicate directly with the presence; the intelligence that has been represented within those traditions, within statues, or forms.

So we began this practice by invoking the energy of what is known as the Divine Mother, the divine feminine, who is the feminine aspect of our inner divinity, our Inner Being. So when we say that God is Being, we don't wish to point towards anthropomorphism, but instead to principles, energies, forces we find in nature and within our own body, which we seek to actualize, to activate, to stimulate.

In our process of giving these lectures we have been talking a lot about working with the divine feminine, being able to communicate directly with that intelligence in a very concrete and specific manner. When the different traditions of Judaism, Buddhism, or Islam speak about communicating face to face with the buddhas, with the angels, with the gods, those are symbols of how we can speak face to face in our meditations with that divine presence—but also in the science of dream yoga, in which our physical body goes to sleep and we as a consciousness enter the superior dimensions of nature, the dreamworld.

By working in meditation, we awaken from dreams, so that as a consciousness we can communicate with the divine and those dimensions, which people typically theorize and believe is just a projection of the brain, but really, when someone awakens consciousness profoundly and ceases to dream in that state, one really gets to understand that there is a whole other world available to us, which meditation teaches us how to access. Because we as a consciousness, as a soul, must learn to receive that guidance, that wisdom from our inner divinity.

Most people who approach religion, meditation, yoga, and when I say yoga, I mean real yoga, not just physical postures, but yug which in Sanskrit means “to unite” as a consciousness with the truth; when people approach religion, they typically want to have some type of experience, to know divinity directly for oneself—not based on any belief or theory, but on practice.

We all have issues and problems that we suffer with, that we struggle with, and we look for some type of guidance in our politicians, our media, our religious figures, our temple, our church, our synagogue, our mosque, and yet we find that people cannot really show us or give us answers to the real profound root of our sufferings in a fundamental way, because we may believe in one doctrine or not, and yet what we think doesn't matter, because how we behave, how we act consciously, determines our mind stream, our life.

So neither by believing in some religion is how one is going to find the solutions to one's deepest sufferings, but though meditation.

So to pray, according to the founder of the Gnostic tradition, Samael Aun Weor, is to speak with divinity. To have that connection. To interact as we are interacting here and now. Prayer for most people tends to be a very blind thing, where we repeat a certain prayer in a mechanical way; some Hail Mary, or Our Father, thinking that by repeating mechanically, repetitiously, that somehow we are going to receive some insight. But the truth is that that type of prayer doesn't work. It is superficial.

If we want to really talk with divinity, we have to be very specific in our methods, in how we concentrate our mind as we've been discussing in this course. To focus on one thing: a mantra, a secret sound, an image, a sculpture; visualizing it's details in our mind. Focusing on that one specific thing without letting the mind wander and get distracted, because if we sit to practice, we typically find that the mind wanders constantly. It thinks about other things.

We daydream about what we are going to do later, where we have been, who we talked with. And yet we may return into our practice thirty minutes later realizing, "I am supposed to be meditating. I'am supposed to be present." So that state of distraction shows us what we are psychologically moment by moment. Not when we just sit to close our eyes for half an hour or so, but in our daily life, we are constantly thinking and being distracted by what we are going to do, where we have been, and where we are going.

That distraction of the consciousness indicates that we are, as a psyche, asleep. We are not present. We are not mindful. We are not aware of what we are doing, what we are saying, what we are thinking, because if we are driving our car and thinking of our friends, our fiancé, our spouse; if we are at a lecture and if we are thinking of other things, we are not really listening to what's going on. We are not really seeing where we are at. It means that we as a consciousness are asleep. The mind wanders.

As we said in our previous lecture on the path of Conscious Judgment, the mind is a labyrinth, a maze, which the great hero Theseus goes into, in order to find the beast known as the minotaur, a symbol of our own egotism, which by learning to concentrate ourselves in meditation, we go into the mind. We cease being distracted and we learn to get to the core root of our suffering, which is psychological. It is a conditioning, as we have been explaining.

So the process of meditation is about, again, going into the mind, focusing the mind, being specific with our practice, being aware of what we are doing at all times, and when we learn to discipline our intellect, concentrate ourselves to be focused, moment by moment, day by day in every circumstance of life, we find that the practice of meditation opens up spontaneously. So if you find that you are distracted, you may have a certain longing to know God, the Being, the divine, and we go through certain prayers or rituals or practices. But if we are not mindful of what we are doing, it means that we are not going to have the results we want.

Because, to receive that insight from the divine means the mind has to be calm. We have to be concentrated on what we are doing. So the very beginning of meditative practice, the path of prayer, of communicating with the divine, occurs when the mind is in silence. When it is focused. When we command our attention to do one thing at the exclusion of everything else. That we don't let our mind wander. We don't waver. We don't begin a prayer in our practice and then forget what we are doing, and then realize "I should have been reciting this prayer with this practice," and then we remember.

So that is the beginning of any person who starts in meditation, because we see that the mind needs to be controlled, it needs to be harnessed. But, when we find that when the mind is calm and serene, we can start to receive knowledge, insight and this usually comes in the form of some type of spiritual experience.

As I said, you can awaken in dreams by learning to meditate in which you, as a consciousness, with a mind that is calm, can say and invoke your Inner God, your Inner Goddess, and say "My God, help me, teach me!" Because prayer, when it is focused with intention, and then we wait, that is when we receive insight. That is when the communication happens, because most people think that by reciting a hundred Hail Mary's, or Hari Krishna’s, or whatever a thousand times, that you are going to get some kind of result. The truth is that you can't if your mind is mechanical, if we just repeat things; we think things, we feel things, without any real knowledge or observance. No attention.

And so this lecture we called “Conscious Prayer” because in order to have that communication with your Being, you have to be conscious of what you are doing. And as I said earlier the path of meditation begins when we learn to concentrate.

So in this exercise, we were invoking the energy of the Divine Mother with a mantra Ram-IO. We learn to focus on that mantra to pronounce it. To immerse ourselves in the vibrations of that sound so that this energy saturates the consciousness, awakens it, develops our hidden potential. In that way, when you have energy, as we have been talking in this course and the Light of Consciousness lecture, when you have energy applied to action, then you can get results.

When the mind is not calm, if the lake of the intellect is churning with negativity, with anguish, with preoccupations about our job, not really focusing on what we need to focus on in our practice, it means that the images of the heavens cannot reflect in that lake. Your mind is a lake, but we typically tend to throw things into it. Stones, garbage, or whatever metaphor we want to use. Negativity. And that mind that is agitated, churning, can't help us to focus. We sit to practice, we look into the mind and we see that we are filled with a lot of memories, and anguish, and suffering.

When people realize this at the beginning of meditation, they typically tend to run away because they realize how monstrous the mind is. It's so chaotic and you realize, or think, “this practice is harming me.” The truth is we are just becoming aware of what is going on moment by moment and day by day. We are just not conscious of it.

And to help us with this process of learning to become conscious of our daily life, we learn to pray. It means to be focused and to be sincere. To be concentrated. If we, again, pronounce Hari Krishna multiple times, but we are not really invested with our heart, our longing to know the divine, and our concentration, there won't be any results. We can speak all we want but the answer won't come directly. So calm the mind is the beginning. The mind needs to be stable. We need to be concentrated and in that way the truth emerges spontaneously within our consciousness.

Durga, the Divine Mother, and Astral Forms

So we pictured here the Hindu representation of the Divine Mother known as Durga. There are many other forms of the divine feminine, such as Kali and, as we mentioned earlier, this divine feminine has been represented by Athena, amongst the Greeks, Miriam and Mary amongst the Hebrews and the Christians. It is interesting that you look at the word מִרְיָם Miriam in Hebrew, which means “to raise, to elevate” because the Divine Mother, your Inner Goddess is the one who can elevate you from psychological conditions and sufferings into the heights of the divine, the spiritual. And personally, if I am teaching you this, it is because this is something I have been working with for many years, where I have had experiences in the dream world, where I have been receiving insight from my Inner Goddess, who has been helping me so that I can be of help to others.

In dreams, this divine feminine can take form. So I said that the divine is formless, but is an energy, is a principle, is a force. That energy can materialize in the dream world in any symbol, any form, in order to teach you something psychologically about yourself. And then that way, when you are presented with this symbol, when you are asking your Inner Goddess, "My God or my Being, help me, teach me what I need to know"—you are meditating, you are focusing on that one question, you fall asleep. You wait. And then spontaneously, your consciousness can awaken in that state in which you ask that question again, “My God, help me, show me what I need to know about myself. About this problem that I am going through. What I need to do. What I need to change!”

And then the answer will come in a symbol. It will come in a some type of living drama, because the world of dreams, the astral plane, is a symbolic language. A symbolic world. Your Divine Mother will come to you in any form that is going to be concrete and conducive for teaching you something.

I remember one instance, I invoked my Divine Mother in the world of dreams and I asked her the question, "Please help me to understand what I need to work on. What I need to do!” She appeared. I was outside my house in the dream world, because in the astral plane, in that dimension, we see everything that we see physically, but with differences. It is a different dimension. A different type of materiality that is not physical. She came to me in a figure of a bear and in spiritual studies, we know that the bear is a symbol of egotism, of animalism, of desire, of defects, and of the secret psychological enemies we carry within that are fighting against this type of work—as we have been talking about with the many other myths in this course.

So she came to me with a radar in her hands that was showing a laser beam, or that beam that goes in a circle, so that you can find some kind of blip or dot of some type of aircraft that is present, and it was blank. And she said to me, “I can't find you!” And I woke up.

I was really filled with a lot of remorse because she was showing me, "I am trying to awaken your consciousness and you keep forgetting me. You keep forgetting My presence." Because your Divine Mother is with you, here and now. You don't need to have some type of samadhi or mystical experience out of the body, to really actualize the presence of your Inner Goddess within you. So she came to me, fortunately in a dream to show me: "I'm looking on my radar and I don't see you." Meaning, you are not paying attention. You are not awake. You are not concentrated in me in your daily life.

So in my daily life, I had been getting too distracted. Forgetting my own consciousness. Getting caught up in daydreaming, and worries, and thoughts, and not being focused about where I am at. So that is an example of conscious prayer, where by silencing the mind, you meditate, you go out of the body in the dream state, and then you ask the question, "Show me what I need to know." And often times through discipline, your Divine Mother will come to you in a way that is unexpected, where you may not even be able to get the question out of your mouth and suddenly the answer will show up and come to you. That is why Dante in his Divine Comedy stated that the Divine Mother or Virgin Mary, often provides the answer before we even ask it, because she is the power of love, of compassion within the depths of our psyche.

The Four Yogas

And so we in these studies learn to actualize that presence in different ways, specifically through what we call four types of yoga. The word yoga comes from the Sanskrit yug, “to reunite.” So when you learn to communicate with your inner God, your inner Goddess, face-to-face, you are performing union, because you receiving the direct Insight you longed for.

But, let us remember that the term yoga as is used today really has no meaning. People think that yoga is contorting the body, twisting it, or making it thin, so that one can attract the lust of other people. Instead real yoga is fourfold.

We have Karma Yoga relating to action, to service. We have Bhakti Yoga, related to devotion, the heart. We have Raja Yoga relating to powers, abilities, psychic capacities. We have Jnana Yoga, relating to knowledge.

So this lecture we will talk specifically about bhakti, devotion and what it really means. But you can't explain Bhakti Yoga without talking about the other constituents of spiritual practice.

Karma yoga relates to how you use your body, in a more superficial sense. How do we act with our physical body in daily life? Do we do so working at our job to benefit others, or do we use our body in ways that is selfish, where we are concerned more about our own welfare? How do we act? How do we behave? How do we think? How do we feel? And how do we express what is internal?

As we've been talking about in these lectures, we talked that psychologically, we carry many egotistical elements we call ego, "I,” me, myself, anger, pride, fear, vanity, lust—a whole conglomeration of defects, which are shells, conditions, which trap our full potential, which trap the consciousness and which in religions, they have been represented as demons—because these senses of self, these desires, are really demonic. They don't want to help others.

Anger does not want to help others. It wants to destroy. Likewise with fear. It debilitates. Many elements that drag us down into states of suffering. Those have been represented by monsters and figures in different religions, different traditions, different myths.

And so we have to examine our mind, our mind stream. What do we carry within? What is going on psychologically that makes us act in daily life? How do we behave towards others in life? Are we thinking about ourselves or do we really think about the benefit of others?

Now it is important that one learns to understand one's psychological state, because our psychological states shape our life. Where we are psychologically determines how we act, what we say; what we think determines how we behave and energetically when we learn to awaken our consciousness, we see that even our thoughts influence others, because it is a form of energy. It is a form of matter and it influences people. There is an interaction that is psychological, that is psychic, that relates to Raja Yoga. But Raja Yoga is actually much more profound than just psychic powers. It involves many things that we are going to talk about.

So karma, how do we act? In these studies if we really want to learn how to meditate, we have to learn what shapes and conditions us. What makes us suffer? But more importantly, how do we make others suffer with our egotism, our sense of self? When you learn to understand how anger is a destructive element, is an animal that needs to stop being fed, then you begin to experience what all the Greek myths have taught about the great heroes fighting against the monster, the medusa, the minotaur, the Kraken. Symbols of our own defects.

But when you learn to restrain the mind in a moment of anger, we learn to comprehend in ourselves and we look inside and we see that a certain element is a rising in us that wants to act negatively, but we don't feed that element. We restrain ourselves, because we know that this element will harm the other person if we speak what that element wants to speak, that ego, that sense of self.

When you restrain the mind, you empower your consciousness, and in those moments of great anger, you can invoke your Divine Mother. You simply pray, "My Goddess, help me to understand this anger that is boiling in me." And sometimes it could require us stepping away from the person. Other times, we may have transformation, where we realize and comprehend that we are not that anger, and then we can learn to respond with love. Instead of responding with anger, we serve the other person. We serve divinity in the other person, because all people have God within. Therefore we shouldn't disrespect anyone psychologically, mentally, physically.

When you learn to restrain the mind and act in positive ways, you are performing a form of bhakti, of religion. Because religion come from the Latin religare, which means “to reunite,” to bring people together and also to unite the soul with God, the Being. When you speak words of compassion towards your aggressor, towards someone who dislikes you, who treats you with disrespect, instead of reacting with anger, we see that element arise and we don't act on it. We choose conscious action. We serve the other person, and Samael Aun Weor, the founder of this tradition, states that one must learn to kiss the whip of the executioner, to kindly receive the unpleasant manifestations of our fellow men and women.

We understand that those people who are angry are suffering. We should not treat them with disrespect or anger, but with patience. In that way we are performing Karma Yoga. We are also showing devotion, because we are showing that we don't want to harm the other person, even in our thoughts. We show bhakti. We are showing that we want to perform religion, reunite people, not separate. Bhakti Yoga is how we devote ourselves in every action of our life with consciousness, with awareness.

Jnana Yoga relates to knowledge of the intellect. To study. To studying and having a certain knowledge of scripture, religion, teachings, psychology, whatever lectures we receive, in order to help Inspire us and also to train the mind to know the path and the steps, the principles of how to change, of how to practice meditation.

Bhakti relates to devotion, to the heart, your emotional qualities, your psychological states.

Notice we have in the lower three frames of yoga: Karma Yoga relating to your body, Bhakti Yoga relating to your heart, Jnana Yoga relating to your intellect.

In gnostic psychology, we call this the three brains. You have a center for intellect, the thought, the mind where thoughts emerge. Where thoughts originated and which is not a physical brain, but a psychological center, which the physical brain channels thought, because the soul is inhabiting the body like a car, like someone is driving it. The mind is a form of a vehicle, a brain, a machine; it processes certain energies which exists physically but also psychologically.

We have an emotional brain relating to sentiment, hate, love, passion, desire, which relates to the physical heart and it's nervous systems, but also to the energies of emotion, which is different from the intellect. That is something we learn to distinguish through meditation.

The body, represented by the entire spine, is the motor-instinctive-sexual brain, where we process movement, instincts, and our sexual impulses.

Karma Yoga relates to the body. Bhakti Yoga relate to the heart. Jnana Yoga relates to the mind.

Raja yoga is the balancing of all three. Raja means “royal yoga.” It is regal yoga, meaning, by learning to silence the mind, calm the heart, control the body, calm the body, we activate certain powers of the consciousness that make one into a king or a queen of oneself.

So Karma Yoga, we typically see is associated with performing good action, to benefit others so that in some way we benefit ourselves. As the Dalai Lama stated "if one can't really be selfless, at least be wisely selfish," meaning, at least don't harm the other person, but at the same time, you are doing that so that the person doesn't yell back at you, because that perpetuates suffering. It makes us suffer. In a more profound level, we learn to be selfless in our actions when we learn to comprehend our defects and to make conscious choices. To not act upon fear or resentment, or pride. In that way, we radiate naturally spontaneous joy peace, and that benefits humanity.

That is a form of service, sacrifice. We sacrifice our desires so that we can benefit others. This is the symbol of Jesus on the cross, where he was crucifying his own animal ego, his mind, and of course that is a very painful process, because we are very attached to our body, our emotions, our intellect. But he showed a profound will and love in those moments of being nailed to the cross. He said, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do," because he was speaking from the consciousness.

So Raja Yoga is when you learn to silence the mind, calm the heart, calm the body, so that when you sit to meditate, the heart opens naturally and then we can begin to concentrate on a specific question we have, a practice we want to fulfill so that we can get insight.

The Elements of Bhakti Yoga

This is Swami Sivananda. A great yogi. A great master. He wrote some easy steps to yoga, some explanations about what devotion really is. It's importance. People who typically read these type of writings, they become inspired, but some people also look at it very superficially and don't really understand that bhakti, devotion, doesn't just occur when we go to Puja, perform japa, mantra recitation, perform certain rituals; but we show bhakti devotion with every interaction of life.

As the Dalai Lama stated or was asked the question, "What inspires you most?" He said, "Every person I come into contact with." Because, other people show him or show us ourselves. Sivananda explains that:

“Bhakti is the basis of religious life. Bhakti destroys Vasanas and egoism.” —Sivananda, Easy Steps to Yoga

Vasanas are latent animalistic tendencies in the mind.

So how does bhakti destroy vasanas? As I said, you are at your job, your boss criticizes you, or you have a conflict with a difficult client and they are provoking your anger, and then in that moment, you realize how destructive that element is. Those thoughts of revenge, of resentment, of pain, that its actions will cause harm and perpetuate suffering for us and for others. We restrain from the mind and we learn to speak with love. Not forced. Not veiled. But spontaneously.

That is something that comes to us with training and intuitively when the mind is silent, when you are relaxed, when you are paying attention to where you are at. You learn to say the right thing, do the right thing, think the right thing, at the right time. That is inner judgment, as we have been talking about previously.

So that is how you destroy egoism. You stop feeding the ego. You perform bhakti, devotion. Worshipping the God of that other person who is criticizing you. Saying, mentally, "I respect the divine within all beings, even within an ant or criminal." All beings have God within. The reason why the criminal acts as he or she does is because they are ignorant. Therefore “they don't deserve my anger; they deserve my compassion.”

You don't have to formulate this in your mind when you are having a conflict, instead the insight emerges and you realize the person is suffering. So why feel anger? And then you transform your own mind, and by acting with kindness, we transform the situation.

“A life without Bhakti, faith, love and devotion is a dreary waste.” —Sivananda, Easy Steps to Yoga

So what is faith? In our gnostic studies, we state that faith is conscious knowledge, not belief. To believe that something is true or false is irrelevant. To think that something is true or not doesn't mean anything. Instead faith is when you know something from experience, personally. Like having a conversation with your inner Divine Mother in the astral plane. So real bhakti is faith. Your heart becomes inflamed when you are communicating with your inner God and “to not have that is to be a dreary waste.” People who never discover that is a tragedy.

“Bhakti softens the heart and removes jealousy, hatred, lust, anger, egoism, pride and arrogance. It infuses joy, Divine ecstasy, Bliss, Peace and Knowledge.” —Sivananda, Easy Steps to Yoga

So what is ecstasy? Coming from the Latin exstatuo: “to stand outside oneself.” People often think that ecstasy is a spiritual experience, which means to be in some type of out-of-body experience. But you experience moments of standing outside of yourself when you learn to comprehend that you are not fear, that you are not those negative elements that make us suffer. But instead, you are something divine, consciously speaking. You step outside of yourself and you have a moment of perspective in which you see your subjective self and your objective self. And how you choose between the two determines your religious life, your spiritual life.

“All cares, worries, anxieties, fears, mental torments and tribulations entirely vanish. The devotee is freed from the Samsaric wheel of births and deaths.” —Sivananda, Easy Steps to Yoga

In Buddhism and Hinduism, samsara means cyclical existence, which people typically interpret to the multi-dimensionality of nature and its different levels and forms, which we discussed in relation to Kabbalah. But samsara literally means “cycling, repeating, habits.” So we learn to identify our negative habits and change them. We perform cessation of those causes of repetitive behaviors that produce suffering. Cessation in Sanskrit is Nirvana. So it isn't just a place, but a psychological way of being, in which you cease repeating behaviors that are detrimental for oneself.

And through bhakti, “He attains the Immortal Abode of everlasting Peace, Bliss and Knowledge.” —Sivananda, Easy Steps to Yoga

That everlasting abode, that immortal abode is not some other world in which some utopian existence is experienced. It's not by going to the astral plane or the mental plane or Nirvana or the different dimensions that we talked about in the Tree of Life, that one is going to find absolute peace, because all those dimensions are here and now with us. Our center of gravity tends to be in this physical body, but psychologically we have mind, emotion, energy, which are different levels of matter and experience.

Watchfulness is Prayer

All those aspects of the consciousness integrate within us in the here and now. That abode is not something foreign to you, but it's within your Being who is with you.

So how do we experience and know that immortal abode? It is through remembrance of the divine. It Is by being watchful. By learning to pay attention. We have an image of a Sufi in meditation and prayer who has in his right hand what some would call a rosary in the Christian tradition, which traditionally, such as in Hinduism, you would perform japa with the beads. You count the beads while reciting a mantra for each bead in order to train the mind.

So as we mentioned in the practice at the beginning of this lecture, we repeat a mantra in order to protect the mind, to train it, to cease being negative. Mantra means “mind protection.” Japa is when you are reciting a prayer in your mind, but not mechanically, instead consciously, with force, with devotion. And we have many mantras in our tradition, but also in many other religions. Amongst the Sufis it is Allah Hu Allah. Amongst the Hindus we have Hari Krishna and many other prayers, which are really effective, but if you repeat them mechanically, they are useless.

You have to be conscious of what you are doing. And sometimes in ancient traditions, they would train themselves reciting those prayers by counting beads. Repeating again and again a mantra to remember the presence of divinity within. To invoke energy in the mind, the heart, the body.

But the best act of worship, of prayer, is watchfulness. Watchfulness of the moment. It isn't by going to some spiritual place going to Tibet, going to a church or a mosque in which one is going to find communion with the divine. You find divinity by being watchful. The physical place doesn't matter so much. The best act of worship is when you are paying attention, self-observing.

We discussed in our previous lectures about the path of self-observation in which you as a consciousness are observing your three brains: your thoughts, your feelings, your body. Observing the impulses of the mind, the instincts, our sexual drives, our thoughts, our emotions. We become mindful. We observe ourselves like we are watching an actor in a film as if we are the director.

So this watchfulness, when you are paying attention, is precisely that greatest prayer we can enact, because if you are not aware as a consciousness, you cannot know divinity. You cannot perceive divinity here and now. Like I said in that experience, my Divine Mother said, "You are lost. Where are you?" And I felt panic, because She was showing me that “you are not worshipping Me. You are not remembering Me.” How do you remember divinity? When you are provoked with anger or negative elements, and then you realize what to do. How to act. How to behave. Not only just physically, but mentally you make choices. You have insight. Instead of responding with resentment or revenge, you transform the situation with love. This is the meaning of the following statement:

“The best act of worship is watchfulness of the moments. That is, that the servant not look beyond his limit, not contemplate anything other than his Lord, and not associate with anything other than his present moment.” —Al-Qushayri, Al-Risalah: Principles of Sufism

So what does it mean that the servant not look beyond his limit? So when we prefer perform Bhakti Yoga, we are serving divinity. We are also performing Karma Yoga, positive action. When we don't look beyond our limit, it means don't think about other things. Don't worry about other things. Be fully concentrated in what we are doing, because to be distracted in a moment of crisis can produce a tragedy. As Samael Aun Weor stated in Revolutionary Psychology, people who don't know how to transform negative internal psychological states, become victims of circumstances, and even a simple mistake or moment can bring one disgrace."

So don't look behind your limit. Don't think about other things. Don't associate with anything other than the present moment. Don't think about anything other than your Being. Be aware of your Inner God. That is a quality that you learn to become a familiar with practice.

So in the beginning we feel we are blind. We lack insight. We want to know divinity. We want to have some type of experience. We feel some longing, some inspiration. People say, “I can't meditate; I can't have an out-of-body experience; I haven't seen these things for myself…” and many people get filled with despair. They write to us. And one thing I always mention to them, is that “Well, what are your longings? What do you feel?” And they say, "I feel in my heart that this knowledge is very true and I have experienced certain things." “Okay, that is the next next step. Follow your longing, that intuition, that judgment, that inner hunch in your heart. The more you feed that, that spark will grow into a flame as you train yourself in meditation.” That is mindfulness.

I remember, personally, many years ago, before I found this knowledge, I was looking and looking and looking and not being satisfied with what I was finding. Then I realized what I was looking for was already within me. So mindfulness is the key. That is the greatest form of worship, because your body is a temple of God. The mind, the heart, can become a temple of the Being if we purify it. So in those moments of great crisis, moral and emotional suffering, when we learn not to look beyond our limit, meaning: don't wish for the situation to change, but actually change it.

Or if you can't change it, at least be conscious, because some situations we can't change. People are going to be what they are going to be. Sometimes you can't make those changes in them, so instead what you have to do is not harm them, and that of course becomes very difficult.

Like Odysseus, in the symbol of The Odyssey, he was tied to a ship mast when he was sailing next to the sirens. It is a symbol that relates to this teaching. Where the sirens were calling him and he was driven mad with passion, with frenzy, or even anger, wanting to jump overboard or sail the ship into the reefs and become shipwrecked. It is a symbol of how in those great moments of suffering and crisis, we have to tie ourselves to our mast. Control our mind. Use our will. Even though we are tempted by those different defects, or egos, or wills, as we have been discussing in this course, we learn to be firm, to be mindful.

That is a form of worship. Be mindful of what you are doing. Be awake. Don't daydream. When you learn to be in the present moment, you become conscious of the path itself.

The Lines of Life and Being

We use this glyph to talk about the intersection of the line of life with the line of being.

The line of life is simply our existence from our birth in the past, to our childhood, adolescence, young adulthood, old age, sickness, death, towards the future. The line of life is mechanical. Everybody experiences this. People go through life typically identified with their name, their language, their culture, their customs, their beliefs, their religion, their concepts, their philosophy, their politics; and yet, when those people go to the grave, those things don't go with them.

So that type of mentality that only believes that materialism is the only tangible, experiential thing are really mistaken, because we do have something intersecting with that line of life, which has to do with the line of being. Our level of consciousness.

Above we have superior levels of consciousness, which is represented by Jacob's Ladder in the Bible, in which the angels were ascending and descending in this vision that Jacob had in the Book of Genesis.

As above there are heavenly states of consciousness inhabited by beings like angels and prophets, you also have inferior states of consciousness, relating to negative ways of being, known as the hell realms, which again are symbols of something psychological. They are places too, but, what's important is to realize our psychological state, because what we are psychologically determines where in nature we gravitate.

If we are filled with envy, and lust, and pride, we naturally gravitate towards inferior states of being the hell realms, which is experienced in nightmares and dreams. But there are also heavenly states of being, heavenly states of consciousness.

People typically go through life totally not paying attention of where they are at, where they are going, what they are thinking. Most people only relate to external things, which is the mechanical line of life. But someone who learns to awaken consciousness in meditation ascends the vertical path moment by moment, instant by instant. That is the path of remembrance of divinity. When instead of responding with conditions of mind, we react or better said respond with cognizance, with light.

Knowledge belongs to the line of life, because intellectual knowledge, knowing how to have a job, a career, a business, is necessary, but it's not everything. Comprehension is something much more profound and is what concerns any person who studies meditation.

“Knowledge and comprehension are different. Knowledge is of the mind. Comprehension is of the heart.” —Samael Aun Weor, Treatise of Revolutionary Psychology

So what is comprehension? We know in a very basic level when you put your hand on a hot stove, you get burned and then you realize not to repeat that action. It is a very superficial form of comprehension, but real comprehension is when you understand the conditioning of the psyche and then you don't act on those elements. You comprehend how lust, how fear, how hatred, is negative and when you really comprehend how those elements are destructive, you resolve not to go back to them and not to perpetuate your suffering and making other people suffer too.

So comprehension is real prayer, because when you comprehend your situation, whatever circumstances of life present itself and how the mind is the source of suffering, we then dedicate ourselves to changing fundamentally. It is a profound form of prayer.

Question: Does the intersection of the line of life and line of being relate to the Christian cross and the cross of the four elements?

Instructor: It does relate to the cross, which is the crossing of the four elements, but also the cross of the present moment, because when Christ was crucified, He came to physically represent or symbolize something psychological too. The death of the animal mind, of egotism, is in the present moment, here and now, and also the rebirth, or resurrection, or experience of the divine happens on the cross in the present moment. But also there is more deeper significance as you know.

The Eightfold Steps of Yoga in the Song of the Lord

We'll talk about a few excerpts from the Bhagavad-Gita [“The Song of the Lord”], which teaches something profound about the nature of Bhakti Yoga, of conscious prayer.

So in the myth or in the scripture the Lord Krishna comes to Arjuna, who is a representation of the Christic energy. Christ is not a person, but a force, symbolized by the Greek Khrestos, meaning fire. That fire manifests within many prophets or masters who come to teach humanity something profound. Krishna was the embodiment of that light and represents that divine energy.

Arjuna is, in our fundamental depth, willpower, human soul, human consciousness, and if you remember in the Mahabharata from which the Bhagavad-Gita is taken, Arjuna is in despair, because he is told by Krishna that he has to go to war against his family, his family members, his relatives. This is the same symbol that we talked about in the Book of Judges previously, in the lecture Conscious Judgment, where the people of Israel, symbolizing the forces of the soul, have to go against the ego, the armies of Sisera.

So there's a great battle that emerges in the soul when we begin this path, because our animalistic egotistical elements don't want to die, and so they fight for their life.

When Arjuna sees the vast armies of his former companions, his relatives who are against them, he feels despair. Who are those relatives? Fear, laziness, lust, pride, everything we are familiar with that we typically associate with ourselves. Then when we go against that, we realize there is a big battle about to happen and, of course, Arjuna feels despair. He's despondent. But that is when Krishna comes and teaches him what he needs to do in order to overcome his own mind.

He explains the path of Bhakti Yoga very beautifully in this chapter on the Yoga of Devotion, where he teaches him how to consciously pray, to receive help.

1. Arjuna said: “Those devotees who, ever steadfast, thus worship Thee and those also who worship the Imperishable and the Unmanifested which of them are better versed in Yoga?” ―Bhagavad-Gita, The Yoga of Devotion

Again, meaning union of the soul with the divine.

2. The Blessed Lord said: “Those who, fixing their minds on Me, worship Me, ever steadfast and endowed with supreme faith, these are the best in Yoga in My opinion.” ―Bhagavad-Gita, The Yoga of Devotion

So what does it mean to fix one's mind on the divine? It means to concentrate. To not think about other things. That is how you worship the divine. You receive insight. To be steadfast means to be consistent, meaning to adopt meditation and to practice it daily for it to have real effect.

3. “Those who worship the imperishable, the indefinable, the unmanifested, the omnipresent, the unthinkable, the eternal and the immovable, 4. Having restrained all the senses, even minded everywhere, intent on the welfare of all beings, verily they also come unto Me.” ―Bhagavad-Gita, The Yoga of Devotion

We mentioned previously in our lectures in this course about the Eightfold Path of Yoga taught by Patanjali, known as Ashtanga, meaning eight-limbed form of yoga. We have discussed these steps in depth. The first is Yama, meaning “restraint of mind,” and as we have been discussing in this lecture, one learns to restrain negative habits, egotism, desires, that is the first step of yoga. People who give in to their egotism, their desires, their anger, can never meditate, because the mind becomes a chaos and when you invest your energy into the ego, you feed the ego and make it fat. So the first step of yoga is restraint. Restrain the mind.

By restraining the mind we learn to follow Niyama, meaning “precepts.” Precepts have to do with codes of conduct, virtues, whichever religion stipulates in their own way. Don't kill, don't steal, don't lie, don't fornicate, don't commit adultery. These are not rules to repress people, but the teach us psychologically how to save energy, how to awaken consciousness.

The next step is Asana, your posture. As we said in our opening practice, your asana, your posture should be firm but relaxed. The body can't relax if the mind and the heart are in chaos, or agitated. If one wants to learn how to calm the body, the mind has to be calm, meaning: don't feed desire. You feed desire, you feed the ego, which is synonymous. The mind can't settle, because in a moment of anger, we lose energy. Or a moment of lust, we lose energy and that energy, which can be used for conscious development, is lost.

When the body is calm, you can begin practices of Pranayama, or work with mantra, energy. Pranayama means to “yoke the prana,” the energies of the body, and the mind, and the heart, and our sexuality. When you control your breathing with mantras or with certain interchangeable nostril breathing exercises, you learn to circulate energy so that the mind settles. So the practice we did at the beginning of this lecture, the mantra RAM-IO, helps to channel energy and focus it in the mind and the heart. Then when those energies are present, we learn to restrain our senses.

The senses become calm. This is known as Pratyahara. Pratyahara is when you restrain the senses and where you are focused fully within yourself. You begin to settle, you become calm. Pratyahara is like a lever that can produce the other steps of meditation, that are fundamental.

So these are things that we can't skip. They are not rules like something dogmatic to follow, but they are principles to apply consciously. With restraining the senses you don't get distracted by what is going on outside in the neighbor's house, the sounds that one hears. The mind becomes calm. That is when one becomes even-minded, concentrated. As stated in the fourth verse of the scripture, "To be even minded is to be concentrated." To be serene, meaning: whatever you are doing, do it with full attention. Don't think about other things. Don't get distracted.

With concentration we learn to focus on one object of focus for our practice in order to experience Dhyana, meaning meditation. Dharana is concentration. Dhyana is actual meditation. We state that meditation is not a practice. It is a state of being in which you receive knowledge.

So that experience I mentioned to you where I was talking to my Divine Mother, that was a form of meditation, but in the astral plane where I was receiving knowledge from my Inner Goddess, in that moment I understood, comprehended something profound about my dilemma. That is Samadhi, the next step. The eighth and final step which is comprehension, understanding. Samadhi is when you comprehend something profoundly without the influence of the mind, of the intellect, of the ego.

So notice that the Bhagavad-Gita teaches these steps of yoga in its verses.

If you wish to know and worship the Divine through prayer, one must be steadfast and with discipline, fix one's mind on that presence, which is not a physical entity, but force, a state of consciousness, a way of being. And, by learning to meditate or being concentrated all day, when you sit to practice, your mind is easily focused on one thing. You don't get distracted. You don't think about other things. You don't get lost in daydreams or worries. Because people who sit to practice for ten minutes and who are distracted all day, they don't get anywhere. But if you are concentrated on what you are doing at all moments of life, your life becomes your religion, your discipline, your practice.

So notice that we have the two armies presented before Krishna and Arjuna. It is obviously a very difficult thing to know in oneself to confront; that we have many egos and defects that need to be comprehended and eliminated. So in the path of conscious judgment, we talked extensively about comprehension. How to comprehend the mind, how to comprehend the ego.

Prayer and Self-Remembrance

The next step is learning to pray. To receive help from a superior force, from our Inner Goddess to aid us in those moments of great crisis and battle, when moment by moment, we are learning to face certain challenges and ordeals—certain situations that provoke elements that we never even suspected that we had, and by learning to be observant, we catch them.

We catch those defects in action. That is discovery, and when we learn to meditate on out faults, we learn to judge them. By comprehending them, we pray to our Divine Mother to eliminate.

We will be talking about this process towards the end of this lecture, but of course this produces a great struggle in oneself. Trying to comprehend the mind produces great suffering, because we recognize morally that we are responsible for all of our sufferings and faults, which are very overwhelming to face in the beginning especially. Which is why the Bhagavad-Gita states,

5. “Greater is their trouble whose minds are set on the Unmanifested; for the goal—the Unmanifested (the divine)—is very difficult for the embodied to reach. 6. But to those who worship Me (who are mindful, who are awake moment by moment), renouncing all actions in Me, regarding Me as the supreme goal, meditating on me with single-minded yoga (concentration), 7. To those whose minds are set on Me O Arjuna, verily I become ere long the savior out of the ocean of the mortal Samsara!” ―Bhagavad-Gita, The Yoga of Devotion

So what does it mean to renounce all actions “in Me,” in the divine? This is known as self-remembrance in our tradition—to remember the presence of your Inner God in those moments, particularly in which one is being challenged, confronted, criticized, lied about, gossiped, even attacked. You renounce all actions in the divine when you don't act egotistically, but remember the light of your presence, your Inner God, who comes to you like a light, an insight, an understanding in your mind and your heart. You learn to act on that impulse when it arrives spontaneously, intuitively.

"Fix thy mind on Me only, thy intellect in Me…” ―Bhagavad-Gita, The Yoga of Devotion

The word intellect in Sanskrit is Buddhi, which is a representation of the consciousness. When we think of intellect, we typically think of thought, so this is a bad translation. The original is Buddhi, which we are going to talk about in the next slide. Buddhi is the Divine Consciousness, Geburah (Deborah), judgment.

8. “Fix thy mind on Me only, thy intellect in Me, (then) thou shalt no doubt live in Me alone hereafter. 9. If thou art unable to fix thy mind steadily on Me, then by the Yoga of constant practice do thou seek to reach Me, O Arjuna!” ―Bhagavad-Gita, The Yoga of Devotion

Meaning: if your mind is still wandering and you are not able to concentrate, train yourself daily with simple practices. Take a candle or take an object to focus, like on a lit flame, and observe it. And as you are observing, observe your mind. Observe what you are observing, but also be aware of how you are seeing or perceiving. If your mind starts thinking about other things, just gently bring your attention back to the candle, and that will train you how to cease being distracted moment by moment. That can help empower your consciousness. That is part of some preliminary exercises one engages with when one prepares for meditation itself.

So by the yoga of constant practice, one can reach the divine, because consistency is key.

The Stages of Meditation and Prayer in the Tree of Life

We were talking about the Kabbalistic tree of life in our previous lectures. This image known in the Book of Genesis as the Tree of Life, is a symbol, a map of consciousness. These are different levels of perception, of matter and energy, and we have been talking extensively about these different degrees or sephiroth, modalities of being, in order to understand how to meditate.

In our practice we talked about the body known as Malkuth in Hebrew, represented as the “kingdom.” This is where we are. But, of course, above that are higher levels or modalities of energy and perception, which are not vertically situated in space, but instead, represent levels of being, ways of consciousness, ways of perceiving.

We have Yesod, relating to our vital energies, our creative energies, our sexual energy itself, which can give life to spiritual life, or even to a physical child, depending on how we use that energy, which is very well known in Buddhism as Tantra, and Hinduism as well.

We have the emotional sphere relating to Hod, meaning “splendor.” This is the emotions or astral body, the world of dreams. Yesod means “Foundation”—the foundation of our spiritual temple, because how we use our creative energy determines our spiritual life—energy that we activate through exercises like pranayama and mantra, which helps to settle the heart as well, Hod, the emotions.

To the right we have Netzach, meaning “victory,” the mind. When you conquer the mind, you become a Buddha, a victorious one, a master.

Above that though we have a more rarefied form of energy and perception known as Tiphereth, which means “beauty.” This is willpower. Willpower is simply the ability to act, but for most of us this will is conditioned to thought (Netzach), to emotions (Hod), to energy or sensations in the body, related with Yesod and Malkuth. Our will, which is at the very center of this glyph, is the very focal point of all action in our very being, so this is an image of who we are psychologically.

And the very center we have willpower, because it is through will is how we can access the higher levels of being or we can condition ourselves further. So when you learn to concentrate, you are using your will. To control thought, feeling, impulse, and the body. Notice that when we practice meditation or when we prepare ourselves, we relax the body. We also relax out energies. We have to relax our heart, relax our mind, and then we concentrate on one thing. So we have the five lower sephiroth represented in our discipline.

If we want to access the higher levels of being, we have to use our willpower, and willpower is concentration. Are you able to focus on one thing without thinking, or feeling, or being distracted by the body? Because when your mind is still, your emotions are calm, your energies are balanced—willpower becomes empowered. It allows you to experience the higher sephiroth known as Geburah, “Justice,” of which we spoke extensively in our previous lecture. This is Buddhi in Sanskrit, the divine consciousness.

To the right we have Chesed, meaning “Mercy,” our Inner God, our spirit, which in Hebrew is אל El, the Being.

Above that we have the trinity of Christianity: Kether, Chokmah, Binah (Crown, Wisdom, Intelligence), which is the highest form of energy in the cosmos, represented by the trinity among the Christians, as Osiris, Isis, and Horus among the Egyptians. Wotan, Baldor, Thor among the Nordics. You have Dharmakaya, Sambhogakaya, and Nirmanakaya in Buddhism.

Our Divine Mother is the feminine aspect of Binah, intelligence. She is Shakti, the wife of Shiva, the Holy Spirit, which is a force, not a person.

That energy is within our body. We have the energies of the Father in the brain, Kether. We have the energies of Christ, the son, Horus, in the heart. We have the power of the Holy Spirit in sex, the sexual organs. So that power which can give life to a child, if it's used well and harnessed, can give birth to the soul.

Those are very rarefied levels of consciousness, which we can access in meditation if we are concentrated, because if our will is not empowered, is not guided by the spirit and by our consciousness, if we are distracted by our thoughts, and our feelings, and our sensations, we can pray all we want, but we are not going to get the answers we want, because the mind has to be calm, the body has to be calm. The lower sephiroth have to be in control, to be still.

We have a quote from Hamlet, in which Claudius is confessing his crime to himself for having murdered his brother, which is a symbol of masonry and many other traditions of the death of the divine potential within us. Claudius is a representation of the ego, and he said something very profound in relation to this lecture that's relevant to state.

"My word fly up to heaven, my thoughts remain below. Words without thoughts never to Heaven go." ―Hamlet, 3.3.100-103)

So Shakespeare was an esotericist, a meditator. Your words can fly up to heaven. You can be asking and asking for insight, but if your concentration is down in your body, if you are moving your body, being irritated, if you are identified with thought or feeling, it means that those words will never reach the divine. Words without thoughts, without concentration, never reach the destination. Or better said, we never get the insights we want, because the mind is in chaos.

This is why Prophet Muhammad stated that “An hour of contemplation is better than a year of prayer.” Meaning, an hour of meditation, of experiencing your Inner God is better than going to mosque for a year and praying salat five times a day mechanically.

So people can do that if they like, but if it's mechanical, it doesn't serve any purpose, which brings into mind a saying by a Sufi master by the name of Bayazid Bastami, who talked about the real esoteric meaning of prayer. Muslims, when they pray, they pray towards the east, towards the Kaaba, which in alchemical or Kabbalistic teachings relate to the stone of the Freemasons. That stone, the Kaaba, is a symbol of the energies of Yesod, the foundations of our spiritual temple.

Notice that this sphere is at the very base of the whole Tree of Life and is at the very bottom. It is the foundation. How we use this energy, the creative energies of our body, determines our spiritual life.

People in the Muslim tradition have lost the meaning of this significance. They pray towards the stone in the Middle East but ignore that they have the stone in their own body. They don't use their energies consciously. You can pray all you want to the the East, towards Mecca, but the Sufi Master by Bayazid Bastami pointed out something very beautiful. He said:

“When you are separate from the Kaaba (Yesod), it is all right to turn toward it. But those who are in it can turn towards any direction that they wish." —Bayazid Bastami

Meaning, if you are actively using your energies wisely, you can access the whole Tree of Life. You go to any direction, because notice that there are ten spheres, ten sephiroth. These are the ten directions of Buddhism mentioned by the tantric scriptures. Ten modalities of energy. So if you learn to use that energy in yourself, you don't need to pray towards a stone. You can if it brings you reverence, but if you pray, be conscious of what you do, because those who don't learn to work with that energy can access the higher aspects of the Tree of Life, the consciousness.

The Path of Balance

So one must be even balanced in order to perform Raja Yoga, as well as Bhakti Yoga. As we have been stating, one must learn to calm the mind and to learn to be compassionate in all circumstances.

13. He who hates no creature, who is friendly and compassionate to all, who is free from attachment and egoism, balanced in pleasure and pain, and forgiving, 14. Ever content, steady in meditation, possessed of firm conviction (from having internal experiences), self controlled, with mind and intellect (Buddhi) dedicated to Me, he, My devotee, is dear to Me. 15. He by whom the world is not agitated and who cannot be agitated by the world, and who is freed from joy, envy, (or better said, egotistical joy, evil pleasures), fear and anxiety—He is dear to me. —Bhagavad-Gita, The Yoga of Devotion

So to not be agitated by the world, neither to agitate the world. Like the Christian saying, “Be in the world, but not of it.” Interact with others like as the Buddhist teach: a butterfly going from flower to flower, extracting the pollen, the knowledge, the insight one needs, transforming those situations, and leaving without harming the flower itself, the petals.

16. “He who is free from wants (who is not constantly occupied with one's bills or trying to sustain oneself in this life), pure, expert, unconcerned, and untroubled (meaning: an expert in meditation unconcerned as is stated in the Gospels)…” ―Bhagavad-Gita, The Yoga of Devotion

See the lilies of the field and the birds of the sky, how they toil not nor spin. Why worry about what raiment you shall have for yourself? What money, what sustenance, because your inner dvinity knows you need these things, so therefore have faith in your Inner God to give you what you need so long as we do our part.

16. “He who is free from wants, pure, expert (in meditation), unconcerned, and untroubled, renouncing all undertakings or commencements (meaning: to not act egotistically in any circumstance), he who is (thus) devoted to Me, is dear to Me.” ―Bhagavad-Gita, The Yoga of Devotion

And this has to do with the path of balance, not being identified, even with those qualities we think are good, psychologically speaking. We have many bad egos as we have been talking about. There are also many good egos, senses of self that know how to do good, like to give money, or to the be a member of some Church or Mosque or Masjid, or whatnot. But even the ego, the sense of self that thinks it does good, is subjective. Consciousness is something much more transcendental or profound.

17. “He who neither rejoices, nor hates, nor grieves, nor desires, renouncing good and evil (as philosophical concepts, but learning to act in the present moment consciously), and who is full of devotion, is dear to me. 18. He who is the same to foe and friend, and in honor and dishonor, who is the same as in cold and heat, and in pleasure and pain, who is free from attachment (identification, desire), 19. He to whom censure and praise are equal, who is silent (in the mind), content with anything, (even) homeless (meaning: not identified with having a house or a home but being not attached to the world even if one has a house or not), of a steady mind and full of devotion, that man is dear to Me (that meditator is dear to Me). 20. They verily who follow this immortal Dharma, (this doctrine or law), as described above, endowed with faith (conscious experience), regarding Me as their supreme goal, they, the devotees, are exceedingly dear to Me.” ―Bhagavad-Gita, The Yoga of Devotion

The Three Factors for Spiritual Revolution

Let us talk about the teachings of the Divine Mother we have been discussing. We have what is called three factors in order to achieve success in meditation and the spiritual path itself.

We have the path of birth. The path of death. The path of sacrifice.

Birth relates to chastity, which does not mean sexual abstention, but by learning to harness the energies of sexuality, the body, Yesod, the vital forces, one learns to take that energy and to empower one's meditation, because that energy which can create a child, if we conserve that force and transform it, it can awaken the soul in its full capacity.

We also have what is called the death of desire, sanctity, which is what we have been discussing in the path of judgment. To comprehend the sources of the ego, our defects, and to eliminate them, to annihilate them—so that by breaking those shells, we free consciousness like the genie from Aladdin's lamp—so that the soul can perform miracles, experiences, knowledge, powers in ourselves.

Sacrifice, to have charity. It doesn’t mean to just give money to the poor or what not—it can involve that. But you also sacrifice for others when you learn to perform your job with consciousness, with love, so that we don't harm others. These three factors we will be talking more in depth in future courses, but these three we find are synonymous, different aspects of one thing. If you want to awaken consciousness, we have to learn to use energy, to give birth to the soul. We have to learn to comprehend the sources of the ego, to die in those defects, and learn to serve others.

The Stages of Comprehension

So the stages of comprehension, which are fed by those three factors, involve the following. We discussed in our previous lecture the light of consciousness, the path of discovery, and in the path of conscious judgment, we talked about the second step, judgment. In this lecture. we are talking about execution, prayer.

So we have in this image the Divine Mother slaying a demon. She is the power of the Kundalini that can eliminate our conditions of mind, our defects, our egos, which she does through the creative energies of sexuality, harnessed within a matrimony or between man and woman, who can learn to use those energies as a couple to transform the mind.

So we find many interesting symbols in her hands, and the fact that she has multiple hands represented by Durga riding a lion, represents her ability, her omniscience, to act in all circumstances of life without conditions. To act in multiple ways.

With discovery, we find our defects—we observe ourselves moment by moment. We save energy. We serve others. We comprehend our faults in meditation through judgment and after we have comprehended our defects, we learn to execute them, or better said, the Divine Mother, the divine feminine, executes them through prayer.

We have been discussing how prayer is to speak with divinity, with the divine, face to face. The Divine Mother is the root energy at the base of our spine, but also in our heart. She is the energy that can liberate the soul. So we work with her daily in our gnostic studies in order to remove the obscurations of the mind, to comprehend ourselves, but also to invoke that divine power—to destroy the shells of the ego.

So again, we see Her riding a lion, which is very symbolic. That lion is a symbol of the lion of Judah among the Christians. Judea or י Yod, ה Hei, ו Vav, ד Daleth, ה Hei, which has the four sacred letters of the name of God: י Yod ה Hei ו Vav ה Hei, יהוה Jehovah. As we talked about in our previous lectures, יה Ya or י Yod ה Hei is the Father. ה Hei or הוה Havah is Eve, the divine feminine. Male-female. Man-woman. Because we have a Divine Father above and a Divine Mother above within our consciousness.

So יהוה Yod-Havah, Jehovah, is the power of male-female. And הוה Havah, or Adam-Eve we can say, and יהוה Ya-Havah is precisely the power of the divine feminine. הוה Havah, hidden within Durga, who is the power that can slay any ego, any defect, where we learn to pray to Her consciously.

Samael Aun Weor stated in Treatise of Revolutionary Psychology:

“Prayer in the psychological work is fundamental for the dissolution of the “I” (the ego, the myself). We need a power superior to the mind if indeed we want to disintegrate this or that “I” (whether it be pride, an ego of vanity, of fear, of lust).

“The mind by itself can never disintegrate any “I”; this is indisputable and irrefutable.

“To pray is to talk with God. We must appeal to God the Mother in the depths of our heart if we truly want to disintegrate “I’s” (egos, selves, conditions of mind). The one who does not love his or her Mother, the ungrateful child, will fail in the work upon himself.” —Samael Aun Weor, Treatise of Revolutionary Psychology

Meaning: those who forget after they have begun working on their mind, to continue working with Her.
So again, that experience comes to my mind where She told me, "Where are you? I can't find you on this radar." So, one must not forget one's Divine Mother when you begin this work. She is the power that can liberate the consciousness from the ego, the self.

She is the Virgin Mary, Miriam. As I said, the word מרים Miriam means “to raise,” and what else is the power that can raise us to the heights of the heavens except the Kundalini in the spine? She is the power of מרים Miriam, or מים Mayim, which in Hebrew means water. You have מ ם Mem repeated twice. The letter מ ם M in Hebrew and the letter ר R. Miriam. You have the word מים Mayim, which means “water” and the letter ראש Rosh means “head.” So those waters of the creative energy are in the base of your spine, in your sexual organs, which if you raise through certain practices up the spine to the mind, you can illuminate the intellect, produce the halo of the saints. She is the power that can raise us from suffering up the line of being.

Practical Advice for Psychological Work

Samael Aun Weor provides some advice about this:

"Make yourselves introversive. Direct your prayer within, seeking within your interior your Divine Lady. Thus with sincere supplications you shall be able to talk to Her. Beg Her to disintegrate the "I" that you have previously observed and judged. Comprehension and the discernment are fundamental." —Samael Aun Weor, Treatise of Revolutionary Psychology

Meaning: you have to see your egos in action. See what arose in your mind, in your heart, in your body at a certain instance of the day. Be specific. Be understanding of what defect you saw in action in each moment of your day. To discern is precisely the capacity to see, to discriminate, to understand.

“Nonetheless, something more is necessary if indeed what we want is to disintegrate the “myself” (the ego, the I).

“The mind can give onto itself the luxury of labeling any defect, passing it from one department to the other, exhibiting it, hiding it, etc. However, the mind can never fundamentally alter the defect.

“A special power superior to the mind is necessary, a fiery power that is capable of reducing any defect to ashes.

“Stella Maris, our Divine Mother, has that power. She is able to pulverize any psychological defect.” —Samael Aun Weor, Treatise of Revolutionary Psychology

Stella Maris is Virgin of the Sea, the waters. Those waters are precisely your energies in your body and those waters, if we learn to control them through breathing exercises, mantras, circulate those forces up the spine, they help to awaken faculties of the consciousness in their full potential.

She is the power that can liberate the soul, and she is also represented in the Tarot. We have been giving a course on the twenty-two arcana of the tarot and in the eleventh arcanum, which will be our next lecture, we find a virgin holding open the jaws of a lion.

It is interesting that in these images of the tarot, we find many symbols that relate to every religion. Notice that Durga rides upon a lion because that lion is the energy of Christ, Jehovah, whom we work with and dominate through the power of the divine feminine. So that lion, instead of attacking her, is pleasant, is tranquil. She opens the jaws of the lion, meaning, She controls those forces completely in us when we learn to meditate.

The transcendental axiom or statement of this arcanum, this law, this teaching, because the word arcanum means “law,” is the following:

“Joyful in hope, suffering and tribulation, be thou constant in thy prayer.”

So, as you are working and self-observation of your defects, learn to pray to your Inner Goddess. Ask for help, for insight. Ask her to help you control the jaws of the lion, which is your energies, because sometimes we have energy that wants to act in ways that we can't control, and we have to appeal to her deeply, to guide us. We won't talk about this arcanum in depth today, because we are giving whole course on this and this will be our next lecture.

Ways to Develop Devotion

Some ways that you can learn to develop Bhakti Yoga in yourself are through the following ways stipulated by Swami Sivananda in his book Easy Steps to Yoga.

Sravana

We have Sravana, hearing the Lila of God. To hear the Lila of God means you develop devotion by hearing the teachings, by reading scripture and understanding its meaning.

How does it apply to your life practically? You can read any scripture that you have an affinity for and meditate on its meaning. How does it apply to certain circumstances in your life? Otherwise, it's just theory. You may read the Bhagavad-Gita, the Qur’an, the Old Testament; find scriptures that are explained that are meaningful to you. That is a form of devotion. We read scriptures that inspire us, that teach something profound about ourselves.

Kirtana

We have Kirtana, singing His praise. Kirtan is very common in schools of yoga where they have small concerts and they play many traditional Hindu songs, but there are many other forms of singing, of prayer, like amongst the Christians you have Cistercian monks and even classical music, we have choral pieces, which are very divine, very profound, that one can learn to be a part of, that inspires you.

Smarana

Smarana, remembering His name. This typically has to do with reciting a mantra. So, you can relate to remember your inner divinity by reciting a prayer or mantra, moment-by-moment, mentally. You know RAM-IO, you can pronounce mentally in your mind and in your mind recite japa, prayer. Repeat that mantra, whatever mantra you resonate with, that gives you power in your consciousness.

Padasevana

Padasevana, worshiping his lotus feet. It literally means “service to the feet.” This has many beautiful meanings that are explained in the Judeo-Christian Bible by Jesus anointing the feet of his disciples before his passion. To wash one's feet with ointment, with oil, is a symbol. It is very profound. To have dreams of washing one's feet, which are filled with mud, with pure water, is a symbol of removing the impurities in the mind, because how you walk in your daily life is how you walk spiritually. You can't separate the two.

Most people think that life in the mosque and life at work are separate. They don't see the connection. But the truth is that your work is your religion. How you behave psychologically is your is your mysticism, your path. To wash the feet in waters of purity is a very beautiful Christian symbol related to baptism and transmutation, as we have been explaining in our courses, which you can find available explanations on our website. By worshiping His lotus feet is to purify the mind because when you purify your mind and your body by working with energy, you develop devotion. The heart becomes inflamed, inspired.

Archana

Archana is offerings. This is very well traditionally-understood as providing flowers or some kind of holy relics upon an altar, but a real offering is when you as a consciousness decide to restrain from certain habits, which are negative. Certain defects that you observed. You make an offering to the your Divine Being and say "I will renounce this ego that I have in me and offer my self with sacrifice." To receive those benefits. Then of course divinity always responds because when you work on the ego, you develop light. You illuminate the darkness; you develop light.

Vandana

Vandana, prostration, can mean many forms of prayer, not only in Hinduism but also Buddhism and Islam. To prostrate is to surrender oneself, psychologically-speaking. In so many traditions, they involve prayers and prostrations, which we do too in this tradition, as well certain prayers we do on our knees or certain exercises we do on our knees as a form of reverence for the divine.

Dasya

Dasya is service, as we have explained in great detail today, related to Karma Yoga. What are ways that you can help other human beings to benefit? It doesn't mean by having to give this type of knowledge, but instead refers to how we possess certain skills that can benefit other people. We have qualities that are intrinsic to our dispositions and which we have to offer. So, we have to find what it is that we are good at and that we can really give to others to be of benefit. When we do it with love, we are performing service, yoga, union, karma, Karma Yoga; therefore, we receive certain benefits, blessings from divinity, because in order to receive help, we have to give help according to our level.

Sakya

Sakya is friendship, and has to do with associating with people who are like-minded. Meaning, people who are more elevated or spiritual, because obviously, sometimes we may be associated with certain people who are drunkards, drug addicts, and like attracts like, so to speak. If you want to be around better vibrations, you make friends with or associate with people who help inspire your spirituality. It is always good. That way when you are very confident about your level of being, you can help those who are less fortunate.

Atmanivedana

Lastly Atmanivedana, complete self-surrender, which has to do with when you recognize your ego and you don't give it what it wants. You surrender your consciousness to your Inner God. It is a psychological state of being to surrender one's mind, one's heart, one's body for one's divinity.

Conclusion

We are going to conclude this lecture with the following quote where Swami Sivananda states:

“Study the Gita, Ramayana, and Bhagavata. Have Satsanga. Visit holy places (Teertha-Yatra). Do Japa. Meditate. Sing His Name. You can develop Bhakti and have his Darsana (yogic discipline, such as Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, by following these steps).” —Swami Sivananda, Easy Steps to Yoga

Questions and Answers

Question: Is there any technique that can help with negative emotions?

Instructor: With negative emotions, especially, you could step aside for a minute or five minutes to have a break. Sit, relax, breathe. Inhale for six seconds, hold your breath for six seconds, exhale for six seconds. Then when your mind is calm, if you have even more time, do pranayama. Do transmutation of your energies by working with the breath and circulating that force, because that energy will help calm you, especially when you get overwhelmed by certain egos or defects and you feel like you are going to lose control. Like if you are very upset with someone or someone challenges you or does something very negative, it can be very difficult for transform that, so instead in order to avoid exacerbating the situation, step back for five minutes. Take a break, real quick if you can, somewhere isolated. Just breathe. Focus on your breath.

Question: It's something I never really noticed before until I started retrospecting.

Instructor: And most people, they had no idea because people who don't self-observe are not going to discover that. But now that you are seeing it, now you seeing, “This is my daily state” as we talked about in the lecture on the “Light of Consciousness.” You must look within to develop light. But of course, when you develop that light, the darkness wants to swallow that light. So it becomes a very painful circumstance.

Ways that you can deal with it is to transmute more when you get home. Work with your energies, and pranayama is an is an exercise in which you take the energies of your body and circulate them, such as breathing exercises or mantras. You transform the substance of your bodily energies into energy or force and that will help calm you.

Personally if I am at work and I am dealing with, you know, as I mentioned previously, had some very difficult clients that I work with. So, what I do is if I have been overwhelmed at times, at my break, I'll do a mantra in my mind, not aloud. I will be doing other things in my office or my room and I would be doing a mantra, such as: Klim Krishnaya Govindaya Gobijana Vallabhaya Swaha.

That mantra we have on the website gnosticteachings.org. You can look under the videos of how to pronounce that. It is a mantra in order to invoke Christ, to remove and reject negativity. Not only just from outside, but from within. So, I found that if I am getting angry, if I was getting angry at certain people, I had to step back and during my break, do this mantra. Totally changes everything.

Question: Where is it located?

Instructor: It is in The Perfect Matrimony and the chapter about the Gnostic Pentagram. It's very powerful. You are invoking Klim, Christ. Krishnaya, the Lord Krishna. Govindaya which Govinda relates to “cowherd,” I believe. The shepherd, or the one who leads the souls of the cows to light. Symbol of certain disciples, like sheep in the Bible, where they are led to light. That light enters into you and you can form the pentagram, which is a five-pointed star. When it is upright, it rejects negative forces. And not only just to reject people outside of you who are negative, but more importantly mentally, your internal states.

Question: What is the meaning behind Ham-Sah?

Instructor: Ham-Sah is a mantra for transmutation. Another exercise of working with the sexual energy, which when you conserve it, you sit in a comfortable place, you imagine your spinal column. We have the famous caduceus of mercury amongst the symbol of medicine, which represents how certain channels of energy rise from the testicles for men or the ovaries for women, up the spine in the form of two snakes, until reaching the head. In the middle you find two wings that open up. It's a symbol of how by working with energy and circulating it, you develop the wings of spirituality and with Ham Sah, you first close your eyes and pray to your Divine Mother. "My Goddess, help me to work with this energy in me because you are that energy. Help me to awaken you within my spine and to calm my mind. Circulate these forces in me!" And then you breathe and inhale through your nostrils, imagine the energy is rising like light up those two energetic channels at the spine, which are called in Hinduism by the name of Ida and Pingala. Masculine and feminine energy. Or in Taoism: Yin and Yang. Or in Hebrew Od and Obd. Adam and Eve. Male and female. A symbol of those forces.

When you are inhaling, you imagine these energies rising up the spine to your brain. you pronounce mentally the mantra. "Haaaaaaaaammmmmmm…" You don't verbalize it. You make it mental, and you prolong the inhalation, Ham, [pronounced as with an “Ah” sound] in order to send the energies from your sexual organs to your brain.

That Ham saturates the mind and fills the chalice of the brain and then as you are about to exhale, imagine that energy descending to the third eye through nadis or energetic channels in the face, down into the heart. Then you pronounce externally the mantra "Ssssaah!"

“Ham” is prolonged. We say it is solar, creative. That energy rises, is retained, prolonged because you want to force the energies to circulate up to the mind, or send it in that direction. So, you prolong Ham more profoundly. Samael Aun Weor states you send that energy to the heart with a very relaxed way, “Ssssaah!”

There's nothing to prolong there. I have heard some people pronounce “Sah” very prolonged, but personally, I don't see that in the instructions. Instead “Sah” should be very short and relaxed. “Ham” should be more prolonged because you are teaching your body to circulate those energies inward and upward to the spine, rather than expelling them outward as you know—because for most people that energy is not controlled. It goes out. People don't know how to conserve that energy.

But remember that She is Miriam. She is the waters of your sexuality, which when you conserve, she rises up your spine to your head. ראש Rosh. מרים Miriam. מ Mem means water in Hebrew. מ Mem is the waters in your brain and also ם (Final) Mem is the waters of your sexual organs [since there are two forms of Mem in Hebrew, opening מ Mem and ם Mem Sophit, or final Mem]. You connect the two by working with mantra.

Ham-Sah is one way you can do that. To work with Her. That is a very profound form of prayer, when you work with that energy daily, because that way She will really give you a lot of strength and insight. Because without energy we have no light. Without fire there is no light.

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Conscious Judgment

6/4/2018

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Meditation is the science of knowing oneself completely. It is the method by which we learn to comprehend and to judge ourselves.

Psychologically, as we've been explaining throughout this course, we carry many elements, conditions, many psychological qualities, which trap our potential, our consciousness.

As we've explained, the consciousness is simply the capacity to perceive, to know, to understand, and to comprehend. It is a psychological sense of seeing without the need to think, without the need to identify with negative emotion, neither any impulses of our most subconscious, unconscious, and even infraconscious nature—elements that reside within the most profound depths of our psyche, in which religions and different cosmogonies have called hell—which is not just a literal place. It is a symbol, and more importantly for us, it is of a psychological way of being, because whenever we are filled with affliction and suffering, we are in hell.

Hell is not a place, specifically in terms of what should really concern us. Instead, what we are psychologically determines where we vibrate within the laws of nature, simply, by cause and effect.

Certain actions produce suffering. Certain actions produce harmony. To be able to distinguish within ourselves psychological states that are beneficial from psychological states that are detrimental has been known in different traditions by many names. Some people have called it intuition: to know right from wrong. Not from some moral sense, but from the understanding that certain actions produce harm psychologically, produce suffering, while other actions produce the happiness and genuine contentment of our soul.

Intuition is the ability to know how to act in life—to promote actions that are beneficial and promote the happiness of others, as well as our own well-being. Some people have called this intuition by the voice of conscience. Conscience is the whisper in the heart that tells us certain behaviors produce suffering and that certain actions, whether it be at work, with our family, with our loved ones, create conflict.

Therefore, meditation is how we resolve conflict, how we silence the mind, not through force, by gagging it or by repressing it, but simply looking at it. Looking at your own mind and observing what qualities condition and shape our experience.

This is a psychological sense that typically, in humanity, is very atrophied, because people don't know how to use it. Specifically, people, when they sit in and pursue meditation as a science and as a method, very soon discover the true nature of the mind. We can sit for 10 minutes, 30 minutes, we introspect and then we realize that the body is agitated. It is impulsive. It wants to move. Likewise, the emotions may be surging with a flux of negativity, of suffering, of fear, and of panic. Likewise, the mind carries many memories which seem to surge, fluctuate, and move without any order. The mind is wild and anyone who enters meditation for the first time realizes, with great perplexity, in astonishment, that the mind that we thought we had was unitary, is really fractured.

It is fragmented, because every memory, thought, preoccupation and all these things which surge in the mind, really don't have any order. And of course, this is an overwhelming realization, that the mind is really a type of beast, that anger, the negative emotions, that conditioning of the psyche, is animalistic, and when a meditator discovers this, obviously, this is very painful—to discover the true nature of the mind, that it is conditioned within psychological states of suffering, in which all the different mythologies of the ancient traditions depicted in symbols—how the soul, the consciousness, must learn to overcome fear, hatred and pride in oneself.

It comes to memory the story of Theseus and the Minotaur. A Greek myth. How Theseus, the soul, must go into a labyrinth in order to discover at the very center what is known as the Minotaur, who is a mythological beast, half man and half bull. In truth, that is a symbol of qualities like hatred, of wrath, fear; which we as a consciousness must go into the maze to fight, to confront with serenity and with insight.

We go into the mind to discover the secret conditions which trap our energy, because if you remember in the myth, Theseus goes into the maze and this beast, half man and half bull, is still half human being, because the qualities of our consciousness, who we are in our depth, is truly trapped by animal desire. There is an essence of humanity in that element. But of course as we have been explaining in this course, egotistical qualities like hatred, pride, vanity, these are conditions that trap the energy of our psyche and make us vibrate at a very low level of being. A way of thinking and a way of acting.

Our consciousness is trapped in those conditions, in those elements, and the meditator, through the science of introspection, must learn to go into the mind and into the maze of that intellect in order to find the sources of our suffering—the cause of our suffering, of our egotism, and of our negativity.

When you sit to meditate you may find that you get distracted very easily and the mind wanders.There isn't much focus, because in the beginning we realize that the mind is a maze. It is a labyrinth. We get easily distracted. But the method by which we go into the mind and discover ourselves for who we really are, how we know what actions are positive and negative, we call in these studies: judgment,—the ability to discriminate, psychologically, what in us is good and what in us is negative.

When we learn to discriminate and judge what psychological states produce happiness or sorrow, we learn to live life with greater rectitude and with responsibility, for the happiness of others. Because when we work for the happiness of others and when we eliminate negative emotions, we radiate, naturally, purity and light for humanity, in which they, likewise, people trapped and conditioned with suffering, can learn how to change.

Some people call this faculty intuition, that is, to know what is right from wrong. Others call it conscience, the voice that says in our heart that certain qualities in the mind stream are not productive and not helpful. It is a quality that we develop in meditation through daily discipline.

Of course, one thing I will mention is that the voice of conscience has been represented in different ways. The story of Pinocchio, written by Carlos Collodi, is a story of a young puppet that wants to become a boy of flesh and blood. A human being. He has a helper by the name of Jiminy Cricket, who is a small figure that sits on his shoulder and tells him, “This is good and this is bad. Don't do this. Don't do that.” Not out of some dogmatic authoritarian sense that one should obey some commandment, some or some ordainment, or some type of law that is man-made.

In the story, Jiminy Cricket tends to be ignored and in the story Pinocchio gets into problems, but he genuinely yearns to become a human being. Of course in these studies, we emphasize that a true human being, a master of meditation, an angel, has no egotism and no defect, but rather is pure, someone who, like us, that had learned meditation and learned to go against the Minotaur, to comprehend it, and to understand it; and by the grace of the divine within him, to eliminate, so that condition is broken and the consciousness is freed, is pure and united with divinity.

Many myths teach this process of meditation in allegorical form, but here we've only mentioned a few from the Greek tradition, as well as the Italian literature for children. What is masked as a children's story is really something more profound.

In this lecture, we will talk about some symbols and some very well-known stories, particularly from the Judeo-Christian Bible, which if read literally, does not detail much except some kind of history, and which is not the point. The language of the Bible and many other teachings is symbolic and allegorical. It is not meant to be read literally, as you'll see from this lecture. We will look at a scripture known as the Book of Judges and talk about its meditative symbolism and also the path of meditation that leads through the maze of the mind and towards understanding, serenity.

The Path of Meditation

As we have been indicating:

“Internal meditation is a scientific system to receive information.

“When the wise submerges into meditation he searches for information.

“Meditation is the daily bread of the wise.” —Samael Aun Weor, Kundalini Yoga

What information do we seek? What we seek or what any genuine practitioner of meditation seeks in him or herself is to understand the causes of suffering. To understand why we are in pain, why we are afflicted, why we are so filled with grief and seemingly no control over the fate of ourselves and humanity.

The information we seek is how psychological conditions trap the energy of our soul, so that by comprehending them and seeing them in action, we learn to eliminate them. We learn to break those shells. This is the path of self-knowledge. A path of knowing who we really are, and of course, this takes great courage, to confront oneself, but to really take responsibility for our actions, psychologically, as symbolized in the many myths.

Of course meditation is a science and it is really effective when it is daily, for meditation to be effective, we have to learn to be consistent. Daily meditation unfolds like a flower, like a rose; something spontaneous, something natural, which really only helps us when we see the fruits and results of that discipline in ourselves and in our daily life.

Meditation is how we learn to not only confront ourselves and the negativities of the mind, but better said, to comprehend the beauty of the soul, the beauty of the consciousness, which when it is free of conditions, produces happiness, contentment, genuine faith, and knowledge of the divine—a type of love that is so profound that it overcomes all obstacles, overcomes all sufferings, and overcomes all ordeals. But of course, that sense of knowledge of oneself only develops when we sincerely adopt a daily discipline with this type of exercises, some of which we initiated this lecture, with a mantra, OM.

The mantra OM is an effective mantra for providing the soul with energy and with light, so that the consciousness learns to develop or to vibrate with a high level of energy. This helps to silence the mind and to be serene, because in the moments of serenity, of peace, we learn to see ourselves as we are and not as we think, or as we believe, but in actuality.

Knowledge and Being

One thing we emphasize in this teaching is the difference between knowledge and comprehension.
“Knowledge is of the mind. Comprehension is of the heart. ―Samael Aun Weor

This is from Treatise of Revolutionary Psychology by the founder of the modern Gnostic tradition, Samael Aun Weor. Why study knowledge and comprehension when we study meditation? We will seek to know ourselves and to learn to confront the conditioning of the mind.

This is because typically, people confuse knowledge, that is from the intellect, with experience. When you comprehend in yourself how certain actions produce harm and produce pain, we realize with great understanding that to perpetuate those habits and those behaviors will only lead one down a mistaken path. However, many people may know certain knowledge intellectually, in the mind, with reasoning, and yet, that intellectual knowledge will not produce change in a fundamental sense.

An alcoholic knows that alcohol is destructive for him or her, but yet continues to indulge in those behaviors. But somebody who comprehends that being alcoholic, to consume that element and to perpetuate that habit, is to be destroyed. To comprehend means to know with your full being and with your full presence, what is helpful and what is not helpful for oneself, for one's psychological well-being.

There are many people who read books on meditation and they have a lot of knowledge intellectually, but yet fail to have a sense of genuine contentment, of peace, of serenity, and of insight.

Comprehension is when you see in yourself how something is destructive. It is a psychological state, a way of being, a way of perceiving, and a way of thinking. When you comprehend that certain emotions are destructive, you realize with great astonishment and peace that you do not need to invest your energy in those elements which produce pain, not only for ourselves, but for others. You see with great gratitude and serenity that you do not need to suffer anymore because you realize how having created what we call ego or egotism, this negative sense of self, this sense of "I,” of me, of “who I am, what I want, what I crave, what I desire”; when we stop feeding that negative sense of self, we realize that we don't have to engage with suffering. We don't need to be in pain. It is not necessary.

Meditation leads us to this understanding. When we realize that by acquiring serenity of mind and no longer giving our energies to negative habits, which produce certain conflicts, we naturally arrive in the intrinsic nature or state of the soul, which is peace.

The mind settles like a lake. When the mind is serene, it can reflect through its waters the images of the heavens and the stars. Divinity can manifest and express through you, and through your heart.

When you learn to follow your intuition, about the sense of right and wrong, of certain habits that are negative, we then learn to feed the consciousness. We learn to free ourselves from conditions.

Intellectual knowledge doesn't change anyone. University, books, and lectures, do not produce any change if we don't learn to apply the techniques of meditation in our daily life—to acquire information about ourselves and to be willing to look in oneself and see, comprehend, and take responsibility for our own actions. Not to blame anyone else for our suffering.

There is no one else who created our anger. We created that element. We like to externalize, to blame others, and to judge others, but rarely do we like to judge ourselves. This is the difference between someone who really learns to meditate and somebody who follows some religion, some institution, or some politics. Someone wanting to blame the government, society, a way of thinking, a way of believing, when really the reason why there is so much conflict is because people don't know how to judge themselves. Conscience. To feed the conscience of how we are responsible for our own actions, how we have to take ownership of our own mind, our own psychological states, and to be willing to change them.

Contemplation

We study many religions in this tradition because we recognize the universality of meditation among many faiths. We study the essence of every religion. Not the institution, but the practices which produce change.

There is a saying from the oral tradition of Islam from Prophet Muhammad, who gave a very beautiful teaching and which is grossly misunderstood today, he stated, "An hour of contemplation is better than a year of prayer."

Adopting a posture or certain prayers and methods in a mechanical sense don't change anybody and doesn’t change anything. People go to mosques, to churches, to synagogues, and they continue to suffer. These people need to analyze and to be willing to reflect. What are we doing? What are our methods?

In this tradition we have many methods to teach how to meditate, how to contemplate oneself, and to free oneself from the mind. Prayer by itself, if it's mechanical, if we just say certain words without meaning, without concentration, they will have no effect. They have no impulse, or better said, impact on our psyche. But if we learn to contemplate the presence of divinity and to follow the voice of our inner conscience, inner judgment, then we learn to change.

I have been explaining just briefly about some stories which many people read literally and don't know how to interpret with understanding, from the sense of experience or meditative science. We have been talking about judgment. We have talked about some symbols within the Greek myths as well as Pinocchio, but a book that has been greatly misunderstood for millennia are the Judeo-Christian texts. We are just going to explore a couple verses from the Book of Judges because it is a map or teaching of meditation. I will explain some of the symbolism for you to emphasize the struggle that the soul faces with its lower desires, lower defects, and negative qualities, because it is good to recognize and see if we are struggling with meditation itself, to understand that there have been others who have already went through this process. As I said, these beings are known as buddhas, masters, and prophets.

Israel, the Soul, in the Book of Judges

The Bible, in the Book of Judges, talks about how the people of Israel are afflicted great suffering. The word ישראל Israel is an acrostic relating to the Egyptian Mysteries. Isis, the goddess of the Egyptian mysteries, the divine feminine and Ra, or Osiris-Ra, the solar entity known as the Father amongst the Christians, which is an energy, a force. אל El in Hebrew means God. If you want to use the Sanskrit equivalent, you say ॐ Om. אל El is ॐ Om and אל El among the Kabbalists, the mystics of Judaism, depict the Hebrew letter אל El within the heart, because your Being, your divinity, is in your heart and can fill your whole consciousness if we learn to connect through practice.

What happened to the people of Israel in this myth is that:

“…the children of Israel again did evil in the sight of יהוה Jehovah, when Ehud was dead.” –Judges 4:1
Again, who is this Israel?

The people of Israel who need to be freed from the Egyptians and many other people who constantly afflict them, the Philistines and groups of people who are trying to eliminate them. These people (Israelites) are the parts of our consciousness, our soul, which are trapped within anger, hatred, vanity, gluttony, laziness, sloth, fear, and pain, what we call ego, egotism, and desire. These parts of Israel or the people of Israel are the soul that has been fractured and conditioned in all these elements.

We need to learn how to free the consciousness from those conditions. We do so through meditation and through the help of our inner divine being, our spirit, our God, ॐ Om or אל El. The word יהוה Jehovah or Iod-Chavah is a representation of the highest form of divinity, which we will be exploring in relation to what is known as the Tree of Life, which is a symbolic map of consciousness and that meditators study in order to understand their experiences in meditation.

“The children of Israel did evil in the sight of Jehovah,” meaning: the soul invested its energy within wrong thinking, wrong feeling, and wrong acting. This happened when “Ehud was dead,” and the names in the Bible represents something symbolic, because the Hebrew word אֵהוּד Ehud comes from the Hebrew אֶחָֽד Echad, which means “unity.” The Jews speak abundantly about the unity of God through the Shema: שְׁמַע יִשְׂרָאֵל יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵינוּ יְהוָה אֶחָֽד “Shema Yisrael Iod-Chavah Eloheinu Iod-Chavah Echad.” Or: “Hear O Israel, the Lord thy God, the Lord is One.” The reason why we are in suffering is because we are not in unity.

Examine your mind. In one moment, you may be inspired with love, but then the next moment towards the same person, we feel antagonism, hatred, then indifference, perhaps fear, resentment, and jealousy. There is no unity in the mind. The mind is constantly fluctuating. We like to assume that the sense of "I" that we worship is one. That all the thoughts, feelings, and impulses come from one's sense of self. But if you observe the mind, as we've been explaining in this course and in meditation, you see that there are different thoughts, feelings, and impulses which fluctuate. There is no order there. There is no unity there.

What we call ego is really a multiplicity: egos. Different "I’s,” myself, and desires which constantly fluctuate and take control of the mind, the heart, and the body to act.

When you learn meditation, you begin to see that this dynamic is something very real, but many have not experienced this yet. What we teach and advise is to learn to silence the mind and to look. Observe yourselves. What certain conditions do you think about, ways that you feel, and ways that you act in certain circumstances? Perhaps towards the same people, towards different people, towards strangers and observe. Examine your mind. Is there a sense of unity there or is there contradiction?

If we are honest, we see that we are walking contradictions. We are filled with afflictions, sufferings, pains, and ordeals and usually without our knowledge or understanding. This is why in the myth of Carlos Collodi (Pinocchio), he depicted us as a puppet, controlled by strings, and controlled by egos. Of course, this is a very unpleasant fact to realize in oneself, especially when you begin meditation. You see that the mind is in chaos. This is why many people run away from meditation because they realize how overwhelming the mind is and they become filled with fear. “When Ehud was dead,” when the unity of God was dead in us, that was when the soul became conditioned in suffering.

The Tree of Life: A Map of Meditation

We study this glyph in our tradition. This is known as the Kabbalah and this map has ten spheres, or what is known as ten sephiroth, which are levels of energy, matter, and consciousness, from the most rarefied and pure, divine, to the most material and dense.

This is a map that can explain our experiences in meditation and we will be explaining this graphic, with great detail, throughout our courses. Here I would like to introduce just a few concepts for you in order to understand meditation—also, the Book of Judges, because if you want to interpret what the Bible teaches, you need to know Kabbalah.

The word Kabbalah comes from the Hebrew word kabbel, which means “to receive,” to receive knowledge, not with the intellect or from a book, but from meditation. Remember the quote from the beginning of this lecture, "Meditation is a means of acquiring information." It is psychological and spiritual. When you want to understand yourself in meditation and after having certain mystical experiences, you can map your experiences based on this glyph or this dynamic.

This Tree of Life is not something literal, vertical in space, as if heavens are above your head or hell is below your feet. It refers to psychological qualities, which integrate, flow, and move within oneself in a very dynamic way. This is a map of our soul or consciousness.

Above we have what is known as the higher worlds or higher dimensions; higher levels of being, of perceiving, and of course the forces that come from the divine, from above, descend from this top trinity, to a middle trinity, and finally to what we call in Hebrew, Malkuth, which means “kingdom.” This is our physical body, our Earth. Our physical body is literally an amalgamation of forces which come from above, from the divine.

Above this physical body, of which we are all aware of, we have what is known as the vital body or vital energies, which is called Yesod in Hebrew. This is your vital energy. When you wake up in the morning and you go throughout your day, you may sense more or less vitality, an energy in yourself to act, to be, and to do. In the morning, you may have more energy. In the afternoon or in the evening you become tired. That relates to this vital force, which penetrates our physical body. Even though these spheres look like they are separate or static, they really integrate here and now in oneself.

Above our vital energies, we have what some traditions call the astral body and our emotions, which are known as Hod in Hebrew. Likewise, we have Netzach, which means “victory” and is related with our mind and our thoughts.

Notice that as we ascend this Tree of Life, we begin to sense, experience, and understand greater subtleties in our psychological constitution. The body is dense, but because our consciousness is also limited, this is typically all we sense or become aware of. But if we are more attentive, if we were observing ourselves, we sense that we have certain vital energy flowing in us from morning to evening. Likewise, with emotions and emotional states, moods, thoughts, and the mind.

In a more rarefied sense, we have what is called willpower, Tiphereth. Somebody who has a strong will, a strong urge or impulse to do certain occupations, jobs, or things, is working with Tiphereth, or willpower. But most of the time, if we examine ourselves and are honest, we tend to realize that our willpower is usually identified with our thinking, feeling, and our energies.

It is simply easy to reflect on our own experience of how most of the time, we go through our day preoccupied with certain day dreams, memories, emotional states, or vital forces that are in our inner constitution, as well as our physical body.

Above this willpower we have something more rarefied, which most people have no consciousness of.

When we sit to meditate, we may begin to sense our body as we relax it. Also our vital energies, by working with a mantra, as we worked with a mantra OM. We were working with the vital energy to saturate our heart and to send that energy circulating through our nervous system. By working with this energy known as Yesod, which is called the “foundation” of Kabbalah, we learn to ascend up this Tree of Life to higher levels of being.

This is why it is good before meditating to do a mantra and work with energy, so that the mind stabilizes. Notice that the heart and the mind become still when we work with that force. Of course, all this is only possible when we work with our willpower, Tiphereth—to have the will to sit still for a few minutes and to pronounce a mantra so that the body settles, the mind settles, and the heart settles. Likewise, the thing to remember is that willpower doesn't mean somebody who is aggressive. Real willpower is serene. Peaceful. There is no effort there.

In the beginning of meditation we struggle because the mind is in affliction. It is caught up in memories and daydreams, but when you learn to go deeper in meditation, or better said, when you develop your concentration, you realize that you require less effort to be still, and then naturally you sit with peace in one posture, and that is when the doorway to real meditation can begin.

Everything we are doing here is preliminary, but one thing I will mention about this Tree of Life in the relation to this lecture is that we have something divine within us, represented by the top five Sephiroth of this Tree of Life.

We have what is known as the consciousness, or Geburah in Hebrew, which means to “justice.” “Judgment.” This consciousness is beyond will; it is simply the ability to perceive, but that quality tends to be very conditioned in us and very limited.

Even beyond the consciousness, there is something more divine, known as Chesed, which means “mercy.” This is the Hebrew אל El. This is OM. Your Being. Your Spirit. That spirit is God. The Being is presence, understanding, and happiness without limits.

When people say that they are spiritual, what they really should say is that they have God incarnated, because to say that one is spiritual means to say that “I have the spirit within me and active.” Chesed is the spirit.

There are many confusions about what spirit is. People confuse spirit with soul. The spirit, God, is, but the soul, our willpower, is created. It has to be developed in meditation because the ability to focus our will on one thing is only developed through daily discipline.

Meditation is the daily bread of the wise, and in order to enter meditation, we have to be able to focus on one thing, such as a mantra or a sound and not get distracted. We tend to be distracted by our thinking, our emotions, and sensations of the body. If our body is moving in meditation, it means that we are not meditating.

Notice that this glyph is very profound and it's simple. It just takes a little familiarity. But even beyond this spirit, we have something even more divine, which is this top trinity. Our spirit, our Inner God, emanates from what is known as the Christian Trinity: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. These are not people, but energies or forces within us which need to be incarnated or developed.

Some traditions have referred to this Trinity among the Nordics as Odin, or Wotan, Balder, and Thor. The Egyptians referred to it as Osiris, Horus, and Isis. The Buddhists use different names, Dharmakaya, Sambhogakaya, and Nirmanakaya. Every tradition uses these different definitions or terms for the same thing. This is the purest energy of the cosmos. This light governs all of existence from the atom, to a galaxy. We have that energy within us, which we can liberate the we use certain practices.

The word Jehovah in Hebrew relates to this second sephiroth on the Tree of Life known as Chokmah, which is wisdom. We have Kether, the Father, the “Crown” in Hebrew. Chokmah, meaning “wisdom, insight, and perception.” We then have Binah, meaning “intelligence.” Chokmah, in Hebrew in its sacred name is Jehovah, because each Sephirah has a Hebrew term associated with it.

That is the energy known as Christ amongst the gnostics and whom Jesus incarnated. He wasn't the only one who incarnated that light, but any meditator can if they know how.

I want to just emphasize that from the highest levels of existence, we have light which descends and slowly conditions itself until reaching this physical body and materializes. That energy, if it's conditioned within our anger, fears, and our resentments, becomes what is known as the hell realms, what is called in Hebrew, Klipoth. Klifah means “shell.” Klipoth means conditions or “shells” in Hebrew. Every ego or sense of "I," whether it be pride, resentment, gluttony, etc., is a shell that traps our consciousness.

Every myth of the great hero is about descending from this top trinity, down below to Malkuth and entering the maze, the hell realms, in order to confront one's egotism and desires. Then by eliminating those desires, we learn to free the consciousness that is trapped there and return it back to the light above with knowledge and understanding. One thing I will mention is that in the Greek myth of Theseus and the minotaur, he went into the maze and killed the beast, but the way that he got out of the maze was by using what it was called Ariadne's thread. In the myth, in order to not get lost in the maze and to find his way back, he had a thread with him, which he unrolled as he moved through the labyrinth until finding the minotaur, killing the animal, and then following the thread back out to the open sunlight.

Dante in his myth, The Divine Comedy, explains that the descent into the inferno is easy, but the return is hard. When you are meditating, you may see certain defects and desires, which you want to work on, but you have to follow your conscience to find your way out of the maze. Your judgment. Your consciousness. We will elaborate on how the light returns from these infernal regions back to the higher levels of being, of consciousness, because real yoga or religion, is about taking all that light that is trapped in conditions, and integrating it with the Being, the Divine. Yoga comes from the Sanskrit word Yug, that is, to “reunite.” Religion comes from the latin word, religare, which also means means to “reunite.”

That light becomes conditioned and more material, more dense and in greater states of suffering, the further it descends down this shadow of the Tree of Life until reaching the very bottom of existence. Again, these are symbols. They are different dimensions that exist that we can access in the dream state through meditation, but more importantly this refers to our daily state of being.

Kabbalah in the Book of Judges

“And יהוה Jehovah sold them into the hand of Jabin, king of כְּנַעַן Canaan, that reigned in חָצוֹר Hazor…” –Judges 4:2

I have included some Hebrew terms because this meaning is very deep. The word for light is אֹֽור Aur. “Let there be light and there was light.” What is that light? It is the awakened consciousness. Our soul, when it is pure, is light, harmony, peace, and it is contentment.

But that light, the light of Israel, of the divine, is trapped. That light, when it becomes inverted, becomes part of the negative psychological qualities we are familiar with. As a result of having misused our energies in our consciousness, that light is dislocated, disconnected from Jehovah, and then enters into these infernal states of being.

What is כְּנַעַן Canaan in the Bible? When the Bible talks about different lands, they were referring to Malkuth, when Egyptians enslaved the Israelites. Egypt is a symbol of the body, within which is contained our desires, because our ego and defects act through the body.

What is that inverted light? The Hebrew term for it is חָצוֹר Hazor [Hatzor] because it sounds like אֹֽור Aur, the light, but it is trapped in the lower spectrum of light. The higher spectrum of light is ultraviolet, but the most dense form is infrared. There is a spectrum and the Tree of Life represents this.

“And יהוה Jehovah sold them into the hand of Jabin, king of כְּנַעַן Canaan, that reigned in חָצוֹר Hazor…” (Judges 4:2), meaning: the soul was disconnected and trapped in this body. Trapped withinחָצוֹר Hazor or the inverted light that conditions the mind.

The captain of his host was סִיסְרָא Sisera. The sound סִיסְרָא Sisera or the name סִיסְרָא Sisera is a representation of what the Bible calls the serpent. There is a mantra amongst the gnostics, the letter S for "Sssssssss…" which we pronounce in order to work with what is known as the serpentine fire of Kundalini. This is the fire of the divine which is in our coccyx. You can do that mantra S or "Sssssssss" to make the energies rise up the spine to the brain.

Of course, there is a duality to that serpent as represented in the Bible. That serpent that healed the Israelites in the wilderness raised by Moses upon a staff, is a symbol of the Kundalini rising up the spine, if you are familiar with Hinduism. Of course, there is a tempting serpent in which that energy descends down and forms what is called the tail of the demons within the astral body of a human being. These are symbols, but also there are certain things that they represent that are psychological truths.

Therefore, סִיסְרָא Sisera is that negative crystallization of those energies, “which dwelt in חֲרֹשֶׁת הַגֹּויִֽם Haroshet-Goyim” (Judges 4:2), the land of the goyim.

What is goyim? It is a Hebrew term, which many Jews believe refers simply to people who don't follow Judaism. If you look at the word goyim, you hear the word ego backwards. What does it mean to be a goyim? It means to be like any one of us, even if we are Jewish, because to have desire and egotism is to be goyim. To be exiled from the heavenly kingdom of God, the Being.

To be a real Jew in an objective sense, is to have this light incarnated.

“And the children of Israel (the soul) cried unto יהוה Jehovah: for he had nine hundred chariots of iron; and twenty years he mightily oppressed the children of Israel.” –Judges 4:-3

Again, these are symbols. If you are interested in learning more about what the numbers mean in the Bible, I recommend you listen to our course we have been giving on the Eternal Tarot which is available on our website. We won't go into too much detail here, but the number nine is very symbolic. It represents again how we use our energies in the ninth sephirah of the Tree of Life.

Of course, that light and energy tends to be conditioned in us. We use our vitality in the wrong way with negative habits. We waste energy in many behaviors, which are not conducive for our spiritual well-being.

That twenty years is against symbolic, referring to the Kabbalah as we have been explaining.

The one who helps Israel in this process is known as Deborah.

“And Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lapidoth, she judged Israel at that time…” –Judges 4:4

…and she was in the Bible represented as a great warrior and a prophetess who helped the Israelites in that narrative to achieve freedom against סִיסְרָא Sisera and his armies. Or better said the ego, his demons, and is legions.

Who is דְּבֹורָה Deborah?

“And she dwelt under the palm tree of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in mount Ephraim: and the children of Israel came up to her for judgment.” –Judges 4:5

What is judgment? It is Geburah. Justice. Our conscience. The sense of right and wrong. She dwells underneath a palm tree, represented by this mystical sphere known as Daath in the Kabbalah, and which means knowledge.

Some people have called it alchemy, the science of transmuting the base lead of the personality into the gold of the spirit by the work of energy. She dwells beneath that tree, meaning: works like Buddha did meditating under the Bodhi tree until he achieved enlightenment (if you are familiar with the Buddhist mythology).

Geburah, our soul, our divine consciousness, dwells beneath this palm tree between Ramah and Bethel, because this glyph is represented as three pillars: one on the left, one on the right, and one in the middle. Ramah is the left pillar of the Tree of Life, Bethel is the right, and the mountain Ephraim is represented by the center of this glyph, Tiphereth.

To have dreams in the internal worlds when you are meditating, if you experience seeing a mountain or climbing a mountain, it means you are entering the higher dimensions with your spiritual work. The mountain represents the path that leads from the valleys of Klipoth, the infernal world, up towards the world of heaven. It is called the "heavens" in the different mythologies.

The Israelites, in order to receive help from Deborah, had to climb the mountain, Ephraim and receive judgment. It is a symbol. It means that God doesn't come out of the clouds to give us some kind of magical experience, although that can happen, and it is very beautiful and necessary. However, to obtain comprehension of our faults, God doesn't come out of the clouds to give it to us. Instead we have to work and raise our level of being up within ourselves towards this higher sephiroth, Tiphereth, the mountain.

By learning to overcome our body, our energies, our emotions, and our mind with willpower in meditation—that is how you climb Ephraim, the mountain, to receive judgment. It is a symbol. If you want to reach comprehension in yourself, peace, and understanding, you have to raise your level of being.

This myth is also very beautiful and explains other things relating to many other mythologies, such as the teachings of the Kundalini in Hinduism. If you are familiar with the force of the Kundalini, it is the serpentine power of the divine feminine which rises up the spine from the base chakra, Muladhara. Then up the spine to the brain. In the Bible a mountain also represents the spinal column which one must climb.

The prophets must climb in order to receive the commandments of the divine, like Moses did on Mount Sinai. It is a symbol of how he raised the energies of the divine up his spine through certain practices in order to illuminate his intellect. If you see the halos of the saints in many myths, it is because those heroes, those masters, those prophets, worked with energy and illuminated the mind. They climbed the mountain and when they illuminated their crown chakra like Moses, Muhammed, or whatever prophet you want to refer to, that is when they were able to receive knowledge and understanding. Commandments from the Being. Direct experiences in meditation. The Bible and the Book of Judges refers to that force of the serpent as Barak.

"And she sent and called Barak the son of Abinoam out of (קֶּדֶשׁ) Kedesh in Naphtali, and said unto him, Hath not (יהוה) the LORD GOD of Israel commanded, saying, Go and draw toward (בְּהַר תָּבֹור) Mount Tabor, and take with thee ten thousand men of the children of Naphtali and of the children of Zebulun.” –Judges 4:6

In the story you see that Deborah and Barak go to war against the armies of Sisera, as a symbol of the consciousness going into battle against our desires. How does our consciousness work against desire? By working with the Kundalini.

She says, "Go and draw towards Mount Tabor."

Again the mountain refers to the sephirah, the heart, Tiphereth. "Take with yourself ten thousand men," meaning the ten sephiroth and integrate all the parts of your Being within you in meditation in order to have command of yourself, in order to work against desire and against defects.

“And I will drawסִיסְרָא Sisera, the captain of Jabin's army, with his chariots and his multitude, unto thee to the river Kishon; and I will deliver him into thine hand.” –Judges 4:7

What is that river Kishon? These are your vital energies, because how you use your vitality, your vital forces in meditation, determines whether you will have that inner strength to work against your own defects.

But of course Deborah says, “I will fight against סִיסְרָא Sisera, which is "Sssssssss," the fire of our own divine energies that has been inverted and negative. It is the tempting serpent of Eden. It is a symbol of the misuse of our energies and which, by misusing that force, we were kicked out of bliss, Eden.

The word עֵדֶן Eden means “bliss.” It isn't a literal place in the Mesopotamia in the Middle East, but refers to the original state of the consciousness before it's conditioning.

In the myth סִיסְרָא Sisera is killed by a woman named יָעֵל Yael, and the name is very symbolic, because the word יה Ya, if you know Kabbalah, is י Iod ה Hei, reading it from right to left. Hebrew is written from right to left, representing the Father, known as Kether in the Kabbalah, the height of our Being, of our divinity. אל El is your spirit, your inner God.

This woman is literally the forces of the divine and the spirit within us who works in order to eliminate our defects. She is part of our conscience. In the myth, she takes a hammer and chisel and then pummels his head in order to kill him when he sleeps. But what first happened was that she brought סִיסְרָא Sisera into her tent or into a tent and brought him milk in order to put him to sleep. When he was asleep, she killed him.

These are symbols how when you work with vital energy, like with the mantra OM, or sacred sounds, the mind settles and become serene. Then from a state of serenity, you put your defects into an inactive state; your egotism and your desires, so that when the mind settles, you can learn to look inside in meditation and comprehend the causes of suffering. When you then see your own desires or certain defects you want to work on, you take the hammer of willpower and the chisel of understanding, and you slay it.

We mentioned in the previous lecture of this course how developing concentration, to focus on one thing, is willpower and is essential. The next step is developing insight, the ability to proceed images in the mind clearly. To see through the sense of observation of ourselves—self-observation and imagination: the ability to perceive psychic imagery.

In the Book of Judges (5:24-26), there is a song:

“Extolled above woman be Yael, extolled above woman in the tent. He asked for water. She gave him milk” which is the energies of our vital forces, referring to the creative energies of sexuality and which we will be talking about within tantrism and other teachings related to alchemy and the perfect matrimony. The work with the vital forces in you and the creative energies in you can be done by working with mantras such as OM. You circulate that force in you. It is like milk, which is nourishment for the soul.

As I said, silence the mind and then you can work on yourself.

"She brought him cream in a lordly dish. She stretched forth her hand to the nail, Her right hand to the workman's hammer, And she smote Sisera; she crushed his head, She crashed through and transfixed his temples.” –Judges 5:24-26

The word יָעֵל Yael signifies an “ibex, a goat.” And again, there are many symbols here. The sheep separating from the goats. In the Christian tradition, this is a symbol of how one is either purified as a lamb, following the teachings of the divine or Christ, and the goat, meaning a person with egotism. Of desires. יָעֵל Yael literally means “a goat,” a desert dwelling goat, because any one of us who begins meditation is filled with desires and defects.

Symbolically as in the Christian symbols, we are goats and by purifying the soul one becomes a sheep. Interesting etymology.

Conscience, Judgment, and the Symbolism of Deborah

How do we work with the force of conscience, of judgment, of Deborah? We work with mantras.

There's a song in the Book of Judges, which says:

“Awake, עוּר awake, דְּבֹורָה Deborah: עוּר awake, עוּר awake, דָּבַר utter a song: arise, בָּרָק Barak, and lead thy captivity captive, thou son of Abinoam.” –Judges 5:12

The word for awake in Hebrew is עוּר Ur, which is similar, etymologically to the word אֹֽור Aur, which means “light.”

“Awake, Deborah, awaken the consciousness, awake our soul” to its true nature, its peaceful nature, its serenity and its compassion. You do so by working with songs, which are mantras.

“Utter a song,” it says, דָּבַר Dabar in Hebrew. “To utter, to speak.”

The word דְּבֹורָה Deborah has these Hebrew letters, ד Dalet, ב Beth, ר Resh. De-Bur-Ah. If you want to work with your inner judgment, you can work with those sacred sounds to empower your soul and your concentration.

"Arise Barak," referring to the Kundalini, which rises in the spine. "Lead thy captivity captive," which means take control of your situations and learn to live with greater rectitude and love.

Who is this בָּרָק Barak? The Muslim tradition teaches some interesting symbols. In the Ascension of the Prophet Muhammad, he rode on a creature called الْبُرَاق Al-Buraq, which literally means “the lightning.” Where is that lightning? It is in your spine, or better said, it it contained in the Chakra Muladhara and needs to awaken. So, by riding that creature up the spine, the energies, and the forces, we ascend towards the heavens as symbolized in the Muslim myth. Barak is that energy or Al-Buraq, which helped Deborah fight against the afflictions of the mind.

We will be giving courses about the mystical teachings of Islam known as Sufism. We gave a course called the Sufi Path of Self-knowledge, which explains some of these interesting symbols in relation with the path of meditation.

Inner Self-Remembrance, Mantras, and Sacred Sounds

We will read a few excerpts from some Sufi scriptures, which are very valuable. In these teachings we study the path of remembrance of the divine. Meditation is about remembering our own inner divinity, by developing serenity and insight so that we learn to connect and strengthen our connection with that presence. We do so by following the voice of our inner judgment, our conscience, our heart, and our intuition, how certain behaviors are negative or harmful. The way that we can empower that remembrance is by working with the sacred sounds, as I have been mentioning.

The Sufis or the mystics of Islam, not to be confused with the orthodoxy, has some very interesting explanations about how to remember the divine. We work with mantras to strengthen that inner judgment and to be aware, mindfully, throughout our day in a state of attention.

If we want to learn to meditate, what is necessary is to learn to be observant all day. Meditation, when you sit to close your eyes and relax, is only an extension of your daily practice, your daily life. Learning to be mindful throughout the day and not being distracted in the mind is the beginning. If you are washing your dishes, don't think of other things. If you are driving your car, don't talk on the cellphone. Don't listen to the radio. Just drive. Don't think about what you are going to do later, but be mindful of where you are at. The reason why there are so many accidents is because people are asleep, consciously. They may be driving and physically active, but as a consciousness, they are distracted. Their mind is elsewhere. Their emotions are elsewhere. Their bodies are doing one thing but they are not really present in the body.

Remembrance is strengthened when we work with mantras, which is known as Dhikr amongst the Sufis.

“Remembrance is a powerful support on the path to God [the divine, the Being] (Glorious and Majestic). Indeed, it is the very foundation of this Sufi [or we can say, Gnostic] path. No one reaches God save by continual remembrance of Him. [Our inner OM. Our spirit.] There are two kinds of remembrance: that of the tongue and that of the heart. The servant attains perpetual remembrance of the heart by making vocal remembrance. It is remembrance of the heart, however, that yields true effect.” --Al-Risalah: Principles of Sufism by Al-Qushayri

Meaning, to pronounce, verbally, certain mantras, but to do it with concentration, because if you vocalize but are not mindful what you are doing, there is no power there. We are distracted. Therefore:

“It is remembrance of the heart that yields true effect. When a person makes remembrance with his tongue and his heart simultaneously (with concentration), he attains perfection in his or her wayfaring.” ―Al-Risalah: Principles of Sufism by Al-Qushayri

To be focused. Concentration is important. If you want certain mantras to be effective and to produce greater depth of understanding and concentration, you have to invest everything you have into that practice. Don't think about other things. Let your mind be immersed in those vibrations. As I said, be like the bee that is immersed in the flower or the pollen as it is creating honey.

The Sufis also teach that it is good in the beginning to work with a mantra that helps to strengthen our heart, our conscience. However, many practitioners write to us through letters and correspondences; people and many students perform certain mantras, but still they don't feel like they have any results and experiences. The thing to think about with that is to revise what is the psychological state we are in when we engage in a practice.

As you start in this meditation, what is your mental states? What are your moods? What are your qualities? What are you feeling? What are you thinking now? Become aware of that, relax, breathe deep, and then begin a sacred mantra so that there is sweetness or genuine genuine power in that practice.

As the Sufis teach:

“A group of wayfarers complained to Abu Uthman, ‘We make vocal remembrance of God Most High, but we experience no sweetness in our hearts.’ He advised, ‘Give thanks to God most high for adorning you at least your limbs with obedience.’” ―Al-Risalah: Principles of Sufism by Al-Qushayri

Meaning: at least you are consistent, because some people begin a mantra one day and and don't finish it. Don't continue it. The thing to remember is, it's good to be diligent with one's practices.

Three Stages of Comprehension

In this course, we have been talking about three stages of comprehension. We talk a lot about discovery, self-observation, to see ourselves, to observe, to be mindful. By learning to observe ourselves like a director watching an actor, we begin to gain information or acquire knowledge of our conditioning of mind, so that by seeing it, we go home, we go to meditate, we go to judge our defects.

In the beginning we learn to gather data. What are the thoughts, feelings, and impulses we experience whenever we engage at work in the morning, with friends, our boss, our co-workers? Analyze, what are the qualities that are go on within us whenever we interact with other human beings? And, in that way you learn to discover your defects in action.

I recommend if you haven't heard those lectures yet, to do so. It will give greater context for this lecture, but we've been talking a lot about judgment, following our intuition, which is the path of meditation.

As you begin to discover yourself in action, finding defects that you never suspected you had, you take that information, that sense of remorse, that sense of responsibility, and go home, relax, meditate, silence the mind, and learn to ask for help from your inner being. Work with a mantra and power your heart with energy, and then pray and ask, "My divine Being, show me, help me to understand what I observed in myself today." Perhaps it was anger. Perhaps it was fear. Perhaps it was lust. A quality that you notice produces suffering in you and that you want to remove.

The next step is execution, which is prayer. When you comprehend a certain condition of mind, fully, then you can ask for its elimination within you by the help of your Divine Mother Kundalini, the divine feminine.

Internal Silence

And as we have been discussing also in our courses of meditation, “The first stage of worship is silence” as Prophet Muhammad taught.

So silence of mind is generated when you learn to relax. Don't identify with your thinking, your feeling, your impulses, negativity, and negative emotions. Those things will sap you of your energy and will make you weak. So to have a mind that is in silence, a mind that is able to be intuitive, it is necessary to observe, relax, be aware. As I mentioned, when you are aware of yourself and you relax throughout the day, your body becomes less tense, your mind is relaxed. If you don't invest your negative qualities with so much energy, when you go home to meditate, you can sit in a minute and immediately enter meditation, easy, because your body is not tense, your mind is not tense. You are not depleted of energy.

So silence occurs naturally, spontaneously; when you fulfill the necessary requisites, meaning: follow your conscience. If we are investing our energy into psychological states that are harmful, the mind becomes a churning chaos, overwhelmed, an ocean that is in the middle of a storm, in the flux of tides, overwhelming the mind. But if you naturally observe it like you are in a helicopter viewing from the sky, you can observe the tides and gradually the storm will settle on its own, because you are not churning along with it, going on with the flow.

Silence occurs in levels. There are levels of introductory teaching relating to concentration or serenity, and there are more higher levels of serenity obtained by people who have entered meditation very deeply.

Abu Bakr al-Farisi mentioned in the scripture called Principles of Sufism, a very beautiful teaching:

"If one's homeland is not silence, he is talking to excess, even though he is silent with the tongue. Silence is not confined to the tongue but concerns the heart and all the limbs." ―Al-Risalah: Principles of Sufism by Al-Qushayri

If we have sat to meditate, we may have found that even though our bodies are quiet, we here in the mind, we feel in the heart a constant commentary, a chatter—the mind wanting to label things, point at things, and explain things. The mind is like a monkey, attached, craving, always wanting to move. It indicates that the mind is not serene.

We are constantly grasping at the external world. The body wants to move. It is an animal that needs to be tamed. So silence doesn't occur just with the physical tongue, but mentally. If you don't want your mind to be overflowing with thoughts, observe. Don't invest your energy with it. Don't identify yourself with that. But serenity naturally occurs when you distance yourself from that internal chatter.

“Silence for the common people is with their tongues, but silence for the gnostics is with their hearts…” ―Al-Risalah: Principles of Sufism by Al-Qushayri

Meaning: those who really know the Being, the divine, do so because they even attained some type of internal silence and inner serenity in which they are not influenced by thinking so much, but instead are relaxed, at peace.

Yet there is “silence for lovers,” meaning prophets, “by restraining the stray thoughts that come into their innermost beings.” So that's a stage of serenity or concentration in which one sees a distraction in the mind before it even emerges. This is well discussed in our course on Gnostic Meditation on our website as well as the lecture called Calm Abiding: the Stages of Serenity.

But serenity occurs in levels and that inner serenity is natural and spontaneous, it is not forced. People think that concentration has to be something aggressive. That one has to be exerting some type of energy or force in order to meditate. But the reality is that serenity is natural, relaxed, spontaneous, at peace. Judgment occurs naturally when we are at peace; when the mind is silent. Comprehension emerges like a spark, an insight, that emerges in the mind when you are not looking for it. When you are simply concentrated, relaxed, at peace.

Exertion, Comprehension, and the Dialectic of Consciousness

"Comprehension replaces exertion when one tries to comprehend the truth intimately hidden in the secret depths of each problem. We do not need any exertion to comprehend each and every defect that we carry hidden within the different levels of the mind." ―Samael Aun Weor, The Revolution of the Dialectic

In our previous lecture, we talked about the dialectic of consciousness: how the consciousness, represented by Christ in this image, overcomes the mind—how to receive insights, intuition, understanding from the Being, represented by Jesus, and the devil on the right is a representation of our ego, the mind that points towards materialism, egotism, desires. That is the difference between a mind that is distracted and a mind that is concentrated.

And in this myth, Christ was tempted by the devil in the wilderness. It is a symbol of how we, in meditation, learn to overcome the distractions of the mind in order to overcome him. So I mentioned to you that in the Kabbalah, the word wisdom is simply the ability to perceive, to judge, to know.

Conscious Judgment

We have an image of The Last Judgement, painted by Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel. The word judgment relates etymologically to the word “wisdom.” Wisdom is the power of perception, of knowing, of seeing, which occurs spontaneously in us when we learn to look, to observe, and not to anticipate what we may see, but simply engaged in the act of looking, of seeing.

“The word wisdom is derived from vid, videre (to see) and from dom (judgment). Thus, wisdom alludes to that which one can see with the senses of the soul and of the Innermost; to the wise judgments which must be based on the ultra-sensorial perceptions and not simply on dogmatic intellectualism or vain professional sufficiency, which are already in declination and decrepitude.” —Samael Aun Weor, The Revolution of the Dialectic

So again, the intellect cannot know the truth. It can store knowledge, ideas, beliefs, concepts, and memories. Real wisdom is when you learn to see in yourself the causes of your suffering. It is the power of perception, of knowing. So we learn to develop light through meditation. Through seeing. Through observing ourselves. We gain genuine contentment, serenity, and happiness when we learn to experience is what perception is, what light is. The qualities of the Being. The qualities of our Inner God.

Spiritual Insight and Witnessing

The Sufis in the Qur’an also teach that this sense of understanding is represented by light, because light is the power of seeing. With light we know, we understand. So to have light in meditation means to have experiences.

You may have the experience when your mind is silent, in which your body falls asleep, and you as a consciousness enter into the dream state, the dream world, and experience the higher dimensions of that Tree of Life we have been looking at. You climb Mount Tabor or Mount Ephraim. You enter the higher regions of the divine in order to converse face-to-face with your Innermost God.

A person who has that experience in meditation is obviously very different from those who haven't, because with that type of experience comes conviction. What we call real faith—real judgment—because then by having that help from your Inner God, you learn to help others and to help yourself, more importantly, so that you can be of benefit.

“Concerning the saying of God Most High, ‘Or one who was dead—we have brought him to life’ (6:122), a Sufi said, ‘Someone who was dead of mind, but God Most High brought him to life with the light of insight, and set for him the light of divine manifestation and direct vision—he will not be like someone who walks, unconscious, with the people of unconsciousness.’” –Al-Qushayri, Al-Risalah: Principles of Sufism

It is easy to see that, after having those experiences, we realize that humanity is really dead, spiritually. They lack genuine understanding, but with that understanding comes the determination to help them to experience that for themselves.

“It is said that when insight becomes sound, its possessor progresses to the level of contemplation (mushahadah) [meditation].” –Al-Qushayri, Al-Risalah: Principles of Sufism

The Arabic is mushahadah, which relates to the Arabic saying of the declaration of faith, the Shahadah, "There is no god, but God and Muhammad is His Prophet."

Many people recite that intellectually, but have they meditated and experienced in higher dimensions, talking with their Inner Being, or Allah, or God, their El, their OM, their Spirit? The truth is that they don't, so are they really Muslim in the objective sense? You can say that they are not, because if you experience your divine Being in the higher dimensions, in meditation, then you bear witness. You say, "I see my God face to face.” Therefore, there is no god but God and Muhammad is His Prophet, or Krishna is His Prophet, or Buddha is His Prophet. Many teachers, one light.

Ascension to Higher Levels of Being

That process of seeing is inner judgment and the path of inner judgment is like a like a staircase. We discussed in our previous lectures about the levels of being; how the ascension to the path of genuine spirituality is like climbing a staircase and having a dream in the internal worlds, or your dreams themselves in meditation, that you are climbing a staircase, means that you are going to higher levels of being.

You are experiencing higher states of consciousness, and I believe that is from Alice in Wonderland climbing a staircase, or something symbolic of that nature, because the soul, we could say, is feminine, whether in a male body or masculine body, because the soul receives the forces from above. It is receptive and so:

Abu Said al-Kharraz said, “One who sees with the light of spiritual insight, sees with the light of the Truth.” –Al-Qushayri, Al-Risalah: Principles of Sufism

…because when you see a problem, when you see a defect for what it is and you don't make excuses for it, or justify it, or repress it, but simply observe, you can comprehend it and that is how you arrive at judgment. Conscience.

In the beginning, we follow our hunch, our intuitions that certain psychological states are destructive and by learning to comprehend them deeper and deeper in meditation, we develop light.

“The very substance of his knowledge comes from God, unmixed with either negligence or forgetfulness.” –Al-Qushayri, Al-Risalah: Principles of Sufism

The very substance of this knowledge comes from God, because your Being gives you that understanding, unmixed with either negligence or forgetfulness. Meaning: negligence is referring to begin meditation and then to stop, to be negligent and to not work.

This is a spiritual work and is very difficult, but it is rewarding because it provides the beauty of the soul within oneself.

And forgetfulness, meaning to not forget what you are doing. You sit to meditate. You have a specific practice. You are going to review your day. What you observed in yourself. Or take an object to meditate on like a candle, a stone, a picture, and you want to understand a certain scripture, or whatever it is you want to meditate on. You have to have the focus to the point that you don't forget what you are doing when you sit. If you forget what you are doing when you sit to meditate, it means that we are distracted, we are forgetful.

“Indeed, it is a judgment of Truth flowing from the tongue of a servant.” –Al-Qushayri, Al-Risalah: Principles of Sufism

…because when you have that knowledge for yourself then it becomes crystallized in you.

We will conclude by stating that the way to develop meditative practice is by following our inner judgment, our inner conscience—again, that sense of right and wrong.

“The human being who allows that which is called self-judgement or inner-judgment to express itself in a spontaneous manner within, will be guided by the voice of the consciousness. Thus, he will march on the upright path.” –Samael Aun Weor, The Revolution of the Dialectic

Meaning: by learning to live with attentiveness and consciousness in our daily life, our work, our job, or career, we learn to do our work not only better, but we naturally help humanity and enter deeper states of awareness.

Questions and Answers

Question: How can we experience the divine when meditating?

Instructor: If you want to experience the divine through some type of samadhi in meditation, and the word samadhi means “ecstasy,” where your consciousness is liberated from its conditions so that it perceives without egotism in the higher worlds—to have a samadhi, I like to quote for you Rumi, a great Sufi poet. He said, "Finding love, the divine, is not by seeking it but instead looking for all the obstacles you place to obstruct it."

So that love is your inner God, your Spirit, OM, and if you want to know that Being in you, the way to develop that light and have those experiences is by working on your defects. Because remember the Bible says "Let there be light and there was light.” From the darkness, God spoke and said that verse. From the darkness of our ignorance, light emerges. You develop light by working on your egos, comprehending them, because when you eliminate your egos, you are extracting the genie from the bottle, and when you extract the genie from the bottle, like in the myth, you integrate those conscious qualities, and then you naturally are awake in the higher worlds when your body is asleep, physically, and you are traveling in the astral plane, the world of dreams. Your dream states.

If you learn to awaken consciousness physically in that way, then you have easier access when you are dreaming or when you are meditating. So samadhi occurs naturally when you remove the conditions that trap your consciousness, which is why even Friedrich Nietzsche who wrote in his Thus Spoke Zarathustra, an esoteric text which modeled this philosophy; he stated that "I love he who does not make any excuses for him or herself, but instead doesn’t reach for the stars first, but decides to descend in order to be a sacrifice."

So that in being a sacrifice, one can be of service, says the very beginning of that text. So symbolically, what he is talking about is: you want to experience heaven? We all want that. To see the stars of the divinity in the internal worlds. To reflect God in us. We want to go to heaven, but the reality is that we are trapped down here. We are trapped by our egotism, in the valley of Klipoth. But in order to get out to experience those dimensions, those realms, those realities, you have to climb the mountain. You do it by working with where you are at and not worrying about having experiences.

Many people read certain books such as by Samael Aun Weor, the founder of the modern Gnostic tradition, and get very inspired. You know, people read that, and they say, “I want to talk to my Inner God. I want to know my Being and many have that inspiration,” but in order to actualize the experience of your God, you have to work on what you can see here and now, because your Being will give you experiences as you are working to change yourself.

Personally, I remember many years ago before I found the Gnostic tradition, I was studying many schools of meditation and other teachings, and then I was going back and forth with certain places and things and scriptures and books, and what I decided was following my inner judgment, my conscience, about changing certain habits that I was engaging in that was destructive for myself. As I started to renounce those behaviors and not going back, comprehending how that behavior was wrong, I started to have experiences like I did when I was a teenager, in the dream world, and then in that way when of my body was asleep, I was awakened in the astral plane and I received certain teachings about my development.

I remember climbing a staircase and being led by a woman up the stairs, and that woman was my Divine Mother, my Being, my Divine Mother Kundalini was showing me, "you are ascending, you are ascending up this path, but be careful." She was warning me about certain things.

Question: I had a dream of a torch, and there was a, well, I was not scared though, kind of a grey wolf, and it was watching me in concentration.

Instructor: The torch is light. Developing insight. You have an experience of seeing fire or light, it means your consciousness. It is a symbol of that because consciousness is the ability to perceive, to see. A wolf, we have been talking about in Arcanum 5, the fifth card of the tarot in our website. That symbol of the wolf is a symbol of what we call Karma. Karma is a law that is governed by divineb as we have been explaining. I have had experiences of wolves too and the wolf, if it is attacking you, it means the law is against you, the Divine Law, because we committed some kind of wrong and we have to face the consequences. But, if it is calm, it means it is good. It means the law is at bay.

I know in the beginning of my path, I had certain situations postponed or withheld from me as a result of changing certain habits. But because I made those changes, they said okay, you know what you prevented this from happening and they showed me what would have happened to me if I had continued along that mistaken path.

So dreams are very symbolic. To interpret them literally is a mistake, but you learn how to interpret dreams by studying Kabbalah, which is the symbolic language of the divine.

I invite you to study some of the resources we have available and we will be getting more courses on meditation as well as practices you can use to develop your discipline, in order to cease suffering and develop genuine serenity. We gave a course on meditation on our website, which you can study. We will be giving more material of that name of that on Chicagognosis.org, especially, but I invite you to study some of the literature written by Samael Aun Weor, whose writings are the focus of this school, primarily because of their efficacy, their directness, and simplicity.

In relation to some other schools, many people tend to get lost in intellectual knowledge. So, I have been explaining a lot of about the Kabbalah lot because it is very rich and complex, but it is very simple when you boil it down. It refers to: how do you meditate? How do you control the mind? How do you learn about yourself? You do so by becoming serene. Observing yourself. So, if you haven't heard the previous lectures in this course, I recommend you study them.

We talked about discovery, judgment, execution. Discover your defects. Work on what you can perceive in yourself, that you can change and then when you gather data about yourself, you learn to judge those habits. You ask for guidance insight. You ask my Being, my God, show me what I need to change in myself. Help me to see my errors. Help me to understand this anger that I witness in myself and my work. How can I change that?

And if you concentrate on that question, relax, wait. When the mind is serene, suddenly insight comes like an experience. Sometimes insight emerges as a type of "aha!" moment. We certainly understand that condition, and then you realize that you you are liberated from that element, to a degree, and at that moment you ask for help. You ask, “My Divine Mother, my inner Goddess,” as we have explained in this course, “help me to eliminate this desire,” and in many cases that ego doesn't get eliminated right away, but gradually. So, you will see progress day by day and you know that there is change occurring when you reach the same situation in your life, same people, same circumstances, because things repeat mechanically; you don't react like you did. Then you don't have to perpetuate a certain dynamic of "an eye for an eye, tooth for tooth," where you get mad at someone or they get mad at you, and there is an aggression that builds up and pain for everyone.

I know that in the case of my new job that I have been working at, I had to work with very difficult people, very challenging, and I know that one thing: I have been working on is my inner judgment. Finding the right psychological state to engage with, in order to help the people I am working with. So, what happened was I have been meditating and training day by day asking my Inner God, "show me what I need to do. How do I act with these people, in this situation, in this circumstance." I have been finding and I have been getting insight where working on certain defects of mine where I have been going to work facing the same people, and when I have been treated disrespectfully, respond with love. With patience. Patience and love are much more crushing forces than anger, because when you respond with anger, the other person is going to retaliate in the same way and the cycle repeats.

But if you are patient with that person, kind, and naturally appears in you spontaneously, without force, without expectation, suddenly you realize that those people who are your enemies become your friends. And you change everything and then you stop suffering. You stop making the other person suffer. That is judgment. When you see in yourself what needs to change and then you work on it day by day. But that occurs when we comprehend our psychological states. It doesn't occur overnight, and many times we have to struggle and suffer a lot with mistakes, until we get it, and then when you get it right, the situation is transformed.

You notice that people always want to change things externally. Change the job, change the work environment, get a new job, do something else. But, we tend to carry the psychological disease with us of suffering—wanting everyone to change but us. I have had people say to me or certain people I worked ask, "How did you manage to change the situation?" I had my boss ask me that. She said, “I don't know what your secret is.” I just kept silent because some things you don't talk about with an employer. I can't tell my employer that I worked on my ego with my Divine Mother [laughter from audience], you know, some people will think I'm nuts but they see it, they see the results and they feel the results and they say, "this is is amazing." They say, "how did you do it this well?" I did mention I teach meditation and yoga, and that is a very easy answer for people to understand and they say, "OK, it's good."

But you know, if you make a you make the changes you need to change, then the pieces externally will situate themselves and then you won't have to feel depleted and worried about going to work, or doing certain things, or being with certain people. You don't try to change the other person with force, with coercion, but instead, you change your psychological habits. That is how you walk the path of judgment.

As I quoted Samael Aun Weor at the end of this lecture, "Inner judgment is what lead you on the upright path." Meaning: you don't suffer so much, unnecessarily. Meditation will unfold naturally for you when you see how it applies to your life, because if you don't see how it will benefit you, that is why people leave. People stop practicing meditation because they don't see results. The question is not the technique, it is the mind. How effective are the methods if we're using any method? But also, when the method is effective, what is our application of it? What is our daily discipline? How is it applying to our life? Because if our spirituality doesn't apply when we go to work, or talk with friends, or in the bedroom, or whatnot; if our spirituality is divorced from every aspect of our life, it isn't spiritual. It is just an excuse we tell ourselves, because we continue to engage in negative habits. So, if you want to learn how to meditate, I recommend you study some of our other resources we have available on our website Chicagognosis.org. We gave a few courses, one of them, which is very introductory like this is known as The Sufi Path of Self-Knowledge, but also Gnostic Meditation.

Thank you for coming.

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The Dialectic of the Consciousness

6/3/2018

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We have been discussing the nature of consciousness in the past few weeks, specifically how it applies to the science of meditation—the practice of introspection, of knowing oneself. We explained that consciousness is a form of light, of perceiving, of understanding, and of knowing, qualified by the virtues of the soul mentioned in every religion: contentment, peace, understanding, as well as altruism, generosity, and genuine knowledge of the divine mysteries.

We are explaining how consciousness can be developed and can be expanded. Those virtuous qualities that are intrinsic to our true nature could be developed if we work intentionally in a day-to-day discipline and a moment-to-moment effort. The science of meditation is precisely the means by which we learn to comprehend the obstacles within our psyche which create suffering for ourselves.

We talked about the conditioning elements of fear, resentment, hatred, pride and that these conditions trap the essence of who we are: our consciousness, our soul. Meditation is precisely how we learned to go in, to our mind, to see our faults, to eliminate resentment, which has made many lives bitter. Envy, greed, fear—those psychological conditions trap the energy of our perception and make us vibrate at a very low level of being.

It is easy to analyze and see that we carry many of these psychological conditions inside of us, and which make us vibrate and suffer within low states of consciousness and inferior states of being. We explained how the body, our physicality, needs food. It needs nourishment. It needs water. It needs food. It needs air. Likewise, the consciousness needs a type of nourishment in order for it to grow intentionally. Because consciousness as it is needs to be exercised; it needs to be trained. And, if we are honest, we can see that by a few minutes of reflection and of examining our mind, we find that we are distracted with memories, daydreams, and thoughts—thinking about what we are going to do later in the day or what we did. Never being present within our body and within our mind. Where we are at and what we are doing.

Just as the body needs food and nourishment, likewise the consciousness needs its food. That food of the soul is precisely comprehending what produces our pain, our suffering; that which afflicts us most and which makes us miserable. Any person who approaches meditation or religion wants to understand how to see suffering and how to cease being in pain.

We talked about the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism. The first truth is that in life, there is suffering. The second also that there are causes to suffering. But the third truth: that there exists a means to cease suffering, and that path in the fourth truth is meditation.

Samael Aun Weor, the founder of the modern classic tradition stated that meditation is the daily bread of the wise, precisely because the food of our consciousness, that which is going to feed us and give us a genuine sense of peace, is by reflecting within and understanding the cages we have built. That is: the conditions we have put around ourselves.

Of course, this is not an easy reflection to make because when we discover that inside of us, we carry many elements which are difficult and painful. When we truly comprehend that anger, fear, desire, and lust, these horrify the psyche. In truth, these elements make us realize very profoundly that we carry many elements that can qualify us as demonic. Because a being that is perfect, that has no fault, no blemish, no sense of "I,” of “what I want, of what I crave,” these beings have been known by the name of masters, Buddhas, angels, and prophets—regardless of what religion or language they spoke. In their heart, they all taught how to meditate, how to understand the conditions that make us suffer, so that by comprehending them, we can break those shells.

And by breaking anger, resentment, gluttony, and laziness, we free that part of our consciousness which we put in that place. Just as the genie from Aladdin's lamp, when the shell is broken, we produce the miracles of the soul, the beauty of the consciousness, and the beauty of understanding. Comprehension is precisely when we as a consciousness understand what ego is and what the sense of self is. Me: “what I want, what I crave, and what I desire” from moment to moment and day by day. Comprehension is the understanding that this sense of self, such as my thoughts, my heritage, my language, my race, my beliefs; the sense of self is a form of suffering that grasps at the exterior world wanting to satisfy desire. That is a condition and a cage, because when the consciousness is purified and free of conditions, it is at peace.

It doesn't mean that by eliminating desire we are like zombies, or dead people without any feeling, because in truth, the consciousness, when it is freed of anger, it vibrates with love for humanity. With love for divinity. When we eliminate lust and sexual desire, we develop the virtues of chastity. A purity which does not mean abstention from sex, but approaches one's spouse with a sense of beauty, of harmony, of true love, and compassion. It takes great heroism to look in ourselves and to see that we are the only ones responsible for creating our suffering. It takes tremendous courage precisely because we take responsibility for our actions.

Psychological War in the Myth of Perseus and Medusa

As you see in this image, we have Perseus with the head of Medusa. Perseus is a myth of how the consciousness must go to war against negativity and affliction. He is precisely our soul, like David and Goliath, and many other myths that teach about the battle that is waged in the soul for its redemption. Perseus is holding the head of the Gorgon, the Medusa. She is a representation of our own negativity, our ego, and our sense of self that we feed.

If you remember the myth, Medusa has a head of many snakes. Many vipers, which are a representation of the multiplicity of desire, of our defects. The seven capital sins as well as the legion of defects that we carry within are each represented by a serpent and that head. To look directly into the eyes of the medusa, in the myth, turns men into stone. Many people think about this myth literally, but the real meaning is that when we identify our consciousness with any desire and with any defect, we become petrified. We become conditioned and shelled, because obviously, when we are in a moment of anger with a loved one, a boss, or a co-worker, and we vibrate with anger, resentment, and hatred, then all of our energy is going into that desire which only wants to harm.

There is nothing rational about anger, even though many people in our current day and age justify it. It is a negative quality, a demonic quality and that energy that is trapped in anger makes us very poor people, psychologically. Very weak. When we look at that anger, in the moment of observation we can see that we are burning with that fire. However, there is a path that leads out of that type of negativity, and that precisely is represented in the myth of Perseus.

Now, he knew that by looking directly into the eyes of Medusa, he would become stone, and that is a representation of our habits. Day by day we have certain habits we indulge in. Some good and some bad. But meditation is a means, self-reflection is a means, by which we learn to comprehend the Medusa and not to identify ourselves with that anger, with that fear, and with that problem.

The way he (Perseus) overcomes that animality in himself is by using his shield. He uses the reflection of the shield to see the image of the Gorgon, the beast. Then with his sword, he decapitates it. These are symbols. These are stories that teach a psychological truth, precisely because that shield, the reflection in the mirror of that armor, is precisely the act of observing. To see our ego and our defect without getting carried away by it. Without investing our energy into that element.

This is a struggle that we face moment by moment, in which certain defects emerge. We are observing ourselves and becoming aware of certain thoughts, certain emotions, and certain negativities; we are focusing all our energy and power inside to look at what is going on psychologically. As we explained in our previous lecture: “The Light of Consciousness,” that is the path of self-observation. Observing one's psyche, one's mind, one's emotional states, and one's impulses in the body to act. That act of introspection is light and understanding. We experience genuine joy when we realize that we are not anger and that if we don't give that anger what it wants, then we free energy and we can become strong. As Muhammad said in a famous oral tradition of Islam, "The strongest among you is he who controls his anger."

The Significance of Dialectics

This is the path of the dialectic of consciousness. This self-reflection is precisely the path of the revolution of our dialectic. You could say it is a way of thinking.

This term has been used in the Greek mysteries founded by Plato and perpetuated by Aristotle. Dialectic means discussion and reasoning by dialogue as a method to resolve disagreements and reveal the truth. The word dialectic has many interesting etymological meanings, which can help us understand this topic more deeply. It is from the old French dialectique of the 12th century, or Latin dialectica, from the Greek: dialektike, the art of philosophical discussion or discourse.

The word dialectic was usually associated with the word dialogue. The word "dia," the prefix, simply means “thoroughly, from side to side” which intensifies logos, logic, understanding. What is dialogue or dialectic? It is the ability to understand with the reasoning of the consciousness. The understanding of the soul. The word "dia" means “from side to side” and dialogos refers to how we develop the power of divinity inside. Logos. The Bible says, "In the beginning was the Word (Logos). The Word was with God (Logos). And the Word was God (Logos)” (John 1:1).

That mantra we did at the beginning of this exercise, the mantra INRI, is a mantra to invoke the Lord, the divine. The Logoic energy emerges from the cosmos into our mind so that we can develop a type of reasoning that is superior, because our anger has its reasoning, its logic, and its concepts. It thinks a certain way, it feels a certain way, and wants to act in a certain way at the detriment of our neighbor.

However, dialogue or dialectic is “to stand; to move side to side” and not be limited by once's thought—to not be identified with those egotistical elements.

Also, this is what we are doing with these types of lectures; we are seeking to understand what is consciousness by learning to have a dialogue and to learn.

Traditionally, the word dialectic in academia has been associated with presenting a thesis, then presenting an antithesis in order to arrive at a synthesis: the unification or the superior meaning.

The ego has a sense of logic, a type of logic such as the feelings of resentment. "He hurt me." "He betrayed me." Or a desire that says "I need to satisfy my desire." "I want to be with that person.” Or fear, the logic of "I need to pay my bills." "I need to please my boss so I don't get fired." "I need to do this this and that to take care of my needs." That is a form of logic. But if we examine and look inside with the consciousness, we see that logic comes from a condition and negativity. And if we give our energy to that thought, that feeling, that impulse, then we are staring into the eyes of Medusa. We become petrified in that element.

With self-observation, the work of the spiritual warrior, the meditator uses the shield, the reflection in the mirror, which is self-observation; looking at the psyche in order to use the sword of insight, of wisdom, of spirituality, and of supreme spiritual methods in order to decapitate that element. In this type of dialectic with ourselves, we are expanding our logic. Meaning, our understanding of who we are as a consciousness, precisely by moving “from side to side; thoroughly,” to go thoroughly into the mind. But, also not being limited by any type of ego or any type of self, which is negative. This is how we arrive at a truth, a synthesis, and an understanding which is the nature of consciousness.

Now, what is interesting is that certain philosophers talked about the limits of the intellect of logic and of reasoning. In these studies, we do not denounce understanding and intelligence, but instead we denounce the subjective logic of hatred, of pain, and of desire.

Emmanuel Kant gave a very interesting understanding about the nature of the logic of the mind, which is the logic of the ego, the intellect. He explained what is known as the antinomies of reason, that you can have, which in terms of philosophical studies are two completely different arguments. One is saying that there is God. The other that there is no God. You can then present your evidence for both reasons and both could be valid according to logic.

The reason I bring this up is because Emmanuel Kant pointed out the limitations of the intellect. The limitations of the mind—that the mind can think and theorize and believe what it wants, especially about who we are psychologically, and yet there is no change. Likewise, many schools and movements have many beliefs about what consciousness is. What is not consciousness? What is God? Does God exist? Some say yes and some say no. You have a thesis and antithesis. This is the nature of the mind, the intellect. It does not know the truth, the divine. However, by understanding with our perception who we are psychologically, we can understand whether there is divinity or not.

Those who have experiences in meditation and have broken free from the limitations of the mind, develop the dialectic of the consciousness—the logic of the consciousness, which is an understanding that is devoid of desire, of “thinking that I'm thinking, of feeling that I'm feeling.” Of just acting and reacting to life mechanically.

By arriving at that synthesis, we have genuine peace. We understand from experience the limitations of the mind and then we understand from meditation how forms of logic perpetuate sarcasm, as we see on TV shows: anger, violence, resentment; all these defects show about that type of reasoning that people worship.

You see that in this current age, in this society, we worship Medusa. It is enough to look at the television, news and to see humanity; people's dialectic and reasoning is egotistical and is negative. However, by seeing that and recognizing it, we can do something to change.

However, that revolution of our thinking occurs through meditation: by understanding that thinking is not going to resolve anything. Instead, understanding will. Comprehension will. These are qualities of consciousness, of seeing or perceiving, because the intellect can only justify. It can say "I know that I have anger and fear and pain and resentment and all these things," and yet we continue to engage in those habits and behaviors that perpetuate our suffering. This is why we talk about dialectic, reasoning, and logic.

We have many excuses and beliefs about who we are. Many ideas. And yet, those are all egotistical. If we look inside and we are observing as a consciousness; what our thinking is, what our ways of behaving are, then we develop a superior type of understanding which is the focus of this lecture.

The Revolution of the Dialectic and the Present Era

This type of observation of oneself is the type of revolution and we see it here in this image from the Ghent Altarpiece. This is the Virgin Mary reading a book. That book is our own life. We have many chapters, many passages, and many defects that we must study to see, to perceive, and to comprehend so that by comprehending them we can go beyond those limitations.

As I explained, we are living in very degenerate times. I believe on the news this morning, there was a terrorist attack in London and there are many issues that are occurring with our humanity, which are very discouraging. However, by learning to meditate on ourselves and to transform those elements that produce such violence, we can help to be a more effective change for others.

This type of work is a revolution of our thinking; it means to go beyond thought. In our practice we began observing ourselves and becoming aware of our thinking; the memories, the daydreams, and the thoughts which tend to surge like clouds. They emerge, they sustain up on the screen of our awareness, and then they pass. This type of work is about deepening that attention in order to take the consciousness that is trapped in ego, defects, and desires, so that the whole consciousness can be integrated.

Samael Aun Weor, wrote in The Revolution of the Dialectic:

“In these decrepit and degenerate times, a revolution of the dialectic, a self-dialectic, and a new education are necessary."

We talked about the meaning of dialectics and here we see that a self-dialectic precisely means that knowledge we acquire about ourselves through observation and perception. We do not need to read any book, any scripture, or any other teaching in order to understand who we are fundamentally. However, those types of writings such as the scriptures of Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Hinduism are helpful or beneficial.

It comes to my mind a very famous philosopher and thinker by the name of Krishnamurti who was a very profound master with a lot of light. He studied Buddhism, but you find that his explanations and his understanding were not based on book knowledge. It was based on what he observed in himself and how he liberated his consciousness. He had self-dialectic, self-understanding, and self-comprehension which he was able to share with others in a very profound way.

Therefore, we need a new education; meaning, methods and means that are going to aid us in breaking the shells of our conditions.

“In the age of the revolution of the dialectic, the art of reasoning must be handled directly by our inner Being in order for it to be methodical and just.” —Samael Aun Weor, The Revolution of the Dialectic

This type of revolution is not by going to the exterior world and trying to change things through policies, through politics, and all these external matters, which we've seen from history and experience don't do anything. But if we want to cease suffering, we have to look inside and change what we can perceive.

The Being is the Gnostic term we use in this school to refer to our divinity. Our inner God. This is not some anthropomorphic old man in the clouds with a beard and long hair who sits in the cloud of tyranny dispensing lightning bolts to this poor humanity. The Being is not anthropomorphic, but is energy and is light. And, that Being is precisely our true nature and our true self. But, not egotistical or subjective.

“…the art of reasoning, the mind, must be controlled and handled by our inner Being in order for our mind to be just,” because our mind and our thoughts affect other people. If we are observant, we can see that certain thinking, certain ideas, or certain habits affect other people at work or are at home. Our thinking shapes our life, and therefore, that mind must be controlled and disciplined through meditation so that it can be serene in a natural equanimous state. This is “an art of objective reasoning” that “will provide a pedagogical and integral change.”

In this lecture, we are talking about objective reasoning, which means understanding without having to think about something; we simply know. That is the distinction between thoughts and comprehension. Pedagogy has to do with the way we instruct others by our example, through our ethics and our way of being.

“All the actions of our life must be the outcome of an equation and an exact formula in order for the possibilities of the mind and the functionalism of understanding to surge forth.” ―Samael Aun a Weor, The Revolution of the Dialectic

This inner divinity is called the Being.

Comprehension of Reality: The Perfect Expression of the Being

We have been explaining in our recent lectures on the Tarot, which related to divine principles, numbers, and mathematics; which is a topic of another discussion. However, we can see that in a moment of observation, in which we truly let our inner God act through us, His actions are mathematical; Her compassion is precise in all our interactions of life. It is like a formula or formulaic. It is precise and definite. Those qualities are well mentioned in certain schools of meditation which we study.

In this image we have Christ being tempted by the devil, which is a symbol of something psychological. How we as a consciousness, who must unite with the divine energy known as Christ, is opposing the mind represented by the devil. People believe in these figures as something external, but what is more interesting is that they represent something psychological for us.

In that exercise (the mantra INRI) we are invoking the Christic energy into the mind precisely so that we can overcome the temptations of our egotism, the logic of hatred, of sarcasm, and of fear. Christ is a form of understanding our mind, which is superior, and in this dialogue between him and the devil in the desert, it represents something we all experience when we genuinely attempt meditation. We face that temptation of the mind wanting to distract us and to give us what we want or desire—filling the mind with certain elements which surge and then churn constantly.

But as this parable or this myth teaches us, by working with energy and by being serene, concentrated, and not being identified with the mind, obviously, the devil in the myth is false because I believe the lines from the gospels was "tempt not the Lord thy God." Meaning the soul has been united and identified with the divine so the mind becomes still. The devil falls in the myth down a precipice or down a tower. It represents how the mind is conquered and is serene.

This also represents how our concepts of life do not equate with the reality of life. Our concepts, meaning our thinking, tends to be very limited. We can rationalize all we want about meditation and divinity, but what gives us true comfort and knowledge is our own experience, which is the dialectic of consciousness.

As Samael Aun Weor wrote in The Great Rebellion:

“Awakened consciousness allows us to experience reality directly. Unfortunately, the intellectual animal mistakenly called a human being, fascinated by the formulating power of dialectical logic has forgotten about the dialectic of the consciousness. Unquestionably, the power to formulate logical concepts certainly becomes terribly poor. From thesis we go on to antithesis. After discussion to synthesis. But the latter remains in itself an intellectual concept which can never coincide with the reality."

How does this apply to us? Obviously, this is related to schools, philosophical movements, religions, and ways of thinking. We can think all we want and believe what we want. But does that necessarily change our way of being? How we act? Whether our actions are truly beneficial, limited, or detrimental for humanity?

We can think all we want about who we are. We tend to have many concepts and beliefs. “This is my race, my religion, my family, and my school that I grew up in. My university diploma.” These are concepts and ideas. But what is the reality of our state of being? Do we truly understand the origins of our defects? Of laziness, of despair; and the whole conglomeration of errors? Because by understanding the root, psychologically, of those conditions, we can change them.

“The dialectic of consciousness is more direct, thereby permitting us to experience the reality of any phenomenon in and of itself.” —Samael Aun Weor, The Great Rebellion

Those who learn to meditate obviously learn to have certain mystical experiences which are mentioned in the different religions. Some people refer to this as astral projection or dream yoga in which the consciousness, free of the physical body, experiences the realities of the dream world or the fifth dimension. This is all very beautifully mapped out in what is known in the Kabbalah as the Tree of Life.
We can investigate any phenomena in nature. We put the body at rest. We relax and we silence the mind. We observe ourselves and we concentrate on our inner divinity, begging Him or begging Her, to give us that wisdom we seek. Therefore, we focus on projecting into the astral dimension and with certain disciplines, practices, and exercises that we utilize, the body goes to rest and we enter those dimensions. We can investigate and see things that are beyond the physical senses.

Personally, if I am teaching you this, it is because I have been doing this for years. I want to help my students experience the realities of the consciousness. It is not just limited to physical matter. You can experience dimensions that are not material in the physical sense, in which the religions called heavens. Also, you can investigate the infra-dimensions, or what is known as hell or hell realms because one thing we mentioned is that your state of consciousness, your level of being, and your state of mind determines if you vibrate within superior laws or inferior laws. It is simple cause and effect. Therefore, by learning to meditate and eliminate conditions of the mind, we vibrate at higher levels of being and higher laws, so that we can naturally investigate the phenomena of nature. Anything. That is the beauty of the consciousness because it has the capacity to expand to an infinite degree as the 14th Dalai Lama has instructed us.

“Intellectual delusion is fascinating and we want to force all natural phenomena to coincide with our dialectical logic.” —Samael Aun Weor, The Great Rebellion

People believe many things, again intellectually, about the universe, the solar system, and our nature. We want everything to fit into our theories, our ideas, our beliefs, and our habits. More importantly for us, this has to do with our own understanding of who we are. This is the most profound form of delusion. We think we are a certain way and yet the reality is in certain situations, we keep provoking conflicts.

We can all think of examples of this. We think a certain way. We have a certain opinion. We have a disagreement with a friend or a stranger and we want to force everything we are perceiving about our neighbor in our logic. “That person doesn't like me, or that person is resentful,” or that person is this, this, and that. Yet, the very qualities that we attribute to other human beings and other persons are precisely the qualities we carry within.

Therefore, we tend to live in delusion. We don't understand the sources of our problems; where our defects come from and where our habits originated. We tend to go through life very hypnotized and identified with external phenomena. Becoming fascinated by a new job, house, car, or whatever it may be. We want to fit everything into our logic about who we think we are. However, real courage occurs when we as the consciousness learn to face the mind and not to be tempted by it. We look at the mind and just see it for what it is.

Where do our thoughts come from? Our feelings, our impulses? Simply look at it and don't judge one way or the other, but observe. That is how you gain information about that type of psychological phenomena inside. That is why:

“The dialectic of consciousness is based on true life experiences and not on mere subjective rationalism.” —Samael Aun Weor, The Great Rebellion

That dialectic of consciousness is when we experience by fact. The reality is that our mind tends to be fractured and is split, but by observing that fact we gain strength because we see that we are not the mind; we are something more profound.

A master by the name of Ibn ‘Arabi, who practiced Sufism, which is the mystical aspect of Islam—he was considered one of the greatest teachers of that tradition. He wrote a very interesting excerpt from a book called Divine Governance of the Human Kingdom. It builds off from what I just mentioned to you about the science of dream yoga or awakening in the internal worlds, when your physical body is asleep, but you use your consciousness or are acting and moving in a different dimension.

Typically, people who go to sleep at night are knocked out for eight hours and then wake up in the morning. They may have some memories of dreams that are usually nothing. That's a barometer for how conscious we are. If your consciousness is very awake and is disciplined in meditation, you can converse in those dimensions with the angels and with the Buddhas. With the masters like Jesus, Buddha, etc.

In this quote he also talks about the nature of perception and how it is not intellectual. Renee Descartes’ theory that "I think therefore I am" is wrong. To think is not to be. When thinking about our friend, coworkers, or our spouse when we are driving our car, we are not paying attention at what we are doing. We are not being in the present moment and it means we are asleep. The consciousness is not active. It is lost in thinking and daydreams.

“We think we see with our eyes. The information, the influences of perception are due to our senses, while the real influence, that is, the meaning of things, the power behind what sees and what is seen can be reached neither by the senses nor by deduction, analysis, comparison, contrasts, and associations made through intellectual theories. The invisible world can only be penetrated by the eye or mind of the heart.” —Ibn ‘Arabi, Divine Governance of the Human Kingdom

Knowledge is of the intellect, but Being, divinity, consciousness is more of the heart. Understanding is at the core of our of our Being and of our emotional center, because when you truly intuit and know something profoundly, it is ingrained in you and it is permanent. The mind can wander and think what it wants, but when you know something from fact and from experience, that is unshakable. Such as, having an experience in the astral plane where you are talking face-to-face with a master.

Personally, I have done that many times where I have been speaking with the founder of the Gnostic tradition, Samael Aun Weor, as well as certain initiates who have been helping me. Especially, because I am trying to teach others how to experience that and therefore it is not a theory for me. I don't believe in anything. I don't believe in it. It's something I do as a consciousness, because I'm meditating daily and training my mind so that I can continue to get guidance about how to live my life.

The invisible world, the higher dimensions are known by the qualities of the heart; your ethics. By eliminating anger, lust, hatred, and fear you expand consciousness. You inflame your heart as represented by the sacred image of Jesus. His heart was constructed by a crown of thorns. This is a very famous icon in Christian thought and the thing is that it is a symbol of how we have to wear our own crown of thorns, which is obviously a symbol of restraining the mind and negative qualities in the heart. It is a type of willpower one needs.

When you sit to meditate, willpower is needed because we find that the mind wanders, and it gets distracted. It won’t stay on one thing for a long time in the beginning, but with practice and by going through a type of conflict in oneself, one learns to inflame the heart with understanding and that occurs by restraining the mind and not giving it what it wants. Again, saving your energies mentally, emotionally, and physically.

“The invisible world can only be penetrated by the eye or the mind of the heart” because the consciousness awakens by working with energy. As we emphasized in the beginning of our practice, this mantra INRI helps to fill us with fire and with power. With energy and by saving energy mentally, emotionally, and physically, we expand consciousness.

“Indeed, the reality of this visible world also can only be seen by the eye and mind of the heart.” —Ibn ‘Arabi, Divine Governance of the Human Kingdom

Again, if we want to understand the source of our problems in our daily existence, meditation is a means and a method to understand ourselves.

Spiritual Practice and Experience

Some of you who have been to my lectures previously see that I like to use a lot of different scriptures and writings. This is a tradition that I very much have a lot of respect for compared to the Orthodox extremist beliefs. This is a scripture from a book of Sufism, which is a mystical teaching of Islam. This tradition, of course, is very degenerated today. It has been abused of its original meaning, but if we look at some of the symbols and principles of this tradition, we can extract knowledge for our benefit and we emphasize in our school that all religions have one source, whether they have deviated from that is another thing.

This is a scripture called Principles of Sufism. This is a writing by Al-Qushayri, who is a great Sufi master and who inspired Rumi. If you are familiar with the poet Rumi, his power evidently came from studying this other master. One thing that is mentioned in this scripture is very important about the need for a type of spiritual discipline because true experience and the ability to have those types of experiences in the internal worlds is dependent upon our practice. It is a very practical method.

Samael Aun Weor wrote the following:

“It is completely impossible to experience the Being, the Innermost, the Reality [the Divine], without becoming true technical and scientific masters of that mysterious science called meditation. It is completely impossible to experience the Being, the Innermost, the Reality without having reached the true mastery of the quietude and silence of the mind." —Samael Aun Weor, The Spiritual Power of Sound.

The Sufis corroborate what he says, meaning that through daily discipline one can experience the divine and can expand awareness. Al-Jurayri said:

"Whoever does not establish awe of duty and vigilance in his relationship to the divine will not arrive at disclosure of the unseen or contemplation of the divine." ―Al-Risalah: Principles of Sufism by Al-Qushayri

What is this awe of duty? It has to do with our daily meditative practice—to feel a sense of awe and reverence every time we sit to reflect on ourselves because we understand that through this exercise, we are going to come closer to our inner Being, our true nature. Also, to feel that sense of urgency that we need to change and therefore we need to act.

It signifies to feel that inquietude, that disturbance in the heart that pushes us to want to know what religion teaches—to experience it, because through vigilance, observing ourselves, becoming aware of ourselves, and not letting the consciousness go to sleep, we in turn develop a relationship with our inner divinity, our own innermost God. That is personal for each one of us. It is very profound.

Vigilance: meaning that in a vigil you don't sleep. Instead you pray all night. You don't let your body go to rest but perform some types of austerities. This is one public level of meaning, but real vigilance is when you are driving your car, but you are not thinking about other things. You are doing what you are doing and being attentive. By developing vigilance and awe of duty, we obtain real knowledge. By daily discipline is how we truly train our mind to be serene, to be calm, to be peaceful; because those who don't will not arrive at disclosure of the unseen.

This has to do with having experiences in meditation, but also in dream yoga. To disclose the unseen also has another translation, which says "to unveil." When you unveil the mysteries, you are meditating and your body is at peace, your mind is calm, and then you receive an experience like a lightning bolt. It can be an image, a sound, a scene in which you are a living spectator and a participant. It could be a dream experience where you are seeing yourself doing certain actions or having certain types of interactions that are symbolic. That is unveiling, or tearing the veil of the mysteries; to see from the internal dimensions certain qualities of consciousness.

However, it is not enough just to unveil or to have those experiences. It is important to understand what they are teaching you, because your inner divinity will teach you in meditation through experiences and certain symbols that apply to your life and spiritual work.

Many people in this day and age are very fascinated with dream symbology and want to get certain books to teach them. "I had a dream about this and this. I want to read it and look at what it means." In this tradition, we don't rely on those types of books because the real method of understanding our dreams and experiences comes by meditating. When you meditate and you read scriptures and understand certain symbols, it is easy to interpret things. But relying on other people's opinions is not a guarantee that you can read about in certain books. I found more effective for my own practices to not read any book, but just go and meditate on the experience until the understanding surges forth.

When we have the experiences, we learn to understand what they mean. As the kabbalists teach, "A dream not interpreted is like a letter not read” (Berachot 55b). Therefore, contemplating the meaning of our experiences is known as Mushahada in Arabic. This is the word “witnessing, to witness.” If you are familiar with Islam, they do the Shahidah, which is the declaration of their faith in the public level: “There is no god but God, and Muhammad is His Prophet.”

People recite that many times, but do they really understand what it means is another thing. When you say that you have witnessed God, it means that you have been meditating. Then you as a consciousness have had the experience of uniting with your Being. You are witnessing the ecstasy of your soul united with that truth and that purity. That is to be a witness, to perceive, and to be awake. It doesn't mean just thinking that I believe in this tradition or I believe in Jesus or I believe in Samael Aun Weor, thinking that belief is going to guarantee anything. Instead it is about having the experience. That is witnessing. When you have those experiences your heart becomes inflamed precisely because you have seen the truth for yourself and you know that you are not alone.

The Four States of Consciousness

We talk about four states of consciousness in this tradition. From the Greek mysteries and in the spirit of this doctrine, of the dialectic of consciousness, we have been talking a bit about the Greeks in terms of their language and etymology.

We can say there are four types of dialectic or four types of being. We have Eikasia, which is profound sleep. We have Pistis which is sleep with dreams. Now we have Dianoia or awakened consciousness, followed by Nous or spiritually illuminated consciousness.

Humanity tends to be stuck in the first two forms of consciousness, which is sleep or sleep with dreams. People in these times believe that they are awake. We tend to have this belief that we are conscious. When you practice meditation and if you analyze your eight hours of sleep at night, whether you are awake or not in the dream world, then that is a barometer for how weak we are. Typically, we tend to be sleeping for eight hours and there is nothing. That is sleep. That is Eikasia.

Pistis, which is sleep with dreams, has to do with not only the dreams we experienced at night, but in our daily states.

As I mentioned to you, when you are at work or you are washing your dishes, but thinking of other things, this means we are dreaming. We are not awake. We are not aware of what we are doing, which is going mechanically with our habits and our actions.

I like to relate to you some of the etymology of these Greek words because Eikasia, Pistis, Dianoia, and Nous; they are Greek words, but they have a lot of meaning if you really break them down.

Eikasia (εἰκασία) literally means “imagination.” It means “images” from the Greek εικόνων eikonon. I mentioned to you that we tend to be asleep or that we are asleep physically as a consciousness. Physically our body is active, but if the mind is wandering and if we are not aware of what is going on, it means that we are experiencing sleep without dreams. This is a very barbaric form of consciousness that is very negative. All the violence that you see on television, the wars, and the bloodshed; that is Eikasia—to be unconscious, because someone who is awakened spiritually would never dare to harm another human being. They would never inflict violence.

Eikasia means “imagination” and the word imagination simply means to perceive images, and is a representation of what we are going through now. We perceive images in life physically and yet we are not aware of what we are seeing. We are not questioning what we see. We just go with the flow. This is very easy to see, when at the end of your day, you reflect and try to remember what you did at certain points in the day. If you can't remember those certain periods of time in which you got up that morning and you were driving a car and don't remember where you drove or what you did, that is being asleep. We have gaps in our memory. We say, "I don't remember what happened." What you are thinking, what you are doing, and what you are feeling; that is Eikasia, or unconsciousness.

Πίστις Pistis is a little different and it is not much better. This is sleep with dreams. From the Greek Πιστεύω Pisteuo, meaning “to trust, to have confidence, faithfulness, to be reliable, and to assure.”

Pistis simply means belief or faith, but in the subjective sense. As I have been explaining, to believe that by following Jesus one is saved is superficial. We also believe and trust many things. We put our faith and our confidence on many things that are not reliable, whether institutions, traditions, religions, etc.
But we also experience Pistis. We dream when we are thinking, acting, and doing other things but not being aware of where we are at. We then put our trust into our thinking, our feelings, and our impulses; we invest our energy. That is Pistis.

Dianoia (διάνοια) is much different. It means the awakened state of consciousness. The word "diá" means “thoroughly, from side to side” which intensifies "noiéō" or "noús," which means “mind.” Dianoia is when you step out of the cage of your intellect and when you perceive that you are not the mind. You engage your mind thoroughly and examine it. As a consciousness, you are evaluating yourself and your habits in meditation and throughout the day through self-observation. This is to be awake—to not identify with any phenomena outside or inside but to be conscious.

Nous (νοῦν) is much superior. This is to be spiritually illuminated. It is not only when you are not identified with your mind, but you as a consciousness unite with your inner God, your Being: who you are in your essence, fundamentally.

These four states are represented by the Allegory of the Cave of Plato. Obviously, the cave represents the darkness of the mind and in this myth, the allegory of philosophy is such that a certain person was chained with other prisoners in a cave. Then this person was released by some Guru or master and taken out in order to experience the stars, the landscape, the mountains, and nature. To see the sunrise for the first time. In condensed form, it is a symbol of how we escape the darkness of our intellect, our subconsciousness and desires in order to experience illumination, your true nature, and your Being.

Obviously, this is the goal, and you can have that experience by daily discipline and meditation where you are not only awake as a consciousness, but you experience what your inner divinity is, which is plenitude, happiness, and contentment.

But in order to get to that point, we learn to examine our psychological states. As I have been indicating, interactions with humanity and with other human beings is our psychological training, because in those moments of interaction we learn to see the conditions that truly shape us and limit us. By learning to be observant of our psychological states and our interactions with humanity, we learn to understand and discover our secret faults and errors. It also gives us the opportunity to develop virtue: real conscious and beautiful action in which our soul and our divinity expresses through us. We become vehicles of enlightenment.

Internal States and External Events

People who want to separate from life, due to despair or whatever qualities from external events, do so because they feel so lost in suffering. They demonstrate their incapacity to live. Meditation is precisely the means by which we learn to live more consciously with rectitude and with ethics.

“When one wants to separate the external events of life from the internal states of consciousness, one demonstrates concretely his incapacity of existing in a dignified manner. Those who learn how to consciously combine external events with internal states march on the path of success.” —Samael Aun Weor, Treatise of Revolutionary Psychology

So instead of blaming our job, the politicians, or whomever, we take responsibility for our own suffering, because if we didn't have anger, we wouldn't suffer. Likewise, with pride and all these elements.

In learning to develop virtue, we help humanity and help ourselves. Our psychological state determines our life, which is well-known within Sufism. The Sufis talk about three types of blessing or three types of principles which are at the heart of understanding ourselves and of meditation. They referred to that tradition known as Islam, which means “submission” in Arabic. Does it mean to physically adhere to some type of tradition? To say, “I believe in Muhammad and there was only one God” and to pray five times a day? That's very superficial and habitual.

Meditation is something more profound. When you submit to God, your divinity, it means that you no longer perform harmful actions.

People complain and we have had many letters written to us. A missionary was asking us, "I don't experience God. I haven't seen my inner Being. I don't know what the truth is. I want to know how." I always reply to them and ask, “How do you behave with other people?” Not only with them, but psychologically, because when you examine your internal states and if you find corruption, negativity, and desire, that is the problem.

In those moments of observation, you get light and your divinity will show you what your ego is that you must work on the most. It presents itself and when you see it and catch it in the moment, you say "Aha!" and you feel joy. That is the greatest joy of the meditator, because you see a defect and then you say, "Now I know what this defect is and I am going to meditate on it so it is going to be eliminated." That is how you change your internal states so that you learn to vibrate with higher laws, and therefore, when you relate to other human beings, you help them rise to a higher level of being, a higher level virtue.

The Three Blessings of the Sufis

That is Islam: when you submit to God. It doesn't mean you bow to the east, but instead it means that in the moment, you refrain from harmful action, harmful thinking, and harmful feeling. You no longer let your sufferings dictate your life. You also have Iman, which means faith, and as I mentioned to you, the word Pistis also means faith. However, real faith in the true sense doesn't mean belief, to think, or feel something is true, without experience or evidence. Real faith is when you have the knowledge and experience of the divine in your consciousness, and therefore you know that there is no theory there. It is very clear. Lastly, there is Ihsan, which is a word that relates to the Arabic name Hassan, which means beauty. Ihsan means beautiful action. To act beautifully is to let your Being express through you, in which you become the vehicle and the means by which your inner Christ or your inner Buddha is manifest.

How does this relate to our internal states? Our psychological states, as I mentioned, fluctuate. They change, they churn, and by learning to be observant, we understand how our psychological states shape our existence.

“When Al-Junayd was asked about the Gnostic, he replied, ‘the color of the water is the color of its container.’ That is, the nature of the Gnostic, (one who knows in meditation and who experiences the truth) is always determined by the nature of his state in a given moment.” ―Al-Risalah: Principles of Sufism by Al-Qushayri

Moment by moment, we learn to observe ourselves and that is always something changing and dynamic. It is nothing static, because the truth is the unknowable from moment to moment. As I have been mentioning to you, meditation is the means by which we overcome the intellect and to use it in its right place. To use it well.

Comprehension and Imagination

This is from Igneous Rose by Samael Aun Weor, where he explains what the dialectic of consciousness is, the understanding of the soul. The reasoning faculty is not something to be discarded completely, but to be utilized well with comprehension and with understanding:

“We must extract only the golden fruit from reasoning. The golden fruit of reasoning is comprehension (to know without having to think about it, to understand). Comprehension and imagination must replace reasoning." —Samael Aun We Comprehension or, Igneous Rose

Comprehension is that spark or hunch, that understanding, of the causes of suffering. Imagination, as I indicated, is perception, to see not only physical imagery, but psychic imagery, something that is internal, such as internal states, because when you develop your observation of yourself, you learn to see and taste the different qualities and the nature of our psychological elements.

“Imagination and comprehension are the foundation of the superior faculties of the understanding.” —Samael Aun a Weor, Igneous Rose

When we learn to meditate, we develop two factors in ourselves. Comprehension is a result of having a serene mind. That is, when your intellect is no longer churning with so many negative elements and the imagination is when we use our consciousness and we can see clearly.

If the lake of the mind is serene, you can then perceive and reflect the images of the divine, the sky, and the heavens in that lake. That lake is your mind. If it is churning and if it is rippling with violence, anger, and prejudice, then the mind is agitated. You can't see clearly. Obviously, we have a day of work and we are full of anger. We feel negative. We can't see clearly, psychologically. We are engaged in and constricted by that negativity. But through observation of the mind, naturally you are not acting on the ego and your defects, then the mind settles and you develop equanimity. That is when the images in meditation start to reflect. When your body is still and relaxed, your mind is calm after a day of self-observation and of reflection.

Then as you are relaxing and approaching the state of slumber, images appear that reflect within our psyche as experiences. That is imagination: the capacity to perceive experiences that are not of a physical type, but of a spiritual type. Imagination and comprehension are the true faculties of our understanding: serenity and insight.

The Sufis elaborate on this point very beautifully about the nature of insight, the nature of consciousness. Someone who has developed light inside of themselves has insight. To have insight into the nature of any experience, psychologically speaking or even physically, depends on the depth of our consciousness. That is, the ability to penetrate into the mind. Because as we are now, we tend to be lost in Eikasia or Pistis, which is sleep. But someone who develops light is awakening consciousness and understanding.

As the Sufis teach:

“‘Or one who was dead whom we gave new life and a light with which he can walk among men, can he be like one who is in the depths of darkness from which he will never emerge?’ (6:122) One of the Sufis said that God’s words means,“One whose intellect had died and so God gave him new life by the light of insight and whom God gave the light of manifestation and witnessing, he is not like one who walks among the people of negligence in his negligence.

“It is said, ‘If a man’s insight is sound, he ascends to the station of witnessing.’” —Al-Risalah: Principles of Sufism by Al-Qushayri

This is talking about people who have light and those who don't. What does it mean to have insight, understanding, and comprehension? When we have those experiences, we become filled with inspiration, peace, and happiness. Therefore, we learn to engage life in a much more dynamic way. But, to be negligent refers to all of humanity, or people who don't understand what meditation is. Or, if they do practice it, they may do it once in a while, but not consistently. Negligence means to not elect. To not act. The purpose of consciousness is to act, to behave in an upright and conscious way.

“Those whose intellect have died,” meaning that they are no longer limited by the mind; they use the mind in its service. Those are the people who have insight, who developed witnessing, who can say that “I believe in God, that there is no god but God,” because they had the experience in meditation.

Those who are witnessing the truth are not like those who don't. It is a very clear distinction. It is also said that if a man's insight, his perception, and imagination is sound, he then ascends to the station of witnessing: a technical term referring to leaving the physical body behind, and in the higher dimensions, you unite with your Being, which we will be explaining in the courses of Kabbalah specifically.

In meditation we learn to focus on one thing and not let the mind get distracted. That is the beginning. We develop serenity, we learn to concentrate, and don't get distracted. Remember what you are doing. The next step is to develop our capacities for perceiving imagery, which we do through exercises like taking a mandala or sacred painting, and trying to reconstruct that image in your mind, so that you can see it with your imagination.

If I asked you to think of a cup of water, the image emerges in our mind. We can think about it. We can see it not with physical senses, but psychological ones. That act of being able to perceive imagery is imagination. Some people have called it clairvoyance. That is a very fancy term meant to confuse people that made people think that they don't have the ability to be conscious. That is a mistake. Instead, we all have the capacity to imagine and to perceive.

When you learn to silence the mind, then you can focus on perceiving more clearly and profoundly, because when the lake of the mind is calm, you can see into the depths of your psyche. That is imagination. In our practice of meditation, we learn to silence the mind and then afterwards, we try to perceive deeply with our consciousness, an image, a stone, or try to understand scripture.

With many things, we can develop our consciousness. There are many purposes of meditation, but most importantly, we learn to comprehend what we perceived in ourselves during the day. Imagination is the ability to go deep into the mind to understand and perceive all those defects we caught in action, on a moment-to-moment basis. Those who develop profound insight are able to go very deep into the mind.

“Abu Hassan Ibn Mansur declared: ‘The one possessing insight hits his target with the first arrow he looses. He never turns to interpretation, speculation, or supposition.’” ―Al-Risalah: Principles of Sufism by Al-Qushayri

Someone who has profound imagination developed, in a simple and single practice, goes and silences the mind. He focuses on that thing without having to rationalize about that object of meditation. For example, you take a scene in your day, maybe at work with your boss in which you had a certain conversation that provoked a lot of negativity inside of you. You saw perhaps anger, fear, pride, vanity, and all those elements surged in that moment. Then you caught it and you saw it in yourself. Then at home, what you would do is relax your body and relax your mind, reviewing your imagination on what you went through in that experience. Try to see ego, each defect in that instant, or in those moments at work.

Someone whose imagination is very profound will not be thinking about "Well, I'm not sure what this element is," or maybe trying to rationalize about what we are focusing on. Someone who is concentrating is trying to imagine him or herself and that scene in the day. One doesn't refer to speculation. Don't think or try to speculate about what you saw. Simply look at the facts. What did you perceive in yourself? What did you capture?

Don't try to interpret it one way or the other, but just look. The act of looking is the act of understanding, because when you don't rationalize about what you're trying to meditate on, the insight emerges spontaneously and profoundly. It's magic. It comes into your mind and suddenly you say "Aha! I understood that anger and that moment. Now by praying to my inner divinity I can learn to eliminate that fault.”

Certainty of Inner Spiritual Experiences

“It is also said (and this refers to different levels of meditators), the insight of the seekers is speculation that brings about certainty. The insight of the gnostics is a certainty that brings about inner-realization.” ―Al-Risalah: Principles of Sufism by Al-Qushayri

We are all seekers here. We're beginning meditators. We may have certain hunches or intuitions about certain religions, traditions, or about ourselves. Things that we want to know more about. However, there is a higher level of being. We seek to prove in our current level of being certain truths contained in religion. But somebody who is a gnostic, someone who really awakens a lot of consciousness, they have experiences, and when they return to their physical body after an experience of dream yoga, they look in the physical world for evidence to confirm and validate what they experienced.

I give you an example of what this phenomenon is. I remember many years ago when I first started gnosis, I was meditating and I had an experience in the dream world where I was shown ten faces. Two rows, five images each. I saw mine at the very bottom right. I saw the other faces there and they were very powerful and divine. Especially what was most notable to me was an old man with a very profound countenance—very strong and all these images were from the Nordic mythology. Different characters like Wotan, Father of the Gods.

I remember looking in certain books to find out "What did I just experience? What did I just go through?" Then someone introduced me to the Kabbalah, which is Jewish mysticism. It is a map of ten spheres. Those ten pictures were really the Kabbalah. I had an experience and then I read about it in a book later. The Kabbalah, if you're not familiar, is a map of consciousness from lower levels of experience (matter, energy, and perception) all the way to the highest. The most rarefied and most divine. I saw my Being and all those aspects, the ten spheres. I was at the very bottom, meaning the physical body. I had that experience and then I was looking in the books, I was trying to validate "What did I just go through?" Then I read about it, which gave me more faith, especially things that give you a lot of certainty about this knowledge. Our inner divinity is the one who has to create a psychological space within us.

Inner Judgment in Meditation

This is an image of The Last Judgement of Christ judging humanity. It is a symbol. One important symbol is that it relates to our daily meditative discipline. We have to judge ourselves.

We have to judge our faults. First see them and then when you are meditating, concentrate on a certain event in your day. Try to perceive and understand and see the root causes of your afflictions. By developing comprehension of each fault that you witnessed, you ask for your inner divinity to eliminate and to judge.

Our inner Being is the one who gives us a sense of order in our psychological house, because I said to you, we tend to be afflicted by multifarious elements. The egotism of our desires is precisely the "I," the “me”, and the “myself.”

“We must clarify that a radical difference exists between the ego and the Being. The ‘I,’ (the sense of self we grasp onto), can never establish an order in psychological matters, as, in itself, it is the result of disorder. Only the Being (the divine), has the power to establish order in our psyche. The Being is the Being and the reason for the Being to be, is to be the Being himself.” —Samael Aun Weor, The Great Rebellion

This is light, presence, intelligence, wisdom, cognizance, order in the work of self-observation and judgment. In eliminating our psychic aggregates, meaning our defects and our desires:

“Order in the work of self-observation, judgment, and elimination of our psychic aggregates gradually becomes evident through the judicious sense of psychological self-observation.” —Samael Aun Weor, The Great Rebellion

The path of meditation is very specific and very methodical. First, we observe ourselves and get data about our defects. When we see them in a certain experience of life we go home and we meditate. We judge them. We ask for comprehension and understanding. By comprehending them, we pray to our inner divinity to eliminate and that is how by breaking the shells of the ego, we extract consciousness so that the soul is unified with God, with the Being.

The Divine Mother and Elimination of Defects

The one who helps establish this order in us is known in the Greek myths as Athena. She is known as Minerva amongst the Romans. She is the feminine aspect of divinity inside of us, represented in Hinduism as Durga, Kali. She is also known as the Virgin Miriam in Christianity. The word Miriam in Hebrew literally means to raise, to elevate. She is that part of our divinity that elevates us from the depths of despair and our demonic qualities to the very heights.

We work with her every day in our meditation disciplines here. She is the one who helps to eliminate. Notice on her shield, she has the Medusa whose head has been decapitated, because she is the force of divinity in us, that power that gives birth to the divine in us who eliminates.

She is the warrior who aided Odysseus in the Greek poems. If you remember from The Odyssey, he returns home from the battle of Troy after twenty years of being at sea in order to find that his home has been invaded by suitors trying to marry his wife. They have taken all his food, his crops, his money, and his wealth. They squandered it. That is a symbol of how we have been exiled from our own inner divinity. When we return home, we find that our house is a mess with all these defects. These suitors trying to marry Penelope, his soul, his consciousness. They are trying to take everything from him, so who helps him is Athena. Athena is the one who gives that hero the means and the method in order to kill the suitors. It is a very beautiful poem. I won't spoil it if you haven't read it, but it has a very beautiful teaching. This defines for us the path of illumination.

Athena is our inner divine Goddess who is really part of our consciousness. And she is the one who helps us from the very beginning of the path all the way to the end. There is an order to how we eliminate defects. She is the one who establishes that path in us.

“As we progress in our inner work, we can verify for ourselves an interesting order in the system of elimination. One is astonished when one discovers that there is an order in the work related to the elimination of the multiple psychic aggregates that personify our errors.” —Samael Aun Weor, The Great Rebellion

The word aggregate means “pile, heap, or conglomeration.” Each defect is an aggregate which traps our consciousness.

“What is most interesting about all this is that such an order in the elimination of defects comes about gradually and is processed according to the dialectic of consciousness. The dialectic of reasoning will never surpass the formative work of the dialectic of consciousness.” —Samael Aun Weor, The Great Rebellion

This has to do with our daily discipline in which we are learning about ourselves, acquiring more wisdom, and knowledge, whereby we understand certain defects emerge in certain situations and we work on them gradually—day by day until by comprehension and profound works, our defects become pulverized. Eliminated. They become smaller and weaker, because we are comprehending them until finally the Divine Mother can decapitate them.

“The dialectic of reasoning will never surpass the formidable work of the dialectic of consciousness.” —Samael Aun Weor, The Great Rebellion

The dialectic of consciousness is your work in which you are comprehending yourself more and more until finally the ego is dead.

“In time, the facts show us that the psychological order in the work of eliminating defects is established by our own profound inner Being.” —Samael Aun Weor, The Great Rebellion

From the very beginning of the path to the very end of self-realization of enlightenment, this is guided every step and every moment by our divinity.

The Gnostic Esoteric Work

As I mentioned to you, she works in three ways. In the Gnostic esoteric work, the Greek word gnosis means knowledge, self-wisdom, and understanding is divided into three sections.

Here you see an image here of Durga, from Hinduism, slaying a demon, a monster. She is riding upon a Lion of Judah, which reminds us of the Judeo-Christian tradition. Or יהודה Jehudah, יהוה Iod Hei Vav Hei, Jehovah. We can also say Yeshua, which is a representation of what we call Christ, which is an energy.

She is slaying this element, which is psychological. We have discovery, judgment, and execution. First, we observe ourselves. We gather knowledge about our faults. Then in meditation we reflect in the screen of our imagination what we experienced and what we saw. Therefore, didactically by focusing on each defect we learned to comprehend them. Execution refers to prayer. We pray to our inner Divinity to eliminate because we cannot eliminate defects on our own. We need our inner Being who is the source of order and of knowledge.

Work Memory

Lastly one thing we will mention is something that is pertinent to the discussion of this dialectic of consciousness. This is self-understanding. It is important to reflect on what we were years ago. Reflect on who we were. The ways we thought, felt, and acted before we were led and inspired to approach this kind of study, what is known in this teaching as psychological photographs.

When we begin this work, we learn to transform our psyche gradually and then we reflect after a time upon what we were in the past, in terms of a psychological image. Of who we were before we sought to study any type of knowledge of this type. It is useful as Samael Aun Weor writes in The Great Rebellion to reflect on oneself constantly and to analyze: What are we doing successfully? What are we doing that is wrong?

“The establishment of the consecutive order in the different parts of the work, related to this extremely serious subject of eliminating the psychic aggregates, allows us to generate a work memory. This is quite interesting and even extremely useful in the question of more inner development.” —Samael Aun Weor, The Great Rebellion

Work memory has to do with understanding the process by which we are working psychologically. This is something that is developed by practice. We develop a type of understanding and comprehension of who we were before we began this work and what we have become now.

"This work memory can certainly give us distinct psychological photographs of the different stages of our past. As a whole, it will bring to our imagination a vivid and even repugnant imprint of what we were before beginning the radical psycho-transforming work. There is no doubt that we would never wish to return to that horrifying image, that vivid representation of what we once were. From this point, such psychological photography is useful as a means of confrontation between a transformed present and a regressive, stale, clumsy, and unfortunate past. The work memory is always recorded on the basis of successive psychological events registered by the center of psychological self-observation." ―Samael Aun Weor, The Great Rebellion

Again, this myth of Perseus teaches us many things, because by using the reflection of our consciousness in the shield, which is the armor of the soul, we learn to work gradually little by little on our faults so that by reflecting on this process, we develop more stamina, awareness, and more inspiration.

Questions and Answers

Question: Why should we lose our anger? Confront it, I understand. Why should we lose it? I think it’s a highly good thing for us. It gives us persistence. It helps us to escape slavery to the conditions we are in. I really find when someone talks about it as a negative thing. I think there are certain things I don’t understand or that they are wrong.

Instructor: Anger is a negative emotion. In its true sense is a frustrated desire. It wants something from the external world or from a reality that it can't get. Now, there are certain psychological states such as indignation, or a sense of moral and social righteousness, where something has been committed and it is wrong. Naturally, we feel a sense of indignation and that this is horrible and that we don't want that to exist. That type of sentiment is natural. It is a conscious quality where we feel that truly we see the state of humanity and we feel a sense of urgency—the consciousness that really is indignant, that is a sense of severity that says this is wrong. That this should not be tolerated.

But anger is a psychological element and it is something different. Anger is a negative emotion that wants to harm others, but even when people are committing harm the best way to resolve that is not by responding with anger, but instead severity. The consciousness is not complacent with wrong. When there is harm committed, naturally we can say that we should channel the forces of judgment from the Being, because divinity or God is not complacent with wrong. There is both mercy and justice in divinity. They find their balance within our heart.

So naturally feeling a sense of indignation towards what has been going on in the media or on the world is natural and we should feel driven to want to change that. But doing it with negative emotions, especially when we see how that ego acts and relates to others, it tends to exacerbate the condition rather than resolve it.

Instead, you can learn to be patient. Not in the sense that you are just tolerating the wrong and letting it continue, but instead you put your foot down and don't allow it. That is judgment. It is a conscious quality. Love does not necessarily mean complacency with wrong, because when you eliminate anger, you develop true love, which knows how to judge, how to act, how to behave, and how to help others. Not to perpetuate that mistake. That is real judgment.

Comment: To help answer her question better, what was it that Christ felt when he flipped over the table of the money lenders?

Instructor: Good, that is an example of the severity of the consciousness, of divinity. God isn't just some figure that punishes humanity blindly nor is God stupidly compassionate, you can say, or complacent with wrong. When Jesus was throwing the tables of the money lenders in the Bible, it refers to how we as a consciousness have to go against the moneylenders in our psyche. This is a symbol because those money lenders that have prostituted the temple of God is psychological. It is inside of us.

Audience: He didn't do it out of anger...

Instructor: He wasn't angry, but he was demonstrating something psychological as a parable. It is something symbolic. Now psychologically we have to go into our temple which is our mind and to get rid of the money lenders, that is, those defects that have taken our temple of God are in our psyche and have polluted it. We have to confront it.

Question: What role does fear play with our relationship with God?

Instructor: The word awe is a quality of the consciousness. With the Bible it is referred to as fear of God but it has been misinterpreted to mean something egotistical, like the fear that we typically feel is negative. It really debilitates conscious action. The word awe of duty, if you look at the Judeo-Christian tradition or the Hebrew Bible, you find the word fear of God known as Pehad, which means awe. To feel awe in reverence.

The word awe is something of the consciousness that feels respect for the divine and its power and respects that divinity within him or herself, because you feel awe of duty when you refrain from negative action and negative ways of being. You realize and you remember that your inner divinity is with you moment by moment. Is with you and is a part of you. To act in negative ways is to infringe on that relationship with your inner Being. That is why one feels an awe, a reverence, because if we are about to get into an argument with someone or do something violent or negative, and we refrain from acting that way, we are practicing awe of duty. The divine is peace, compassion, understanding and to not be observant of divinity in us, our mind stream, and our actions produces suffering.

One thing I'll mention is that the Being is with us here and now. Your inner divinity is always present, but the problem is that we don't have consciousness of that. As the Qur’an teaches, "Truly we are closer to you than your jugular vein." This is the divine speaking into the words of that prophet. Divinity is with us here and now and when we feel awe of duty, it means that we are not acting negatively in certain situations so that we learn to deepen our connection with the truth.

Any final questions or comments?

Comment: Just one comment about a point you brought up earlier. It’s one of the names of Geburah, which is that sphere of justice, representing that whole, left pillar of the tree; and it’s sometimes the destruction, the waging war against everything that holds us back from the inner divinity.

Instructor: Geburah is the quality of the divine consciousness as we teach in this tradition and mercy is the Spirit known as Chesed in Kabbalah. If you go to our website, we are going to be on the tenth lecture [of The Eternal Tarot of Alchemy and Kabbalah] pretty soon and it talks about the Tree of Life and death. Geburah is that sense of conscience that says this is right and this is wrong. It is severe in enacting that type of discipline. The way that we get that strength in ourselves is by meditating. Because the power of Geburah and judgment occurs spontaneously in us when we are willing to reflect and look within us to see: what are our faults? What do we need to change? By extracting the consciousness from those elements we develop true judgment and true mercy.

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The Light of the Consciousness

6/2/2018

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We began this exercise by observing ourselves, observing our thinking, observing our emotional states, as well as the body. This active, clear seeing, observation, is the entrance way into meditation. It is the unfoldment, the means, the method. Meditation is precisely the science of perceiving clearly without obscuration, without conditioning.

If we are honest, when we sit for five minutes, or even ten, twenty, half an hour, if we look within ourselves, what we typically perceive is a conglomeration of different thoughts, different emotions, different memories, which seem to surge and to churn without control, without any order, without any coherence.

So, meditation is the science of expanding that attention, developing it―this awareness of oneself, and this understanding of all the factors that make up who we are psychologically―in terms of our thoughts, our emotions, our impulses to act. Meditation is about understanding these elements, where they originate from, how they emerge, sustain and pass from the screen of our awareness, our attention.

Consciousness is simply the ability to look, to see, not with physical senses, but psychological ones―to understand that we are not thought, that we are not emotion, that we are not the impulses of the body, instincts. Looking within, we learn to see that we are composed of many elements that meditation helps us to understand and to comprehend. Because the science of awakening consciousness is the science of freeing oneself from conditions, from elements that shape and limit our attention, our perception.

The consciousness is simply the ability to observe, to pay attention, to remember what one is doing. If you sit for five minutes and find that the mind is wondering, thinking of other things, being distracted, that means that our consciousness is not strengthened enough, developed. It is not potent enough to remain focused. And, if we are observing ourselves in those five minutes of meditation, we tend to understand or can see that this is the psychological state of our being, on a moment-to-moment basis, day by day.

We tend to live life in a very identified fashion, a very mechanical fashion, reacting to the circumstances of life, impulsively, because if you look within those five minutes of meditation, simply blocking out the senses, looking inside to what is within, that is a barometer for how conscious we really are throughout our daily experience. Because by shutting up the senses, introspecting within, we get a glimpse of what our daily state of life is like in a more objective sense, in a more clear sense.

Meditation is not simply about sitting for five minutes, ten minutes, becoming relaxed, although that is the introduction, the beginning of awakening perception. Instead, it has to do with understanding the conditions that shape our daily state, which make us suffer, to understand what are the psychological obstacles within the mind, within our heart, that condition us, conditions our ways of seeing, of being, of understanding.

There are many factors that make up who we are, but in a subjective sense. If you really go deep and develop this practice further, learning to observe as a consciousness within oneself, one sees that one is not thought, because thoughts emerge, they sustain upon the screen of our awareness, they pass away, like memories, like clouds. Likewise, emotions. Moods emerge, sustain, pass away. Likewise, the sensations of the body, an itch, a scratch, something that irritates. These likewise emerge, sustain, pass away on the screen of our experience.

These factors are really impermanent. There is nothing stable about them. And yet, if we are developing our observation of ourselves, we can realize that that which is eternal, that which is divine, is the consciousness. The act of looking, the act of seeing oneself as one is, is light, understanding.

Meditation is about developing that perception of oneself because consciousness is light, the ability to perceive―beyond any conditioning, beyond any limitations, beyond any belief. Few people recognize that our psychology is something that is feasible to modify, to change. It is possible to change one’s state of suffering on a day-by-day basis, to transform one’s mind.

This is something that Buddhism explains beautifully in the Four Noble Truths.

One: that in life there is suffering.

Second: suffering has causes.

Third: the causes of suffering can cease.

And lastly, there is a path away to cease suffering.

Those psychological states in our daily life, such as anger, fear, resentment, pride, vanity, these elements are conditions. They are not the true nature of consciousness, who we really, fundamentally are in our depth. The problem is that due to mistaken action, we have conditioned our psyche.

We may like to blame other people for our suffering: maybe at our job, our friends, our coworkers, one’s spouse, one’s loved ones. But the fact is that regardless of the impressions of life that emerge, enter within us such as someone insults us, says something negative―we are responsible for our own psychological states: the elements of pride, resentment, anger, fear, frustration. These elements are something that we created, and which are not our true self. They are not our true identity.

Meditation is about learning to develop and break away the conditions of the soul, consciousness. So that we are radiantly absorbed in our own true nature, which is light, which is happiness, contentment. The problem is that we have psychologically conditioned ourselves. We have put a cage around who we are, because anger, fear, hatred, egotism, these are elements that we created and that we are responsible for changing.

But the first step of any practice is simply looking within, to recognize the First Noble Truth that in life there is suffering. But also that there are causes, which are psychological. And the fact of observation helps us to see within ourselves what those states are, what those elements are. What are those cages that trap and limit us which make us vibrate at a low level of being, of behaving? So, every religion teaches how to break those shells in their fundamental heart. Whether in these time that teaching is being disseminated is another thing. But all religions, we teach, in their very root essence, explain the science of meditation, how to observe oneself, how to understand why we suffer, and to understand those cages that we created, so that we can, by seeing them, eliminate them, by the grace of divinity. Because as Buddha Shakyamuni, his title of buddha simply means “awakened one, cognizant one,” stated that our life is shaped by our mental states, our psychological way of being.

We tend to like to look at the exterior, that it is the exterior world that makes us suffer. But the science of meditation, introspection, teaches us to see where those causes of suffering exist, so that by understanding them they may cease.

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. –Buddha, The Dhammapada

The Eastern doctrines teach the law of karma, which simply means “cause and effect.” How do our actions produce happiness? How do our actions produce suffering? And understanding the basis of this law of cause and effect we can change, and thereby, we learn to change the state of humanity as it is. Because any fundamental revolution of a spiritual type does not occur as a result of focusing on the exterior, but by becoming psychologically united in oneself, integral―not being dispersed or distracted by the psychological elements of anger, resentment, ego.

These psychological states determine our life. If we speak with anger in a certain situation, we suffer the consequences, produce problems, difficulties, ordeals. But if we learn to change our way of being, our level of consciousness, we learn to respond to life with a sense of rectitude, with purity. Because the mind, with our thinking, our ways of feeling, and our ways of acting, as it is, tends to be egotistical, focused on “me, myself, what I want, what I crave, what I desire, what I want to do”―and usually at the expense of other people.

The mind with these conditions, its factors of limitation, are precisely a form of pollution. It is the negativity, the conditioning of the psyche. Anger is a polluted emotion, a negative mental state. Likewise, the different religious explanations, such as the seven deadly sins of Christianity, or the ten non-meritorious actions of Buddhism. These all refer to negative states of being which, if we comprehend them at their root, we can then awaken and free our consciousness from those conditions.

As I said, consciousness is light, the ability to perceive beyond thought, beyond feeling, beyond impulse. It is the ability to observe, to be attentive. Now, when I say the consciousness is beyond thought, it is beyond emotion, it is beyond impulse, this does not mean that the consciousness is without feeling or understanding. Because the consciousness, when it is radiantly absorbed within its true nature, is pure, is happiness, serenity, content. These are the virtues of the soul mentioned in different religious cosmogonies and traditions.

But typically, egotism, hatred, fear, these elements constitute our daily state of suffering, and refer to the darkness in the book of Genesis on the first day. So, the Bible teaches that the Earth was formless and void, and the darkness was upon the face of the deep, of the abyss. People literally interpret this to mean some type of physical creation story. But it is something psychological.

That darkness is us, our mind. When we look within, if we observe our problems, our daily experience, when we look within, we tend to see an abyss, very dark, without divinity. But if we remember, as taught within the religious scriptures, which we interpret in a symbolic manner, there is the ability and the hope to transform one’s psyche. Because, as the book of Genesis in Hebrew, בראשית Bereshit speaks of, it says, “Elohim said: ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.”

So in terms of divinity, they were not referring to some old man in the clouds with a beard, but as a presence, as a consciousness, as omniscience, pure happiness, a way of being. And really, in our fundamental heart, we have God within, the Being, the presence of divinity within us, as a light. We as a consciousness emanated from that source.

But due to our mistakes, our consciousness entered into states of conditioning, as I mentioned, creating egotism. So, by certain exercises of meditation that we perform and practice, we learn to awaken consciousness, awaken light, so that divinity in us can say: “Let there be light. Let there be consciousness, understanding of the causes of suffering in oneself.” So that by irradiating that light within oneself, one can change. One can eliminate that problem, that pain. As Samael Aun Weor, the founder of the modern Gnostic tradition wrote in The Great Rebellion:

“Consciousness is the light which the unconscious does not perceive. A blind person does not perceive physical solar light either, but it does exist by itself. We need to open ourselves so that the light of consciousness can penetrate the terrible darkness of the me, myself, the ‘I.’” ―Samael Aun Weor, The Great Rebellion

Meaning our egotism, our desires, our passions, our negativity―that sense of me, myself, “what I want, what I crave.” It is ego, because in Latin the word ego means “I.” Sadly, we have invested our energy into that sense of identity, which is negative, and we have forgotten what the light of pure divinity is.

We tend to live in an unconscious state. This is what Buddhism teaches, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Sufism. Darkness being on the face of the deep is our unconscious state of being, which is remediated by receiving the light of divinity, precisely through the work of meditation, of Genesis as practiced and symbolized in the scripture.

“Now we can better understand the meaning of John’s words when he said in the Gospel: ‘And the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not’” (John 1:5).” ―Samael Aun Weor, The Great Rebellion

Light is perception, knowing, understanding, serenity. States of suffering and egotism is the darkness of the myself, the ego.

Atma Bodha: The Path of Self-Knowledge

The scripture known as Atma Bodha meaning “self-knowledge,” from Atman Bodhi, or “self-wisdom, self-knowledge” written by Shankaracharya, gives some beautiful verses about this science of light, of understanding oneself. And it explains how, it is only by learning to look within oneself, through direct active observing, that one can change. Because, to know that you are seated on this chair is one thing, but to observe where we are at, be aware of what we are doing―driving a car, fulfilling our obligations―that is a very different psychological quality. It is very distinct.

Knowledge is of the intellect, the mind, thought. Comprehension or understanding is of the heart, the consciousness, the soul. It explains that consciousness can only be developed through active seeing. He composed this scripture for people who are very disciplined about their practice. So, this scripture was originally for people who are meditating for hours daily. That is a means of breaking the conditions of the mind, for people who are very dedicated. But even if we are new to meditation, these words are very valuable:

“I am composing the ATMA-BODHA, this treatise of the Knowledge of the Self, for those who have purified themselves by austerities.” ―Atma Bodha 1:1

Meaning practices of meditation, denying the self, what it wants, denying the ego, denying anger by not speaking words of harm, denying fear by being in remembrance of divinity; likewise, denying lust, desire, by abstention of certain habits and behaviors, which are harmful. So, this is for those who are purifying themselves by austerities.

“…and are peaceful in heart and calm…” ―Atma Bodha 1:1

Many people who sit to meditate, who can remain focused throughout an entire practice, cannot be distracted, who have serenity and concentration. The ability to focus on one thing without distraction is true serenity.

“…who are free from cravings [egotistical desires] and are desirous of liberation.” ―Atma Bodha 1:1

Meaning: the complete emancipation of the consciousness from conditions.

“Just as the fire is the direct cause for cooking, so knowledge, and not any other form of discipline, is the direct cause of liberation; for liberation cannot be attained without knowledge.” ―Atma Bodha 1:2

So, what is this knowledge? It has nothing to do with books, with reading from a scripture, or simply limiting oneself to lecture. Instead, this is direct knowledge, knowing oneself, conscious wisdom, which the Greeks have called Gnosis, the Sufis called Marif’ah in Arabic, the Kabbalists of Israel have called Da’ath.

“Action cannot destroy ignorance…” ―Atma Bodha 1:3

This word ignorance, people in the West tend to think it has to do with people who do not read, who are not educated. But if you look at the etymology of this word, you find the word Gnosis in Greek, knowledge. The prefix i means “without.” So, “to be without knowledge, to be ignorant,” is precisely the state of our being, here and now―to suffer in life without understanding the psychological causes of that pain―without understanding how anger in ourselves, these elements, these conditions trap us. That is what it means to be ignorant, to not have light, to be asleep as a consciousness―to constantly react to life, day by day, repetitively, mechanically, going along in the same track of behavior until the day we die. That is a very profound form of ignorance, because nothing is changed, fundamentally. The way that we can fundamentally learn to live life with a sense of spirituality, of remembrance of God, is precisely by learning to observe ourselves. Because we commit many actions, which are negative, which are egotistical. As the scripture states:

“Action cannot destroy ignorance,for it is not in conflict with or opposed to ignorance.” ―Atma Bodha 1:3

Because our egos, our sense of “I, myself,” our defects, these act in ways that are detrimental, harmful. So, action, cause and effect does not necessarily guarantee one will behave, or work in a conscious way, responding to life and others with purity, with rectitude, and with compassion.

“Knowledge [self-knowledge, self-observation of oneself] destroys ignorance as light destroys deep darkness.” –Atma Bodha 1:3

So, again this knowledge is, when in a moment of interaction with our friends or family, we are observant. Someone says something very negative and, in that moment, we observe the fires of anger emerging, resentment, etc. But if we learn to observe that element, how that conditions us in that instant, we learn to free ourselves from that condition, and therefore experience liberation, peace. That is self-knowledge.

Every religion in the beginning of any meditative practice emphasize the need for ethics, learning to act in ways that are going to be beneficial for others, so that we do not harm ourselves, harm others. These are the religious stipulations of different traditions. Do not kill. Do not steal. Do not lie. Do not commit adultery. Do not fornicate. Do not be negative. Do not be harmful to others. Because the ways that we act psychologically attract energy, and if we act on negativity, we waste energy.

So, energy is very important for awakening consciousness. Obviously, we need energy to be physically awake, day by day. But we rarely tend to see how egotism and negative psychological qualities, waste energy. If we act upon anger, we find that we are depleted or wasted. So, with what can we awaken consciousness?

Every religion teaches: “Restrain the mind. Do not act on negativity, because you waste energy that way.” You need energy to awaken consciousness. Because light cannot exist without fire. So, that fire represents the energies of the body, the heart, the mind, which we need to conserve. So that with that energy, that fire we can generate consciousness.

Christ: The Light of Perception

So, we see here the seven candles being lit by a woman of the Jewish faith. The Sabbath is a very beautiful tradition. In that practice, the woman lights the altar with her family. If you are familiar with Judaism, the woman of the household, takes her hands, and passes over the candleflame, and over the eyes, then head. It is a symbol of how we must purify our perception.

We do that by observing ourselves, becoming aware of ourselves, and also refraining from negative thought, negative feeling, negative action. When our spiritual eyes are awakened and opened, we learn to live life with greater joy and contentment.

That light of consciousness has been given different names in different religions. In the Christian faith, the light of divinity is known as Khristos, which in Greek means “fire,” from the Greek god of fire. It also means “anointed one,” the Christ, which has many beautiful traditions and meanings behind it, but, as we know, we do not have the time to explain today. But that light of divinity is not limited to one person, but is manifested in different prophets and teachers―whether Buddha, Jesus, Krishna, Moses, Mohammed―many religious teachers, missionaries, prophets.

Jesus gave a very beautiful teaching about the light of consciousness, about the path of purifying and breaking the shells of egotism, fear, etc. He explains in the Book of Matthew, chapter 6, verses 22-23, something very profound, which if you look at the original Greek, has many more meanings than what is commonly translated in English. You may be familiar if you have grown up in a Christian household, the following teaching:

“The eye is the illumination of the soma (literally: body, but could indicate soul or self).” ―Matthew 6:22

If you look at the Greek, you find there are more meanings than just a reference to physical sight, and the physical body. That is not the meaning of what he is teaching. He is teaching that the eyes, the illumination of the self, because soma can mean solar consciousness. How we perceive determines our life. How do we see? How do we act, interact with every human being, of which we come into contact.

“If thine eye be singular (aplous: clear, simple, uncomplicated, pure), thy whole self (sōma) will be full of light.” ―Matthew 6:22

We can observe ourselves in meditation and reflect on our daily states. We find that we tend to be very complicated. We are not simple. To be simple does not mean to be stupid. It just means to be pure, a consciousness and mind that is integrated. It is not caught in distractions, daydreams, memories, fears. Instead, it refers to having an attention and a consciousness that is so focused and directed to one thing, that it learns to receive information about that thing.

There are many meditative practices such as meditating on God, the Being, the divine, so that when the mind is in silence, it is pure. When the mind is not complicated, fragmented in many elements, that consciousness can experience the divine, the truth. So, to be clear and simple, uncomplicated, pure refers to psychological states that are holy, divine, referring to being awareness, contentment, presence, awareness.

“Yet if thine eye be impure (ponēros), thy whole self (sōma) shall be full of darkness. Therefore, if the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!” ―Matthew 6:23

Many Christians interpret it simply referred to having one eye that is singular and that one can see. Well, they have many more interpretations too. But in terms of consciosuness, it refers to our level of being, our way of being.

“Take heed therefore that the light which is in thee be not darkness. If thy whole body [or self, soma] therefore be full of light, having no part dark, the whole shall be full of light, as when the bright shining of a candle doth give thee light.” ―Luke 11:35-36

The Light of Presence: Being Here and Now

That light is attention, awareness, connection with the Being, with divinity. This dynamic is represented by the following graphic. So, to have light, to be aware, to be awake is to be constantly in the present moment; to not be distracted; to be here and now; to be in the body as a consciousness; to not be driving a car thinking about our fiancé, or spouse, or friends; to not be washing the dishes and be thinking about other things, but to be doing what we are doing, being aware; not thinking about other things; not planning other things; not being consumed by anguish, by what someone really said to us in the day, at work.

Light is precisely that active, directed attention, being in oneself, and not thinking about other things―when we are focused on one thing. So, I know in this day and age, we like to think of ourselves as multitaskers, but the problem is that we tend to be distracted. This type of behavior is one that justifies the fragmentation of the consciousness. Because you are thinking about other things and not paying attention to what you are doing, it means we are not awake. It means that we, as a consciousness, are asleep, that we are in darkness.

We see in this graphic a representation of this dynamic. We have two lines that intersect: one horizontal, one vertical. The horizontal line is the line of life, represented by our birth, our childhood, our adolescence, our college years or young adult years, maturity, old age, death. This is the line of mechanicity―simply going through life, hoping things will be better will change, fundamentally―that we will receive some kind of joy by getting a new job, a spouse, the new car, the new home, and many of the things that are idolized by our material culture, especially in North America.

But this is another line, that is much more meaningful, and which concerns any practitioner of meditation. It is the vertical path, known as the line of being.

These two lines intersect in this moment. The line of being which ascends towards the heights refers to states of consciousness, ways of perception, which are not conditioned, which are liberated from the negative elements we have been discussing, the conditions. But also, you find that this vertical line descends―and that refers to the states of egotism.

This path above in religion refers to heavens or Nirvana. So, when people talk about heaven or Nirvana, they usually think of some place in the clouds, as some type of afterlife that is above of oneself. But they fail to recognize that, really, heaven is a psychological way of being, a state of perception. Because the word Nirvana means “cessation,” to cease suffering.

If we want to experience what religion has called heaven as well, higher dimensions, awakened states of perception in the dream world, being out of the body through an astral projection, being awake in that state, we have to cease suffering―because the consciousness needs to vibrate at that level of nature, because everything obeys laws, cause and effect. If you want to experience the divine, you need to vibrate at that level of being, by removing the conditions of the consciousness. But, if we do not remove those conditions, then we identify with those problems or sufferings. We invest our energy into those problems, into those defects, and then we strengthen the conditions that trap us.

This is the vertical path. And this vertical path, and in this present moment, we have a choice to make, psychologically: to remember what we are doing; to be listening; to be attentive; to be paying attention; to be driving a car, not thinking about other things, being focused on what we are doing. That refers to the path of the vertical. Because if we are actively observing ourselves, being awake, being aware, we then learn to access higher ways of being, levels of being, the virtues of the soul. But again, we can choose to identify with our own negativity, our egotism: that “me, the myself,” the I, the ego.

Shakespeare, who is an esotericist, demonstrated in his soliloquy of Hamlet this dilemma that people face or that we face when we are initiating this type of work of meditation:

“To be, or not to be, that is the question― Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous Fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them?”
–Hamlet, Act III, scene I, ll. 57-61

So, to be or not to be? If you are familiar with this play, Hamlet is trying to decide what he is going to do to get revenge over the death of his father, the King Hamlet, who was killed by his brother Claudius. Hamlet’s father, the King Hamlet, was killed by his brother, or Hamlet’s uncle, Claudius.

To be conscious or not to be conscious―to be aware or not to be aware―that is the question. Whether we go through life identifying with every single difficulty we face, suffering mechanically, the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles―by learning to look within oneself and to understand the sources of our problems and by opposing them, by observing them in meditation, by learning to comprehend their roots―we end them.

This light of life, and light of Being, also refers to how we interact with the physical world, precisely because people gravitate towards other groups or religions, beliefs, philosophies, ideas based on their level of being. So, it is easy to see that. A prostitute will be with other prostitutes; a lawyer, with other lawyers; a student, with other students; a spiritual person, with other spiritual people. This is very commonly known as the law of attraction.

What we are psychologically attracts different circumstances in life. So, what we are psychologically determines the type of quality of life that we have. Whether it is materialistic or spiritual, or whatnot. So, Samael Aun Weor the founder of this tradition, he wrote in the book Treatise of Revolutionary Psychology:

“Nobody can deny the fact that there are different social levels. There are churchgoing people, people in brothels, farmers, businessmen, etc. In a like manner, there are different Levels of Being. Whatever we are internally, munificent or mean, generous or miserly, violent or peaceful, chaste or lustful, attracts the various circumstances of life.” ―Samael Aun Weor, Treatise of Revolutionary Psychology

Someone who changes within his interior, will learn to vibrate with higher levels of divinity, with Being. We likewise come into contact with those people or initiates, those beings who have done the same work before, or who are in the process of doing this meditative path that we teach in this school. So, the religions often talk about angels, archangels, gods, Elohim, buddhas. These are beings and people who were once like us, who were afflicted by many issues. And yet, by comprehending the root causes of their problems, learned to ascend the vertical path, which if you are familiar with the Bible, this is represented by Jacob’s ladder.

Jacob put himself to sleep by resting his head on a stone and had a vision of angels ascending and descending, referring to how different beings can either ascend towards higher heights of divinity or can descend into suffering. When we learn to change, as we learn to practice meditation, we can experience many things. If you are familiar with the science of dream yoga, known as the awakening of consciousness in dreams, you may have the experiences where physically, your body is asleep, but you, as a consciousness, are in the astral plane, the world of dreams. And there, in that dimension―instead of dreaming things mechanically and then returning to the physical body without any memories, or with some vague memories of dreams―we instead learn to perceive that dimension as it is.

Therefore, we can learn to perform works of magic, which is to invoke those divine beings, the buddhas, the angels, the masters, so that they can teach us, for you to vibrate at that level of being, that type of dimension. And personally if I am teaching this to you is because I do that. I have many experiences because of learning meditation, where I have been helped and I am being helped. So, this is why I seek to teach others how to the same. Because, by learning to ascend to a higher level of being, we learn to work and to be in communion with the angels, who are again perfect beings, who were once like us, buddhas, masters, who overcame their own sufferings.

The Prodigal Son

So, the story in the Bible of the prodigal son teaches something very profound as well. Because in this story, which is a parable, a symbolic tale, not a literal teaching, there is a young man who took his father’s wealth and left his kingdom, travelled far away and wasted his money on vain pleasures, prostitution, let us say drugs and many other distractions that people in present time are very addicted to. But there came a remorse in this man’s heart when he recognized that his actions were making him suffer, were giving him pain. He understood that in order to change he had to return to his father, back in his home country.

So, he returned, and his father came out along with his other two brothers who greeted him with a lot of joy. And the same, from Samael Aun Weor, about this tale: “There is more joy for someone who repents than a thousand just people who have no need for repentance.”

So, again, repentance means recognition of the causes of suffering. It does not mean some moral dogma that one says: “I’m a bad person,” and one flagellates oneself. This is a very morbid mentality that many people adopt. But remorse is simply recognizing, psychologically, how we are at fault, in circumstances that pertain to our daily life. And by learning to change them, to observe them, in action, to observe the mind, the emotions, the body, in every interaction of life, we generate light. We learn to create more happiness for others, which guarantees our success.

The prodigal son was a person which represents any one of us who experiences and recognizes the need to change and to make some type of effort to learn about oneself. That father in this parable refers to divinity, which is a Christian appellation, referring to “Our Father Who art in Heaven,” which is not some old man in the clouds, as I said, but, the Being, the divine, a presence, light. So, Samael Aun Weor states in Treatise of Revolutionary Psychology some questions that help to frame this discussion:

“What is our moral level? Or better said, what is our Level of Being? The repetition of all our miseries, scenes, misfortunes, and mishaps will last as long as the Level of our Being does not radically change. All things, all circumstances that occur outside ourselves on the stage of this world, are exclusively the reflection of what we carry within.” ―Samael Aun Weor, Treatise of Revolutionary Psychology some

When we see violence in television, we see exploitation. We see degeneration. If we are observing ourselves and learning to see ourselves with consciousness, we will find with great discomfort that we contain these elements, that we are ignorant of, that we are not aware of. I believe that Mother Teresa was asked: “Why are you so compassionate? Why do you work so much and suffer so much for other people and help them materially?” She said something like: “Because I’m looking myself and I realize I have a Hitler in me, therefore I want atone for that”―that negativity, that ego, our self, that sense of “I” that produces pain.

So, the exterior is simply a mirror to looking within ourselves. Daily interactions with others is the means, the method by which we learn to see ourselves, to discover ourselves, to see hidden defects, which we never assume that we have or could imagine having.

“With good reason then, we can solemnly declare that the “exterior is the reflection of the interior.” When someone changes internally―and if that change is radical―then circumstances, life, and the external also change.” ―Samael Aun Weor, Treatise of Revolutionary Psychology

Spiritual War

This type of work is a revolution. That does not mean to fight against some political party outside oneself, but to go against that current of degeneration we carry within and to transform ourselves through perception, through awakening consciousness, by eliminating lust, pride, anger, gluttony, greed, and all those defects which we carry within.

That path of the revolution has been taught within Islam, which sadly, that tradition has terribly degenerated, become very negative. The word for striving, to strive against oneself, to go against that current of egotism in one’s psyche is known by the Arabic term mujahadah, which is where you get the word Jihad. Now, people who in these times talk about this, they think it refers to killing people physically if they do not follow one’s beliefs, one’s ideas.

But it is a symbolic teaching: how we act to strive against ourselves, to not act upon our defects, to not give our defects what they want, the energy of our consciousness.

This word mujahadah has been translated as Jihad, which literally means “to strive, to make effort,” to go against the flow. Now, people have translated this to mean “holy war,” but in truth, in the original Arabic, Jihad does not mean “holy war.” These are other words in Arabic for war such as haribun, khisam, sarie, eada, qatal, waghaa. Jihad is not one of them. Actually, that term (holy war) comes from the Christian appellation of the Crusades, which was translated later into Arabic.

But the important thing is you remember that when you are observing yourselves in the day and you are attentive, you are interacting with your boss at work, you may see certain elements emerge, like some type of resistance, negativity, doubt, anger, whatever element we have in our relationships with others, in life. We may be criticized by our boss and we feel fear emerge, negativity, pride: a whole conglomeration of faults and defects, which surge in a few instants, but for observing we can see them and their sources.

When you do not act upon that type of negativity, you are striving against yourself. You are performing a holy war, meaning the war for divinity, so that the presence and light of consciousness can emanate within you without those faults, without those conditions.

So, there is a saying from a book called Principles of Sufism, which is the mystical or esoteric interpretation of Islam―just as the Gnostics interpret the Bible and the Christian Doctrine in a symbolic way. This from the Hadith, which is an oral tradition talking about life of the Prophet Muhammed, who again is a figure who is grossly misunderstood today. We will be giving courses about this topic in the future. But in synthesis, we find some teachings that we are given, that relate to our topic today.

Abu-l Husayn Ali bin Ahmad bin Abdan reported... that Abu Said al-Khudri said that a man went to the Prophet and said, "O Prophet of God, advise me." He said, "'Be wary of God [the Being] for in it is gathered all good.' (3:102). Take upon yourself war for God's sake, for it is the monasticism of the Muslim.” ―Al-Qushayri, Al-Risalah: Principles of Sufism

Meaning: someone that submits to divinity, which is an appellation. Really refers to people who are meditating or seeking to comprehend and develop light. Now, whether one calls oneself Muslim because they follow certain exoteric traditions, as well, is one thing, but to submit to divinity is profound. We do it through our actions.

“Take upon yourself the remembrance of God, for it is a light for you.” ―Al-Qushayri, Al-Risalah: Principles of Sufism

To be wary of God means to be aware, to be awake, to pay attention, moment by moment, because how we use our energy determines our life. If you give in to fear, and anger, and all of these defects, you are investing your own demonic qualities, negative qualities.

When religions talk about demons, devils, and source of negative beings, they all refer to all the negative elements we carry within. So, the word in Hebrew is שטן Shaitan, which is why we are saying. Shaitan means “adversary,” because in a moment of anger, we do not remember God. We speak harm. We think harm. That anger concentrates all our attention on what it wants. We feed that element. So, that type of emotion is really crazy, because it cannot produce any good. That type of emotion only wants to harm, create suffering for others. If we are observing, we find that in that element we are suffering very intensely. We are vibrating at a low level of being.

As stated by Prophet Muhammed: “The greatest among you is he who controls his anger.”

One thing I like to relate to when talking about this very controversial topic of holy war is a saying that was given after he was defending himself in a battle. He was fighting physically. Many people were trying to kill him and, in different religions, call them black magicians, sorcerers, devils, demons: people who were very intentionally seeking to develop and strengthen the conditioning of the psyche, who have certain abilities and powers through the ego, trough the self or “I.” So, there were many people who were trying to physically kill him. So, he was instructed: “Defend yourself, physically.” That is one meaning of Jihad, to strive against others, as a defense, to protect oneself.

Now, his Companions were speaking with him after one of these battles, I think it was Badr. And the Prophet told them: “Can you tell me what are the two forms of war?” And they said: “No. Please, instruct us.” One of them, he said, is war against others, to defend yourself, meaning from demons, black magicians, sorcerers, people trying to harm you. But there is a greater holy war, a greater striving. And they asked him, “Well, what is that?” And he said: ”War against your desires, against yourself.”

Self-Remembrance

So, take upon yourself the remembrance of God, be awake, be here moment by moment. Pay attention, for that is a light for you, which bring us into the discussion of what remembrance is, awareness is.

Many people follow certain doctrines of religion, a belief system in which they pray, such as in Islam, five times a day or in Judaism they perform the Sabbath. Christians go to church. These are very mechanical ways of being, interpretations and beliefs that, by attending a group, by doing a certain mantra, by doing this or that, following certain strictures or code of conduct, one is going to be in worship. But really, as the Sufis teach, “The best act of worship is watchfulness of the moments,” the remembrance of divinity, to develop light.

As I mentioned to you, if you are at work or in a job and you face some criticism from one’s boss, we develop light and we are worshipping divinity when we are aware of ourselves or present, and that, we do not give in to those negative qualities, which are going to create problems economically or socially, or whatnot.

“The best act of worship is watchfulness of the moments [to be aware, to have light, to be observing oneself. And to learn to act in operate ways]. That is, that the servant not look beyond his limit, not contemplate anything than his Lord [the Being, the presence of God], and not associate with anything other than this present moment.” ―Al-Wasiti, Al-Risalah: Principles of Sufism by Al-Qushayri

What does it mean to not look beyond one’s limit? It refers to very elevated levels of being, states of consciousness, in which your inner divinity enters in you and gives you certain consciousness and experiences, blessings, bliss, which do not come from you, but come from your being: the light, the divine, which is very well described in the schools of Sufism.

Unless one learns to receive the presence of divinity in oneself, and to not transgress its limit, and to do what one is ordered to do, by your own Being, your own inner divinity―so, one must contemplate nothing but one’s Lord―meaning: “Don’t think about other things when you’re doing something.” Do not get distracted. And do not associate with anything than the present moment.

As I mentioned to you, we tend to be distracted by many things. We associate with things other than divinity, such as the negative egos or qualities we have been discussing, defects. Islam, a tradition that has been greatly abused and misunderstood, practices tawhid: known as the doctrine of unity. If your familiar with that tradition, they say: “There is no god but God.” There is only one God. God is one. That light is one.

If we look in ourselves, we have many elements which are disparate, fractured, egotistical―all those elements we discussed: ego, fear, pride, gluttony. Those all are separate defects which have their own autonomy, which clashes and fight against one another. If we are observing ourselves, we can see this.

The doctrine of unity is the doctrine of taking the consciousness that is trapped in all these elements and uniting it with the Being, with the divine. That is the meaning of religion. Because the Latin religare means “to re-unite.” The same as the Sanskrit yoga, from the Sanskrit yuj [pronunced “yug”], “to unite.”

If we identify ourselves with our defects, we are practicing what is known as shirk, idolatry. Because when we give in to these elements, we are not remembering God. We are not remembering the divine. We are not remembering the Being.

So that is a form of idol worship. People think that idol worship has to do with worshipping a statue, which is why people in the Middle East make a big deal of others worshipping statues and they fought with them. That is not the meaning. The meaning is that anger, hatred, wrath, these are elements that are idols in the mind―stones, conditions which have trapped our consciousness and which we need to eliminate―to break those shells so that the light can perform unity, can unite, the consciousness can return to God. We give in to our defects when we are distracted, which tends to be our psychological state of day.

We associate with things other than God refers to the consequences of idolatry, to worship things not related with divinity, to be identified with those things, to be distracted. This path of meditation teaches one to unite all the parts of the soul, so that there is unity.

A very old scripture known as the Laws of Manu explains that by renouncing desire, one learns to achieve liberation, freedom of the soul. But by giving into desire, again this law of cause and effect, in action, we strengthen the cage as I have been explaining.

“Through the attachment of his organs (to sensual pleasure) [such as the acts of lust] a man doubtlessly will incur guilt; but if he keep them under complete control, he will obtain success (in gaining all his aims).” ―Laws of Manu 2:93

So, this is a very deep topic relating to how we use energy, especially the creative energy, which is known as the sexual energy itself, which certain traditions teach how to conserve that light, that energy, which is a form of fire, and to transform it. Through meditative discipline, one uses that energy to awaken consciousness. But by losing energy one depletes oneself of the very fire that can awaken the soul and develop it fully. The scripture also teaches:

“Desire is never extinguished by the enjoyment of desired objects; it only grows stronger like a fire (fed) with clarified butter.” ―Laws of Manu 2:94

In this culture we like to think that by expressing our anger, we somehow reach some type of nullification of desire, by giving into our desires, giving ourselves what we want, what we feel that we deserve, that we will find peace. But it is that active craving which is precisely the source of original suffering. So, by feeding those desires, those defects, one feeds and conditions oneself further―feeds the fires of passion, which makes one suffer.

Light and the Tree of Life

We have been talking about the nature of consciousness and how one must be mindful moment by moment, day by day. I also mentioned that one must learn to conserve energy. We have also talked about understanding different levels of energy, which are graded in different dimensions and aspects of consciousness, represented by a Jewish glyph known as the Tree of Life.

This image is a map of consciousness. It also refers to different levels of perception and different dimensions, which basically refers to who we are, here and now. So, this Tree of Life is a symbol in the book of Genesis of the complete human being.

These are different levels of matter, energy and consciousness. By learning to understand the different forms of energy in ourselves, we can learn to awaken consciousness. To learn to comprehend these energies in us, we can then use these energies in us for our spiritual development.

“It is not possible to increase consciousness by exclusively physical or mechanical procedures. Undoubtedly, the consciousness can only awaken through conscious work and voluntary suffering.” ―Samael Aun Weor, The Great Rebellion

So, this word, voluntary suffering creates a lot of tension in many people. But it refers to a type of effort in oneself, as I have been explaining, in which we willingly learn to take responsibility for actions, our mind stream, our conditioning. To work consciously refers to observing oneself, learning to become aware of what traps us, what makes us limited, what harms us, psychologically. Voluntary suffering means to make that effort, to go against oneself.

Obviously the term voluntary suffering is in oneself, when one realizes the causes of suffering in the psyche. Because it is a very painful experience to understand that we are responsible for our state of being, our way of being, our life. So, one voluntarily suffers by going against the desires of the self, by learning to awaken the consciousness free of conditions, to develop that light. That light is develop by working with energy, by empowering the consciousness through exercises, working with energy.

“Within us there are various types of energy which we must understand.

“First, mechanical energy…”

…relating to this bottom sphere of the Tree of Life, which in Hebrew refers to the word Malkuth, which means “Kingdom.” This is our physical body.

“Second, vital energy;”

So, our physical body has energy relating to the mechanics of our chemistry, our physiology, metabolism, catabolism, which intimately relates to vital energy, which in Hebrew is known as Yesod, meaning “Foundation.” Our work is the foundation of Yesod, working with that energy, the creative energies of God.

“Third, the energy of the psyche;”

In the third sephirah or sphere of this Tree of Life, we find the energy of the psyche known in Hebrew as Hod.

“Fourth, mental energy;”

We also have mental energy relating to the mind.

“Fifth, energy of the will;

“Sixth, energy of the consciousness…”

…which deeply concerns us. And:

“Seventh, the energy of the pure spirit…” ―Samael Aun Weor, The Great Rebellion

…which is the Being, the inner God within us.

It is important to analyze ourselves and to understand how these different forms of energy work. When we wake up in the morning, we have a certain limit or certain amount of mechanical energy, the ability to function in this body before needing to rest again. And so, finally we reach the end of our life and the body goes to the grave.

We also have vital energy which is essential. This vital energy animates the physical body. It gives it life. It is the creative energy, especially the sexual energy, which invigorates and is the source of our life, of our genesis. And so, this vital energy, as I explained, animates the body and when we physically go to sleep, this vital energy helps to regenerate the physical body when we rest, so that when we wake up in the morning, we are repleted so that we can function throughout the day.

The term astral projection refers to when the consciousness or the psyche leaves the physical body behind and the vital energies in order to enter the world of dreams, known as the world of Hod in Kabbalah, this Tree of life. We enter the dream world as a consciousness, as the physical body needs to rest and get recharged by the vital body, the vital energies.

Again, these bodies refer to different levels of matter and different dimensions, which exist here and now. They are within us, present.

As I said, this fourth sphere is the mind, the mental energy. And, it is easy to see all of this in ourselves, here and now, how all of these factors integrate our present. We have a physical body, which we are in now that we are aware of. We may be sensitive to certain amount of vital energy, being able to pay attention or to be awake, to be able to do certain physical activities. We also may be aware of our emotions, the energies of the psyche on this glyph. And likewise, we have thoughts, ideas, memories, conceptions, beliefs, concepts. That is the mind, mental energy.

In the mediation we practice, we are becoming aware of these elements. So, that is the lower aspect of ourselves, of who we fundamentally are, these four lower spheres.

Below that, you have what is known as the hell realms, which is the ego, the “I,” and the “myself,” the conditioning of the soul. Above that we have the higher levels of being. So, we are in Malkuth, with the possibility of ascending the vertical path, which is this Tree of Life, this diagram, which is not something vertical in space, but refers to qualities of being, as I have been explaining.

If we are observing ourselves and we really reflect on the nature of our mind, we may find that we discover something more subtle, which is known as the willpower. We know that certain people have a certain will, the ability to direct themselves with a lot of effort, a lot of strength. That is willpower, energy of will, volition. But willpower depends on something else above.

So, these spheres penetrate one another. They relate to one another and integrate in beings that are fully developed, spiritually, but in us these elements tend to be disorganized, distracted. We have this sphere of consciousness referring to the divine qualities of the soul and then the energies of the Spirit, which is our inner Being, our inner divinity.

These energies are important to see in oneself. We may sense our body. We have certain energies available vitally. Emotionally, we have certain moods. Mentally, we have certain thoughts. Beyond that is will, which is more subtle as I said, which has to do with the ability to pay attention, to direct oneself, to concentrate. If you want to see a litmus test of how much willpower you have when you sit for mediation, see how long you stay focused, not forgetting what you are doing.

When meditating on a scripture or a lecture, or an image, focusing on the breath, becoming aware of the breath, known as anapana in Sanskrit, you find that if you get distracted easily and cannot focus your attention on the purpose of the practice, it means that the willpower is not strong enough, needs to be developed.

Willpower is concentration: the ability to focus on one thing without distraction, and beyond that is consciousness, which is the ability to understand, to comprehend what one is meditating on, through insight, which emerges in the psyche like a spark, a flash, an intuition, an understanding. That understanding emanates from the Spirit, which is our inner divinity, our Being, which most people have no cognizance of, no experience with―but which we can interact face to face in the world of dreams, through the symbols of dreams.

Above that we have the Trinity, which is the Christian Father, Son, Holy Spirit, which is a trinity of forces, energies, states of consciousness which are very high, very developed. So, this does not refer to people. It refers to states of being.

Why study energy in relation to consciousness? Because we do need to work with these lower aspects of ourselves, to conserve those energies so that we can develop our consciousness, to have them in control. But strictly working with one form of energy or another does not develop the consciousness. We have to work with everything. That makes up who we are.

In different traditions, there are different practices that are given usually at the exclusion of developing the other types of consciousness. Some schools focus on the mind, developing book knowledge, study of the intellect through yoga or certain forms of yoga, not just physical calisthenics.

You also have monks who practice and work with the heart, who develop the emotions, who do a lot of prayer, usually at the exclusion of other aspects of the psyche like willpower, the mind, etc.

There are those who learn to work with willpower as well, who strive to control the physical body like fakirs. So, if you are familiar to fakirism, it refers to certain practitioners who learn to train the body so well―for instance, there is one man who raised his hand up and never put it down. He wanted to test his willpower, and lost all feeling in his arm and the nerves were dead. He wanted to show through his will that he could control his body, thinking that this is a path that is going to take him to divinity. But sadly that is very foolish, obviously. People who are educated know better.

So, exclusively developing the mind, the emotions or willpower cannot awaken the consciousness exclusively, the soul.

Samael Aun Weor states in The Great Rebellion:

“No matter how much we might increase our strictly mechanical energy, we will never awaken consciousness. No matter how much we might increase the vital forces within our own organism, we will never awaken consciousness.” ―Samael Aun Weor, The Great Rebellion

This refers to people specially in the West. They consume a lot coffee, try to have more energy, more vital force. Just having that vital force is not going to awaken the soul, develop the consciousness. Likewise, simply doing exercises of pranayama or energy work, mantras, sacred sounds, circulating energy―that by itself is not going to be enough, but there is more to it, to develop the light of consciousness.

“Many psychological processes take place within us without any intervention from the consciousness.” ―Samael Aun Weor, The Great Rebellion

Meaning, we have many emotions and moods, which fluctuate and change, and sustain and process themselves within us. But this does not mean that one is awake, one is conscious.

This is very easy to see if you really examine and observe yourself. In one moment of the day, you may have a certain mood, but in the next day you have a different one. So, these are fluctuations. There is no permanence there. But being conscious means to understand these elements, fully.

“However great the disciplines of the mind might be, mental energy can never achieve the awakening of the diverse functions of the consciousness.” ―Samael Aun Weor, The Great Rebellion

There are many people who think that by developing the intellect, they are developing self-knowledge, conscious knowledge. And people who develop the intellect too much, obviously get sick mentally, because they waste energy in the intellect. People who deplete mental energy become sick, mentally. They develop illnesses like schizophrenia, mental diseases.

Likewise, people who abuse the emotional energy like actors and actresses. They develop illnesses relating to the heart, depression, things like that.

There are people who abuse the energies of the vital force, Yesod and Malkuth, the physical body, like sport players and boxers. Usually, they deplete their energy so much that physically they are debilitated. They cannot walk.

So, you get to see that using these energies are important to conserve them, not to waste them. Because we do need these energies in harmony, to be balanced. But this quote is explaining that simply working with one of these elements alone is not going to awaken the soul, the light of divinity.

“Even if our willpower is multiplied infinitely [like the case of the fakir who had his hand raised for ten years, fifteen years, never put it down], it can never bring about the awakening of the consciousness.” ―Samael Aun Weor, The Great Rebellion

Because having a lot of will is good, is admirable, but willpower needs to be directed. Because if you see in this graphic, our willpower, our concentration is one aspect of ourselves. It is at the very center of the Tree of Life, this graphic. It does emphasize the importance or the need of concentration. Because in meditation, if we are distracted for however long we sit to perform an exercise, it means our willpower is scattered. We need to unify our will, concentrate it, focus on one thing without thinking about it, without feeling anticipation, worry or anxiety over it. We should not be identified with the energies of the physicality, as well as the vital energies.

“All these types of energy are graded into different levels and dimensions, which have nothing to do with the consciousness.” ―Samael Aun Weor, The Great Rebellion

So, why talk about energy in relation to the light and perception? Because you do need energy to awaken, but in balance. As I said, simply developing the mind, the will, the heart is like going to the gym and only working on your right bicep, doing exercises. So, that your body becomes huge and the right side of your body becomes huge, but everything else is weak. This is how certain people develop themselves in the world, in relation to different traditions.

“Consciousness can only be awakened through conscious work and upright efforts.” ―Samael Aun Weor, The Great Rebellion

The consciousness is this sphere of Tree of Life known as Geburah, “Justice.” It is interesting that the word for Justice in Hebrew is related to this sphere of consciousness. Because how you act with awareness is how you obey the law of divinity, how you fulfill justice, meaning: to act with comprehension, with awareness of oneself―to respect the will of other beings; to be compassionate; to not give into one’s egotism so that one does not affect other human beings. That is a righteous person, a Tzadik in Hebrew, a just person: someone who knows how to act consciously for the benefit of others.

But of course, that involves directing the willpower towards any action, using the mind, the emotions, the vital forces of the physical body. Notice that this verticality represents gradations of energy, from more dense to more rarified, more subtle. What this represents is that the forces from above, from the divine, descend in a metaphorical sense, become more concrete in us. Obviously being in Malkuth, this physical body, which we tend to be very identified with very material things, but if we work with meditation, we begin to sense these different forces in us and how they work.

So, consciousness is above will. Consciousness, as I said, is the ability to understand, to comprehend anything that we meditate on, anything that we focus on. But of course, consciousness has to direct will. We have to be aware as a consciousness and whatever willpower you have to develop in concentration, you direct to anything that you want to understand.

These two factors are very important in meditation: consciousness and willpower. Or the ability to perceive and the ability to focus oneself. So, the consciousness only awakens through learning to direct attention. And by learning to direct attention, you learn to understand how these energies work. But if you just focus on energy, like many schools in these times discuss, it becomes very limited.

The Energy of the Divine Mother

We need to understand energy in our context. The most profound type of energy of divinity that we work with is known in Hinduism as the Divine Mother. So, different traditions teach that we have a divine masculine and a divine feminine aspect of consciousness, which exist within the profundities of our heart. Divinity is an energy, is a force which is not limited to any particular time, place or culture. But this is a universal force. And we work with the Divine Mother to work with that energy so that force can break the shells of the ego, of the “me,” of the “myself,” the “I.”

In meditation, we work very diligently with Her, with the divine feminine. Because without Her we cannot change. She is the origin of light, the origin of consciousness. She is the very power of the soul that can liberate us from suffering. She is known as Durga in Hinduism, Virgin Mary among the Christians. She is Athena, the warrior goddess who helps us to wage Jihad, striving against our defects. We work with it every day, and when we are in remembrance of God, we are remembering Her, Her presence, Her light, Her force.

In this myth that we have quoted here, we see that She is the most intense, primordial, pure and divine energy which manifests from the Divine Father, Brahma. So, She is energy that is above consciousness and spirit. She is Binah, the Holy Spirit, the feminine aspect of the Holy Ghost, which again is a term for the powers of the Divine Mother, the creative energies.

I would like to relate to you, in conclusion of this lecture, this beautiful myth that discusses what Durga is and why we must work with Her. She is the energy of the consciousness in its heights, in its most profound sense. She is the power of universal compassion of all the gods, of all the buddhas, the angels, the masters. She is universal and She is the intensity of the wrath of divinity that fights against the ego, which in this myth She was created in order to defend and fight against a demon who has the shape of a bull, an ox. So, this is a beautiful myth talking about the wars that the soul goes through, psychologically in relation to this work of the ego and our defects.

So, I will like to read this for you in its totality. I will precurse this by saying that what happened in this myth is that this demon was taking power from the gods, was stealing the power of the gods. And what happens is that the gods are powerless to defend themselves against this demon, which is gigantic, a reference to the ego, our defects, which have usurped the rightful place of the divine in us.

When Viṣṇu, the husband of Lakṣmī, and the great lord Ṡiva heard the speech of Brahmā [who basically told them and directed them to create Durga], their angry faces became so monstrous that one could not look upon them. From Viṣṇu’s mouth [referring to Christ, Chokmah in Kabbalah], that blazed with extreme anger, his great energy came forth, and similarly from Śambhuand from the Creator, and from the bodies of Indra and all the other gods the cruel energies came forth and they all became one. The great mass of their united energies seemed to all the multitudes of gods like a blazing mountain that pervaded all the regions of the sky with flames. Then from the combination of these energies a certain woman appeared: her head appeared from the energy of Ṡiva, her two arms from the energy of Viṣṇu, her two feet from the energy of Brahmā, and her waist from the energy of Indra; her hair was made from Yama’s energy [the lord of death], her two breasts from the moon’s energy [referring to Yesod, the creative force] her thighs from the energy of Varuṇa, her hips from the earth’s energy [Malkuth], her toes from the sun’s energy [referring to the Trinity on the top of the Tree of Life]; her fingers were formed by the energy of the Vasus, her nose of Kubera’s energy, her rows of teeth from the energy of the nine Prajāpatis [referring to the ninth sephirah of the Tree of Life above]; her two eyes arose from the energy of the Oblation-bearer; the two twilights became her two brows , and her ears were made from the energy of the wind; and from the incredibly fierce energies of the other gods other limbs were made for the woman who was the supremely radiant Durgā, more dangerous than all the gods and demons.” ―Hindu Myths

So, the Qur’an teaches that one should fear divinity more than any demon, any black magician, because that energy is very profound. It is the power of life and the power to kill, to annihilate desire, the ego. So, to develop light we must work upon our defects.

Questions and Answers

Do you have any questions?

Question: In your own opinion, when dealing with our defects, I will just give an example of a behavior. Would you say that we don’t have to be around negative people, should we just not be around them? Or should it be something where we should test ourselves? You know you hear that often, well, it is like, you should be able to deal with anyone. I feel that peace and in control of my anger. Yet as I started to do this war, then I wanted to be around other people less because I just see, I guess I saw in myself, I still see in me negative things. I don’t need to be around them more, I can be around you guys instead.

Instructor: The thing is with that is your level of being attracts your life. So, when we learn to transmute the energies of sex, to be chaste, and to circulate the energies and work on the defects, you become more attracted to higher levels of being, which attracts different people―which is good. On the other hand, it may be an obligation for us, depends, to teach those who are in a lower level of being how to go higher, which, that’s a personal choice, and really the divine chooses if that initiate will do that.

But you teach others how to be better by example. But in other cases, there are people who are very negative, who are very destructive. And if you are around them, they infect you. You don’t have to choose that influence. It’s good to choose influences, bringing people who, or be with people who are going to raise your level of being, who appear to be more spiritual. But you may have the obligation to be with certain people who are going to be what they are going to be, and yet you must do it. That is known as karma.

We do have many choices too, whom we associate with, because, as Samael Aun Weor stated: “Negative emotions are more infectious than any disease, any microbe...” If you are with people who are very negative, that are going to infect you―why choose that? If you have a choice, do not choose it. But if you have to be with certain people because of work or whatever, then you have to transform the situation. But to avoid certain people doesn’t mean that we don’t love them, that we don’t have compassion for them. It means that, because they’re negative, we want to help them. And helping them can mean not associating.

So, I think Nietzsche wrote in his book Thus Spoke Zarathustra: “To some people you may not give your hand, only a paw, and I desire that your paw also have claws.” So, you got to learn how to negotiate with certain people, you know, how to work with them in a way that’s going to be beneficial. So, if you don’t want to infect your level of being, being with certain people who maybe drink, smoke, fornicate or whatever, you don’t have to be with them. You can avoid them. Personally, I don’t go and associate with people like that. I mean, I have certain coworkers that have tried to invite me to drink, but I don’t. You know, I avoid that. I know that type of influence is going to condition myself more.

Question: What about the concept of desiring not to desire?

Instructor: That’s a very subtle thing too. You know, because when we’re studying this type of knowledge, we develop many egos, senses of self, Gnostic egos that want to do the work. Certain beliefs and ideas, or certain senses of self and desire that covet not being covetous―that is a line that Samael Aun Weor gave.

You have to observe that and constantly analyze: “What’s going on in me, psychologically? What do I need to change? And how will I be sincere?” That is what develops light―if you look inside and do not assume one way or the other that you are in a certain way, but you look at it. That is why Samael Aun Weor dedicated a whole book, Treatise of Revolutionary Psychology, simply to self-observation. It is a very simple book, but deep, because the act of looking is the act of meditation: seeing oneself without analyzing with the intellect, without thinking―not using the energies of the mind, or the heart, or the body, but just perceiving.

That is how we become just people, learning to obey the divine law, the law of karma in a superior sense. But if you feel that you are going to waste certain energy being with certain people, you do not have to make that choice. In fact, many traditions, whether Christian, Sufi, Muslim, Jewish, would follow the monastic lifestyle, going to a mosque or to a certain place of refuge, in Buddhism, etc., to avoid other people like that. That is the basic meaning of it, to live a monastic life, to avoid a worldly life of materialism.

Comment: Being in this world, but not of it…

Instructor: That is another thing, because those people, monks would practice in secrecy, in silence, usually go on a retreat for years, without speaking, and meditating on themselves. But, it is good to do that.

Comment: St. Thomas Aquinas talked about that, how becoming silent would aid him.

Instructor: The basic training, the purpose of that was so that one could avoid negative influences and focus solely on the spiritual work. But another thing is many people want to leave the world and go to a retreat to avoid the negativities of others.

In a more profound level, there is a Sufi master by the name of Ibn ‘Arabi, who said, “The reason why I go on retreat is not to avoid negative people, but to help prevent myself from being negative towards other people.” Very different mindset―more focused on the internal work. And then, you finish retreat. You go home, and you are more energized.

So, in the retreats we do in this organization, we work with many exercises of energy to charge our batteries, so to speak. We also meditate and learn to direct that energy consciously in meditation. And so, many come home and learn to continue our work physically, so that we have more focus and we are more energized.

The purpose of this lecture was to talk about self-observation and working with energy especially. Because if we have no energy, you waste it through thinking, feeling, impulses, and acting in wrong ways, you cannot develop light, consciousness in a full sense.

Question: Is it not true that this is also consistent with contemporary neuroscience? In other words, if images are taken of the brain, people with spiritual development will catch fire in certain parts of their brain as opposed to other persons who are “not there”?

Instructor: So, that is a good question because the thing is in this work of creative energy, working with the foundation of the Kabbalah, Yesod, your brain changes, physically. Your brain chemistry changes. Because you’re using the very energy of life, that can create a child, to rejuvenate the mind, the brain. Physically your brain, as Samael Aun Weor said, becomes seminized, and your semen becomes cerebrized.

We’ve talked many times about the relationship between sex and the brain. People who deplete their sexual energy have no force to rejuvenate the mind. They cannot concentrate. They cannot sit still in meditation. They are constantly distracted because they’re indulging in craving.

Now, figures like Beethoven, Mozart, Chopin, Lizst, many composers and artists who were initiates were able to create the works that they did because their physical brain was highly active. As a scientist said, we use a small fraction of our brain now. If you do this work, you learn to use your whole brain, physically. You are charging your physical matter with the energies of Yesod. And that helps to channel the light of consciousness more directly, so that you have more power.

People who abuse the sexual energy, like I said, their brains become depleted. They physically get sick. They develop illnesses like schizophrenia, like I said. Likewise, the heart. If there is no energy in the heart, one gets sick emotionally. If one is physically abusing the energies related to instinct, willpower, you get sick in your physical body, many conditions. When you are working in this path, you’re finding balance in all of our energy, so that your light is more profound, with more equanimity. And that helps through your meditation, right? Because again, no energy, no light, no force.

And so, concentration is more profound, more focused with application. So, I mentioned that quote from the Master Samael, who talks about different levels of energy. He is saying more exclusively that none of that really matters if you are not directing your attention day by day. Every day, you stay home, you meditate on the mind, you develop concentration and then you really meditate on the ego, on the “I,” the self.

Retrospect your day. Review it in your imagination: what you said, what you did, what you thought, what you felt, how you acted. Remember everything that you went through in the day and you observed. Then, focus on one scene in what you saw certain egos emerge, certain defects. Concentrate and ask your Divine Mother to help you understand those elements and work maybe five, ten minutes or however much you need on each defect. Or say, work on three or four or whatever you saw. And then ask for comprehension. Ask your Divine Mother: “Help me to understand these demons I created so that I can be free of them, so I can be purified of them.”

Question: So, are you bringing, imagining, that scenario up? Because when I meditate, I empty the mind. So, you’re bringing, imagining the scenario up from the beginning and then all of a sudden, just allow your higher self, or the Divine Mother, to come in? I am kind of confused. Are you supposed to focus on that? So, let’s say there was a scenario where I saw anger. Am I focusing on that scenario throughout the entire meditation? Or am I eventually just clearing my mind?

Instructor: Good question. So, the procedure is, in the beginning, clear your mind. This is known by the eight limbs of Ashtanga Yoga, meaning the eight steps of meditation, which if you go on the website you’ll see a course on Gnostic Meditation that we gave, which I’m going to sum up here.

So, the first two stages of meditation are Yama and Niyama. Yama means to “restrain, to yoke” the mind. In the beginning, act ethically. Do not feed anger. Do not feed lust. Do not feed your defects, because if you do, you waste your energy―the energy you can use to meditate and silence the mind. Niyama means “precepts,” referring to codes of conduct and virtues that you follow: compassion, kindness, mercy, which you enact in your daily life, in your own interactions with all human beings, other people.

After that, you can develop Asana, which is posture. Because if your mind is still and quiet and you are saving your energy, you are able to relax more profoundly. But if you give in to violence and hatred and anger, that agitates the mind so much that psychologically, and physically, you are tense. That is why every religion teaches: “Be moral, be ethical. Analyze your level of being: how you behave in certain circumstances with certain people. What are your secret motives? And when you understand and see that in yourself, refrain from acting in that way, behaving in that way.”

First physically. Restrain the tongue. Do not say those things. And then, the real battle begins, the real work begins when you are analyzing the internal tongue. The mind comments on everything that you are doing when you’re talking to your coworker or friend. For example: in my job I have some professional development meetings and they’re talking, teaching many valuable things, but I’m finding my mind, even though I meditate, my mind is talking, talking, talking… Making comments or saying, “I would have said that better.” Really stupid thoughts.

But real silence is not by physically closing your mouth and not speaking, but psychologically. What is the internal chatter that we go through? The commentary of that director in our head that is labeling everything that everyone in us is doing, nonstop. So, the way that you stop it is not by repressing it or by giving into it, but looking at it. That is the beginning of inner peace. Look at what your mind is doing. Just see it. Do not judge. And then you find that, like an old, managed classroom, the kids will start showing their true selves. They act up, but you look at them, as a kind of superficial example. But you get data about yourself by observing them. And that active observation begins to raise your level of being, precisely when you restrain the mind from acting negatively.

So physically, one thing. Do not act on that negative emotion. But mentally, you must understand the qualities that are cursing and swearing and whatnot, in the head, when certain circumstances arise. When you learn to train your physical actions, your body that way, then you learn to relax mentally, emotionally. That is why you can sit to practice, with your first step, with your asana, your posture.

As I said, if you’re identified all day, wasting energy, the body will be agitated. You want to scratch it. You want to move. When you practice, your asana should be so firm that you do not move. Do not move your body. When your asana, which if you really stick to one prior practice―maybe Western style, and full lotus, half lotus on the floor, how you want to practice―pick a posture that is going to be conducive to your practice. Meaning: you can maintain drowsiness, be relaxed, profoundly, and still allow yourself to be attentive to what you’re doing. Do not fall asleep, basically.

Personally, sometimes I lay on my bed when I want to fall asleep. Doing a mantra is good. But when you are practicing, it is good to sit upright in a way that your body is going to be relaxed and you can stay focused on what you’re doing. So, that’s asana.

When your body is fully silenced and relaxed, you’re not moving your muscles, not scratching , and not being agitated, you start to develop what is known as pratyahara.

Pratyahara means suspension of the senses. So, when your body is still and you are not focusing on your physicality―you do not move it all―you start to withdraw your attention from the exterior world, focusing on your interior world. You suspend your senses. You may experience thought, feeling, sensations of the body, but the characteristic of pratyahara is that you are not identified with them. You do not get carried away lost in that current. You may be thinking, feeling, etc., but you are just aware, going within yourself, relaxed.

Swami Sivananda wrote that pratyahara is the crux of meditation. And in one lecture from Glorian Publishing, Gnostic Radio, mentioned that pratyahara is like a lever. It allows the other steps to come into a play. If your senses are suspended, you are retracted like a tortoise in its shell. You do not focus on anything else. You relax. That is why we need to become silent. And that is the beginning of meditation really, suspending the senses. Everything else is preliminary.

When your senses are suspended, relaxed, you are looking within. That is when you can learn to concentrate on one thing. That’s dharana, the sixth step. Concentration is the ability to focus on one thing without forgetting what you are doing, without getting distracted.

So, in the beginning of the discipline, I suggest sit somewhere comfortably, do a mantra, relax your body, your mind, work with energy, circulate the creative forces like trough pranayama or mantra. Do it for however long you need until you feel relaxed. And when you are physically still and then you learn to introspect, the senses become suspended, they become calm. The mind is serene because the energies are circulating in you, and also the mind becomes more quiet. When the mind is quiet, really, not distracted by anything, focus your attention on remembering your day.

Do that every day when you’re relaxing yourself, self-observing. When you go home, focus on some energy work, with the mantras or pranayama, so that energy naturally stills the mind. Then, concentrate on your day. Remember what happened. Retrospect your day. Imagine it. Because now that you have those energies circulating, your imagination becomes much more robust. You can see things more clearly.

If you deplete your sexual energy, you cannot perceive things clearly. You will activate negative imagination known as fantasy. You are just identified with memories and daydreams. But conscious imagination is the ability to perceive something as it was, as it is. That is the consciousness. So, when you are concentrating and remembering your day, simply recall them like you’re remembering anything. You just try to reflect on what you did, what you said, what you thought, what you felt. And imagine it. Imagine the scenes.

What are the egos that you saw? And then, we take a scene, imagine it, concentrate on your Being. Ask your Being, your Divine Mother to show you what you need to understand about a certain ego you saw. And then, wait, observe.

You have to wait for the answer. You look, observe it. Your mind is serene and calm and then, when you are not thinking of anything or expecting anything, slowly the insight comes. It may come as an experience. You may physically leave your body. I have had this happen where I was meditating, I physically fell asleep, because my pranayama as well as pratyahara silenced the mind profoundly enough, I concentrated on my practice and I left my body physically. Then you can receive experiences about the defect that you are studying, so you can comprehend where it came from, how you made it, what is doing to you.

But it may be more mundane than that. Actually, I would say more commonplace, when you’re sitting to practice and suddenly, you understand. “I know how that ego works, that anger.” You understand its root. And that gives you a sense of liberation, and that joy that you are not that ego, and you understood it. You feel liberation. You extract your consciousness from that element and you see yourself as you are.

Then you must ask your Divine Mother, “please kill this ego. I don’t want to have it in me anymore.” And it may take a few days of doing that, or weeks, or months, or years. But you see that through work, through your self-observation, those egos get smaller. They become like a child, and then finally your Divine Mother decapitates it and then you’re free from them.

When you free yourself from an ego, you feel real joy. Really, there is no greater feeling than that. So, people want to have astral experiences. They say: “I want to talk to Master Samael. I want to do this and this. I want to have jinn experiences!” When I hear them talk, I tell them “No. Well, it’s good. It’s good for the soul to have that experiences, to feel inspired.” But they only give you that inspiration so that you go home and say, “I had a vacation. Now I have to get to work.” Because they are showing you what life is like beyond that ego.

Comment: You feel like a child again…

Instructor: You feel innocent, and you feel that peace. They are showing you: “Ok, now that you had a jinn experience, now that you had a Samadhi, now you have to go back into your prison, your cell. You need to study. You need to work.” That is the reason they give you experiences.

But many people in this tradition get stuck in wanting to have experiences. They say: “I’ve been studying for twenty years and I want to have an astral travel.” I have heard people who even teach this doctrine. They write to me. They write to us on the website, saying: “I’m a missionary from Gnosis and I’ve been studying for twenty years. I’ve been teaching for fifteen years and I haven’t had an astral experience.”

And I say: “Well, what is your practice?”

They say: “Well, I try silencing my mind, but my mind wanders.”

Well, that is the problem. The beginning is to follow the initial steps of meditation. Silence the mind, work with energy, self-observe. But you must work on the ego. Because if you do not kill the ego, break those shells, you cannot extract light. You cannot have light. So, if you want to have illumination, you have to work on the darkness.

When you are working with the preliminary steps, you have pratyahara, you’re developing concentration, that is when you learn to meditate, which is the next step. So, with dharana, you have concentration.

Now I skipped a step. I said: after yama, niyama, asana, what comes next is pranayama. So, I did say, I mentioned to you: “Work with energy, pranayama. Work with the vital force.” That is essential. That is how you suspend your senses: that’s pratyahara. Next, your mind is still because you are working with the prana, the vital force.

Then, dharana: you are able to concentrate. And where your concentration is profound, you understand things in a new way. You receive insight. That’s dhyana, meditation. And then, when you are fully absorbed in the object of meditation, you have an experience, samadhi. You leave your body. You astral travel. You do whatever.

Samadhi is simply the consciousness free of the conditioning. When you extract the light, like the genie from the bottle, and then you have the ability to do what your Being wants you to do: jinn experiences or whatnot.

But the thing is that when students or missionaries write to me and they say: “Hey, I’ll be honest with you,” they say. They are lost, disillusioned, in despair, and it’s sad. “I’ve been studying this a long time but I’m not seeing any results.”

“Are you working on your ego?”

“Yeah, but...”

Well, that’s the thing. You kill the ego, you receive illumination. If you do not work on the ego, you just remain in darkness.

Question: Isn’t that also that you’re not supposed to have expectations?

Instructor: Yeah. And people get stuck on the idea of “I want to put my physical body in the jinn state.” It is beautiful to have that experience in the fourth dimension or the fifth dimension or whatever, with your physical body. Or to go to the Absolute. You talk face to face to your Being or your unite with Ain Soph, your light. Personally, I have had those experiences. But I came back to my bed and I woke up.

There is not a day that I don’t have those experiences. The other reason that I think about them now is they inspire me to keep moving and doing the work that has to be done. They showed me, they gave me vacations, and said: “Ok, your dharma is up. Come back. Teach other people how to do it.” Sometimes, it is months, a long time. No experiences. It happens like that.

But the solution is, you develop light of consciousness by comprehending your defects and eliminating them. And then gradually, you start developing more light, and light and light… And you start having experiences again. Usually in the beginning they have like a probationary period.

The divine says, “OK, he’s transmuting. She’s transmuting, is doing his work.” The Being says, “I want My child to work again or to work in this path. Let us give him or her an experience, because he’s meditating, to inspire him.” And then you have the experience. Afterward the real work begins. So, you develop light by comprehending the ego. You kill the ego, then you receive illumination.

Question: What do you mean by having an experience? When you receive an experience where you receive situations? Where you’re put to test.

Instructor: I mean a mystical experience: to have a samadhi. But I have people write to me. It is sad, because these are people who are teaching but still. If we do not work effectively, we will not get the results. But if you work every day on the ego, you do have more and more light. But there are periods where there is darkness, because that is your karma. I mean karma because, you betrayed the light, in your own way. They say: “No, don’t give him light yet. Let him suffer in the darkness for a while, so that he really wants to change.”

If you are persistent like Beethoven was, you go from the Moonlight Sonata to the Ninth Symphony. That sonata is about the path of the moon. That is sort of being in the darkness. The melody makes me think about “Eli, Eli, Lama Sabachthani.” Jesus said: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” But divinity doesn’t leave us. But if we portray the Lord, what can He do?

Any other questions?

Question: Just one more question. As far as meditation goes, when you practice pranayama, how long should I hold my breath?

Instructor: As long can you feel you can hold it comfortably without forcing your lungs. You can begin the pranayama. First, pray. Ask your Being to help you circulate the energies and to help you be serene. You can close your nostrils, one or the other with your fourth finger. Your left nostril closed, your right nostril inhales the air. Imagine the energies rising from the opposite gonad, because the left nostril relates to the right gonad, right nostril with the left gonad, with your ovaries or testicles.

Inhale the air, imagining the energy rising within your mind, towards your head. Close your nostrils and retain the breath as long as you can, without forcing it. You want to imagine the energy saturating the brain.

Exhale in the other nostril and imagine that light descending from your third eye, your brain, to your heart. Do the same process with the other nostril. Imagine the other circuit of energy, rising up to the brain. Hold it while it saturates the mind like a light, fire. Exhale, send it to the heart.

That breathing through both nostrils in that way constitutes one pranayama.

Some pranayamas are specified up to seven, but can do as many as you want, until you feel energized. But you should not practice pranayama to the point that you feel strained.

Swami Sivananda said that when you feel light, energized and relaxed, very happy and peaceful, you can stop. Do for as long as you need. But pranayama should not be forced, meaning: do not strain the breath. If your nostrils are blocked, I know some people who use a seti pot, an Indian device, which pours water into your nostrils to clear it out. That is a kind of a hard way to do it, but if you want to practice pranayama in that way, you can clear the nostrils that way. And don’t force the breath. But relax. The whole process should be peaceful.

[Editor’s Note: to learn more, read and practice Pranayama and Sexual Transmutation]

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Introduction to Awareness

6/1/2018

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Meditation is a precise science. It is a means of knowing our own capacities for consciousness, our ability to perceive. And this specific science of meditation teaches us how to expand consciousness, and how to develop it. Importantly, in this process we have to comprehend and understand the conditions of our psyche.

It is very easy to see that our physical body is composed of elements; many factors and many influences act upon the body in order for it to be. The body needs its nutrition, its sustenance, its food, its water. Likewise, the consciousness needs a type of nourishment, a type of sustenance, and that food of the soul (we can say) is the capacity to perceive, to comprehend; to comprehend psychologically the factors of discord within our consciousness: what in us is afflicted with anger, with fear, with negativity.

What are those elements that condition our perception and make us very limited people? For in a moment of rage we speak harmful words, we suffer ourselves, and we make others suffer. In those moments we only perceive through anger. We don't see that anger is a blind emotion. We may rationalize later on that we were behaving in a destructive way, but in the precise moment of that emergence or that emotion, we perceive as that emotion, as that condition.

All religions, all traditions, teach the science of how to awaken consciousness and, precisely, by becoming aware of what conditions us, what blocks us from experiencing our true nature, which is a state of contentment, of genuine peace, of our love that is so profound that it radiates towards all beings without distinction, and forgives all beings for their faults without distinction, without warrant, without expecting anything in return.

Our soul needs to be fed, our consciousness needs to develop, but we know that through observation of facts that the mind is conditioned and shelled within elements of fear, and laziness, and pride, or what religions call defects. This is what a meditator precisely learns to confront in him or herself, so as to break those shells, because within anger is our consciousness, within fear is our consciousness—within anger, within hate, within lust. All those shells trap really the essence of who we are, but in a negative way.

So, meditation will teach us to comprehend those elements we created in the past. We are responsible for our own emotions, our own mind, how we act. And this is why different traditions, whenever they teach meditation, always emphasize in the very beginning levels of practice—be a good person, be kind, be generous, be observant of your faults. So, that by observing them and comprehending them, we can eliminate them. And by breaking those conditions of mind we expand consciousness, we awaken consciousness. And, therefore, we can experience all the bliss that many prophets, masters, buddhas, angels taught in the different religions and scriptures, which is the beauty and glories of heaven, which is not just a place, but is a psychological state of being, a way of being.

In this lecture we are going to talk about some principles taught within Buddhism and how to understand the mind, what is mind, what is awareness, what is consciousness. We are also going to compare that with a very beautiful glyph, known as the Tree of Life in Judaism. Because we understand in our tradition that Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Sufism—all share the same root, and that root is the capacity to perceive. So, all the different angels, and masters, and prophets gave their teaching in accordance with their language, the culture of the people they taught, their own level of being, their own capacity to transmit light. But that knowledge is the same; it is universal. Some people would call that Gnosis (the Greek term for knowledge), some people would call that Marifah in Arabic, and in Hebrew: Daath, meaning knowledge, what we know of ourselves and how to change, so that we can irradiate that light for all of humanity.

This wisdom teaches us how to understand the causes of our suffering. And I would like to relate to you a beautiful teaching given by a Buddhist Master—his name was Padmasambhava. His fame in Buddhism cannot be exaggerated. He is considered the second Buddha.

His scripture for what he most well-known is called The Tibetan Book of the Dead. It is a scripture that is read to monks and practitioners on meditation retreat, because its efficacy and force, and expansiveness is very penetrative. It teaches us how to be mindful, so that we can understand ourselves and expand awareness, awaken consciousness. So, it is called The Tibetan Book of the Dead, because it teaches about how to awaken consciousness physically, but also in the dream state, as well as during meditation and after death.

We can say that if we examine our state of sleep (the eight hours we go to bed and when we wake up in the morning)—that is a barometer for how conscious we will be when we die. So, if we spend eight hours of sleep and there is darkness, it means that we will not have light, when we die. Which is why many Christian monks, Buddhists, Sufis would train themselves day by day in meditation, so that they can awaken light. So that when they would go to their death, they would be awakened and prepared; they would be conscious, and speaking face to face with the different angels, Buddhas, gods, divinities (which are really one divinity), in a very direct, clear and tangible manner, known as visions or awakened experiences in dreams.

So, this is a very valuable scripture. I would like to read a few excerpts from this, as we talk about the nature of awareness, of consciousness:

"The Importance of the Introduction to Awareness

“Through the single nature of mind which completely pervades both cyclic existence and nirvana,

“Has been naturally present from the beginning, you have not recognized it.” —The Tibetan Book of the Dead

(The Bhavachakra or "Wheel of Becoming," sometimes referred to as the Wheel of Samsara, depicts the cyclical nature of suffering within different realms of existence. The six sections of this wheel show repetitious psychological states in which our soul or consciousness is trapped. Liberation occurs when we recognize our own true nature through the path of meditation).

The word samsara means cycling, churning, turning, repetition.

This is a perfect description of our habits. We have certain tendencies that are ingrained in us like stone—good or bad. We indulge in certain behaviors consistently and which become much deepened and strengthened in us the more we feed it. This is a beautiful teaching relating to idolatry within the Abrahamic traditions. People think that idolatry is people who worship statues, but really an idol is anger, is resentment, is gluttony—habits that are ingrained in us that have become petrified in our psyche, in which we constantly worship instead of worshiping the beauty of the consciousness, which is the unification of our soul with the divine.

So cyclical existence is precisely this repetition of bad habits. Nirvana means cessation, to cease suffering, to break those shells, so that the soul is in perfect equanimity.

"Even though its radiance and awareness have never been interrupted,

“You have not yet encountered its true face.

“Even though it arises unimpededly in every facet of existence,

“You have not as yet recognized this single nature of mind,

“In order that this single nature might be recognized by you,

“The Conquerors (we can say the Buddhas, the masters, the prophets, the angels) of the three times have taught an inconceivably vast number of practices,

“Including the eighty-four thousand aspects of the sacred teachings." —The Tibetan Book of the Dead

Now we know from many religions that there are many practices and teachings about how to unite with the divine, whether from Buddhism, Judaism, etc.

"Yet, despite this diversity, not even one of these teachings has been given by these Conquerors,

“Outside the context of an understanding of this nature!" —The Tibetan Book of the Dead

Meaning: all the practices of any religion, of any tradition are useless if don't know how to be mindful, how to be aware, to be conscious.

"And even though there are inestimable volume of sacred writings, equally vast as the limits of space,

“Actually, these teachings can be succinctly expressed in a few words, which are the introduction to the awareness." —The Tibetan Book of the Dead

The Tree of Life: Levels of Consciousness

So we will talk about the nature of consciousness in relation to the Kabbalah. Jewish mysticism is the foundation of Christianity, and in our center we study all religions unanimously, integrally, with the purpose of explaining how to awaken our perception in its full capacity.

In the Western tradition the Tree of Life is the foundation of all Western Yoga, of all union. The word "yoga" in Sanskrit means "to reunite,” the same as the Latin "religare,” religion, to reunite. This is a map of our consciousness, of who we are here and now. It also refers to levels of nature that are more subtle, that we don't perceive yet in our present condition. And the Tree of Life is an interesting glyph we can use it to study any religion, any faith, any pantheon of gods, deities, etc.

We see at the top, we have the trinity of Christianity. In fact, we see three trinities in this glyph, a top trinity, middle trinity and then lower trinity. What Christians call Father, Son, Holy Spirit, in Hebrew are known as Kether, Chokmah and Binah. These are not persons—instead, we teach that they are forces, energies, which are very subtle, a form of light. It is a form of consciousness that is so divine, and pure, and universal that it is only manifested in beings that have purified themselves. Jesus is a manifestation of this light, so is Krishna, Moses. Many other masters have incarnated this divine trinity above, which are three forces, but one light. They are three, but one. They express as three, but they are one unity.

Above in this Tree of Life we have the most elevated aspect of consciousness. And below we have the most dense levels of consciousness. We are here in Malkuth, which is the Hebrew word for Kingdom; it is our physical body. Our body is a kingdom, which has all these forces and elements that are in a potential state, which we can learn through practice to actualize. And that energy in those forces in our body helps to elevate our body, our consciousness of this Tree of Life. And if you remember our practice we began with this lecture—we were studying the nature of ourselves, studying the nature of our awareness in our present condition. In our practice we were examining our body; we became aware of our body.

Malkuth, our Kingdom, is our physical body. In our practice we become mindful of the energies of our physical vehicle as well. This is known as Yesod in the Hebraic Kabbalah. Yesod means foundation. So, our vital energies, which give us life, is our foundation in life. How we use our energy depends on our actions, our mind, our heart, and our will, our behaviors.

So, therefore, how we use this energy, determines our spiritual life. This is why it is called Yesod. And the mystical science that teaches one to use this energy in a conscious way is hidden within the Hebrew word יסוד Yesod and the word סודי Sodi. The same Hebrew letters, but switched around. סודי Sodi means secret. This is known as the teachings of alchemy, as well as the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.

Our emotions we also examined in our meditation, relating to this left pillar on the Tree of Life. This sphere is called Hod, which means Splendor. Hod is our emotions, which can shine with the splendor of the divine or be filled with rage. So, this is our center relating to our heart, our emotional states.

Our mind we also examined in our practice. We meditated on our thoughts. Notice that the higher we ascend this Tree of Life, the more subtle things become. The body is very dense, easy to observe. Energy becomes more subtle to observe that, to be aware of that. Emotions are much more dynamic. They are powerful. Our mood can shape our entire day, when we wake up in the morning throughout the entire week, month, etc.

And our thoughts, which fluctuate like the wind. When we sit to meditate, we observe ourselves. You see that memories, ideas, associative thinking, churns within our psyche—these relate to Netzach, which means Victory, because when you conquer your own mind, you become victorious. A being known as a buddha, a master, an awakened one.

And then we also talked about and reflected upon our willpower, our motives, what brought us to attend a center of this nature, or our motives to associate with certain co-workers, or friends, or pursue a certain type of occupation. That relates to will, which is Tiphereth. Tiphereth in Hebrew means Beauty. Really, when we are in willpower, it is in a state of purity, equanimity. When a heart shines with the resplendence of the divine, when our mind is calm and our will knows how to follow our inner divinity, we are filled with beauty, as the beauty in the soul. Right action is the most beautiful thing, we could say. When we act in a way that is truly beneficial for another human being, we are performing acts of beauty. That is Tiphereth.

Above we have more rare levels of consciousness. On the left we have Geburah, which means Justice. And I concluded the practice by having us being aware of ourselves as observers. Geburah is our consciousness, the ability to perceive, which of course is very very rarified, very refined and very hard to perceive. But we know that we have this spiritual dynamic in ourselves when we feel a sense of conscience for having committed a wrong deed. We know we said something wrong, we spoke in a wrong manner, our conscience bites at us, it gnaws at us, it pushes us. So Geburah is that conscience or consciousness. But of course, we tend to ignore our conscience in many cases and meditation teaches us how to feed that conscience, how to awaken that capacity. Meditation is the ability to control Netzach (the mind), Hod (the emotions), Yesod (our energies) and Malkuth (our physical body), so that it serves our divine consciousness and spirit above, which is represented by Chesed, our Spirit.

When people talk about being spiritual in a real deep sense, we could say that to be spiritual is to have that spirit inside, which is God. God is spirit. When someone is spiritual, it means they have incarnated God in a real objective sense, in a very esoteric sense, we can say.

And above the spirit is our light, which the Gnostics or the Christians call Christ, which is the most divine force within all of the nature and the cosmos. We find these three forces (Kether, Chokmah, Binah) within the atom. The Father, Kether, is the positive force, the proton. Chokmah (the Christ) is the negative force, the electron. So, we have a proton and an electron, which are bonded together or held in unity, through the force of the neutron, which is the neutral force, the Holy Spirit. So, these are terms that Christians use, but in the deepest sense refer to forces in ourselves, forces in nature, which we learn in meditation how to use, so that we become a perfected Tree of Life.

And this Tree of Life is represented by the Christmas tree. In the holidays we decorate a pine tree and that tree is the symbol of this image in its most ancient roots. All those lights are all the sparks of consciousness we develop when we learn to harness the power of our body through good will, as well as our vital forces (Yesod), our emotions (Hod), our mind (Netzach). It is easy to see that when we meditate or observe within ourselves or after we have a very difficult day at work, that we have many elements that are negative—desires, habits, which again condition us.

We must learn with our will, as a human soul, this sphere known as Tiphereth. Our willpower must learn to control mind, heart, vitality in our physical body.

This is a very beautiful image that teaches us a lot. And this is just an introduction, because through our courses and lectures we explain all the dynamics of this Tree of Life in ourselves. In a very Buddhist sense, we can see the interdependent nature of all things represented here. The Buddhists speak about interdependence, how nothing is stable in nature; nothing is unitary. Everything depends on something else within this phenomenological universe.

Our mind, our thoughts depend on other factors: maybe external influences, external situations provoke certain thoughts. Likewise, our emotions and how we use our energy is dependent on what we eat, what we nourish ourselves with. Our body depends on how we take care of it.

This Tree of Life is not something separate. All these spheres relate to each other, what we call in Hebrew Sephiroth; it means emanations. These are all the lights of the Christmas tree, which we must purify within ourselves, so that we can really celebrate the birth of Lord within us and Nativity of the Lord.

The Three Levels of Meditative Instruction

All religions teach that there are levels of instruction. The Tree of Life is a glyph that teaches us the most advanced aspects of our psyche, but I am just introducing this to you, so that you can see some of the depth and expansiveness of what awareness is. Because awareness is not just a physical body, but all the Sephiroth, all those spheres that really constitute in who we are. Religion teaches in any tradition certain parameters of how to practice so that we can develop that awareness fully. We have introductory levels, we have intermediate levels, and we have advanced levels.

In Buddhism, the introductory level of that tradition was known as the Sutrayana or is known as Sutrayana. It is the public teaching. As in Judaism we say: "Thou shall not kill, shall not steal, shall not lie, fornicate, adulterate.” These are not dictates from some anthropomorphic god, who wants to make humanity suffer by following these rules: "Do this or you get certain consequences.” It is not a mean of punishment. It is something psychological. Because when we observe our mind, we can see that we have many elements that enjoy hatred or bloodshed, not physically. We may speak with sarcasm to someone and the blood rushes to their face. Therefore, we are shedding blood, we are committing violence in the mind by humiliating another person. That is the meaning of "Thou shall not kill.” Physically—yes, it is a very serious crime to commit that. But psychologically we have many habits and behaviors towards our loved ones, in which we humiliate others.

Likewise with stealing. Sometimes we steal ideas, besides stealing physical things—it is another thing. So, there are levels of teaching in these public explanations of how to control the consciousness. So, there is a code of ethics, we can say, that teach the soul how to look within and to understand all the conditions that we created, all the elements of desire: our defects. So that by training them our mind becomes stable. The mind and heart is filled with consciousness, light, and we develop our awareness. First, by curtailing negative action, which occurs in our mind, our heart, and our body. This is a very public level; this is the beginning of any spiritual tradition.

You also have an intermediate level, known as a Mahayana. Sutrayana relates to the Sutras, the basic public instructions of how to develop consciousness. The Mahayana means Greater Vehicle: Yana means vehicle; Maha means great. It is a level of teaching in which we are practicing not for our own benefit, but for others. We practice not only to eliminate our own states of anger, but so that our anger doesn't affect other people. That is a really compassionate state. We work for the benefit of others.

This is someone like Jesus and as Gospels taught: "Father, forgive them, for they don't know what they do.”

We don't work on ourselves just for ourselves, but for them, for others. It is marked by its development of compassion, which takes a level of understanding. When we see our mind and that we have created conditions through our consciousness that obstruct our awareness, we see that other people are at that level too, that we share the same defects. We are cut from the same scissors. So, we have no need to judge anybody. Therefore, we should learn to judge ourselves. This is the mesoteric level of teaching—the middle ground.

But there is an advanced teaching, which in Buddhism is called Tantrayana. The scripture that I read at the opening of this lecture, The Tibetan Book of the Dead, is a tantric book. It teaches very advanced concepts, which I want to introduce to you too, so that you can see some of the possibilities and expansiveness of this teaching. Tantrayana means the vehicle of tantrism. Tantra means continuum. The continuum and flow of consciousness to the work of controlling energy. Energy is in the psyche, in the body, etc. So Tantrayana teaches how to awaken consciousness in a very expedient way, in a very quick way.

In the beginning one learns a certain ethical discipline by learning to control the mind and to adopt good behavior, not from a moral standpoint, but from a conscious perspective that certain habits and behaviors produce suffering—not only for ourselves, but for others.

In the intermediate state we work for other people—the Mahayana tradition. We understand that our behaviors and conditions of mind not only create suffering for us, but for others, and therefore we work for other human beings.

And in the tantric aspect there is no sense of self. There is only the benefit for the other. And this is really the core teaching of Jesus, of Buddha, who gave their life completely out of compassion. And if you go back to the Tree of Life, we see that highest level of compassion is related to this top trinity, which is the crown of glory, the wisdom of the divine and the intelligence or understanding of divinity, which is a perception that penetrates so deeply in to all phenomena that there is no confusion, there is no illusion. It is a way of knowing, of being that is devoid of I, of me, myself. It is universal.

The Three Trainings

So, we study meditation—we study three trainings. The beginning is ethics, known as Sila. This is the foundational path, in which we work to understand ourselves. We do this through the practice of self-observation. We need to become aware of our mind, our body, our heart, our energies, our will. Everything that surges within our understanding, our experience—we have to learn to perceive, to become aware. What feeds our awareness is learning to behave from that state of consciousness, that state of purity, which is divine love, which is mercy, compassion. Those are natural states of our consciousness. Elements like fear and resentment, those are conditions we created out of mistakes, the wrong use of our energies. But we have the power to rectify that. Which is what all prophets teach and the way they do so is through ethics. This is not a moral code or system to adopt and believe in, but it is something to practice daily. When we see what exactly in us is causing conflict in a certain situation and then we look within and learn to change and comprehend those sources of suffering in ourselves. So that with the grace of divinity we can be purified.

There is this training of ecstasy that comes next, known as Samadhi. Many meditative traditions teach that when one learns to meditate, they have experiences—which is very true. Awakening in dreams, speaking face to face with the angels, with the divinities, with God, our own inner Being—this is a state of awareness and consciousness that is free from the physical conditions of the body, and has entrance into to world of dreams, which relates to the world of Hod (as we discussed previously). This image on the left—the bottom left pillar.

Sometimes we can also say the world on the right—Netzach (the mind) is also the world of dreams. They both relate. Usually we go into those worlds without awareness of what we are doing, where we are at, what we are thinking, what we are dreaming. Usually we wake up and we remember certain threads of experiences in those states, but we don't have much cognizance. That is an indication of where we are at in our meditative practice, because one who awakens in meditation, who trains him or herself in meditation, is awake in dreams, in that dream world. And, therefore, that is a type of Samadhi, it is an ecstasy of the soul, in which you are receiving knowledge in a direct way from the truth, and therefore you don't need to believe in anything, because you know directly from the divine for yourself. Which is why we say that in this tradition: "He who has faith, has no need to believe.”

Faith is conscious knowledge, of knowing. And Samadhi is when the consciousness has been freed of its conditions, its shells. Extracted like the genie from Aladdin’s lamp, so that it can perform the miracles of the soul.

In the third training we have profound wisdom. Profound wisdom relates to the perception of divinity within us, which again relates to the top trinity, the light of our inner Buddha. Buddha means awakened one, to be cognizant, alert, perceptive. From the prefix "budh," meaning cognizance.

So, this Tree of Life is our map for who we are and where we are at. As I mentioned to you, the image of the Christmas Tree relates to this glyph. And we find a very beautiful teaching by a Sufi by the name of Rumi. He is a very famous poet in the West today, who spoke about this Tree of Life in a very implicit way.

"If ten lamps are present in (one) place, each differs in the form from one another:

“Yet you cannot distinguish whose radiance is whose, when you focus on the light.” —Jalaluddin Muhammad Rumi

Because when those Sephiroth or aspects of ourselves are purified, they illuminate light, and they integrate—they are one unity. So those religions that teach about polytheism, and many gods, and yet one God, relates to this Tree of Life, because we have the trinity, which is three aspects of God, but one light. So that light manifests in many ways, in different ways. And, so, the wisdom of Pranja, the final training of meditation, which is the teaching of the Tantric Buddhists, teaches one to have profound perception of all things, to perceive the very root nature of any phenomena: physical, energetic, emotional, mental, volitional (relating to will), conscious, spiritual, and even beyond.

So, this is very deep science, very rich, which takes a lot of studying, and meditation, and practice to understand this glyph. But here we are introducing in a very synthetic way to show you that awareness is something very profound. It is a limitless science. This is just a beginning, because Pranja comes from the word Pra, which means beyond. Nja is j-n-a, refers to knowledge, as a Jnana Yoga. Also the root word of the Greek term Gnosis, has a silent gn. The same root meaning there. So the Christian and Eastern traditions are integral—you cannot separate them.

Illusions of Self and the Tree of Life

We learn to understand ourselves, our awareness of who we are through meditation, through these trainings. As I mentioned to you, we seek to break the conditions of mind, because as the Sufi master Abū Sa’īd in one of his scripture wrote:

"Wherever the delusion of your selfhood appears – that’s hell. Wherever “you” aren’t – that’s heaven." —Abū Sa’īd

Our problem is that we grasp onto ourselves that doesn't exist: our egotism, our resentments, our despondency, our despair, our negativities. These are conditions of mind we created, but which really don't have any intrinsic existence in of themselves. They depend on other factors to bring them up, such as at a family gathering, we may have certain gossip that goes on, in which we criticize others or speak badly of others.

We have that defect we created from prior experiences. So that egotistical element only emerges in certain situations; it is dependent on that situation to act. So, you see the relationship between events and internal states, and in Buddhists terms that sense of self we grasp onto in that moment is not real; it is an illusion. It doesn't have any real substance, because when you analyze and meditate on that element, you see that it is always dependent on something else to exist.

And yet as we observe ourselves, we perceive that we are not mind, thought. We are not emotions, mood. We are not energy. We are not our body. Even our willpower has certain conditions and elements. Someone, who has a strong will—we admire, obviously. But our willpower, like the will of the Being of a person like Caiaphas (so to speak), who persecuted Jesus, is very evil will. And we have elements of that nature inside. Our will can follow, our inner Tiphereth can follow the beauty of God above or our own desires. So how we use our will, shapes our life. But our sense of self is contingent upon other factors. It is always a fluctuation and churning there.

So, when we analyze ourselves we see that and ask ourselves: "Where is my awareness? Who am I, really, in my depth?" The Tree of Life can teach us this and depending on our level of awareness, our training, we may gravitate more or less to one of these spheres. But through discipline we ascend.

Our True Nature

I would like to explain to you or recite to you some beautiful teachings from the scripture I started this lecture with. It teaches us some considerations to think about, when we learn meditation. And again, this is a very profound scripture that teaches one to analyze the mind and was typically read at retreats. So, while you are getting this crash course in this now, to really understand the beauty and depth of this teaching, it is something we go back to again and again and again.

"The Three Considerations

“The following is the introduction to the means of experiencing this single nature of mind (we could say: consciousness)

“Through the application of three considerations:

“First, recognize that past thoughts are traceless, clear, and empty,

“Second, recognize that future thoughts are unproduced and fresh,

“And third, recognize that the present moment abides naturally and unconstructed." —The Tibetan Book of the Dead

So, the present moment is. The problem is that we are always projecting our thoughts, our habits, our emotions on the present moment. We are not aware of what is really going on around us, within us.

"When this ordinary, momentarily consciousness is examined nakedly and directly by oneself,

“Upon examination, it is a radiant awareness.

“Which is free from the presence of an observer." —The Tibetan Book of the Dead

So, the question is: who is observing? Is it thought? Is it thought that says: "I think that I am observing?” Anyone can analyze with the intellect, but observation does not involve in its true sense a sense of I or me. It is universal and expansive.

"It is manifestly stark and clear.

“Completely empty and uncreated in all respects.

“Lucid, without duality of radiance and emptiness.

“Not permanent, for it is lacking inherit existence in all respects.

“Not a mere nothingness, for it is radiant and clear.

“Not a single entity, for it is clearly perceptible as a multiplicity.

“Yet not existing inherently as a multiplicity, for it is indivisible and of a single savour." —The Tibetan Book of the Dead

So, when we look at the Tree of Life, we can see this Buddhist teaching is very well documented. It is very hard to follow, very contradictory for the mind. But the fact is that the consciousness is a multiplicity, but also unity. It is easily represented here. We cannot say that our thoughts and emotions are separate. Usually we are feeling a certain way and a thought emerges. And also, the will to act. So, these factors are one, one expression.

"This intrinsic awareness, which is not extraneously derived.

“Is itself the genuine introduction to the abiding nature of all things.

“For in its intrinsic awareness, the three Buddha-bodies are inseparable, and fully present as one." —The Tibetan Book of the Dead

In Buddhism the Trikaya are the Christian Trinity (Father, Son, Holy Spirit: Kether, Chokmah, Binah), which are represented in Buddhism as the three Buddha-bodies or vehicles of light.

"Its emptiness and utter lack of inherit existence is the buddha-body of reality (Kether).

“The natural resonance and radiance of this emptiness is the buddha-body of perfect resource (Chokmah).

“And its unimpeded arising in any form whatsoever is the buddha-body of emanation (Binah).

“These three, fully present as one, are the very essence of awareness itself." —The Tibetan Book of the Dead

Interdependence and the Tree of Life

So, meditation is the science of acquiring information about ourselves, the conditions of mind that make us suffer. We acquire light, the unification of the three buddha-bodies (the Trikaya), as we learn to look within ourselves. Awareness originates from the top of the Tree of Life and becomes enmeshed in materiality, the further down it descends. We, as human consciousness (Tiphereth), must learn how to act within our lower vehicles of the soul: mind, emotions, vitality, and physicality.

In relation to the law of interdependence, our mind, emotions, energies, and physical body, rely on external factors to exist. Yet awareness (the light of the divine), is the originating and emanating force, which propels the movement of the Tree of Life. It is uncreated in all respects—this awareness. And is that from which all things originated, and all things return.

So, the Tree of Life helps us to visually comprehend interdependent nature of all this, all phenomena. When we explore one aspect of ourselves, we see this depends upon other emanations, other Sephiroth in this diagram. So, nothing has intrinsic existence in and of itself. What we call self is merely emptiness, void of true reality and objectivity.

We can see that our physical body (Malkuth) depends on many factors in order to live. Our energies (Yesod) fluctuate from morning to evening. We may have more energy at one point of the day, and less in the night time. Our emotions (Hod) fluctuate from happiness to sadness, compassion to hatred, faith to despair. Our thoughts (Netzach) are never stable, but jump from thing to thing through a chain of associative thinking. Our willpower and intentions (Tiphereth) are usually conditioned by negativity, desires to commit wrong. When our will follows the will of our Inner Buddha, we perform beautiful actions within ourselves, which of course depends upon consciousness (Geburah).

Most of us don't know what consciousness even is, and let alone what it means to be spiritual. Many people learning meditation do not even get pass the physical body and its discomforts, let alone access to higher aspects of a Tree of Life. Even our spirit, no matter how divine, originated from somewhere in the top trinity. Our consciousness depends upon the spirit to exist. And even this spiritual nature depends upon the light above, as we see in this graphic. Therefore, the Buddhists follow the teachings of Anatman—no self, since even the spirit (the Self) depends upon the Trikaya above. Therefore, genuine awareness is the Trikaya, which gives life to the spheres below, since all things depend upon this trinity for the subsistence and existence.

This is what Padmasambhava refers to in the section we have been discussing and reading—“Introduction to Awareness or Natural Liberation through Naked Perception.” Our perception, our consciousness becomes naked and clear, when we learn to actualize and intuit its real nature through discipline on a daily basis. This light, which is radiance and emptiness of self-hood, is our true nature. So, it is with the following verses in mind that Tibetan Buddhists seek to comprehend their emptiness of the mind. This is from "Observations Related to Examining the Nature of Mind":

"Be certain that the nature of mind is empty and without foundation.

“One's own mind is insubstantial, like an empty sky.

“Look at you own mind to see whether it is like that or not.

“Divorced from views which constructedly determine the nature of emptiness,

“Be certain that pristine cognition, naturally originating, is primordially radiant—

“Just like the nucleus from the sun, which is itself naturally originating.

“Look at your own mind to see whether it is like that or not!

“Be certain that this awareness, which is pristine cognition, is uninterrupted,

“Like the coursing central torrent of a river which flows unceasingly.

“Look at your own mind to see whether it is like that or not!

“Be certain that conceptual thoughts and fleeting memories are not strictly identifiable,

“But insubstantial in their motion, like the breezes of the atmosphere.

“Look at your own mind to see whether it is like that or not!

“Be certain that all that appears is naturally manifest in the mind,

“Like the images in the mirror which also appear naturally.

“Look at your own mind to see whether it is like that or not!

“Be certain that all characteristics are liberated right where they are,

“Like the clouds of the atmosphere, naturally originating and naturally dissolving.

“Look at your own mind to see whether it is like that or not!

“There are no phenomena extraneous to those that originate from the mind.

“So, how could there be anything on which to meditate apart from the mind?

“There are no phenomena extraneous to those that originate from the mind.

“So, there are no modes of conduct to be undertaken extraneous to those that originate from the mind.

“There are no phenomena extraneous to those that originate from the mind.

“So, there are no commitments to be kept extraneous to those that originate from the mind.

“There are no phenomena extraneous to those that originate from the mind.

“So, there are no results to be attained extraneous to those that originate from the mind.

“There are no phenomena extraneous to those that originate from the mind.

“So, one should observe one’s own mind, looking into its nature again and again.

“If, upon looking outwards towards the external expanse of the sky,

“There are no projections emanated by the mind,

“And if, on looking inwards at one’s own mind,

“There is no projectionist who projects thoughts by thinking them,

“Then, one’s own mind, completely free from conceptual projections, will become luminously clear." —The Tibetan Book of the Dead

So, there are some things to think about in relation to observing and examining our mind. Consciousness is not something static, but is changing, dynamic, fluent. And when we sit in a moment to conceptualize or rationalize our experience, we kill the moment. The truth is the unknowable from moment to moment, instant to instant.

Life fluctuates in moments, and when we sit to photograph or to conceptualize our experience, we become lost in the past. But awareness is something momentary. We need to become vigilant, and conscious, and awake. Because as we are, with our thoughts, our habits, our feelings, we tend to be hypnotized by our senses, by our daydreams. We could be at work, talking with someone, answering a phone call, and yet be thinking about something else. And that is the nature of the mind—it is distracted—it doesn't know how to focus. We could be sitting in a lecture and yet, the mind is wondering elsewhere, or the emotions are not receiving the knowledge. So, consciousness has to be present.

We have to be aware of ourselves in thought, word and deed, instant by instant, moment by moment. So, meditation is a science that teaches us how to be aware, how to be awake, so that we learn to comprehend ourselves and by learning to comprehend ourselves, we develop the genuine joy of the soul, free of conditions, of negativity.

Questions and Answers

Audience: You can do that in moments of meditation, easily, but when you’re out in the world, you have to catch yourself—[inaudible] there is a certain amount of fear or anxiety, so you are addressing yourself. But these are things you react to, you just cannot silence your mind or go blank.

Instructor: That is a good point, and the thing about this is that by learning to awaken consciousness, we no longer react to things, instead we respond. We typically think that fear and certain negative qualities are natural and necessary for survival—for animals that is. Animal souls live and react in that way. But someone who is conscious, who is awake, can respond to the situation with much greater clarity and greater precision than somebody who reacts out of fear. So, this is very well documented or studied within Buddhist traditions like the samurai. They would meditate before battles and if they weren’t attentive or aware of themselves, they would be killed. In the same manner, if we are not aware of what we are doing when we are driving, we can get into serious harm. But having fear is not necessarily a good backup, because fear only knows how to react—it is mechanical. Something jumps up in front of you—you move, you don't even rationalize. But when you are conscious, you know exactly what you are doing. And therefore, you can divert harm.

Audience: So, if you are really conscious, then you are proactive.

Instructor: You are proactive, and then you are not going to put yourself in any danger. Because if you react out of fear or anxiety, out of instinct, you can get hurt. You may save yourself from a moment, but if you are conscious, you know exactly what you need to do, what is going to happen, how it is going to happen. So, being conscious means to expand that awareness to the point that you are in full control of what is going on and you are responding to life in remembrance of your inner divinity.

Audience: You are anticipating also, being proactive.

Instructor: And you will know things will happen before they happen. Therefore, you prevent many problems.

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​The Heavenly Human Being

​The Three Brains

​The Three Nervous Systems and Cosmic Laws

​The Tree of Life

​The Law of Seven and the Musical Scale

​Willpower, Conscious Shocks, and Deviation

​The Laconic Action of the Being

​Pinocchio: The Human Machine

To Be or Not to Be: The Esoterism of Hamlet

​Internal States and External Events

​The Five Centers of the Human Machine

​The Two Worlds of the Human Machine

Questions and Answers

Essence, Ego, and Personality

​Definitions of Consciousness

​The Powers of Consciousness

​The Technique of Self-Observation

​The Observer and the Observed

​The Two Worlds

​ The Flavor of Life and the Spiritual Work

​Questions and Answers

The Human Machine

​The Essence, the Ego, and the Personality

​The Essence, Soul, or Buddha Nature

The Multiplicity of the Ego

Christ, Legion, and Psychological Possession

​Personality

​Ghosts: Deceased Personalities

​Image, Values, and Identity: The Necessity of Self-Transformation

Questions and Answers

​Radical Change Goes Against Time

​Spiritual and Psychological Revolutions

​The Marvelous Ladder

​The Present Moment

​The Being is Not of Time

​Internal Revolution and the Vertical Path

​Psychological Change and Genuine Freedom

​The Beginning of Self-Knowledge

​The Nature of the True Human Being

​The Tree of Life

​Life, Transformation, and the Level of Being

​The Line of Life and the Line of Being

​Durga, the Divine Mother, and Astral Forms

​The Four Yogas

​The Elements of Bhakti Yoga

​Watchfulness is Prayer

​The Lines of Life and Being

The Eightfold Steps of Yoga in the Song of the Lord

​Prayer and Self-Remembrance

​The Stages of Meditation and Prayer in the Tree of Life

​The Path of Balance

​The Three Factors for Spiritual Revolution

​The Stages of Comprehension

​Practical Advice for Psychological Work

​Ways to Develop Devotion

​Sravana

​Kirtana

​Smarana

​Padasevana

​Archana

​Vandana

​Dasya

​Sakya

​Atmanivedana

Conclusion

​Questions and Answers

​The Path of Meditation

​Knowledge and Being

​Contemplation

​Israel, the Soul, in the Book of Judges

​The Tree of Life: A Map of Meditation

​Kabbalah in the Book of Judges

​Conscience, Judgment, and the Symbolism of Deborah

​Inner Self-Remembrance, Mantras, and Sacred Sounds

​Three Stages of Comprehension

​Internal Silence

​Exertion, Comprehension, and the Dialectic of Consciousness

​Conscious Judgment

​Spiritual Insight and Witnessing

​Ascension to Higher Levels of Being

The Heavenly Human Being

The Three Brains

The Three Nervous Systems and Cosmic Laws

The Tree of Life

The Law of Seven and the Musical Scale

Willpower, Conscious Shocks, and Deviation

The Laconic Action of the Being

Pinocchio: The Human Machine

Internal States and External Events

The Five Centers of the Human Machine

The Two Worlds of the Human Machine

Definitions of Consciousness

The Powers of Consciousness

The Technique of Self-Observation

The Observer and the Observed

The Two Worlds

The Flavor of Life and the Spiritual Work

Questions and Answers

The Essence, the Ego, and the Personality

The Essence, Soul, or Buddha Nature

Personality

Ghosts: Deceased Personalities

Image, Values, and Identity: The Necessity of Self-Transformation

Radical Change Goes Against Time

Spiritual and Psychological Revolutions

The Marvelous Ladder

The Present Moment

The Being is Not of Time

Internal Revolution and the Vertical Path

Psychological Change and Genuine Freedom

The Beginning of Self-Knowledge

The Nature of the True Human Being

The Tree of Life

Life, Transformation, and the Level of Being

The Line of Life and the Line of Being

Durga, the Divine Mother, and Astral Forms

The Four Yogas

The Elements of Bhakti Yoga

Watchfulness is Prayer

The Lines of Life and Being

Prayer and Self-Remembrance

The Stages of Meditation and Prayer in the Tree of Life

The Path of Balance

The Three Factors for Spiritual Revolution

The Stages of Comprehension

Practical Advice for Psychological Work

Ways to Develop Devotion

Sravana

Kirtana

Smarana

Padasevana

Archana

Vandana

Dasya

Sakya

Atmanivedana

Questions and Answers

The Path of Meditation

Knowledge and Being

Contemplation

Israel, the Soul, in the Book of Judges

The Tree of Life: A Map of Meditation

Kabbalah in the Book of Judges

Conscience, Judgment, and the Symbolism of Deborah

Inner Self-Remembrance, Mantras, and Sacred Sounds

Three Stages of Comprehension

Internal Silence

Exertion, Comprehension, and the Dialectic of Consciousness

Conscious Judgment

Spiritual Insight and Witnessing

Ascension to Higher Levels of Being

Psychological War in the Myth of Perseus and Medusa

The Significance of Dialectics

The Revolution of the Dialectic and the Present Era

Comprehension of Reality: The Perfect Expression of the Being

Spiritual Practice and Experience

The Four States of Consciousness

Internal States and External Events

The Three Blessings of the Sufis

Comprehension and Imagination